Endwalker Main Scenario Commentary & Feedback

[Slatersev]

Assume full MSQ spoilers. 3/3



Scions:

Contrast this with the Scion's plot armor, likely why I have to keep watching my Ancient friends die because the writers/devs won't touch the protagonists. The reason they keep having to bring up losses of characters introduced in ARR is because no major character on the side of the protagonists has died since HW. Having our group discuss overcoming despair when comparatively they've lost the least of any of the peoples we help or fight against rang hollow. The only exceptions are G'raha and Estinien. It's not that I wanted Scions to die (though I'd easily trade over half of them for Emet and Hythlodaeus), but they always win and without having to incur much in the way of costs. Maybe this contributes to why I feel like the Ancients have a more compelling story and characters. As a comment on Reddit said, "I adore their story more than our story."

That's not true.

Minfillia didn't really die till near the end of Shadowbringers. Even when they flashback to her end its the scene where she talks to Ryne before passing on. Her presence is an absolutely massive part of ShB

And frankly while it was still technically a HW patch, the HW plotline was done by the time

Papalymo died, his death is the starting point of Stormblood far more then it is anything HW.

[KizuyaKatogami]

That's not true.

Minfillia didn't really die till near the end of Shadowbringers. Even when they flashback to her end its the scene where she talks to Ryne before passing on. Her presence is an absolutely massive part of ShB

And frankly while it was still technically a HW patch, the HW plotline was done by the time

Papalymo died, his death is the starting point of Stormblood far more then it is anything HW.

I disagree on this.

Minfilia was basically dead after ARR. All she was after that really was Hydaelyn’s meat puppet. As for Papalymo it really was still the HW patches, so it was still HW. The fact we haven’t had a major protagonist character death like that is sad and just seems like the writers are trying to cater to the community which seems like they can’t handle or cope with fictional death. In shadowbringers we fight two almost god-like beings and do so with 0 consequences. Despite the scions being on a ticking time bomb nothing ever comes from that, they’re perfectly fine. And now in Endwalker, the apocalypse that originally destroyed the planet that not even the godlike ancients could escape from, somehow the scions do so perfectly fine with 0 consequences or death. It’s honestly ridiculous, especially when you realize just how small of a presence some characters had. Like what exactly did Yshtola do this expansion of note?

[Sylve]

I really agree with this analysis. Still, I do love

I loved Elpis - it was my favourite part of EW next to the final zone - and I would not want for it to be removed from the story under any circumstances. But I think they used it too late in the story for its revelations to be properly integrated into the rest of it.

On the 87 zone,

Friend and i had a rather long discussion about the implications of that time travel and we basically concluded that we did in fact create a divergent timeline in keeping with the rules they set out in Shadowbringers.

It kind of depends on whether or not Venat would have placed the beacon on Meteion regardless of whether or not we were present.
If the events of that day in Elpis had played out precisely the same way even if we were never there, AKA Emet and Hythlo get mindwiped but Venat escapes after tagging Meteion, then no divergent timeline as nothing was changed aside from the fact that we can take our observations into the future. (Which is what seems to be the case)

But if Venat managed to avoid the Kairos mindwipe and tag her the first time, then she should have been able to avert the Final Days by filling Emet in on what caused it in the first place, Averting the need for Zodiark and Hydaelyn.
But when we encounter him in Shadowbringers, he even says they never found the cause.
Thus a paradox.

Either Venat knew what caused it and said nothing because she wanted Meteion to win in the original history, which flies in the face of what we know about both sides of her character or we caused a divergent timeline in which Venat was not present to find out about Meteion in our original history and a new timeline in which she does find out about her and place the tracker on Meteion.
After which, she plays the script we gave her on how our original history played out and her role in it, so that our description of the future came true for her to witness as Hydaelyn.

The third option is that Venat DID witness Meteion in the original timeline but got mindwiped, leading to her original plan of using the Moon as an Ark. This i think could be used to explain why there was no divergent timeline.
But theres a problem with that. She has the navigation crystal, which means she WASN'T mindwiped.

Thus my friend and i concluded that we did infact create a branched timeline in keeping with the time travel rules set out in Shadowbringers.
Conlusion being: Our presence in Elpis changed the past, but due to when it was changed our character becomes a resident of that timeline and ends up in the diverged future wholly unaware that it diverged in the first place upon returning to the Source.

