Questionable ethics - Living Memory

[Alaray]

You kind of touch on the problem yourself. All these stories are meant to take place in the same universe, which should have a consistent set of laws/rules. Even if you want to approach a different theme or subject matter, as you're working in a per-established universe, you're constrained (or, well, you should

What you describe, with details clashing diegetically, is inevitable (and to be fair, the potential discrepancy here isn't congruent to the over-exaggerated "what if" scenario). It's in almost every story you can pick up, every world ever imagined: nothing is perfectly consistent, there is always an inconsistency somewhere. It is what it is, and for all I know, the Ultima Thule shades have something different at their core, but I don't need to really care if that is true or not true to understand what the Living Memory story is trying to communicate.

A rose at the Edge of the Universe is still rooted in a different soil, than a rose bloomed in the Unlost World.

And, I enjoy the stories of loss, death, acceptance, that are told. I have my complaints, but I dunno, I felt it was really obvious we're just helping would-be ghosts move onwards. That we're turning off the lights to another haphazard, memory of the past made into a false eden to show it for the graveyard it is and to accept that fact and not to be mired in the infatuation of "eternity".

[Eyrilona]

What you describe, with details clashing diegetically, is inevitable (and to be fair, the potential discrepancy here isn't congruent to the over-exaggerated "what if" scenario). It's in almost every story you can pick up, every world ever imagined: nothing is perfectly consistent, there is always an inconsistency somewhere. It is what it is, and for all I know, the Ultima Thule shades have something different at their core, but I don't need to really care if that is true or not true to understand what the Living Memory story is trying to communicate.

I think the key thing to observe here is, there is room for things to be different in different expansion to an extent. But not the fundamentals. You can't have a new Sherlock Holmes story where Sherlock is suddenly a bumbling fool constantly being rescued by his clever assistant Watson, even if the idea of a bumbling inspector with a competent helper can in its own right be good standalone story material. Those things do not make sense, you are going to get complaints from people who bought your story because it had promised a continuation of a story universe they know and love, and if you are not consistent with that, then you have sold your story on a false premise.

[Alaray]

I think the key thing to observe here is, there is room for things to be different in different expansion to an extent. But not the fundamentals. You can't have a new Sherlock Holmes story where Sherlock is suddenly a bumbling fool constantly being rescued by his clever assistant Watson, even if the idea of a bumbling inspector with a competent helper can in its own right be good standalone story material. Those things do not make sense, you are going to get complaints from people who bought your story because it had promised a continuation of a story universe they know and love, and if you are not consistent with that, then you have sold your story on a false premise.

That's an entire character, though? I disagree with this analogy, since it'd be more akin to G'raha suddenly being written as a cannibal than a potential oversight on even the reader's end here, since I don't necessarily agree with the postulation that there's a true inconsistency to begin with (just that I, personally, don't really care /that/ much even if there was)

Like, if I had to guess I would presume that what separates Endless from everything else marked as "Alive" is just the "soul" part of the equation. Endless don't have that. They're more like Primals, like Garuda, in the sense that they are memories projected outwards in a constructed facsimile. Or akin to Amaurot, which is the narrative parallel, which was another "Living Memory" in a manner of speaking. And the story is often extremely harsh to the concept of "Eternity". It never really puts prospects of being "eternal" in a positive light, usually it opts to look at the concept as: foolish, anathema to life itself, fruitless, a regression of Life in the context of apotheosis, or a Hell in Waiting for stylings of Salvation. Throw in the, Endless' case, that their supposed afterlife subsists off present temporal life, and that's the sort of point being reiterated again.

But, that's just with regards to the notion of an inconsistency. And, the framework and message of the story goes back to the original post I made with regards to how I perceived this specific storyline as not really... about killing beings that are alive, but instead, helping them pass on from the eternity they've been forced into by a false god that can't let go. And overall, I felt this theme to be very clear, very obvious, and I don't actually feel like there's a true inconsistency at least with how the fictional world denotes things. Could they have written a much lengthier, in depth narrative and explored the notion of "What does it mean, to be 'Alive'?" Sure, but they didn't, and had they in this section I don't think they'd have the time to develop that through to any satisfying direction. They chose to continue the parallels to older expansion stories, with Wuk Lamat predominately as the WoL proxy for the small parallels.

Arguing whether or not a fully fleshed out, choice making Artificial Intelligence is alive or not in like, the real world, or utilizing real world concepts to apply them to a fantasy world that inherently breaks them, is whatever to me -- I'm not interested in that kind of discussion, since I feel like it's a discussion better to have in the framework of the real world, and not a fictional one, and it's ultimately not really the point being made by the narrative.

[Galvuu]

What you describe, with details clashing diegetically, is inevitable (and to be fair, the potential discrepancy here isn't congruent to the over-exaggerated "what if" scenario). It's in almost every story you can pick up, every world ever imagined: nothing is perfectly consistent, there is always an inconsistency somewhere. It is what it is, and for all I know, the Ultima Thule shades have something different at their core, but I don't need to really care if that is true or not true to understand what the Living Memory story is trying to communicate.

I mean, sure, inconsistencies will show up with sufficient scrutiny on most- if not all- media. But there are degrees to this, and degrees to what you might tolerate on a work.
I would not be able to accept a LotR sequel where anyone could bribe your way, with influence and money, to the Undying Lands and it actually works, because such a retcon uproots so much of the themes and fundamental lore of that world that it's irreconcilable with the past work. It can exist, people can love it, but I feel it would aggressively undermine the established framework. If you require this to communicate your narrative, then it's either unsuited for that world and should be released in a different world, or you should preserve the message while abiding by the existing lore.
XIV requires more malleability because it's not designed with an ending in mind- and I feel this makes it even more critical to have some pillars that cannot be shaken, a solid foundation that cannot be undermined.
To me, personally, it starts being progressively hard to be invested in a world where, essentially, anything goes. No rule is sacred, anything can be randomly twisted or undone. If we don't abide by some core principles, nothing prevents a patch 9.0 where we suddenly decide that some of the dragons aren't really alive and we go fight them ignoring all the previous history of making peace with them, or anything to that effect.

I think the funniest part is that I don't even care that much for the Endless in a vacuum. I didn't feel particularly bad about shutting them down (I didn't feel anything for most of DT), especially with the context of their incompatibility with life on the Source, but I definitely think that many issues surrounding their existence, such as the question if they were alive in some capacity, warrant discussion and are just ignored or quickly glossed over. My problem is that I feel what's presented to me might conflict with was presented before.
(And I may be wrong, but aren't the Endless powered by aether when they re-manifest anyway? It's all very murky)