What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Heroman3003]

Frankly, yes. Every time I see the title, the only association I have is "oh, its that old 'obvious bait' thread". And the head post's 'criticisms' are hoenstly example of completely failing to grasp the story, or intentionally misinterpreting it. So yesah, I do think origin of this post is 'bad faith ragebait' and therefore will struggle to take any discussion under such a header as good faith regardless of how in-depth its been or how long its been going.

[Theodric]

Frankly, yes. Every time I see the title, the only association I have is "oh, its that old 'obvious bait' thread". And the head post's 'criticisms' are hoenstly example of completely failing to grasp the story, or intentionally misinterpreting it. So yesah, I do think origin of this post is 'bad faith ragebait' and therefore will struggle to take any discussion under such a header as good faith regardless of how in-depth its been or how long its been going.

No, it isn't bad faith at all.

See my prior post. A fair few of us have banded together to source our arguments into a video series explaining exactly why Endwalker doesn't fit together or make much sense. The criticism isn't coming out of nowhere and neither is it a case of 'not understanding the story'.

[AwesomeJr44]

And the head post's 'criticisms' are hoenstly example of completely failing to grasp the story, or intentionally misinterpreting it.

Allow me to turn my universal translator on real quick. Ah, I see. By "the OP's criticisms are examples of failing to understand the story or intentionally misinterpreting it" you meant "the OP thought about the story harder than I did and came to conclusions I didn't like." Sorry about that, I'll leave it on for a bit just in case.

[Heroman3003]

No, it isn't bad faith at all.

See my prior post. A fair few of us have banded together to source our arguments into a video series explaining exactly why Endwalker doesn't fit together or make much sense. The criticism isn't coming out of nowhere and neither is it a case of 'not understanding the story'.

Again, I talk about the perception I, and many others possibly, have of this purely based on the impression given by this thread's overall tone. Frankly, I do not believe story is above criticisms, but way too often do I see criticisms of "Endwalker ruined it" that actually make no sense, either due to being exactly same 'pitfalls' as storytelling of previous expansions, or because the poster actively ignores things to make their argument work. I don't think the story is perfect, and there were several moments I wished it'd focus on different things that I believe would have improved on it a lot. I don't think it's bad in the end, and enjoyed it regardless, but I've seen way too much completely bad faith trolling in regards to the EW story quality to take any criticisms made under flag of ragebait-named thread as genuine, especially considering, despite some actually interesting discussion I've seen in this thread, it's all bogged down and watered out with a lot of simple troll and anti-troll posts on both ends, to the point where it can be hard to tell the difference between those genuinely voicing their thought out opinions or just trying to get a reacton with "EW worst story ever because Alisae didn't die" level criticisms. That's why I called it a circlejerk ultimately - because with how watered down any criticism is with trolling that occurs in same direction, it's hard to tell the difference between legit and non-legit, and whole thread gives impression of just 'not legit' on first sight.

[AwesomeJr44]

Again, I talk about the perception I, and many others possibly, have of this purely based on the impression given by this thread's overall tone. Frankly, I do not believe story is above criticisms, but way too often do I see criticisms of "Endwalker ruined it" that actually make no sense, either due to being exactly same 'pitfalls' as storytelling of previous expansions, or because the poster actively ignores things to make their argument work. I don't think the story is perfect, and there were several moments I wished it'd focus on different things that I believe would have improved on it a lot. I don't think it's bad in the end, and enjoyed it regardless, but I've seen way too much completely bad faith trolling in regards to the EW story quality to take any criticisms made under flag of ragebait-named thread as genuine, especially considering, despite some actually interesting discussion I've seen in this thread, it's all bogged down and watered out with a lot of simple troll and anti-troll posts on both ends, to the point where it can be hard to tell the difference between those genuinely voicing their thought out opinions or just trying to get a reacton with "EW worst story ever because Alisae didn't die" level criticisms. That's why I called it a circlejerk ultimately - because with how watered down any criticism is with trolling that occurs in same direction, it's hard to tell the difference between legit and non-legit, and whole thread gives impression of just 'not legit' on first sight.

So if there are actual troll posts, then just ignore the troll posts instead of branding the entire thread as a circlejerk. Makes it hard to take your opinion seriously when you do.

