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

[Haru304]

Off the back of Shadowbringers, it was not really on the same tier to be quite honest, though I think Shadowbringers had the benefit of mostly being in its own segmented universe for the most part and while it had an enormous impact on the meta story, it did not solely revolve around the meta story of Eorzea. The Final Days was introduced in Shadowbringers, then imminently carried out in Endwalker. What we have in Endwalker, which I feel is the major problem, is far too much all happening at the same time.

- Destruction of the one major power in the world that's extremely militaristic
- A genocide that lasts for all of five minutes
- A very disappointing Zodiark reveal accompanied by the existence of moon rabbits
- Even more overt time travel themes
- Introduction of three different cultures and socities, unfortunately all extremely condensed (Garlemald, Sharlayan, Thavnair, etc) (actually, include Elpis and the Ancients in that too)
- Now, if you subtract the advent of Dawntrail, Eorzea has borderline Utopian feels. Beast Tribes have been brought into the fold, the Empire has been crippled over night, the Ascians are no more, the world is no longer ending, tempering is no longer an issue, etc. I'd hope by the time we return from overseas, there's some actual stress to deal with.

All in all, as far as MMORPG story content goes, it's not horrendous but it definetly could have been better. It had MGS4 vibes. "Let's tie up nearly every single loose thread ever as quickly as we can while clumsily introducing new ideas"

[Swordsman]

In terms of Endwalker's plot, the point to me where it went from alright to my least favorite story this game has ever told was the 2nd half. Specifically everything about the Final Days.
The big hyped up world ending event that absolutely destroyed Amarout and the rest of the ancients. I was looking forward to see how that would change the world, how each city would deal with it, theres a lot of potential for something like this.

What did we get? Red Sin Eaters that only attacked Elephants in India for like 2 days. Sure we had the role quests, but those were basically episodic mini-stories where we saw everyone we ever met was just fine actually, and only newly made npcs could be turned into Red Sin Eaters, everyone else was just fine. The only character across the entire journey we had across all expansions, the only one who struggles with potentially becoming a Red Sin Eater is Fordola, and its not like that even happens, and its not even part of the main story even, just some side quest for materia.

No one was affected by this in side stories in any lasting way, Only NEW characters were affected in the MSQ. It was insanely toothless and felt fake to me.

The Final Days really should have been called "The temporary inconvenience of elephant people"

Yeah, that was something I also noticed about the denizens of Thavnair during the final days. They pretty much got treated like red shirts from Star Trek. Their sole purpose was to pretty much be expendable non-essential characters that the writer could kill off without giving the audience the feeling that much was lost. Everything else you say about other parts of Eorzea being relatively unaffected during the final days is true too, and it brings to attention another glaring inconsistency.

[Vyrerus]

Forced to agree.

I'm actually not in the 'Endwalker sucks' camp here - I enjoyed it

My hype for Endwalker was higher than any other expansion, and it didn't really fade until a few weeks after it was over, and I was redoing the story on my as of yet unfinished LP character (stopped near the end of 6.1 on him iirc).

I wholeheartedly agree with you that it did not live up to the hype it generated. It was the first expansion I even requested off time from work to play ASAP.

[ReynTime]

My hype died during the Elpis segment. I was "co-op"ing with a couple friends. When the quest where we waste time running around after Meteion started we realized we didn't care about what was happening anymore.

I remember laughing out loud in the voice chat when "Kairos" happened.

[fulminating]

With the imagery used regarding ancients (paradise lost, hermetica trimegestos, light, rebellion etc), was venat intended to fit into the lucifer role or is that just an unfortunate coincidence?

[Swordsman]

My hype died during the Elpis segment. I was "co-op"ing with a couple friends. When the quest where we waste time running around after Meteion started we realized we didn't care about what was happening anymore.

I remember laughing out loud in the voice chat when "Kairos" happened.

Lol, same. It must be very convenient for the writers to be able to just throw in a plot device that wipes the memory of the characters for the sake of preserving continuity of the timeline. It's some incredibly contrived writing.

[Absurdity]

With the imagery used regarding ancients (paradise lost, hermetica trimegestos, light, rebellion etc), was venat intended to fit into the lucifer role or is that just an unfortunate coincidence?

Pretty sure it's entirely coincidence, considering the devs still thought Hydaelyn was pure good after the 6.0 MSQ.

[LilithRose]

I personally don't mind how Zodiark was handled.
It would have been a bit too predictable to have him being the end goal
+ he's still a primal, we know how to deal with those by then, no matter how strong.

Having said that, I have always hated time-travel + memory spells as story elements, so I can't say I was a big fan of the whole Elpis chapter

Yeah, Zodiarc could've been a bit more impressive. But ehh, I agree more with the time-travel + memory spell story elements in the Elpis character. I feel like it also soiled the great legacy Emet left behind in Shadowbringers.
Or the happy sappy ending where all the main team's characters just make it through happily ever after. I would've loved to see some shake up/party change for the new expansion. Cause I feel character development has become quite stagnant in a lot of them. Far gone are the days where we were uncertain if some characters would make it through alive, and the impact THAT left us.

