[SPOILERS] Dawntrail should get an ARR-style retcon in the post-MSQ

[Eyrilona]

I'm going to be devil's advocate and say this is clearly what the writers intended to do with the Endless.

This was the intent? To create a massively divisive issue that splits the community into two halves that feel alienated by the other?

[Supersnow845]

It completely messed with my headcanon even outside of my actual opinion of the endless

Long before the endless I created a headcanon for my WOL that due to traumatic events in their past they absolutely refuse to be the one to declare another “being” as worthy or unworthy of life

I thought this was pretty safe as a headcanon because the WOL is designed to be good

It’s hilarious how badly the endless ripped my headcanon to shreds and that was built on existing logic from the previous expansions

[OMGJesuis66]

It completely messed with my headcanon even outside of my actual opinion of the endless

Long before the endless I created a headcanon for my WOL that due to traumatic events in their past they absolutely refuse to be the one to declare another “being” as worthy or unworthy of life

I thought this was pretty safe as a headcanon because the WOL is designed to be good

It’s hilarious how badly the endless ripped my headcanon to shreds and that was built on existing logic from the previous expansions

Considering that the Endless cannot ever be alive again and instead gets a new soul to act as a battery, while using all the fundaments that existed in previous expansions and twisting it to a very nefarious end, I personally think it's exciting to put yourself in your WoL perspective once more and work on the headcannon of having something that struck directly to his moralities and why that was the case.

[Eyrilona]

Considering that the Endless cannot ever be alive again and instead gets a new soul to act as a battery, while using all the fundaments that existed in previous expansions and twisting it to a very nefarious end, I personally think it's exciting to put yourself in your WoL perspective once more and work on the headcannon of having something that struck directly to his moralities and why that was the case.

That only works if the reason wasn't "because the writers of the msq took over control of my character, and of all my formerly trusted friends, sidelined any agency I thought I'd have, and made us all do something I hated without even allowing our character to question it, and then immediately after went of to have a big happy celebration set to some upbeat song from Disney", which is the case here. You *can't* rework your headcanon around that because you have to either accept that your character never was or no longer is the person you want to play as, or you reject the canonicity of what happened in the game and hope that the devs will never refer back to it as a thing that happened ever again.

[Raven2014]

I have said it before, way back on this forum -- you can not in good faith continue to claim there is no ambiguity or moral argument in this matter,

Then I think you missed the point of the discussion. There is no debate about what the writer want to do or what they us to feel. It's so obvious that it'll be harder to miss than a bus coming at you at full speed. That's not what we're arguing about. What we argue about is the writing is so shit that it pretty much negate any kind of emotional impact intended for it.


A good way to exemplify this is the use of deaths:

- A good writer will build a character up, have the players invested. Then set the appropriate stage for the character to die on. And because all of that, the death create an emotional impact.

- A bad writer will just take the impact of death for granted and think "no matter what I write, as long as someone die on the screen it'll magically make my writing good and people emotional". In the case of DT it wasn't just bad, it's also so stupid that it did get some of us emotional ... but not for the reason the writer wanted.


Remember this is a player base that for the most part adored Moenbryda and in love with Haurchefant. Do you think the difference in how we react to their death and the erasure of the Endless has something to do with ... humanity value? No, it's nothing that deep really. It's just the difference made between good writing and shit writing. Like I said, transcended human and machine is not exactly a new topic, and media is full of instance where people have no problem empathize and adore digital beings when the story is good. It's just rarely, and I daresay it's actually the first time for me to see this theme explored in such an incompetent way.

[Supersnow845]

That only works if the reason wasn't "because the writers of the msq took over control of my character, and of all my formerly trusted friends, sidelined any agency I thought I'd have, and made us all do something I hated without even allowing our character to question it, and then immediately after went of to have a big happy celebration set to some upbeat song from Disney", which is the case here. You *can't* rework your headcanon around that because you have to either accept that your character never was or no longer is the person you want to play as, or you reject the canonicity of what happened in the game and hope that the devs will never refer back to it as a thing that happened ever again.

Which is a good explanation of what I ended up doing

The endless conflicted so so badly with my players headcanon that I just ended up rewriting the endless to fit my headcanon because there is no way what my WOL did in DT’s story could ever match who I write them as as a person. My WOL is dogged in his beliefs that he doesn’t have a right to assign humanity or lack thereof to another, it’s literally his entire guiding principle in life, how do I reconcile that with the endless

Does that make me sorta narrow and uncreative, I guess you could say it does but the conflict is so great that it just……….is impossible for me to reconcile

[Eyrilona]

Then I think you missed the point of the discussion. There is no debate about what the writer want to do or what they us to feel. It's so obvious that it'll be harder to miss than a bus coming at you at full speed. That's not what we're arguing about. What we argue about is the writing is so shit that it pretty much negate any kind of emotional impact intended for it.


A good way to exemplify this is the use of deaths:

- A good writer will build a character up, have the players invested. Then set the appropriate stage for the character to die on. And because all of that, the death create an emotional impact.

- A bad writer will just take the impact of death for granted and think "no matter what I write, as long as someone die on the screen it'll magically make my writing good and people emotional". In the case of DT it wasn't just bad, it's also so stupid that it did get some of us emotional ... but not for the reason the writer wanted.


