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

[CrownySuccubus]

We never made a promise to Venat. She made a promise to our WoL, that's all. There is not a single Cutscene where the WoL made a promise. The same happens with Graha he says always we made a promise / he made a promise to us to visit Ishgard together.
I can't find any Cutscene where our WoL made any promise to him or where he made a promise to us. It is kinda irritating. It is like we read a Book and Page 151 is missing.

With Graha, just before he "dies" as the Exarch, he begs the WOL to take his younger self with them on adventures, because he wants to be part of their story. I don't remember exactly how the PC reacts, but it's implied from the scene and the WOL rushing off to give the Exarch's memories to Graha later that the WOL "agreed" to do so.

[Aneshda]

With Graha, just before he "dies" as the Exarch, he begs the WOL to take his younger self with them on adventures, because he wants to be part of their story. I don't remember exactly how the PC reacts, but it's implied from the scene and the WOL rushing off to give the Exarch's memories to Graha later that the WOL "agreed" to do so.

Whatever we said in the "past", where he had been the Exarch, that stays in the past, cause I hate Fanboy Graha so much. I wish we could just refuse to do any Adventure with some of the Scions we dislike.

[EaraGrace]

We never made a promise to Venat. She made a promise to our WoL, that's all. There is not a single Cutscene where the WoL made a promise. The same happens with Graha he says always we made a promise / he made a promise to us to visit Ishgard together.
I can't find any Cutscene where our WoL made any promise to him or where he made a promise to us. It is kinda irritating. It is like we read a Book and Page 151 is missing.

Right she’s referring to her promise to us, as she mentions in the quote you posted.

[Theodric]

If nothing else, it's hilarious to me that Venat was written to be directly and indirectly responsible for pretty much every bad thing that ever happened in the story but the game just expects everybody to ignore that and instead blame the victims of various and entirely avoidable atrocities. It's a lot how when people are at their lowest point the last thing they typically want to hear is to be told to just get over it.

There's such a tonal whiplash with the way in which Garlemald is handled. I brought it up already, but I was dreading smug commentary from the Scions about how they had it coming. Instead, they were treated with dignity and respect. Which just makes it all the more jarring that the same mentality wasn't afforded to the Ancients. Even if we concede that the timeline could not be changed for fear of erasing the Sundered...there's really no reason for at least one or two of the Scions to be disgusted and have a crisis of faith.

Much in the same way as how FFX was made all the more interesting by Wakka's crisis of faith, whilst FFIX had Steiner's conflicting loyalty to Queen Brahne and FFVI had Celes accused of still remaining loyal to the Empire despite her defection.

Such setups allow for excellent drama and dynamics between characters. FFXIV has very little of that. The Scions all agree with each other on pretty much every subject.

[Lauront]

If nothing else, it's hilarious to me that Venat was written to be directly and indirectly responsible for pretty much every bad thing that ever happened in the story but the game just expects everybody to ignore that and instead blame the victims of various and entirely avoidable atrocities. It's a lot how when people are at their lowest point the last thing they typically want to hear is to be told to just get over it.

There's such a tonal whiplash with the way in which Garlemald is handled. I brought it up already, but I was dreading smug commentary from the Scions about how they had it coming. Instead, they were treated with dignity and respect. Which just makes it all the more jarring that the same mentality wasn't afforded to the Ancients. Even if we concede that the timeline could not be changed for fear of erasing the Sundered...there's really no reason for at least one or two of the Scions to be disgusted and have a crisis of faith.

Much in the same way as how FFX was made all the more interesting by Wakka's crisis of faith, whilst FFIX had Steiner's conflicting loyalty to Queen Brahne and FFVI had Celes accused of still remaining loyal to the Empire despite her defection.

Such setups allow for excellent drama and dynamics between characters. FFXIV has very little of that. The Scions all agree with each other on pretty much every subject.

It did feel like at least Y'shtola was veering in that direction (the twins' empathy with Emet-Selch was more visceral but did not seem to trigger the same scepticism that Y'shtola was evincing by 5.5), but then if anything in EW she was the one who just tossed aside her earlier scepticism to Venat.

I both like and dislike Venat. I thought she was a very cool and interesting character, and I loved her charisma.

But I dislike her pseudo-Buddhist "suffering fetishism". The entire Endwalker story, for example, struck me as a constant example of "Perfection Fallacy". We're flat out told that since no civilization can achieve perfection, then they should stop striving for it. The Ea became depressed about the fact that, despite eliminating every other problem on their star, they couldn't do anything about the heat death of the universe, which led to their inevitable demise.

The premise feels laughably juvenile. Real-life academics and skeptics have long accepted the relative meaninglessness and finite measure of life for centuries, and most of them haven't shriveled into a ball of nihilism. Yes, you can't live life without some measure of suffering, but not all suffering is equal, not all suffering has the same consequences, and not all suffering is necessary. My entire problem with Endwalker's plot (and thus Venat's characterization) is that they act like it is.

Agreed, and I think it's all the more ridiculous, because the Scions still aspire to perfectionist ideals, i.e. to minimise suffering, which means that fate will eventually be a potential issue again. I don't fault them for that, but you can't then try hold to that whilst simultaneously justifying, in the story, sundering the world to avoid the Plenty. In fact, some of the impulses of the sundered open up the other worlds shown as possibilities. That is my issue with it. Had they pushed the sundering as the result of a tragic misunderstanding, but which would now come at a very gruesome cost to reverse, at least using Ascian methods (and really, from a practical perspective, requiring something like 1.0->2.0 to pull off beyond that)? I'd accept that. I also think it's a little silly for other reasons - plenty of humans are content to live their lives focused mostly on entirely hedonistic pursuits, yet the way the story is written, we should be heading to a dead end ourselves as we eclipse sources of suffering and are able to focus more on leisure. I remain committed to the idea of doing so, particularly with ills like ageing, and I found the story to be rather juvenile, as you say, in how forced a caricature the Plenty seemed to be... could these individuals not invent ways to keep their minds occupied? Even so, the setting has a star-centric system of reincarnation, so it's not like life on their star wouldn't one day rekindle (Meteion aside.)

