Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[Yuella]

besides, the "seemingly benevolent god turns out to be evil" trope has already been used in FF10

[Yuella]

They have made it clear what the interpretation should be. In this game (not real life), societies who reject suffering would end up depressed and nihilistic. If Hydaelyn didn't sunder the star, they would end up like the third group in the final MSQ dungeon (the one who asked Ra-La to kill them all). They would not even need Meteion to end them. They would ask Zodiark to grant them their gentle death.

[Garnetiferous]

the anti-sundering people are like spoilt rich kids who got their credit cards cut off by their parents. without the sundering, humanity would not have gone through the trials necessary to understand that suffering is part of life and accept it / rise above it instead of crying to Zodiark like those ancient losers in the post 87 flashback.

sometimes rich parents need to cut off their kids' financial supply to teach them how to go through the struggles of life.

People really need to stop attributing real life personality traits to people based on opinions about a video game. Thankfully this isn't as bad as the nazi thing but come on.

I personally believe we need more information about the time frame around the sundering before I can judge whether Venat truly needed to sunder the world.

[sidurgu-12]

People really need to stop attributing real life personality traits to people based on opinions about a video game. Thankfully this isn't as bad as the nazi thing but come on.

I personally believe we need more information about the time frame around the sundering before I can judge whether Venat truly needed to sunder the world.

that was painful to read after a while.

[vormela]

Yes, it is narratively easier to deal with Hydaelyn not tempering the main character. And maybe at some point the story was going to go that direction. However, it has been years that people put their trust into this game and it is also a turbulent, scary time in IRL. FFXIV first started right after or during the 2011 earthquake/tsunami. Since its inception, the creators have been aware that people take comfort in visiting this world. And yes, I think talking crystals are creepy, and there were hints at her "being evil," (your option to express your loss of faith in her aboard the ship at the beginning of Endwalker shows that it is justified for the main character to feel that way) but my disbelief can go on suspended somehow.

But even still, I thought the message of the story and how it happened was explained pretty thoroughly. Like the scions in Ultima Thule, the four of you in Elpis are forced by Meteion to confront your beliefs and learn that you must counter the song of oblivion because there will always be suffering of some kind, no matter how "good" of a person you are.

Here is what she said, and she looked directly at the characters who held those beliefs. You can watch the cutscene after Ktisis Hyperboreia to see who despaired the most at each outcome. They could sympathize with the goals and so they are hurt upon hearing the outcome (Meteion's answer).

Hermes: Ere our fates become the province of others, I bid you tell me...just one thing.
Hermes: Was there happiness in those distant stars?
Hermes: Was there a reason for living?

Meteion: We conducted our search as per your instructions.
Meteion: We scoured historical records. Communed with the spirits of the deceased.
Meteion: Heard the final testaments of the dying. Welcomed their shadowed hearts into our own.

Meteion: One race had striven to create a world bereft of animosity.
Meteion: They renounced relationships to avoid interpersonal strife, and in so doing brought about societal collapse.
Meteion: One race had renounced war and devoted itself to the enrichment of its people.
Meteion: They were conquered. Though they destroyed the enemy in reprisal, they could not regain their former glory.
Meteion: One race had concluded that finite time was the root of all woes. Aspiring to shatter its shackles, they went in search of infinity. Meteion: They discovered nothing is infinite, and that neither time or death can be cheated. Disillusioned, they gave up on the future─and themselves.
Meteion: One race had discarded all things that gave rise to sorrow, hoping to have only joy.
Meteion: They found joy lost its savor in the absence of sorrow, and lost their will to live.

Meteion: Though worlds apart, these peoples shared a belief. The belief that they had tried their best.
Meteion: That they had tried to fulfill their potential, with every step and success.
Meteion: In the course of which they learned the truth.

[vormela]

(and, of course, her answer to eternal suffering was the song of oblivion...they had to find their own answers to make life worthwhile and meaningful)

This is why I think back and forth, Venat is bad, Emet-Selch is bad, Hermes is bad...is not helpful. The game paints their motivations and reasoning out very clearly. It is, in fact, not easy to paint them out this clearly, and yet they have.

There are ways to read the subtext of stories as well, and I don't mean to sound condescending because people have different levels of interacting with the story. But this is how it is presented in-game over and over again, in the actual text. Discussions are interesting when people are engaged and read into the subtext. But in not presenting flat-out evil characters the game kind of forces you to go beyond "person is evil" and actually ask questions and try to empathize. Not sympathize! Empathize.

The main character is only a paragon of "goodness" because the people around them keep talking about their good deeds and traits that make them a good ambassador and respectful, successful traveler. We have never met Azem, for example, so have to trust in others' judgment. We believe that story of the volcano because they believe. That doesn't mean their plans, motivations, etc. can't be flawed in some way. And the story seems to have made that point clear several times.

[KizuyaKatogami]

(and, of course, her answer to eternal suffering was the song of oblivion...they had to find their own answers to make life worthwhile and meaningful)

This is why I think back and forth, Venat is bad, Emet-Selch is bad, Hermes is bad...is not helpful. The game paints their motivations and reasoning out very clearly. It is, in fact, not easy to paint them out this clearly, and yet they have.

There are ways to read the subtext of stories as well, and I don't mean to sound condescending because people have different levels of interacting with the story. But this is how it is presented in-game over and over again, in the actual text. Discussions are interesting when people are engaged and read into the subtext. But in not presenting flat-out evil characters the game kind of forces you to go beyond "person is evil" and actually ask questions and try to empathize. Not sympathize! Empathize.