We do not notice in-universe because we told Venat all about every single event that led to the moment we went to the First to gather information on Elpis. Remember, she told us about how the Echo worked and we know from Emet that every Ancient had it. We can't see the divergence because we're living in it, basically.
While we were telling her stories of our adventures, she was literally watching them via the Echo and used that information to ensure that the diverged timeline resembled the original one we came from with the beacon on Meteion being the sole point of difference.
Which means theres a timeline out there where we didn't chance upon Emet and left before discovering Meteion, leading to our use of the Moon Ark and that universe ending anyway because the Final Days was on a universal scale to begin with.

... But thats just a theory XD

[RyuDragnier]

snip

I'm sorry, but it seems you did not pay attention.

When we told Hythlodaeus, Venat, and Emet about the future, Emet outright refused to believe it until Meteion started acting up towards the end of the zone, and reluctantly accepted it right as Meteion changed and Hermes betrayed them. It took all that for Emet to believe it. Hythlodaeus was more curious if it was true or not. Neither would have accepted the truth for what it was after the mind wipe, as the events of their time in that zone was completely erased from their minds along with anything that could be used as evidence to corroborate it. Not to mention how Hermes would have reacted if he was told what he did. The entire thing was a stable time loop, with Venat realizing that she needed to make sure history repeated as best it could in order to give us a final choice and fighting chance. Our options were to do nothing and accept death, run away and live a little longer (moon), or stand and fight to the bitter end.

[MirronTulaxia]

Personally, my theory about why people thought the story would take that turn actually starts outside of the game rather than inside of it.

JRPGs are branded with that 'team up with your friends and kill God' cliche for a reason; it really does happen A LOT. I assume it's because in a game with a grand setting that nonetheless primarily provides violence as a means of interaction, people started wanting to enact violence against the biggest thing in the setting, which tended to be 'the analog for God'. Then eventually developers started indulging that, and things snowballed.

I don't think, deep down, people actually wanted to fight Hydaelyn because they thought she was evil; I think people expected to fight her, because at this point in the genre that's just the done thing, and were looking for a justification. Then Shadowbringers rolls around with a theme of 'light is not always good and sometimes has to be fought', and a pretty genocidal sadboy to say bad things about her, and bam, suddenly the justification has crystallized: that we'll fight Hydaelyn because she's evil. The fact we'll fight her was never really the part in question, it was just a matter of finding the path they had to backtrack down to explain why.

I know I expected we'd throw down with Hydaelyn, I just never bought into the 'because she's bad' explanation, and landed on something closer to what actually happened, that we'd have to fight her as part of some kind of rueful challenge that we'd ultimately feel sad about.

Yeah, I didn't expect that we would have to

kill god. And honestly I think far more people were reaching for it rather than just expecting it. Lots of people kept trying to find justifications for how Hydaelyn was really evil, we were really tempered, the Ascians were right, on and on. I don't mind that we fought her, and it was fitting, though I think that is more due to the fact it fits the way they've done the game so far, I could easily conceive of a version of the story where Hydaelyn just accepts us for all she has seen us do. I'm really glad though that they managed to make Hydaelyn good until the end, would have ended XIV badly if they hadn't.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Yeah, I didn't expect that we would have to

kill god. And honestly I think far more people were reaching for it rather than just expecting it. Lots of people kept trying to find justifications for how Hydaelyn was really evil, we were really tempered, the Ascians were right, on and on. I don't mind that we fought her, and it was fitting, though I think that is more due to the fact it fits the way they've done the game so far, I could easily conceive of a version of the story where Hydaelyn just accepts us for all she has seen us do. I'm really glad though that they managed to make Hydaelyn good until the end, would have ended XIV badly if they hadn't.

I don’t really understand this.

I don’t see how Hydaelyn is really deemed as good? The story tries its damndest to make it seem that way yes, but given everything we are told and shown, she seems pretty oof to me. Sundered the world, didn’t say anything to anyone, kept secrets told lies etc. Her/Venat could’ve avoided this entire mess and instead chose to keep secrets because what? People needed to learn about suffering? Give me a break lol.

[Sylve]

I'm sorry, but it seems you did not pay attention.
[/hb]

I may have paid more attention than you did tbh, though I'll freely admit I'm not a super lore junkie, i just like to lurk. And speculate.

Emet and co find our story utterly unbelievable because our descriptions of them do not mesh with how they believe they would act in those circumstances.
Emet KNEW he was under the effect of Kairos during the events we witnessed. Hermes made the surrogate memory intentionally revealing that Kairos had been used on him and only lied about the circumstance of it. We see that in real time when we go to see them after they leave the tower, though refraining from interacting with them.

Had a former convocation member come forward to him and told him exclusively about Dynamis and Meteion (Entirely leaving out future events and the individual who brought that information), Emet would have investigated because, in his own words, Even if he found the claim utterly ridiculous, he would still investigate any potential threat to the planet/convocation. Exactly as he did with our claim in the first place. He outright called us liars but did set about finding the truth of the matter for himself.

