Endwalker plot makes no sense (or the frequent 2002s made me forget) SPOILER THREAD

[lezard21]

So the BIG TWIST is that Fandaniel wanted you to destroy Zodiark to restart the Final Days. And in the event you failed, he would still have control over Zodiark to destroy the world.

All cool up to this point.

BUT

What was the point of the spires and the Tower of Babil, other than to rise huge red flags for the WoL and the Scions to be instantly made aware of his existance (since prior to this they hadn't even heard about Fandaniel) and get in the way of his plans?

At first it seems that he is collecting Aether to destroy the seal that binds Zodiark.

Ok cool.

But then it turns out it was not enough Aether to destroy the seal, so he teleports himself and Zenos to the Moon to manually destroy the seals.

I'M SORRY WHAT?

So after 20 bajillion years of meticulous planning and machinations, all the Ascians had to do was beat 5 rocks up with a big stick and Zodiark would have been free??? The Ascians who multiple times in the past were shown having a tea party with guests in the Moon?

Granted, the Watcher's archives suggest that the Paragons didn't want to awaken Zodiark in an incomplete state, and that Fandaniel couldn't make his move until at least Elidibus, Zodiark's heart, was dead.

But the moment Elidibus died, Fandaniel should have just beelined to the Moon and broken the seals before the WoL and the Scions even returned from the First. Or keep them entertained with the dumb spire sidequest while he teleports Zenos to the Moon to break the seals with his big stick.

Why would he sabotage his own plans by making everyone aware that he was planning something???

Makes no sense other than plot convenience. Fandaniel could have won, he simply chose not to because (?) reasons.

[KageTokage]

The Ascians made no attempt to break the wards. There was no indication of whether or not they'd actually have been able to pull it off without an extremely calculated effort like Fandaniel did by constructing the Tower of Babil as a giant aether cannon.

The last ward was also already damaged from the cannon and I doubt Zenos would've been able to break it so easily otherwise.

[Cleretic]

Yes, the towers were intended to scoop up aether for the big space laser; it wasn't enough, so he had to do the last part himself.

But remember that the rest of the Ascians thought this plan sucked. They don't want an incomplete, terrible Zodiark, they want the full thing so they could use him to bring back Amaurot. Meanwhile, all Fandaniel wants is to blow up the planet, which he can either do by
A: piloting Zodiark and personally smashing everything himself,
or B: Letting Zodiark die, thereby opening the door to the Final Days.

The other Ascians likely knew that the Final Days would come back if Zodiark died, so they wanted to do things the safe way to reduce the chances of that.

As for 'why didn't he just do that first', I don't think it was actually possible; if I were making that seal, I'd absolutely design it to protect against directly smashing it. But the space laser weakened it, and after that point only one was left (well, two, temporarily) and things were starting to fray to the point where the Watcher couldn't fix them. Chances are, just going in and smashing it when all six brands were fine would've amounted to nothing, either because the brands were stronger than that, or because breaking one at a time was a problem slow enough for the Watcher to fix things in the time it takes them to break another. Probably both.

Also, from a storytelling perspective, it is just WAY better to have a big plan that the protagonist can interfere with rather than have a subtle one that goes 'oh, the villains won in ten minutes while completely untouchable'. So lean towards explanations for the former rather than the latter.

[lezard21]

Also, from a storytelling perspective, it is just WAY better to have a big plan that the protagonist can interfere with rather than have a subtle one that goes 'oh, the villains won in ten minutes while completely untouchable'. So lean towards explanations for the former rather than the latter.

Yes I do know contrived plot makes for more interesting storytelling than straightforward plot, but there needs to be a reason why the plot is contrived instead of straightforward.

The "wards were too strong while all were up" you mentioned would be a good reason, however the story never mentions or hints at that, so that's only wild guess speculation.

[MilkieTea]

Pretty sure those towers were (like the tower of zot) siphoning aether to power up their big big boom boom cannon to break the seals holding zodiark in place.
Which is why, when the last seal didn't break, they had to do it themselves by going to the moon.

[lezard21]

Pretty sure those towers were (like the tower of zot) siphoning aether to power up their big big boom boom cannon to break the seals holding zodiark in place.
Which is why, when the last seal didn't break, they had to do it themselves by going to the moon.