Remember this is a player base that for the most part adored Moenbryda and in love with Haurchefant. Do you think the difference in how we react to their death and the erasure of the Endless has something to do with ... humanity value? No, it's nothing that deep really. It's just the difference made between good writing and shit writing. Like I said, transcended human and machine is not exactly a new topic, and media is full of instance where people have no problem empathize and adore digital beings when the story is good. It's just rarely, and I daresay it's actually the first time for me to see this theme explored in such an incompetent way.

I agree with what you say about the scope of the argument. However, I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that the intent couldn't be clearer -- the last zone makes me question if the writing team was even of one mind on the issue, because where some say "it is obvious what the writers intended", I would actually argue sooner that they keep swinging one way, then the other. Every time they want us to be emotionally invested, they go hard on making our characters interact with the Endless as if they are alive, showing them have emotions of their own, goals and desires, hope for the future even. Then whenever the plot to shut them all down comes, they tell us that we're not really killing the already dead and that all the Endless who are clued in on what we are doing are for some reason all fine with it. What they SHOW us is entirely opposite to what they TELL us, and because some people's mind are wired to shape reality from what they are told and others put more value on what they see happen in front of them, we now have a community divided.

[Raven2014]

I agree with what you say about the scope of the argument. However, I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that the intent couldn't be clearer -- the last zone makes me question if the writing team was even of one mind on the issue, because where some say "it is obvious what the writers intended", I would actually argue sooner that they keep swinging one way, then the other. Every time they want us to be emotionally invested, they go hard on making our characters interact with the Endless as if they are alive, showing them have emotions of their own, goals and desires, hope for the future even. Then whenever the plot to shut them all down comes, they tell us that we're not really killing the already dead and that all the Endless who are clued in on what we are doing are for some reason all fine with it. What they SHOW us is entirely opposite to what they TELL us, and because some people's mind are wired to shape reality from what they are told and others put more value on what they see happen in front of them, we now have a community divided.

Which still come down to just the quality writing. Because a good writing would still make it work, because funny enough that's exactly what happened in EndWalker. It clearly present a moral dilemma on Venat decision. In "that" cutsceens:

- Before the sundering she said: I choose to believe in mankind's potential. In his ability to find the way forward.
- After the sundering she said: All is excruciating pain. I breath fire and torment. I birth a world of suffering to mire and plague.

There is no sugar coating. Just because it's the right decision, doesn't make it a good decision or vice versa. Alise told Emet flat out that "yeah, his people maybe more qualified to rule the stars than them, but she gonna still choose themselves!" And that was cool, because it shows you don't need wishwashing hypocrisy.

That debate also split the community on whether we believe Venat did the right thing or she unjustly genocide the Ancient. But it was a good split because each side can come with full presentation and material to make their case. As oppose to here, the myriad of ambiguity and inconsistency plotholes( a lot of us note as if Zone 6 was written by someone who seem disconnected with the story up till then), what you have is one side trying to make a flaw logic whole by pulling at straw (clonning? Evolving? Seriously?) and the other side is simply pissed of at the overall shit writing.

I do think the split in intentional so it can be present as another dilemma, that's why I said I think writer's intention is very obvious. But of course the debate would naturally be toxic, because the topic was introduced in the most haphazard way possible.

[OMGJesuis66]

That only works if the reason wasn't "because the writers of the msq took over control of my character, and of all my formerly trusted friends, sidelined any agency I thought I'd have, and made us all do something I hated without even allowing our character to question it, and then immediately after went of to have a big happy celebration set to some upbeat song from Disney", which is the case here. You *can't* rework your headcanon around that because you have to either accept that your character never was or no longer is the person you want to play as, or you reject the canonicity of what happened in the game and hope that the devs will never refer back to it as a thing that happened ever again.

Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing, but I know how that feels. I loathed every second Shadowbringers forced my WoL to be emphatic towards Emet and the Ancients, saying he had a promise to keep to him, missing him, and that he was going to understand him and all of the villains in a cuddly fashion way that has been simply imposed on my character over the narrative. It's a "single player" narrative. And the truth is, this is scripted. There's no actual player agency. There will be moments when you will be yanked of seeing your WoL as your WoL. I had those moments aplenty in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. You had now in Dawntrail. It's individual stuff, everyone can find a way to handle it because it will hit them one day or the other.

[Eyrilona]

Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing, but I know how that feels. I loathed every second Shadowbringers forced my WoL to be emphatic towards Emet and the Ancients, saying he had a promise to keep to him, missing him, and that he was going to understand him and all of the villains in a cuddly fashion way that has been simply imposed on my character over the narrative. It's a "single player" narrative. And the truth is, this is scripted. There's no actual player agency. There will be moments when you will be yanked of seeing your WoL as your WoL. I had those moments aplenty in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. You had now in Dawntrail. It's individual stuff, everyone can find a way to handle it because it will hit them one day or the other.

Even when disagreeing with the sentiment of ShB though, at least that expansion got points for style. Which is a lot harder to say about Dawntrail, which violates so many conventions of good writing that it would still be rough to get through even if you did agree with the subject matter, never mind if you don't...