Emet-Selch:
- Save your thanks. I did not say I believed your ridiculous story.
- But as Emet-Selch, I have a duty to examine any potential threat to our existence. No matter how ludicrous or personally offensive I may find it.

Those being Emets own words to us. He refused to believe in our story but investigated regardless.
Had Venat told him about Meteion, he would have investigated. Venat could have taken to him to the selfsame location we saw the swarm take flight or even showed him her unaltered memories of the betrayal via the Echo that Emet himself told us all Ancients have.

So,
- Venat was never present originally.
- Venat was present and mindwiped originally.
- Venat was present, not mindwiped originally.

For the first to be true, There would be no beacon on Meteion for us to follow in an unchanged future.
For the second to be true, the beacon would be present but Hydaelyn would have no idea what Meteion is, nor produce a navigation crystal or test us in combat to see if we had the strength to fight her.
For the last to be true, Venat would have to have allowed the Final Days and all that followed to occur with no foreknowledge gained from us about what was to come.

Thus, the paradox.
If it was the first option, congrats, we changed the future and Shadowbringers taught us that means a divergent timeline.
Should the second one be accurate, we have the Beacon but Hydaelyn wouldn't know about it to track Meteion nor test our worthiness given she isn't aware of what caused the Final Days either.
And the last option is the only one that even comes close to freeing us from a diverged timeline, but it fails at the last moment because if Venat knew Meteion was responsible AND tagged, why did she then not pass on that information knowing full well that Meteion is a threat to their lives and the planet they love so dearly?

She only knows these things ... Because we changed the past by providing that information to her.
The best case scenario is that our experiences from ARR to Endwalker is the diverged timeline, it explains a little why we always felt like Hydealyn knew more than she was letting on.
AKA, The divergence happened when Venat was present, not mindwiped AND had our story told to her from a timeline in which she was not originally going to be mindwiped or present. We didn't return to a changed future because as Shadowbringers established, we CANNOT change the past to change the future. We simply returned to our timeline that diverged on that fateful day in Elpis.
We will likely never get an absolute answer from Yoshi-P one way or another. However, they established rules for time travel and I'll trust them not to break their own rule one expansion later. So I'll believe we were always in a diverged timeline.

[QT_Melon]

Personally, my theory about why people thought the story would take that turn actually starts outside of the game rather than inside of it.

JRPGs are branded with that 'team up with your friends and kill God' cliche for a reason; it really does happen A LOT. I assume it's because in a game with a grand setting that nonetheless primarily provides violence as a means of interaction, people started wanting to enact violence against the biggest thing in the setting, which tended to be 'the analog for God'. Then eventually developers started indulging that, and things snowballed.

I don't think, deep down, people actually wanted to fight Hydaelyn because they thought she was evil; I think people expected to fight her, because at this point in the genre that's just the done thing, and were looking for a justification. Then Shadowbringers rolls around with a theme of 'light is not always good and sometimes has to be fought', and a pretty genocidal sadboy to say bad things about her, and bam, suddenly the justification has crystallized: that we'll fight Hydaelyn because she's evil. The fact we'll fight her was never really the part in question, it was just a matter of finding the path they had to backtrack down to explain why.

I know I expected we'd throw down with Hydaelyn, I just never bought into the 'because she's bad' explanation, and landed on something closer to what actually happened, that we'd have to fight her as part of some kind of rueful challenge that we'd ultimately feel sad about.

Hmm sorta...

It's not JUST the nature of JRPG and maybe the fact we don't like that a certain Fairy from the same company in another game lies to us.

This is also from the standpoint of the writing problem. This was NOT the original direction of the entire storyline. So they went back to make it work - with most parts being a success. However, certain aspects that were explained away - were heavy handed in trying a bit too hard to make it "good" in terms of good vs evil.


Personally I feel parts with Hydaelyn were a bit too forced/planned to "Mary Sueism" where certain other plot points could have been stressed. This why in many of my posts I say I like Venat, hate Hydaelyn. I feel they were too heavy handed here. I would have honestly enjoyed being misguided about her of possibly being evil if it (being the "strong independent, summon/primal that forethought about everything") was dialed back a bit. But again, I get it they're trying to write in the tying threads...just the methods I question in portraying this - not so much the overall intent.

Some have pointed out the Will of Zodiark. This is a plot point that should have been more hammered in, than the montage. The montage is a time saver for sure, but I feel that direction in terms of story telling was a misstep. But thinking over it, I don't think I have an easy answer to help that wouldn't introduce more pacing problems story wise. (Because I felt like the last part of Sharlayan was something of a slog and could have been cut down just a bit - even if there were some real gems of scenes like Urianger that hit me hard in the feels.)