- Destruction of the one major power in the world that's extremely militaristic
- A genocide that lasts for all of five minutes
- A very disappointing Zodiark reveal accompanied by the existence of moon rabbits
- Even more overt time travel themes
- Introduction of three different cultures and socities, unfortunately all extremely condensed (Garlemald, Sharlayan, Thavnair, etc) (actually, include Elpis and the Ancients in that too)
- Now, if you subtract the advent of Dawntrail, Eorzea has borderline Utopian feels. Beast Tribes have been brought into the fold, the Empire has been crippled over night, the Ascians are no more, the world is no longer ending, tempering is no longer an issue, etc. I'd hope by the time we return from overseas, there's some actual stress to deal with.

All in all, as far as MMORPG story content goes, it's not horrendous but it definitely could have been better. It had MGS4 vibes. "Let's tie up nearly every single loose thread ever as quickly as we can while clumsily introducing new ideas"

This hits the nail on the head. It feels very much like this expansion is mostly there to tie up loose ends, and adds the areas we were still missing. So they had a lot they wanted to do, and kindoff rushed through each one. Not giving them the proper build up, no space to properly experience the drama of it and emotional tension that ties into such supposedly big events, nor the pay off for having aspired to many of these points for so long.

It didn't suck completely, but it's a far cry from reigniting my passion for this game, which has sadly been dwindling along with the job design choices, and the kindoff lackluster content this expansion.

My favorites will always be Heavensward and Shadowbringers.

[kyyninen_kirahvi]

That would've been an interesting twist if Hydaelyn actually turned out to be the villain, lol. I was actually expecting it to be a hostile alien civilization from a distant planet when Meteion became possessed at Elpis. As cliche as that sounds, to me, that or Hydaelyn being a traitor would've been a heck of a lot more interesting than bird girl being able to use sadness and despair to kill people.

Considering the WoL is partly to blame for the time loop, it wouldn't have been far fetched for Hydelyn to snap and blame us and/or herself for the fall of the ancients. Did Venat cause everything to pass because we told her what was going to happen or did she do everything of her own will? My problem with the time travel was that it was so under used as a plot point that it mostly only served as fan service. The Fandaniel bit could have brought more Hermes to the present but was mostly used as a reincarnation ghost story.

[Vyrerus]

With the imagery used regarding ancients (paradise lost, hermetica trimegestos, light, rebellion etc), was venat intended to fit into the lucifer role or is that just an unfortunate coincidence?

It's mostly incidental, because Square has always referenced religions and mythologies throughout the Final Fantasy series. By setting up conflicts between what they reference, they incidentally recreate some of the old myths' conflicts. Gnostic ones, Zoroastrian ones, Juedo-Christian ones, Islamic ones, and the list goes on and on.

The idea has been floated in several places that Hydaelyn is similar to:

- Satan / Lucifer / Azazil
- The Demiurge / Sophia
- God / Yahweh
- Morgoth / Melkor

There's also a prevailing idea from a bunch of Youtube "philosophers" that Square Enix RPGs almost always reference Gnosticism and The Demiurge, and that what the player fights as god at the end is actually just their take on The Demiurge.

These assumptions almost always ignore all context surrounding each character, and their literal actions often being at odds with what any of those mythical figures would do.

For instance, part of Lucifer/Azazil's story is that he was an angel made from a different substance than the other angels. Sometimes he is the first angel. Other times he is the last. As Azazil (islam) he was made from, "toxic flames." His fall was caused by his refusal to bow to God's new creation, Mankind. A similarity he does share with Hydaelyn is the proclamation of his own divinity, and having to share the lower world with man.

A lot of players just assumed Hydaelyn to basically be the setting's true God, even after it was revealed she was man made in Shadowbringers.

The Demiurge / Sophia comparisons have come into the light recently since Endwalker analysis is still going strong. She doesn't really fit for Sophia at all, though, since Hydaelyn is not a First Principle, and she also doesn't create much of anything other than, I guess, The Twelve. And The Twelve don't really fit in as the Demiurge at all, so it's kinda ehhh? But Hydaelyn as The Demiurge sort of fits better, since it also creates, but its creations are material rather than divine, and it creates life and stewards for it, called Archons. The Archons keep the material realm from ascending back to their divine roots. Now, often, The Demiurge takes the name of different Satan analogues when people tried to mix Gnosticism with Christianity or other religious ideas, but that's not really a 1 for 1 either.

Of course, just because there isn't a 1 for 1 match up, doesn't mean it's not what was intended.

We might not want to think of the developers as Gnostics, Satanists, Christians, or any other flavor of religion, but they very well might be any of those things. Ever since the early 2000s really got Atheist and Agnostic ideas flowing really broadly into society, there have been pop-ups of things like Satanists that do it more to rabble rouse, but there are true believers out there, that believe their own doctrine to be just, because they based it off of actual good morality they were taught or learned from others, merely applying the name / deific figure they want to it, as to stand contrary to spiritual belief they themselves hate. And these old lost religions and spiritual beliefs get dredged up into it, too, because they seem more fantastical and like a hidden truth that makes folks who read about it feel special, I guess.

Like, it could be, that the devs at Square are Gnostics that have a positive view of Sophia and The Demiurge, and they wanted to proliferate that in spirit, if not in doctrine, by putting a positive spin on the idea by writing Hydaelyn the way they did.

Didn't think you'd read anything wackier than an RPG plot today, did ya? But this is the kind of stuff that is an RPG setting's inspiration. Its bread and butter... or perhaps its Communion wafer.