[Theodric]

What's interesting is that it is often those very attached to the Scions and with a fear of them ever dying or being held accountable for their actions who seem to take issue with this thread. I don't consider the second coming of the literal apocalypse to be a poor point in a narrative to kill off a major character such as Alisae or G'raha. Anyone is welcome to agree to disagree with that, though considering it to be 'bad faith' strikes me as rather strange if I am perfectly honest.

[Heroman3003]

What's interesting is that it is often those very attached to the Scions and with a fear of them ever dying or being held accountable for their actions who seem to take issue with this thread. I don't consider the second coming of the literal apocalypse to be a poor point in a narrative to kill off a major character such as Alisae or G'raha. Anyone is welcome to agree to disagree with that, though considering it to be 'bad faith' strikes me as rather strange if I am perfectly honest.

Frankly, I myself expected death, but only like, very slightly. The last 'real significant' death happened at the very end of Heavensward patches and I'd argue that since then there was no major death that wasn't an antagonist or character that was introduced within same expansion, so I have never raised my expectation high on major deaths after neither SB nor ShB went for it. I also don't see much narrative reason for any of them to die in Endwalker myself, except maybe Urianger. They either had finished arcs that have already missed the good opportunity for death, no character arc at all, or generally ongoing arcs that would be needlessly interrupted. And death in any such narrative conditions, IMO, is just pointless shock value. I think major character deahts (aka any character thats been around for more than 1 expansion, in context of this game) should serve some narrative purpose beyond just vague "raising of the stakes", for both grander story and their own arc's end. That's how Haurchefant and Ysayle and Papalymo and even Minfilia all went. Now retroactively thinking about it, with all those deaths, the only expansion with major character death was actually Heavensward and the moment Stormblood started, they cut back on that signficantly, so I do not particularly see why that critique is seen as more applicable to Endwalker's story specifically than, say, SB or ShB.

[Theodric]

The narrative purpose would be the supposed themes of Endwalker. The game preaches about embracing suffering as a grim necessity and then not only tries to justify the genocide of the Ancients but shrouds many major and minor characters in immensely thick plot armour to the point where they're bragging about walking away with not even a single scar.

[Heroman3003]

The narrative purpose would be the supposed themes of Endwalker. The game preaches about embracing suffering as a grim necessity and then not only tries to justify the genocide of the Ancients but shrouds many major and minor characters in immensely thick plot armour to the point where they're bragging about walking away with not even a single scar.

I disagree that it would have contributed to narrative themes that much. I think it would just upset the tone of 'staying hopeful in face of darkness' way too much. That, and again, I do believe character death should serve a point not just in grander story, but in character's personal arc, and only Urianger fit the bill in Endwalker, with both his resolution post-Lopporits and meeting with his dead gf's parents happening. For genocide of the ancients, while I will preface this by saying that I do agree with general narrative portrayal of it as the lesser evil and more correct option, I do also agree that when looked at from complete outsider's critical lens perspective, the story doesn't do much to make it seem justified either (which is one of the things that I kinda wish was touched upon further, although the way I would have liked that would not be really fitting into eisting narrative well without just being stated explicitly). And, unlike Shadbowbringers that did it twice, not once in Endwalker did I feel like "this character should have died there" myself, although that is a much more subjective metric of plot armor.

[Vyrerus]

I disagree that it would have contributed to narrative themes that much.

It's supposed to be a world ending threat that we don't know how to stop. Yet, it gets cordoned off to one easily manageable by the Scions one at a time area. And the Scions have no trouble at all fighting with the Blasphemies, which in the role quests were troublesome enough for the City States to have to call in specialists and the WoL.

So the theme is supposed to be staying hopeful in the face of darkness, but what is darker about this darkness than the typical state of affairs that come about on Etheirys every other week? We see more destruction in places like Bozja.

What's inspiring or compelling about a storyline that essentially comes across as, "I sure hope we beat this threatening threat that's threatening, threateningly sometimes here or there! Watch out, it sometimes kills NPCs who have to be saved from hostile Chinchillas!" As opposed to one, that you know, demonstrates its dangers and threat by actually harming the characters that have to / are the only ones who can stop it?

Oh... a, "The Sundering was right." bloke. Yeah, you're the one who's here in bad faith, pal.