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

[Carin-Eri]

My favorite part of the plot is when we beat the shit out of golbez, then let him do his evil thing anywhere while our brains stop functioning as if we just said "guys i could stop this but I think we need at least 1 more dungeon and trial in this expac"

This. I still remember thinking.... 'we have him weakened and outnumbered..... so we're just standing here listening to him because....?'

I was sort of reminded of those scenes in 'The Incredibles' where they mocked villains and their habit of monologuing..... except in that case the heroes used that habit to their advantage, whereby 'we' clearly decided to let him explain, and proceed with, his evil plan instead.

[Dikatis]

Yeah, that could be it. Unfortunately, we'll never know for sure without confirmation from SE, so we're just left to create our own theories for it. I wonder if we'll ever see the ability used against the WoL again in the future by someone else. An ability that powerful deserves further exploration or at least some additional details IMO. It literally renders the WoL completely helpless for an extended period of time.

It's not even a case of "create our own theories". Fandaniel straight up says that it's Aulus' work that makes it possible.

I don't know if you can't remember or you're purposefully leaving out context to make it seem like the writers are being vaguer than they are.

[WeebPolice]

Yeah, where the hell did that body switch ability come from? It's like the writers just threw that into the game to create some manufactured tension for the audience.

Not only that, but I was really bothered by how we were just captured by Fandaniel. Like, if it were that easy why did the Ascians even have trouble with us to begin with?

I'll offer my take on the matter, citizens. Villain exposition. That is all. SE needed a way to set up a meeting between the WOL, Fandaniel, and Zenos, so they could force feed more of the story to the players. And they accomplished this by giving Fandaniel the power to teleport and body switch the WOL.

Yeah, that could be it. Unfortunately, we'll never know for sure without confirmation from SE, so we're just left to create our own theories for it. I wonder if we'll ever see the ability used against the WoL again in the future by someone else. An ability that powerful deserves further exploration or at least some additional details IMO. It literally renders the WoL completely helpless for an extended period of time.

Citizen, I can almost guarantee you this will never be explored again in the future by SE. Fandaniel was given the power to do this for this one cinematic moment alone.




May your blades never dull.

[fulminating]

It's kind of a waste that npc roleplay doesn't convey a sense of power (godbert excepted). All it does is further cement the warrior of light as being head and shoulders above his handlers. Alphanaud, nameless garlean, hein, alise and urianger just felt like nerfed versions of jobs we have access to. Even eistininien, who could easily have leant more into the nidhogg skills, wasn't that much of a powerhouse. It just comes across as a another squandered opportunity to enhance the story and characters with gameplay.

We probably won't get to, but it'd be neat to play as one of those two headed mamool jas with a different gcd for casting/physical so it feels new and interesting, or crystal catman swapping between pld/blm/whm fluidly. It should be an easy place to add novelty or things inaccessible to the player to make them feel their own character rather than underwhelming clones.

[Swordsman]

I'll offer my take on the matter, citizens. Villain exposition. That is all. SE needed a way to set up a meeting between the WOL, Fandaniel, and Zenos, so they could force feed more of the story to the players. And they accomplished this by giving Fandaniel the power to teleport and body switch the WOL.

Lmao, and this is EXACTLY what I mean by "manufactured tension." You have the writers looking for a reason to create an in-game cutscene where the WoL finds himself in a position where he's face to face with the antagonists but is unable to do anything. So they give Fandaniel this ability and then the story plays out the way it does.

Even still there are other conveniences written into this ability that just happen to work out in the WoL's favor, like a soul eventually returning to its body and the WoL not having to do anything to have their soul returned outside of waiting for a period of time. It was probably designed this way by the writers to keep things simple.

Citizen, I can almost guarantee you this will never be explored again in the future by SE. Fandaniel was given the power to do this for this one cinematic moment alone.

I know lol. Just like other plot contrivances such as dynamis, we probably won't see this soul swap ability again even though I'd very much like to see it revisited and defeated in some way.

[TheMightyMollusk]

If villains were pragmatic enough to just grab the hero and drop them into a volcano or whatever, there'd be no story at all.

More importantly to this specific instance, Fandaniel wanted us to go to the moon and kill Zodiark for him to restart the Final Days. Killing us off before that would defeat his own goal. "In From the Cold" was basically just elaborate theater to get us to stop faffing about with the rabble (as Fannypack and Zenos would see it) and get back to their plot.

[WeebPolice]

I know lol. Just like other plot contrivances such as dynamis, we probably won't see this soul swap ability again even though I'd very much like to see it revisited and defeated in some way.

It would be an interesting topic to delve into, citizen, and it would have made for an excellent subplot. All we know from Stormblood and Ala Mhigo is that a Garlean discovered a way to separate a soul from its body, but it didn't describe any method of implanting that soul into someone else's body. There is much to be clarified.





For duty and valor.

[Supersnow845]

They need to pick a power and intelligence level for the WOL and base all future interactions with the antagonists to stop this pointless superman dilemma drama

This is actually where garlamald got it right where they tried to hold you down by threatening the twins, I’m not saying every time they do something like this but this played to the fantasy of the WOL much better, they knew they didn’t stand a chance against him so they threatened his friends

EW already spent too much time running the power fantasy of the WOL (I’m not even gonna mention how elpis infantilised us) they really need to stop doing it in DT

[WeebPolice]

They need to pick a power and intelligence level for the WOL and base all future interactions with the antagonists to stop this pointless superman dilemma drama

Well citizen, that would make things difficult for the MSQ writer who is so used to pulling the WOL and the Scions out of any bad situation on a whim.




Light be with you.

[Sayo_]

If villains were pragmatic enough to just grab the hero and drop them into a volcano or whatever, there'd be no story at all.

More importantly to this specific instance, Fandaniel wanted us to go to the moon and kill Zodiark for him to restart the Final Days. Killing us off before that would defeat his own goal. "In From the Cold" was basically just elaborate theater to get us to stop faffing about with the rabble (as Fannypack and Zenos would see it) and get back to their plot.

Yeah but that still raises the question of "Why didn't they do it before?" The out of universe explanation is "There wouldn't be a story" but there's no in universe explanation. You can't just pull something like Fandaniel did and expect it not to be questioned.