Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[Hatfright]

Depends on your perspective, is Meteion winning really such a bad thing? Is there any point to saving a planet that has seen countless slaughters and evils from different species living there and will continue to do that even after this threat has been dealt with? Is it really worth it?

"Why not let Reapers harvest the whole galaxy every 50k years, we're going to die or eff ourselves anyway".

[MikkoAkure]

Each to their own, I guess. To me, Venat is one of the most sinister villains in a Final Fantasy game to date. Others are free to believe otherwise.

That's a hot take considering EW also has Hermes, who is the actual person behind everything bad that happens, regains his memories as an Ascian, and decides to revive the Final days and permanently kill everyone and destroy the universe once his bosses are dead. I feel like people are unhappy with their predictions or expectations of EW not coming true so they're trying to come up with reasons to justify their distaste of Venat to make themselves feel better.

What specifically about Venat is deliberately "sinister"? Do people think that she had it out for the Ancients this whole time and took advantage of Hermes' plan in order to destroy their civilization? In order to be a "sinister villain" you would expect a character to willingly do something evil as a part of their plan. Where is that for Venat?

Zodiark needed to be summoned. According to Venat, the success of Zodiark hinged on Fandaniel's understandings of celestial aether and dynamis. Hermes is also the only Ancient to our knowledge who created something out of dynamis, so it would stand to reason that he is potentially more knowledgeable than the others. Fandaniel also needed to not know the future or else he would go back to allowing the world to be destroyed again.

We have to take it at faith that a character who used to be on the Convocation who exists in a society that we aren't a part of made the right decision to her. Either way, I hope they have Tales from the Dawn that enlighten us more on that series of events from Venat's point of view.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Yes, she should have stood by and let the Ascians destroy themselves and let Meteion win. That would have solved ALL their problems. I'm not saying what Venat did was "good", but it was more a situation of, if she didn't, then the Ancients, unable to move forward, would continue to sacrifice their people in an attempt to get back their old world. And they would have doomed themselves. The most they were doing was stalling their own demise. Plus, she wasn't alone. In ShB, it was made quite clear she had a lot of supporters who also made sacrifices to give mankind a chance.

Them continuing to sacrifice is pure headcanon. There’s nothing hinting towards that at all. The 3rd sacrifice was to bring their people back, what reason would they have to continue sacrificing? She also didn’t have a lot of supporters. Pretty sure it’s mentioned to have been about a dozen, of whom she didn’t even tell what her actual plans were which we have proof of due to anamnesis.

As far as this expansion goes though, i do heavily agree it was played safe. There were basically zero long lasting consequences despite this being an apocalypse that one almost destroyed the entire planet. We only see the actual final days occur in two zones, whereas we merely see a few blasphemies pop up in eorzean zones. Pretty sad as many people were expecting more considering the trailer had the entire eorzean map on fire.

[Cleretic]

'It turns out the benevolent-seeming good god was evil and has to be given the smack-down to stop them' is such a cliche plot point that it would've been a genuine disappointment to see them go for that. Like, at this point it's actually a plot twist for a god like that to NOT be secretly evil.

I genuinely love that they went for an angle of her ultimately still being altruistic, well-meaning and good to the world we live in, it's just that she had to do something unfathomably horrible to make it all happen. I've not really seen that angle before, and I enjoy it.

[Wiccan026]

[[Warning: Major spoilers for Endwalker, please don't read as I don't want to spoil the story for anyone.

So it really bothers me that Square Enix played it rather "safe" with this story. I came into the story hoping that Hydaelyn was actually going to be the villain of the story all along and we have been doing her bidding because we were "tempered" to her. I think they really did hint at this in Shadowbringers.

But no, she's a good girl all along and I really feel let down with this, feeling Square went for the "safe" option narratively. I think it really could have made this game a masterpiece in the vein of FF7 or FFIX if Hydaelyn had been evil, in an "Overprotective Helicopter Parent" sort of way and we had been forced to serve her the whole way through the game in a very "meta" sort of way as this is an MMO.

I certainly felt like that as I met plenty of characters I was doing stuff for that I simply did not care about (Tataru for example) and I felt the limited narrative choices in the story were hinting that we were under Hydaelyn's control and that's why Ifrit could not temper us.

I kind of feel a bit disappointed with this rather safe story. Its NOT badly told, infact I commend its writing but it just feels a little generic, especially with Metion just turning up from nowhere to be the "big bad".

