What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Rulakir]

He's just hyping himself up for what he feels will be dark and it's just...not. Venat will be a tossup. I know he loves Emet and will love Hythlodaeus but he is sort of stupid about any female character who has any kind of sass, so I think he'll let her pass.

He already said during his ShB playthrough that he would've been #TeamHydaelyn, so I'm not expecting much critique for her unless something in EW changes his mind. Plus, I think most of us who ended up not liking Venat actually did during Elpis, she was likeable until the end of it.

I am fully expecting him to comment on the fact that nothing bad happens to the protagonists (again). They haven't suffered any losses since HW and he already had a problem with it in SB. (Personally, I thought Gosetsu and Yotsuyu should've stayed dead after Doma Castle.)

I'm not a long time viewer, more so every now and then whenever he'd pop up in my feed for WoW related things, but I've been watching more since he's been playing FFXIV and have enjoyed his perspective.

[Teraq]

Ah, I see you also Twitter and no, it hasn't changed. The amount of art and fanfic I've seen on there depicting him as some uwu, gentle, misunderstood Romeo has been something else .

I have (largely lurked on) the Meteion network indeed (and actively posted on the main subreddit until EW, now I'm just subscribed to /r/ffxivdiscussion and the quintessential /r/TalesFromDF). And yes, it's the main reason why I have stopped browsing for Ascian/Ancient fanart. That just... reaaally did not jive with me.

tbh one of my first reactions to Hermes was "I feel like this is Batman's The Killing Joke but it's missing the point", i.e. ultimately the point of that story (along with Batman himself being kind of unhinged) is that while yes, the Joker has a tragic backstory, what he became afterwards is entirely on him, it isn't society's fault, and he doesn't succeed in driving Gordon insane because that isn't really how this works. And I really feel like EW did not do that, or at least, not plainly enough, as Brinne brought up re: the unabashedly positive treatment of Venat is indeed more egregious compared to how Fandaniel ends up. As a result, it kinda feels like Hermes lives in a society, bottom text

[Theodric]

I always found the 'Team Hydaelyn' and 'Team Zodiark' thing to be pretty strange. Especially when it was conveniently made to be the case where Zodiark was little more than an empty husk by the end of things despite contributing more to the safety and preservation of Etheirys overall than Hydaelyn.

I also found it odd that many of the same posters who stated that they couldn't possibly support the Ascians due to the genocide that came with the Rejoinings now insist that genocide is fine, actually, so long as 'mommy' is the one partaking of it.

My respect goes to those who at least stood firmly by their red lines and backed away from Venat when it was revealed that not only was the Sundering deliberate, she's indirectly responsible for the Rejoinings as well.

I'm the sort of guy who just wants to indulge in a fun game first and foremost. I loathe this game's laughably preachy tone at times - especially with the increasingly childish approach to mature subject material. (Why are we sending kids to go and negotiate with grizzled soldiers and desperate civilians who have lost absolutely everything that they care about...?)

Yet if the game's going to take such an approach, then I'd at least like it to be consistent - but it never is, because the same things that the antagonists are criticised for are excused when the protagonists embrace them. That isn't 'grey morality'. It's just hypocrisy - and it isn't even called out as such most of the time.

[Skyborne]

On another note, I wonder what made the writers have the Watcher be a faceless construct-creation and not an actual Unsundered character. If the three ascians could escape through a little crack, this 'researcher friend' of Venat's who could have perhaps been a strong mage who was in the know about some things could have similarly escaped and then agreed to a long lonely 12k year vigil for the sake of the planet. Would've been interesting to see how a flesh-and-blood person would react to all of this and what their thoughts were, while being neutral/skewing toward Hydaelyn.

Don't think it would have gone against the 'muh themes' hard to have a not-FuSoYa hanging out on the moon, while also still throwing Ancient fans a little bone. His goals would shift from watching Zodiark, to watching over Etheirys now that the Sundered inherited it. Also I could teleport over, /hug him at any time, and go "Thank you for surviving everything".

Also, I stand by liking the loporrits even if there was a bit too much attention on them that could've gone elsewhere... like on Zodiark himself. I don't know how horrendous their EN voices were, but their JP ones were adorable.

[Teraq]

Also, I stand by liking the loporrits even if there was a bit too much attention on them that could've gone elsewhere... like on Zodiark himself. I don't know how horrendous their EN voices were, but their JP ones were adorable.

