[Spoiler] Isn't Dark Knight using Akasa ?

[Lyth]

...

What is so 'hasty' or 'contrived' about the discussion about Dynamis' in this expansion? Just because a world-building element wasn't formally discussed in ARR doesn't automatically make it a retroactive change. Any serial work is obliged to expand on itself and introduce new information about the world eventually. There are missing parts of the map. Does it matter when these segments are fleshed out by the writers? Is designing the map as you go along cheating? No, it's irrelevant, as long as you don't go back and redraw areas that we've already seen when it's convenient.

[Theodric]

What is so 'hasty' or 'contrived' about the discussion about Dynamis' in this expansion? Just because a world-building element wasn't formally discussed in ARR doesn't automatically make it a retroactive change. Any serial work is obliged to expand on itself and introduce new information about the world eventually. There are missing parts of the map. Does it matter when these segments are fleshed out by the writers? Is designing the map as you go along cheating? No, it's irrelevant, as long as you don't go back and redraw areas that we've already seen when it's convenient.

You're free to believe differently, though Veloran's post covers much of the constructive criticism being put forward. It need not be a controversy - the writers are free to write whatever they so wish, though that doesn't mean that everybody invested in the story needs to like or agree with absolutely everything put in front of them. Nor does it mean that those same individuals dislike absolutely everything that the expansion brought about.

It strikes me as something to agree to disagree on. Personal tastes are just that - personal tastes. The writers may or may not opt to retroactively change how past story elements played out, though WoW did the same thing and it led to more problems than it solved.

[Lihtleita]

dynamis being misinterperated to be aether is the same as believing the sun is a ball of gas.

[Lyth]

It's not a question whether you enjoy or dislike story elements. That's an issue of personal taste. If someone wants to claim that Dynamis is a retroactive change, however, the burden of proof is on them to show how it contradicts the established facts. Not that it would be necessarily hard to do now or perhaps in the future; it takes significantly more effort to construct an error-free self-consistent continuity that spans ten years of stories than it is to poke a lore hole in it. But at least put in some work before you come to claim your internet points. It's all too easy to imply and allege fault in the writing from a safe distance without actually committing to it.

[KizuyaKatogami]

It's not a question whether you enjoy or dislike story elements. That's an issue of personal taste. If someone wants to claim that Dynamis is a retroactive change, however, the burden of proof is on them to show how it contradicts the established facts. Not that it would be necessarily hard to do now or perhaps in the future; it takes significantly more effort to construct an error-free self-consistent continuity that spans ten years of stories than it is to poke a lore hole in it. But at least put in some work before you come to claim your internet points. It's all too easy to imply and allege fault in the writing from a safe distance without actually committing to it.

People have already put in work and given points on why it is a retroactive change. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t make it any less true.What does internet points have to do with it? It just sounds like you’re upset about other peoples takes on the story elements and deus ex machina inserts and trying to throw things around to make them less relevant. Dynamis is just one of the many faults in the writing this expansion.

[RyuDragnier]

People have already put in work and given points on why it is a retroactive change. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t make it any less true.What does internet points have to do with it? It just sounds like you’re upset about other peoples takes on the story elements and deus ex machina inserts and trying to throw things around to make them less relevant. Dynamis is just one of the many faults in the writing this expansion.

Except it isn't a fault in writing, and its inclusion does not contradict anything. If anything, it explains a lot in hindsight. What Omega was trying to figure out and replicate in the raids, what saved Nero at the end of CT (remember, his corruption vanished after he swore he would not die there and would live on), how we were able to survive a hit from A12's Holy Judgement (our first canonical use of tank LB3), etc etc.

[Theodric]

What does internet points have to do with it?

Yeah, I always end up with a big grin of disbelief whenever I read that particular phrase. It's a discussion forum for a make believe video game, not an Olympic sport for people to 'win'. When I'm in the mood for a bit of competition, I'd rather do something more productive such as indulge in a friendly race or bout of weight lifting.

[KariTheFox]

I just want to point out this was originally a thread about how dynamis could be intregrated into the story as a concept and how it could maybe be applied to old lore retroactively, for people who are interested in the subject.

And it has quickly devolved into people coming in and saying "actually dynamis is shitty writing and I do not like it". You're free to have that opinion, but it is a shame it has completely overshadowed the original point of the thread.

[Lyth]

I'm genuinely interested in seeing how Dynamis is a retroactive change that contradicts established fact. If someone has written a post on this subject and I've missed it, I would love to be directed to it.

[Veloran]

I'm not sure how you can say dynamis "solved problems" when it was quite literally the cause of the final days. If anything it was an antagonistic force that our aether-based characters had to find ways to counteract.

It explained the Final Days and it explained how we stop the Final Days. Narratively that's solving the two biggest problems in the plot with one element.

Also, in the context of Endwalker, it was introduced very early on through the Elpis flowers and in Thavnair, and explored more throughout the Elpis questline before being central to the ending. And even prior to Endwalker, there was a looming question of what unknown force caused the Final Days; and then Endwalker goes on to introduce and explain a previously-unknown force that caused the Final Days; seems like decent enough set up and payoff to me.

Dynamis doesn't get introduced in the eleventh hour, in this story, however.

Endwalker is merely the last chapter in a story that's been running since 1.0. In that context it's only insistently hinted at 85% of the way through the plot, then only formally introduced in Elpis at level 87, at like the 95% point. To tie back to what I linked before, even though Sanderson had hinted at the existence of another magic throughout Mistborn, he recognized that introducing it in the final chapters of the book to resolve the climax was faulty writing.

As Theodric pointed out, it's very easy for people to get too comfortable with the idea of retroactive continuity, and allow themselves to fill in the blanks and explain things away that the writers aren't bothering with. This sort of thing can ultimately end up seriously undermining long-running narratives.

I'm genuinely interested in seeing how Dynamis is a retroactive change that contradicts established fact. If someone has written a post on this subject and I've missed it, I would love to be directed to it.

Attendant to what I was just referring to, consider Ryu's explanation that A12 was our first canonical use of LB3, and thus explained by a use of Dynamis. But consider then that Dynamis is stated to be suppressed and negated by aether - How, then, did we use Dynamis while inside of a Primal, a being composed entirely of aether? Or, consider the idea that sundered peoples' aetherially thin beings are partly composed of Dynamis. If that is so how does anybody teleport, when that is undertaken by transforming an individual into their composite aether, and whisking them through the (obviously incredibly aetherially dense) aetherial sea? And if there is a massive veil of aetherial energy enshrouding the world coming from Zodiark, then how could anybody ever have been able to use Dynamis prior to his destruction? And of course - If LBs are Dynamis, why can the Ancients in Elpis and Elidibus in SoS use LBs?

To be clear here, with this I'm not intending to state that these questions are definitively plot holes. Only that they are unanswered questions raised by the introduction of Dynamis. The issue is, I'm not confident that any such questions will be answered. Because I've previously seen writers get too carried away with utilizing retroactive continuity to the point that questions continue to be raised only for layers and layers of retcons for the sake of "cool writing" to be added over time without clarification ever coming down the line. I'm very nervous about XIV going down such a path, and Dynamis does the opposite of assuaging such concerns.