Endwalker was "meh" (for reasons other than technical issues)

[Silver-Strider]

The expansion was longer than ShB exactly because it needed to finish the story.

Ok, can you tell me the narrative relevance of Thavnair or any of the characters there? What purpose did they serve in terms of the story? Could you have replaced them with virtually anyone else and gotten the same outcome? How about the moon? Was exploring the Loporrits base really necessary to the story at all? No it really wasn't.

But do you want to know what the worst part of this expansion was? Fandaniel and no, it wasn't because he was an over the top cliche villain. The reason why Fandaniel is the worst part of the expansion is because they ruined his character. He never wanted to be Fandaniel and clung to his past life as Amon with his motivation to be a loyal servant to Xande and bring about the ruin of the world so that they could all share in the despair like his king had. The problem with this, however, was Hermes and Meteion. After Hermes finished listening to Meteion's report, he was just as prepared to condemn humanity as his sundered counterpart was and it belittled Amon as a character. His motivation was cheapened because it was something that he'd already done, so the motivation didn't feel like his own anymore but rather an extension of his past life as Hermes. To add insult to injury, they throw in Meteion as the true final boss of everything.

This is literally the FF9 Kuja into Necron story all over again. A fleshed out villain being tossed side for a 2 dimensional entity bent on total annihilation simply because "Death is the only answer". That's not good storytelling, and for a decade long story like FFXIV has, I expect better than a rehash of a previous FF title's end game.

[RyuDragnier]

Ok, can you tell me the narrative relevance of Thavnair or any of the characters there? What purpose did they serve in terms of the story? Could you have replaced them with virtually anyone else and gotten the same outcome? How about the moon? Was exploring the Loporrits base really necessary to the story at all? No it really wasn't.

Thavnair was our first close up look at a tower, how it effected the individuals in the area, and was also a look at how another dragon decided to spend its life away from its siblings. It was also our first look at the absolute horrors of The End of Days, and hit hard on why we needed to stop it immediately, as the characters (mostly Matsya) were built up to be endearing so we would have actual fear that a character we liked was going to be turned into one of those monstrosities. This helped build up personal stakes in the story for the player. Exploring the Loporrits base was necessary enough in that it showed how they lived and what they lived for (something you KNOW any player will ask about if they're invested in the story), as well as to make it blatantly obvious what Sharlayan was up to and exactly WHY they were doing what they did. All of this was necessary, as much as you would rather it wasn't.

But do you want to know what the worst part of this expansion was? Fandaniel and no, it wasn't because he was an over the top cliche villain. The reason why Fandaniel is the worst part of the expansion is because they ruined his character. He never wanted to be Fandaniel and clung to his past life as Amon with his motivation to be a loyal servant to Xande and bring about the ruin of the world so that they could all share in the despair like his king had. The problem with this, however, was Hermes and Meteion. After Hermes finished listening to Meteion's report, he was just as prepared to condemn humanity as his sundered counterpart was and it belittled Amon as a character. His motivation was cheapened because it was something that he'd already done, so the motivation didn't feel like his own anymore but rather an extension of his past life as Hermes. To add insult to injury, they throw in Meteion as the true final boss of everything.

Was it really cheapening his motivation? Or was it there to paint the picture on exactly WHY Amon was so nihilistic, thus explaining his reasons on why he wanted to destroy everything after he regained his memories of being Fandaniel?

This is literally the FF9 Kuja into Necron story all over again. A fleshed out villain being tossed side for a 2 dimensional entity bent on total annihilation simply because "Death is the only answer". That's not good storytelling, and for a decade long story like FFXIV has, I expect better than a rehash of a previous FF title's end game.

It's really not. Hermes created Meteion, and later ENCOURAGED her to destroy everything due to his own nihilism and depression after discovering all those civilizations crumbled into nothing. We basically got rid of the guy who caused everything, and then had to go take care of the very creation he had made. Necron was hinted to nowhere prior in FF9 and came at the last minute as the final boss. We got an actual buildup for Meteion, and saw her turn into what she became, you cannot equate the two.

[Shialan]

Ok, can you tell me the narrative relevance of Thavnair or any of the characters there? What purpose did they serve in terms of the story? Could you have replaced them with virtually anyone else and gotten the same outcome? How about the moon? Was exploring the Loporrits base really necessary to the story at all? No it really wasn't.