Nothingway ranks up there with the Ea lying flat by the pond, the Plentyperson choosing death and Shinryu-Zenos just arriving in Ultima Thule and having already had enough with Meteion drawing breath on the great scale of Endwalker character relatability.

Guess we'll just hang around until the world ends again then, whoop dee doo

[Rulakir]

Zepla was pretty positive towards Hydaelyn and Venat after Elpis tho, as has been pretty much all the streamers and content creators I’ve seen.

She changed her stance after the fact, yes. She doesn't tend to read chat when she's playing, so the reactions at the time were more authentic. As far as I know she only streams FFXIV, which has a community notorious for not accepting criticism, and she's been invited to interview Yoshi-P. She's not going to burn those bridges. Even still, she's continuously said she wants a happy "no more tears" ending for the Ancients.

I don't watch a lot of other streamers. I enjoyed Rich Campbell before he did an abrupt about face sometime in ShB because people in his audience were threatening to have his sponsorships removed on ethical grounds because he was pro-Ascian at the time. He was also invited to interview Yoshi-P. I tried watching some of his EW playthrough and it's just a gushy mess that doesn't sound authentic. I suspect that's going to be the case for anyone to whom FFXIV streaming is a significant source of revenue and even moreso if they have a history of being involved with SE, it's not in their professional best interests to be critical.

[tokinokanatae]

I agree with all of this, but I was still left with the impression that we were supposed to sympathize with him and that he wasn't any worse than any of the other Ascians/Ancients. I'm not able to look it up at the moment, but I got the same impression when Yoshi-P was comparing Hermes and Venat in the LL.

In fairness to Yoshi-P, I thought he came down pretty firmly on "nope" when Hermes was being discussed as the "most human" of the Ancients in the voice actor roundtable from a while back.

As a true-blue Hermes fan, though, I have to admit I don't find his treatment any more egregious than the sympathy extended to other people like Yotsuyu or even Emet-Selch. My only problem with the montage was really more that Elidibus wasn't there--though he's continuing on through the patches, so even that has an explanation.

[PawPaw]

I enjoyed Rich Campbell before he did an abrupt about face sometime in ShB because people in his audience were threatening to have his sponsorships removed on ethical grounds because he was pro-Ascian at the time.

Wait, wait. This is what happened? I stopped watching him pretty quickly because I just can't with his stalling and tangents, but I did remember him being a huge fan of the Ascians. I didn't know he'd been bullied about it in any kind of seriousness. Ah well.

[Teraq]

I enjoyed Rich Campbell before he did an abrupt about face sometime in ShB because people in his audience were threatening to have his sponsorships removed on ethical grounds because he was pro-Ascian at the time.

I, uh, what? I thought this sort of weird moral puritanism was a terminally-on-Twitter beast, not something I would associate with the Twitch crowd. Gross.

As a true-blue Hermes fan, though, I have to admit I don't find his treatment any more egregious than the sympathy extended to other people like Yotsuyu or even Emet-Selch. My only problem with the montage was really more that Elidibus wasn't there--though he's continuing on through the patches, so even that has an explanation.

I wouldn't really liken him to Yotsuyu to be honest; Yotsuyu is more of an outright villain who revels in her sadism, and the sympathy largely comes during her amnesia, which is a situation that everyone (in and out of universe I think lol) was uncomfortable with because it added a degree of wrongness to punishing her. The fallout from that and resentment among the Doman is addressed in the role quest and given some closure, I felt. Unfortunately, Ancients right now aren't in the best position to discuss Hermes anymore.

(Speaking of Pandaemonium, I do hope this is indirectly addressed by Themis witnessing a bunch of purely man-made horrors and suffering, thinking "bullshit, you don't speak for all of us" and going on to save the entire planet and fight on to bring them all back for 12,000 years anyway. But still, this will only ever be indirect.)

[Theodric]

I, uh, what? I thought this sort of weird moral puritanism was a terminally-on-Twitter beast, not something I would associate with the Twitch crowd. Gross.

Twitch has - like so many other sites - unfortunately been compromised. Both in terms of how it chooses to moderate and the sort of users that the platform allows to gather together and enforce narratives.

I wouldn't consider this site to be perfect but at least if there's death threats or coercion attempts made then the moderators at least have the decency to step in.