The main character is only a paragon of "goodness" because the people around them keep talking about their good deeds and traits that make them a good ambassador and respectful, successful traveler. We have never met Azem, for example, so have to trust in others' judgment. We believe that story of the volcano because they believe. That doesn't mean their plans, motivations, etc. can't be flawed in some way. And the story seems to have made that point clear several times.

Tbh ignoring all of the venat bad emet bad stuff for a second, one of my beyond biggest gripes this expansion is just how absolutely biased the story is in favor of Venat/Hydaelyn. We’re told and shown basically that…Zodiark saved the world, essentially twice, once during the final days and then again with the whole meteion shield, and Elidibus basically sacrificed himself to help us go back in time yet…they don’t even get a passing mention for what they did. It’s all venat venat venat. She gets her own minion depicting her as a hero, the whole minstrel’s ballad paints her as this tragic heroic figure….so where is all this attention for Zodiark? It’s just a very strange double standard in how we’ve treated Zodiark and Elidibus vs her.

[Cleretic]

Tbh ignoring all of the venat bad emet bad stuff for a second, one of my beyond biggest gripes this expansion is just how absolutely biased the story is in favor of Venat/Hydaelyn. We’re told and shown basically that…Zodiark saved the world, essentially twice, once during the final days and then again with the whole meteion shield, and Elidibus basically sacrificed himself to help us go back in time yet…they don’t even get a passing mention for what they did. It’s all venat venat venat. She gets her own minion depicting her as a hero, the whole minstrel’s ballad paints her as this tragic heroic figure….so where is all this attention for Zodiark? It’s just a very strange double standard in how we’ve treated Zodiark and Elidibus vs her.

Endwalker focusing a lot of presenting the side of Venat and Hydaelyn isn't ever really an arguable point, but something apparently easily forgotten is that it wasn't something in isolation. The 'pro-Venat/Hydaelyn' angle in Endwalker is ultimately a counterpart to the 'pro-Convocation/Zodiark' angle in Shadowbringers.

So the answer to 'where is all this attention for Zodiark' is 'one to two years and ten to fifteen levels ago'.

[vormela]

I was more replying to the original post.

We start out the game with Hydaelyn. She is a constant thread throughout the story and is what united the scions and strengthened their resolve in many ways, mainly through Minfilia's and Alphinaud's leadership. There are eight years of motivation to explain.

The development from a wooden mask wearing primal worshiped the way they were in the cutscene to whatever Hydaelyn and the bunny ship was may be one giant LEAP (haha pun intended). That could be part of it. She was also a continuation of the mitigation measures Zodiark started out with, so her story is intrinsically tied to his.

Also...Elidibus seems to be involved in the new raids somehow since his voice seems to be narrating the last cutscene of the game. And so I think a lot of the desires you, I, and others have for more of "that side" of the story will play out through the raids. There could be a whole different take on their motivations coming up and it might have little to do with Zodiark. I am still like, "who branded the ascians. Why do they body-hop. Why couldn't they have just summoned Zodiark without becoming ascians and subjecting themselves and the sacrificed people to eternal purgatory. Did they become ascians for another purpose?" We will be in a raid somehow involving the biggest body-hopper to ever walk Etheirys. And also, there is an immortal person with that very problem laying at the edge of the universe after we punched his lights out. Maybe it is premature to think we are done with stuff like that.

[OhNooo]

I wasn't disappointed that Hydaelyn didn't turn out to be "evil." I was disappointed because I kind of went into EW hoping we would end up exploring a "third option" that I felt was hinted at back in Shb since we know Azem left the convocation and also did not respond to Venat's group. It would have been interesting for the writers to touch on something like that. My headcanon right now is that Azem didn't agree with either side and was trying to find a 3rd option.

Tbh ignoring all of the venat bad emet bad stuff for a second, one of my beyond biggest gripes this expansion is just how absolutely biased the story is in favor of Venat/Hydaelyn. We’re told and shown basically that…Zodiark saved the world, essentially twice, once during the final days and then again with the whole meteion shield, and Elidibus basically sacrificed himself to help us go back in time yet…they don’t even get a passing mention for what they did. It’s all venat venat venat. She gets her own minion depicting her as a hero, the whole minstrel’s ballad paints her as this tragic heroic figure….so where is all this attention for Zodiark? It’s just a very strange double standard in how we’ve treated Zodiark and Elidibus vs her.

I also got this impression. Does anyone else notice how the game has sort of taken over our character by having us "react" in certain parts of the story instead of the more general blank face our characters used to have? It made me feel like they were pushing the audience to the conclusion they wanted us to have. All the times we see another character and automatically reach for our weapon like we want to fight...things like that I'm not a fan of. So when we get to Hydaelyn at the end of the 89 dungeon and my character smiles at her and the other Scions look at her with this sort of reverence, it just made me a little annoyed. And the way they portrayed Zodiark in the trial like some monstrous looking being called "Eternal Darkness" and then in the Hydaelyn trial she's this angelic looking being named "Divine Light..." But that "monstrous" looking being actually kept us alive and shielded for 12k years.

I get that they're both neither evil or good, but I definitely feel like there was a bias in how they portrayed Hydaelyn's side.