Endwalker's message (spoilers!)

[Hysorn]

Endwalker definitely is behind ShB for me, I think the only moment I really felt anything close to crying was during the talk with Venat on the bridge, and it was more of a lump in my throat than anything where in ShB I came close to tearing up quite a few times.

The message of the story makes sense, wanting to be perfect will always disappoint you in the end because you can't, that is true, we also know that the more comfortable we get, the higher chances we have of developing depression, but that's is just our monkey, tribalistic brains trying to work out life where most of us don't really have to fight for survival day after day and don't have to fear our neighbors invading our lands and killing our tribe, afterall we didn't evolve to just sit and watch TV all day, we evolved to survive. Did every civilization in the galaxy evolved just like humans in the FFXIV universe?
Still though, the story felt way more ARR levels of anime-plot than Heavensward or Shadowbringers.

I don't know, I can't say it really resonated with me all that much, not even if I compare it to the suffering Covid has brought me and my family.

[FrogDog]

Nah, not really. I'm still as hopeless as ever.

[Theodric]

To be fair, FFXIV has always had darker moments - it just so happens that a vocal portion of the community attacks anyone who likes such things whilst demanding that no harm befalls the majority of prominent characters in the story, even those that have arguably reached a point where they could retire or perish in a meaningful way.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The themes for this expansion were very conflicting. To know hope you have to know suffering so an abusive mom decided to decimate the world instead of talking things out with her children so that they would know suffering and in turn know hope but her children already knew hope as that’s what allowed them to summon dad to protect them. Seems a whole lot like a jealous marriage scandal to me. In other words don’t get married.

[FusiaRain]

The themes for this expansion were very conflicting. To know hope you have to know suffering so an abusive mom decided to decimate the world instead of talking things out with her children so that they would know suffering and in turn know hope but her children already knew hope as that’s what allowed them to summon dad to protect them. Seems a whole lot like a jealous marriage scandal to me. In other words don’t get married.

I'll be honest that felt like every excuse every abusive parent tells someone.

Oh my child I beat you so you suffer so you will be brainwashed into my ways and be happy with the fucked up state of the world and just accept things blinding no matter how screwed up the world gets.

Or in my personal case:

Aunt: beats

your going to suffer so you don't go to hell because I "care"

legitly those lines show how fucked up society's adults are in general

[Sylve]

The themes for this expansion were very conflicting. To know hope you have to know suffering so an abusive mom decided to decimate the world instead of talking things out with her children so that they would know suffering and in turn know hope but her children already knew hope as that’s what allowed them to summon dad to protect them. Seems a whole lot like a jealous marriage scandal to me. In other words don’t get married.

Did you even watch the cutscenes? Venat DID talk to the other Ancients. Their response was to suicide into Zodiark.

Their plan was also to hide inside Zodiark long enough for him to fix things and then literally decimate every living thing in order to have their own utopia.

I'd have shot them all too. To bury their heads in the sand waiting for someone else to fix their mess and then genocide a planet all for their own arrogance? Yeah, I'm with Venat on this one lol

[FusiaRain]

Did you even watch the cutscenes? Venat DID talk to the other Ancients. Their response was to suicide into Zodiark.

Their plan was also to hide inside Zodiark long enough for him to fix things and then literally decimate every living thing in order to have their own utopia.

I'd have shot them all too. To bury their heads in the sand waiting for someone else to fix their mess and then genocide a planet all for their own arrogance? Yeah, I'm with Venat on this one lol

The entire world was dying... So they and every living thing was going to die anyway They were making the right choice to use zodiark to save as many as they could but she screwed up then destoryed the world only created way more suffering than their sacrifice would have

[Lauront]

Did you even watch the cutscenes? Venat DID talk to the other Ancients. Their response was to suicide into Zodiark.

Their plan was also to hide inside Zodiark long enough for him to fix things and then literally decimate every living thing in order to have their own utopia.

I'd have shot them all too. To bury their heads in the sand waiting for someone else to fix their mess and then genocide a planet all for their own arrogance? Yeah, I'm with Venat on this one lol

If you're going to be snide about it, at least make sure you know what you're talking about. She did not speak to them about what happened in Elpis. Based on the scene we're shown, she spouted platitudes while their star was dying - an approach Alphinaud and Alisaie learnt did not go down well in Garlemald. What she categorically did not do is reveal anything that went down in Elpis.

Secondly, the star was dying due to unknown causes, which her own faction was none the wiser to - that is why it was never their intention to remove Zodiark. They too sought to "hide inside" Zodiark, whose mere existence protected the star, because he had bought them time for something that eluded their understanding... but for what happened in Elpis. Enough time for at least 12k years. Hence sundering rather than unmaking him. The star was dying beneath the ancients' very feet, so they sacrificed once to restore it, and then again to restore its growth cycle. There was another planned stage to restore the ancients inside Zodiark, but that came after and was to be enacted using a portion of the newly grown life on the star - never specified what it was, but certainly not every living thing on the planet.

For a mercy, we're rid of her now anyway.

The problem with this argument is that

A. If she lost her memories to become a tragic hero, she never would’ve become hydaelyn
And
B. If she did solve it all back then with emet and hythlo, we wouldn’t even exist in the game since the world would be whole.
Somebodies lapse of judgement is what lead to our story now. I’m not saying she was good but not completely bad either. sorry you didn’t like the story , but it’s all we got.

Yup, I think B is ultimately why the writers chose not to have her do it. But then it all comes down to how they handled it via the time travel plot, so /shrug.

[Larirawiel]

I think, the message is comparable to the message about the paradise in the bible. The races that Meteion met tried to create a kind of a paradise. But when they arrived this goal: an existence without pain and suffering, they got bored and destroyed this paradise/let the paradise be destroyed. Like Adam and Eva did.


Cheers