Endwalker's message (spoilers!)

[Jennah]

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.

Which is ESPECIALLY weird since they said that dynamis was much lower on Etheriys than anywhere else, due to its massive Aether supplies.

Also, considering we figured it out at least twice post-Sundering despite being far less advanced - nobody else seems to know about time travel.
Which, if nothing else, would've greatly helped the planets that were more murdered than suicided.

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.

I'd put the EXACT moment the expansion storyline lost me as when Meteion delivered her report. Why in the world did Emet-Selch and Hermes get all murderous over if the report needed to be heard RIGHT NOW? I could see Hermes freaking out and protecting her - but unless Emet somehow intuited this was going to be (again, somehow...) universe ending, his actions make zero sense.
And then the rest of it ... well, either one of two things must be true:
a) Every civilization ever naturally commits suicide - and somehow they've all mostly chosen to do so within the same few decades. OR
b) Meteion killed most of those civilizations herself.
If a is true ... wow, someone at Squeenix is a MAJOR pessimist. And if b is true ... it's a big universe. If one single person can end it that easily, why hasn't it ended long before now?

I kinda liked the bit with the Scions, though. Sure, as soon as we didn't spend any time at all mourning Thancred it was pretty obvious they were coming back - and by the time Urianger added himself to Y'shtola's sacrifice for no real reason it was utterly inconceivable they wouldn't be - but THEY, presumably, didn't know that. It's the thought that counts.

[RoroCookies]

Which is ESPECIALLY weird since they said that dynamis was much lower on Etheriys than anywhere else, due to its massive Aether supplies.

Also, considering we figured it out at least twice post-Sundering despite being far less advanced - nobody else seems to know about time travel.
Which, if nothing else, would've greatly helped the planets that were more murdered than suicided.
.

We’re also taking about societies that knew everything and somehow they didn’t know about dynamis or how to combat it. How was there not one other star in this massive universe that didn’t know about dynamis. I understand they only had one zone to wrap up the story but once a story introduces the universe it should include outliners that would naturally go against the status quo in varies different ways due to planets having their own values and cultures. Instead we got a very human like approach and everyone craves death.

[Rulakir]

The message did not resonate with me, particularly because by comparison the Scions have not suffered. The only two exceptions would be Estinien and (CE) G'raha. The fact that they keep having to dredge up and milk the deaths of ARR characters for all they're worth should serve as evidence of how little the Scions have lost over the years compared to just about anyone else, even the average refugee outside of Ul'dah.

Plus, as someone with depression, I'm not interested in a "suffering is necessary" message. Sign me up for the Ancient life where everyone (except Hermes apparently) was content and had purpose. The attempts to make me see their world as flawed compared to present day... seriously? Even if it did end in oblivion, rather go that way than the current trajectory.

As far as covid, like everyone else who lives in Florida I died in 2020. :P In all seriousness though, outside of 6 weeks of stay-at-home orders and mask mandates in some areas (that haven't been a thing for months now), life here didn't change much. I'm aware it's been a lot more grim elsewhere, but that hasn't been my reality.

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.

It's Minority Report save for the lesson learned at the end. Anyone who hasn't seen the film, the premise is there are psychics who inform authorities when a crime is about to be committed and the person is stopped before committing it, but they discover this method is flawed because it doesn't take into account a last second change of mind. Some people are assuming that the Ancients would end up in the same position as the Ra-la world without that being guaranteed even had nothing changed for them.

As an aside, given most living beings' strong survival instinct, accepting that there were "perfect" (subjective) worlds where the inhabitants decided en masse that they no longer wished to live wasn't something I could easily accept. It would've been fine had it been limited to that one world, but the implication seemed to be that pursuit of perfection = lack of will to live, which isn't realistic or relatable. Because of this, I lean towards Meteion being responsible for the deaths of the worlds she visited. Her exposure to Hermes would've already tilted her dynamis towards the negative, it's within reason to believe that she carried that negativity to every place she visited and warped the dynamis of their worlds to create disastrous outcomes.

[NekiUno]

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.

Totally off-topic, both of them work perfect together but I would love to spend time with Emet because he might be a jagged edge but he will be the first one to help you if you need it.

For Endwalker message: Next time, do not give a loaded question to an entity that can destroy everything and everyone.

[Vahlnir]

For Endwalker message: Next time, do not give a loaded question to an entity that can destroy everything and everyone.

Even Emet-Selch questioned that logic. lol

[Rokke]

The first sacrifice was to form Zodiark and create the barrier between them and Meteion.
The second one we see when Venat confronts the group of Ancients who ignore her pleas and instead of working to make the planet better, suicide into Zodiark so he can "bring perfection back"

Bit of a late correction but that would have been the 3rd summoning that was interrupted. We know from SHB that 2 were successful: the first stopped the end of days, the second kickstarted the planet's ecosystems into being capable of sustaining life again. The 3rd sacrifice would have been an offering of the new life to free the souls involved in the first 2 and thats when the Amaurotines first began to disagree on how to move forward. What we see in the "flashback" is a weird dramatized version of what happened. It didn't play out 1:1 like that.


As for the message of the xpac, while I liked EW overall I will say that they kinda muddied the story with the time loop.
"Bad things happen and life isn't always fair but we need to move on" = good
"Bad things happen and life isn't fair because thats how you said it needed to be, move on" = less good
Others already stated it, but imo the story just needed Venat to have her memory wiped and EW would have played out so much better because it would have set up Zodiark and Hydaelyn as two ways of confronting a terrible thing that one did not foresee....because that was ultimately the point of the end of days. It was a test to see how people would react to a terrible, unforeseen thing.

[Ayuhra]

I have mixed feelings about Endwalker.

Mostly I enjoyed it and some parts were genuinely haunting but we needed this story to happen over a longer period of time.

First off, the themes of loss: There was a lot of loss in ARR and Heavensward but after that not much, not for the WoL. We keep seeing it come up that the WoL has suffered immensely but did they? Their life isn't easy but most of the people closest to them are doing fine. They lost three companions: Haurchefant, Papalymo and Minfilia. Minfilia happened more in the background, Thancred felt that loss the most.

Second, Meteion: A good character on her own but it's hard to fathom that everything that's happened is because of this tiny bird girl we only just met. If there were hints of her in earlier expansions in swallow form or something this would have hit better.

I dunno maybe the story should have been paced differently. Bring us through the end times with the sky on fire and make that the focus of the main story and the Meteion stuff happens in the 6.x content? As is everything felt too hectic for any one story beat to feel impactful. Is it just me?

[Caurcas]

The individual moments were strong, but as a whole it was a rushed and at times confusing mess. Also they really could've cut down on all the monologuing and speeches. Those were far to excessive and made the pacing slow to a crawl. Garlemald was my favorite zone narrative wise, followed by Thavnir. As both of those dealt with very tangible issues. Garlemald specifically was such a atmospheric zone with a story to match. And while I can appreciate Venat's philosophy, Elpis was kind of a mess and Thule was a bit of a shark jump in some regards.

[Clover_Blake]

The message did reasonate with me, for many times the characters seemed to echo my own thoughts, and many times I felt the game was talking to us, the players. I loved it, I think it was greatly done and came in a moment when I personally needed such a story. It surprised me.

For the record, I didn't care about the scions' "sacrifice". It was obvious they'd be back and I don't think they were what mattered at that point. I was just too fascinated by the grim characters and worlds we were finding in our path, and how they reflect several states of the human mind.

To me, this expansion was a masterpiece ( * - * )

[Abelisk]

The message is the WoL has plot armor and always prevails