Endwalker's message (spoilers!)

[Theodric]

I don't know how you got this take when the final stretch of The Dead Ends is devoted to how the Amaurotine people would have ended up if they'd had their way with Zodiark.

I don't think that was what was being portrayed, given that the Dragons were said to have a peaceful society only to lose it to an outside invader through no fault of their own. Furthermore, the Ancients devoted their efforts to the benefit of the Star itself.

Heck, the whole theme of Endwalker is to not continually seek the comfort of the past instead of living in the present/looking to the future.

I don't think that holds up when the Scions are brought back to life and a significant amount of time is devoted to mourning Moenbryda, a character who perished almost a decade ago.

The Unsundered had a credible way to restore their loved ones and it is understandable that they would take such a route. If the Scions had given their lives and not been brought back, then such a message would make sense - but in reality, it's the same old tiresome trope of expecting everybody but the protagonists to 'move on' and just roll over and die when they become inconvenient.

I'd say the real message is that you fight to preserve what you can, at any cost, because your loved ones are what matter most in the world - not a bunch of strangers.

[crimsonwitch]

So, take the whole game into consideration. This line of reasoning becomes very flimsy. Why? Because the Ancients have the Echo. They can control it at will. Sure, Hyth and Emet had their memories wiped, but if Venat presented herself and said, "Look into my memories, and the memories of the traveler." They would then see and feel exactly what we felt in Ktsis Hyperboreia. They would see and feel the WoL defending Hythlodaeus. They would see Meteion streaking off into the cosmos.

This power that every Ancient possesses is conveniently sidelined in the most egregious way, since Venat makes use of it just a few quests earlier to see Hermes speaking to Meteion about launching her sisters off into the cosmos. They all possess this ability. To see and experience the memories of others through the environment and their living aether. We ourselves have inadvertently used it to resolve earlier plots in the game hundreds of times. Yet in this instance it had to be discarded so that the narrative could be obeyed, while the writers pray that we somehow don't notice it.

It would have been easy to fix. Just have Venat lose her memory and create Hydaelyn completely of her own volition. OR just have her try it, only for something with the Memory Wiping spells impact how her memories are perceived as well, leading to reasonable doubt. They just had to nip this hole in the bud with one or two lines or one extra cutscene, and they did not. It is insulting.

Oh yeah I definitely think she could’ve just said “look at my memories “ but she didn’t, and that’s how the world become sundered anyways. Idk, somebody dropped the ball a bit with the writing this expansion.

It reminds me of lightning in ff13 when she becomes a god and goes through time. (Which, I think they had two different people writing that sequel lol)

[Lauront]

I don't think that was what was being portrayed, given that the Dragons were said to have a peaceful society only to lose it to an outside invader through no fault of their own. Furthermore, the Ancients devoted their efforts to the benefit of the Star itself.

Even if it were meant to mirror ancient Etheirys, I don't think it's a convincing line of reasoning that it was its inevitable future. Why? Because the ancients were not ultimately given this knowledge to reflect upon and consider whether adjustments to their society were necessary as a result. Again, the scene we're shown is Venat just walking up to a crowd and offering platitudes as the star is dying. Why should anyone take her words seriously at that point? As you say, the dragons did have a paradise of their own, which was robbed from them. The ancients were never given an opportunity on that front. So that whole dungeon scene is easy for me to take as "this looks like that, so it must be the same" attempt and shrug it off with a "meh". Very pretty area, all the same.

My view is that they're trying to resolve the plot in the limited time they've got, want to reconcile the aims of the remaining Ascians/ancients with those of the sundered and Hydaelyn, and obviously did not want to create a different world to what we already have now (or we'd be looking at another ARR scenario), thus they chose this route, where they were all given knowledge that rebirth in the Aetherial Sea would eventually restore, and which they did not have in the original timeline - Venat herself included. The unfortunate side effect is it just comes across as very forced, messy, full of logical holes and unsatisfactory to many of us. There were other issues I had with the plot pacing and writing but that was by far and way the main one. So I guess they would rather we don't look too closely at it and take it for what it is.

