Endwalker does a lot of things right, but the final story arch is such a failure imo

[SquigglesMajor]

To be honest the whole Elpis journey cocks up the plot royally, and further proves why you do not mess with time travel in your writing. We're told that it'll be impossible to interact with the timeline. That's a great start. Time travel is more like rewinding a video, and isn't going to fall into any plot holes...and then 5 minutes in we throw out all the rules. They offer no explanation as to why the WoL refuses to discuss who they are, which we end up doing anyway.

Did I somehow miss it, or was Kairos never mentioned until it literally showed up out of no where? That could not be more convenient that a memory wiping machine just happened to be sitting around. Meteion flies away but I thought the whole reason we couldn't do that was because we were technically indoors. Where is she flying off to? They don't explain what a spatial confluence is. I guess it's breaking the wall to get outside of Ktisis Hyperboreia. What is the point of the diversion if Emet can break it open by snapping his fingers? Why did Emet and Hythlodaeus stand around waving at us while we escaped? There is no reason Argos could not have swooped in and carried them out with us. Hermes made absolutely 0 attempt to prevent us and Venat from escaping, they all just sat around and let their memories get wiped.

Hermes and even Meteions motives are either very weak or poorly explained. We're supposed to believe that the two people who value all life more than anything, would in a matter of minutes decide "Let's not even bother trying to learn from the mistakes of other people and kill everyone right now instead." Thank God Emet's there to say that's complete bullshit.

Venat is supposed to be the opposite of Hermes. We're supposed to believe that she has faith and hope. Yet Venat came to the same conclusion as Hermes, that we are doomed unless we struggle and despair. She doesn't try to avert the final days in any way, and takes it upon herself to decide who should live and who should die. Then there's the post cutscene which comes out of nowhere attempting to retcon the sundering again. We're shown that Venat, before Zodirak, before becoming Hydaelyn, during the middle of the final days was when she sundered the world. That's not possible so...what was that cutscene all about? They're trying to convince us that we had to be sundered in order to save us, but there is never a compelling argument for why that's true. We're told it was to utilize dynamis, but we never learn or use it. We accidentally use it when Thancred is unmade, but that's such a specific one use for dynamis that we have no control over, that Hydaelyn could've never predicted we would need. Hydaelyn actively chose to withhold vital information to the survival of the star. Maybe she truly thought it was impossible for us to defeat Meteion. Then the whole sundering in order to better fight against her makes no sense, and she would have never even considered allowing us to fight even if we did beat her.

[KageTokage]

Kairos is off-handedly mentioned as being originally conceived as a tool for "adjusting" unruly creations to see if they can be made more serviceable so they don't have to be unmade entirely.

That post-Elpis cutscene isn't meant to be taken literally and is just a very condensed version of the events that transpired after the Final Days. I'd agree they really needed to show more of said events, though.

[SquigglesMajor]

That post-Elpis cutscene isn't meant to be taken literally and is just a very condensed version of the events that transpired after the Final Days.

I'd agree they really needed to show more of said events, though.

By why would it not be literal? I know it can't be but that makes no sense to have a dramatization of fictional events within the game. You could just show us what actually happened. We don't need to see the entire timeline, but they could have shown us actual snippets of Venat becoming Hydaelyn, Zodirak being born, and the real fight that created the sundering. There isn't anything in the game that suggests what we're about to see is supposed to be theatrics. It's played entirely straight and seriously. If they wanted it to be a sort of dramatized version of events then they need to provide context for what they're doing. Otherwise all they're doing is contradicting themselves, and telling a false story. The real events would have been far more interesting.

[RyuDragnier]

It's not literal because there was an amount of time between each sacrifice. The Sundering happened before the third sacrifice could be made. All we really saw was essentially Hythlodaeus going off to be part of the original sacrifices, and then it skipped to Venat talking to people before Sundering. Meaning there is a huge gap of time there not shown or mentioned.