I don't think saying they chose to go the "safe" route by doing what they did with the story.. The more I've seen of this part of Endwalker I'd argue they had most of the story written and decided before it got too far.. so I'm not sure how much they honestly could have changed. Also, considering their was always a camp of hate Hydelen since before Shadowbringers (and shadowbringers really brought the crowd more traction) so saying by doing that wouldn't be a "safe" story isnt something I'd agree with either.

Also, Metion being the big bad, while not fully visible from the start, isn't entirely "out of left field"... it's a twist on final fantasy after years in a way (which endwalker has very strong ties and references too), but she was connected too and was created by Fandieal who actually was revealed to also be Amon and thus have very strong ties to several parts of final fantasy.

[Ryaz]

I don't think saying they chose to go the "safe" route by doing what they did with the story.. The more I've seen of this part of Endwalker I'd argue they had most of the story written and decided before it got too far.. so I'm not sure how much they honestly could have changed. Also, considering their was always a camp of hate Hydelen since before Shadowbringers (and shadowbringers really brought the crowd more traction) so saying by doing that wouldn't be a "safe" story isnt something I'd agree with either.

Also, Metion being the big bad, while not fully visible from the start, isn't entirely "out of left field"... it's a twist on final fantasy after years in a way (which endwalker has very strong ties and references too), but she was connected too and was created by Fandieal who actually was revealed to also be Amon and thus have very strong ties to several parts of final fantasy.

I don't even feel Meteion was the big bad. She was mostly just a vessel for what we've truly been fighting against-- the suffering and despair that we face in every day life, looking for a glimmer of hope and happiness. She just happened to be a strong enough empath to contain the emotions of all those dead worlds, their fear, hated and sorrow.

The Ancients biggest problem is that they really were kinda heading in the same direction as some of those other planets. They lacked empathy for living beings, seeing life as fairly meaningless outside of their own, willing to destroy anything they felt didn't benefit the star. They had no way to really deal with the depression that Hermes was feeling and when crap hit the fan, so to speak, they couldn't deal with the Final Days or be content with Zodiark protecting them from the end or trying to find a way to stop it. They were instead obsessed with getting back the world they had and couldn't deal with any form of suffering. Even if Venat told them the truth, I doubt they'd actually try to even find a way to move forward to stop Meteion and instead would have continued down that path.

[sidurgu-12]

I don't even feel Meteion was the big bad. She was mostly just a vessel for what we've truly been fighting against-- the suffering and despair that we face in every day life, looking for a glimmer of hope and happiness. She just happened to be a strong enough empath to contain the emotions of all those dead worlds, their fear, hated and sorrow.

to me ,like a lot of things in ew, shes definitely a grey area where shes both a victim and a villain. though forgiveness isnt off the table. (if i can (sort of) forgive emet, why couldnt i forgive a small birb girl?.... if you think about it elpis meteion must be really tall since emet adjusted our size.)

[nighttimebunny]

I've seen people argue that what Venat did was evil, so I don't think it was that safe. The topics were pretty heavy and dark too.

[KariTheFox]

By sundering the ancients, she is forcing them to live up to thier own ideas about serving the star and then returning to the aetherial sea so that they can be born into new life. Thier civilization was dying already, and the ancients had turned thier back on their role as custodians of the star by wanting to sacrifice its new life to bring back thier own.

Venat is embracing her previous role as Azem, chooses the future of star over her own people. Whether that choice is good or evil is irrelevant because it is ultimately the only way forwards. You can't restore the past, or undo tragedy.

[OhNooo]

By sundering the ancients, she is forcing them to live up to thier own ideas about serving the star and then returning to the aetherial sea so that they can be born into new life. Thier civilization was dying already, and the ancients had turned thier back on their role as custodians of the star by wanting to sacrifice its new life to bring back thier own.

This reminds me of a situation where someone you know or love has fallen into addiction or made choices you don't agree with that's destroying their life/making them sick etc. In the end, that person has to decide to get help. You can't force someone to make a different choice. I don't believe in in taking over someone's body/agency to force them to become clean or choose a different path.

Let me try a different example: I've spoken with people online who are radical environmentalists - they believe we as humans are destroying the planet and that the only way we can make things right is by ending civilization and going back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle. They're the minority in our society as far as how to fix climate change. Let's say they form a small group of supporters and decide that since we are too misguided to stop our ways they are going to force us to become better as humanity by turning off everyone's power and destroying a bunch of technology. Let's say they succeed and the whole world is without power. Millions of people who depend on technology to keep them alive in hospitals end up dying and we end up back in a stone age type of lifestyle. To this small group of supporters, they believe they are doing the right thing and that one day humanity will be better off. Are they the heroes or the villains in this case?