Yes, that what I said, that at first it seemed that the only way to break the seal was to blast it with a big laser, but then it turns out they can just whack them really hard with a stick to break them, so why not do that from the start?

[MilkieTea]

Yes, that what I said, that at first it seemed that the only way to break the seal was to blast it with a big laser, but then it turns out they can just whack them really hard with a stick to break them, so why not do that from the start?

If you notice, the last seal was weakened but didn't break. They'd have never been able to just do that to all the seals as they weren't weakened. Subtle visual detail, but it's there.

[Slatersev]

There is dialogue on the moon which has them straight up mention that the Watcher has seen the Ascians on the moon plenty of times but that they never made any attempt to attack the seals specifically because a splintered Zodiark without his full power would be to big a risk.

They were waiting till all the Shards were rejoined to bust him out. Fandaniel doesn't have any reason to care about any of that so he can "just" smash it as hard as possible.

[lezard21]

There is dialogue on the moon which has them straight up mention that the Watcher has seen the Ascians on the moon plenty of times but that they never made any attempt to attack the seals specifically because a splintered Zodiark without his full power would be to big a risk.

They were waiting till all the Shards were rejoined to bust him out. Fandaniel doesn't have any reason to care about any of that so he can "just" smash it as hard as possible.

I had already acknowledged that on my OP

Granted, the Watcher's archives suggest that the Paragons didn't want to awaken Zodiark in an incomplete state, and that Fandaniel couldn't make his move until at least Elidibus, Zodiark's heart, was dead.

Still doesn't justify why Fandaniel would do all the spire sidequest.

[geekgirl101]

So the BIG TWIST is that Fandaniel wanted you to destroy Zodiark to restart the Final Days. And in the event you failed, he would still have control over Zodiark to destroy the world.

All cool up to this point.

BUT

What was the point of the spires and the Tower of Babil, other than to rise huge red flags for the WoL and the Scions to be instantly made aware of his existance (since prior to this they hadn't even heard about Fandaniel) and get in the way of his plans?

At first it seems that he is collecting Aether to destroy the seal that binds Zodiark.

Ok cool.

But then it turns out it was not enough Aether to destroy the seal, so he teleports himself and Zenos to the Moon to manually destroy the seals.

I'M SORRY WHAT?

So after 20 bajillion years of meticulous planning and machinations, all the Ascians had to do was beat 5 rocks up with a big stick and Zodiark would have been free??? The Ascians who multiple times in the past were shown having a tea party with guests in the Moon?

Granted, the Watcher's archives suggest that the Paragons didn't want to awaken Zodiark in an incomplete state, and that Fandaniel couldn't make his move until at least Elidibus, Zodiark's heart, was dead.

But the moment Elidibus died, Fandaniel should have just beelined to the Moon and broken the seals before the WoL and the Scions even returned from the First. Or keep them entertained with the dumb spire sidequest while he teleports Zenos to the Moon to break the seals with his big stick.

Why would he sabotage his own plans by making everyone aware that he was planning something???

Makes no sense other than plot convenience. Fandaniel could have won, he simply chose not to because (?) reasons.

There's nothing confusing about it. The seals holding Zodiark were extremely powerful that Fandaniel couldn't destroy them all by himself even after siphoning most of Eitherys's aether via the towers and using it to blast the seals to pieces - also being one of the sundered meant he was nowhere near as powerful as an unsundered Ascian which is why he needed to use Eitherys's aether to break the seals. The only reason Zenos was capable of destroying the last one was because it had taken enough damage by the aether cannon to weaken it. The towers themselves also acted as a distraction for the WoL so they wouldn't come running straight to Garlemald and foil his plans. Even this concerned Fandaniel that should they put 2 and 2 together prematurely and realise that the smaller towers served a far greater purpose that they would come charging straight into Garlemald, but this was a gamble he was willing to risk taking and he had plenty of ways to distract the WoL long enough to finish what he started. All of this worked in his favour to both provide him with the necessary amount of aether to destroy the seals binding Zodiark and to stall us. We got played hard by 2 pyschopathic masterminds, we didn't stand a chance.