Yeah, how dare they were creating lore. Why didn't they just skip all the stuff and give us a list of what happened and will happen right when we started the MSQ? Why even bother following the story when you can just read up a summary on the internet?

[KatsuraJun]

Thavnair was our first close up look at a tower, how it effected the individuals in the area, and was also a look at how another dragon decided to spend its life away from its siblings. It was also our first look at the absolute horrors of The End of Days, and hit hard on why we needed to stop it immediately, as the characters (mostly Matsya) were built up to be endearing so we would have actual fear that a character we liked was going to be turned into one of those monstrosities. This helped build up personal stakes in the story for the player.

It's funny, I didn't expect to care about the talking elephant guy at first, but they sold that scene really well and I had myself genuinely praying that at least those two could be saved. If anything, my sole complaint is that we didn't get to see more of it － the role quests were pretty dry and standard "we must hunt this monster/primal/sineater/rhino thing from marauder quests" type quest, all things considered, and that's the extent of the blasphemies in the other regions. Nothing at all like the trailers of Vylbrand on fire, and the segment where we saw a hole burning on the map of the world made me think other areas would start burning, but... never really played out the way I was hoping.

[RyuDragnier]

It's funny, I didn't expect to care about the talking elephant guy at first, but they sold that scene really well and I had myself genuinely praying that at least those two could be saved. If anything, my sole complaint is that we didn't get to see more of it － the role quests were pretty dry and standard "we must hunt this monster/primal/sineater/rhino thing from marauder quests" type quest, all things considered, and that's the extent of the blasphemies in the other regions. Nothing at all like the trailers of Vylbrand on fire, and the segment where we saw a hole burning on the map of the world made me think other areas would start burning, but... never really played out the way I was hoping.

I didn't expect to like him that much either, but that scene hit so hard that I was actually crying as it was happening. Something that would not have hit as hard if we hadn't met him and had him built up little by little prior.

[Emtron]

Skipped reading the post almost as fast as I skip cutscenes

This deserves all the likes my friend.

[Reap00]

Endwalker is phenomenal. There is no better story told in any video game or most media for that matter. Thanks for your opinon though OP.

[Emtron]

Endwalker is phenomenal. There is no better story told in any video game or most media for that matter. Thanks for your opinon though OP.

Well now, that's a spicy take most media huh that's a heck of a hill to wanna be on.

[Tsukino]

It's really not. Hermes created Meteion, and later ENCOURAGED her to destroy everything due to his own nihilism and depression after discovering all those civilizations crumbled into nothing. We basically got rid of the guy who caused everything, and then had to go take care of the very creation he had made. Necron was hinted to nowhere prior in FF9 and came at the last minute as the final boss. We got an actual buildup for Meteion, and saw her turn into what she became, you cannot equate the two.

It's not just the events at Elpis that establish Meteion's character either. It's everything building up to this from all of the stories, and as the cause of the "Final Days" Meteion being the final boss is the last piece of the puzzle that explains pretty much everything.

Why are the ascians going around teaching everyone to summon primals? To bring back their god, Zodiark, which we later find out is done by causing calamities.
Why do calamities bring them closer to their goal? Because the world was broken into pieces and the calamities are part of putting it back together, which will put Zodiark back together.
Why was the world broken into pieces? Hydaelyn was summoned to do it, because Zodiark was a cruel god who demanded sacrifices to keep running.
Then where did Zodiark come from? He was created to be a deified embodiment of the planet so that it could stop a total global apocalypse by stabilizing the whole thing.
Then what caused the apocalypse? The Meteia sent out by Hermes to find life on other planets who found only death. Hydaelyn also knew about this and breaking up the world and keeping Zodiark around but sealed up was all part of combating this from the beginning.

The idea this is even remotely similar to Necron or Zeromus is laughable, because the whole story doesn't make sense without something in that place to cause it all.

Edit: Also, Fandaniel was barely any more fleshed out than Meteion was. He was only added in 5.4, and until the same scenes in Elpis and his flashback to being Amon he was just a generic crazy guy who wanted everyone to die. Additionally, he has his own purpose to serve being a mirror to our character (he identifies more as Amon after being pieced back together by the other ascians and not as Hermes, just as we don't see ourselves as Azem) that would not work as well if he somehow was the cause of the Final Days himself, not to mention the question of how they would make that even possibly work.

[Flay_wind]

Knowing the origins of your boring generic doomsday villain does not make it any less of a boring generic doomsday villain.