I felt that seeing Venat being our mentor with her own network of people more featured probably would have helped as well. She may have taken the brunt of the responsibility but like we WoL we have our network of people we acquired in game and would have been nice to see that relationship mirrored to who would be our mentor. - Maybe in Pandemonium or the Myths of the Twelve

I also HATE HATE HATE the "communication problem" trope with the aftermath of Emet, Hythlodaeus and Venat. So it's just already assumed that because Hermes waved his magic time memory eraser 2002 device, that we're put in a plot point that Venat would have never had a discussion (even if she did) and Emet would never investigate when he had LESS reason to investigate when we were around?

I feel more burned out by that trope than "the good was evil all along" "religion is bad" and other tropes because that spawns in way too many genre. So I was literally at that point thinking "really THIS kind of trope AGAIN??"

So yeah these days fandoms, want to be right. But I do like good attempts at subverting expectations - AND for the most part Shadowbringers AND Endwalker did that and that's why I overall enjoyed this final storyline but I'm not singing high praises for certain parts of it especially when it comes to Hydaelyn. But who knows, with the 24 man raid and Pandemonium (which is very likely as Azem to be our first meeting with Elidibus) those issues will be fleshed out in "after story"

[PangTong]

On Hydaelyn and time travel

IMO Elpis would have been perfect if they had just kept it purely as an alternate timeline.

There's nothing essential in the plot that requires it to be a closed loop/converged timeline with maybe the sole exception of learning where Meteion is, and I can't imagine that would have been too hard to come up with something less iffy than timeline shenanigans considering how much contrived fantasy fluff is in the story already.

Loops just make things so messy, especially since we can go back and continue to muck around in Elpis (and will do so even more in Pandemonium apparently). An alt timeline would have made our own Hydaelyn's actions a lot less ambiguous (since we could assume she was ignorant of Meteion) and left us with the hope that the Elpis visit timeline could avert tragedy, even if we never get to see it.

The thing that really weirds me out is that when we meet Hydaelyn face to face, she seems to not realize that it was us in Elpis back then until we bring it up, and then she says "now the timelines are converged" or something. But how could she NOT know it was us all along? Everything in our own timeline is a result of the events of our time in Elpis. She even makes reference to the "promise from another age" when we speak to her on the ship! The whole reason she becomes Hydaelyn is because she learns that mankind needs to find a way to fight against despair, right? Even stuff liker her tracking spell on Meteion exists in our time, or are they saying that even THAT is something that was "converged"?

It just straight up doesn't make sense for her to not know, but if she DOES, even putting aside her questionable actions during the Final Days, why does she never think to tell anyone, ever, even us, about Meteion/Dynamis? She couldn't clue in the Sharlayans in their 270-something years of communications? Why did she seem surprised to learn it was us she met in Elpis?

[EdwinLi]

Truth about Hydaelyn and her burden.

In the end Venat really was the strongest of Azem's friends.

When everything fell apart and the world burned, she did not sunder the world because she wanted to believe there was maybe one small light of hope that the world can still be saved. She knew everything that was about to happen since she did not have her memories erased.

When she saw that everyone has given up in the world and that the survivors were trying to create a Utopia that will only be a Utopia for them and all other life will suffer for their paradise, she made the hard choice to sunder the world. There was no grand battle between Hydaelyn versus Zodiark as the Asicans believe. It was just one single strike by Venat and she could have done this anytime she wanted but choose not to due to wanting to find one small hope to save her world.

Even after all that she continued forward knowing the amount of despair that will happen throughout the centuries as she waited for this one version of Azem that she met on that day in Elpis. It reached a point even she was completely consumed by despair but she still continued forward hoping to meet WoL.

In the end her efforts are rewarded and she leaves this world in peace and as the last friend of Azem to part ways as well.

The end credit image of friends.

This probably broke me the most because we see the friends WoL had as Azem walking away from him as they depart to the after life. Venat, Emet, Hermes (most likely meeting Azem once he became Fendaniel changed his views on life to value it), and Hydthlodaeus.

At the sametime we see WoL new friends he/she gained in this life, being the scions, passing them by walking towards WoL representing that despite WoL has lost his old friends due to this journey, he/she has gained new ones that are just as valued.

The part when we can even see Venat look back at WoL and his/her new friends while leaving with Emet, Hermes, and Hydthlodaeus shows her truely saying goodbye to her long time friend Azem and happy he/she will be well in his/her new life.