[Cleretic]

There's no point in showing 'and then time passed' several times over because:
A: It should be fairly self-evident for people who were paying attention,
B: It would break up the momentum of the scene,
C: The only relevant thing that happens in between those moments is a scene that we've already seen and can trust everyone remembers (specifically, the meeting in Anamnesis Anyder we saw a recording of in 5.2),
and D: would require extra resources for little purpose (specifically, you'd need an entire 'banged-up and ruined but not underwater or on-fire Amaurot' for the argument before the second sacrifice).

It's okay to just say you didn't get it, there's a fair few people who didn't expect it and so weren't quite prepared to digest it in that way, but that's not a problem of the game.

[Rulakir]

Maybe I should just start keeping a list as to how this could've been done better.

1) The sundering should not have been made intentional.
2) Venat should have lost her memories.
3) The WoL should've remained in spectator mode and not been able to interact with anyone or anything.
4) Failing the above, Elpis should've ended in an alternate timeline.

There's just no way to rectify 1) the sundering being intentional, 2) Venat knowingly not doing anything differently, and 3) the WoL being directly involved.

[Lurina]

Maybe I should just start keeping a list as to how this could've been done better.

1) The sundering should not have been made intentional.
2) Venat should have lost her memories.
3) The WoL should've remained in spectator mode and not been able to interact with anyone or anything.
4) Failing the above, Elpis should've ended in an alternate timeline.

There's just no way to rectify 1) the sundering being intentional, 2) Venat knowingly not doing anything differently, and 3) the WoL being directly involved.

Agreed. You can justify any individual part with some headcanoning, but in aggregate it collapses under its own weight.

[OhNooo]

The best thing about this expansion for me was the music. They absolutely nailed it with the music. I admit that EW felt like a step down for me story wise. It really felt rushed in several parts but then dragged on in other parts. As the conclusion to the whole arc there were some high points for sure, but they were sprinkled in sparingly and I finished the msq with more questions than when I started Shb. HW is still my favorite expansion as far as the story goes.

Unpopular opinion but I feel like I had way more fun with this game back in SB when I was skipping cutscenes. My favorite 24 man raid tier still to this day came out of SB.

[SquigglesMajor]

It's not literal because there was an amount of time between each sacrifice. The Sundering happened before the third sacrifice could be made. All we really saw was essentially Hythlodaeus going off to be part of the original sacrifices, and then it skipped to Venat talking to people before Sundering. Meaning there is a huge gap of time there not shown or mentioned.

There's a difference between it being something metaphorical and just being a lie. Obviously we know it's wrong but they play it completely straight face and make no effort to explain why they are showing an incorrect version of events. At that point it's literally just lying for no reason.

[SquigglesMajor]

There's no point in showing 'and then time passed' several times over because:
A: It should be fairly self-evident for people who were paying attention,
B: It would break up the momentum of the scene,
C: The only relevant thing that happens in between those moments is a scene that we've already seen and can trust everyone remembers (specifically, the meeting in Anamnesis Anyder we saw a recording of in 5.2),
and D: would require extra resources for little purpose (specifically, you'd need an entire 'banged-up and ruined but not underwater or on-fire Amaurot' for the argument before the second sacrifice).

It's okay to just say you didn't get it, there's a fair few people who didn't expect it and so weren't quite prepared to digest it in that way, but that's not a problem of the game.

It's ok to admit that you're wrong, or that a scene is bad. That's a really poor jusitification "oh you just don't get it". The story is what the present to us. Making assumptions is just called head canon. Yes it is a problem of the game that it's piss poor at telling it's story. It doesn't matter what their intention for the story is if they aren't able to actually tell it in a way that makes sense or expresses what they want to tell. That is literally the entire responsibility of the game. You could have super easily set up a series of true memories showing the actual events as we passed through time and flew by crystals. They could have just shown brief moments of time reflected in the crystals. You'd need maybe one or two character models that they already have and a simple background.