[RoroCookies]

Someone else brought up in the thread, I don’t remember who otherwise I would quote them. But what really ruined the last zone for me was that not a single society knew about dynamis or was dynamis based instead being aether based. It feels like they just generalized thousands of stars to force them to come to the same conclusion to make Meteion more tragic. I just have a hard time believing that not a single society was capable to fight her off or that all them reached to the idea that dying is the solution.

[Lauront]

This is why a story shouldn't have both time loop and multi timeline, because one of them will not make sense.

Agreed.

So, take the whole game into consideration. This line of reasoning becomes very flimsy. Why? Because the Ancients have the Echo. They can control it at will. Sure, Hyth and Emet had their memories wiped, but if Venat presented herself and said, "Look into my memories, and the memories of the traveler." They would then see and feel exactly what we felt in Ktsis Hyperboreia. They would see and feel the WoL defending Hythlodaeus. They would see Meteion streaking off into the cosmos.

This power that every Ancient possesses is conveniently sidelined in the most egregious way, since Venat makes use of it just a few quests earlier to see Hermes speaking to Meteion about launching her sisters off into the cosmos. They all possess this ability. To see and experience the memories of others through the environment and their living aether. We ourselves have inadvertently used it to resolve earlier plots in the game hundreds of times. Yet in this instance it had to be discarded so that the narrative could be obeyed, while the writers pray that we somehow don't notice it.

It would have been easy to fix. Just have Venat lose her memory and create Hydaelyn completely of her own volition. OR just have her try it, only for something with the Memory Wiping spells impact how her memories are perceived as well, leading to reasonable doubt. They just had to nip this hole in the bud with one or two lines or one extra cutscene, and they did not. It is insulting.

Yep, so at that point you're left with one possible rationale - preservation of the original timeline. They are basically forcing it in that direction and for me, it doesn't help me sympathise with the way she's handling it.

[Caurcas]

Meteion is the worst part of the whole expansion. They should've went with the sound being more of a "the dark beyond the stars" thing.

[KitingGenbu]

The writing was great individually for the most part, but it really did feel either 'rushed' or they had to fill in a bunch of 'plot holes' after killing zodiark (which I feel created new plotholes tbh).

I'm sure we can all agree how great Emet-Selch is though.

[Vahlnir]

The writing was great individually for the most part, but it really did feel either 'rushed' or they had to fill in a bunch of 'plot holes' after killing zodiark (which I feel created new plotholes tbh).

I'm sure we can all agree how great Emet-Selch is though.

For me it felt rushed up until Garlemald, then the pace slowed again. We were going from place to place doing this and that and, quite frankly, it was a bit overwhelming. lol We didn't really have the time to sit back and enjoy ourselves through Labyrinthos or Thavnair initially. We went there, did a few things and left again. Garlemald was where they started taking the time to flesh out a zone through various quests. It quickened again at random points after that but it wasn't anything I would consider jarring.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I couldn’t really get emotional for anything because i knew like, the scions weren’t going to die. It’s why i felt the ending portion where they’re all saying their goodbyes and sacrificing themselves was kind of poor taste. This games theme has always been about sacrifice for the greater good and even this expansions main theme talks about loss, yet that hasn’t applied to the main cast in forever. Hard to get emotional at their goodbyes when i know they’ll be back in 10 mins. I think the only slightest bit of emotion i felt was when we see shiva appear at the final boss of the 89 dungeon and it’s mainly because i thought it was a very creative callback to syrcus tower. I couldn’t really get excited about Zenos because he just had no purpose in the story, but i will say him showing up at the end was kind of an anchor to make the story feel a bit…normal? Because honestly from the moon and onwards the game started feeling like a bad fever dream. Especially post elpis.

[Iscah]

I'm sure we can all agree how great Emet-Selch is though.

Hythlodaeus is way better than Emet-Selch. :P

He seems like someone I'd actually want to spend time with. Emet works as a character but doesn't feel like a friend.