[CrownySuccubus]

I also think it's a little silly for other reasons - plenty of humans are content to live their lives focused mostly on entirely hedonistic pursuits, yet the way the story is written, we should be heading to a dead end ourselves as we eclipse sources of suffering and are able to focus more on leisure. I remain committed to the idea of doing so, particularly with ills like ageing, and I found the story to be rather juvenile, as you say, in how forced a caricature the Plenty seemed to be... could these individuals not invent ways to keep their minds occupied? Even so, the setting has a star-centric system of reincarnation, so it's not like life on their star wouldn't one day rekindle (Meteion aside.)

Indeed. The game tries to treat a post-scarcity as its the worst thing ever. Like, if humankind isn't struggling for subsistence, then we're decadent. I think one of humankind's worst self-inflicted tragedies was convincing itself that leisure was not a basic human right.

We live in an age where work is glorified and sanctified above all else. I remember being in a conference recently where they demonstrated that most people who work in office shifts spend about 20% of their time pretending pretending to work or finding some other form of what the speakers called "meaningless work". Just work for work's sake, because otherwise they would be fired or their pay/jobs would be cut. They must "work" even if that work ultimately means nothing.

Leisure is a basic human need that gets a bum rap.

[Brinne]

Indeed. The game tries to treat a post-scarcity as its the worst thing ever. Like, if humankind isn't struggling for subsistence, then we're decadent. I think one of humankind's worst self-inflicted tragedies was convincing itself that leisure was not a basic human right.

We live in an age where work is glorified and sanctified above all else. I remember being in a conference recently where they demonstrated that most people who work in office shifts spend about 20% of their time pretending pretending to work or finding some other form of what the speakers called "meaningless work". Just work for work's sake, because otherwise they would be fired or their pay/jobs would be cut. They must "work" even if that work ultimately means nothing.

Leisure is a basic human need that gets a bum rap.

Personally, I'm pretty sure navigating human relationships and getting immersed in/arguing over one's hobbies (well, hello there, everyone! <_<), along with encouraging interest in things like debate and the arts, would be enough to keep someone's brain occupied and stimulated on a near-perpetual basis - without necessitating the extreme suffering like war, disease, poverty, inequality, what have you. If not, I'm one of those who honestly didn't see anything wrong with the Ancients' death ritual and actually found it really attractive.

[Rulakir]

Nope! I love G'raha. I still hold that I'd push every Scion into the Void if I could pal around with Hyth and Emet for good instead but as Scions go, he's one of the ones I like.

Yay! I do feel somewhat guilty that I wouldn't miss Alisaie since she's one of the WoL's few true friends among the Scions. Since we're stuck with them, I hope they'll give her more time to shine to become more like a Sam to our Frodo (although G'raha could fill that role too). I liked that those two were the ones who ran up to the WoL during the body swap scene (and cried at the end when we 'died'), it just further illustrated who the closest ones to the WoL are.

I don't feel the need to be on the exact same page with my opinions on events or characters as my WoL, necessarily, most of the time.

Exempting Venat who, as you said, was a game-breaker, I've been consistently irritated with how closed-minded my character is. Can we at least hear someone out first (especially strangers!) before scowling and doing the 'come at me' stance? My character is constantly looking to start fights unprovoked. Conversely, how I'm made to act like I cared about Minfilia (my most hated character even over Venat). Fortunately, when it comes to my WoL liking people I dislike it's limited in some way or another whereas the former is a fairly consistent behavior I suspect isn't going to be coming to an end going into future storylines.

I was somewhat surprised that poor Elidibus hasn't moved to the top fave characters yet in the polls - any of them, really. Maybe by the end of Pandaemonium he will.

Poor Elidibus. He's certainly above most of the characters listed in those surveys for me. Also, Sadu is best girl.

I remember being in a conference recently where they demonstrated that most people who work in office shifts spend about 20% of their time pretending pretending to work or finding some other form of what the speakers called "meaningless work". Just work for work's sake, because otherwise they would be fired or their pay/jobs would be cut. They must "work" even if that work ultimately means nothing.

"Look busy" is common in an office setting, especially if any of the top brass are visiting. Everyone has to appear productive. Fortunately, forums are a good way to look like you're doing something. :P

[PawPaw]

Am I the only anti-Venat person who likes G'raha? D:

Nope! I love G'raha. I still hold that I'd push every Scion into the Void if I could pal around with Hyth and Emet for good instead but as Scions go, he's one of the ones I like.

[Lauront]

I was somewhat surprised that poor Elidibus hasn't moved to the top fave characters yet in the polls - any of them, really. Maybe by the end of Pandaemonium he will. I'm glad Hyth and Emet-Selch at least get recognition. Regarding G'raha, I don't like him appearance-wise, and while he was tolerable as the Exarch, he isn't my choice of travelling companion, and I find the fanboyism offputting. I also don't like the writing pushing the idea that I, via my character, "owe" him this. I was hoping for a fresh cast going forwards, but if we're talking about NPCs I am amenable towards, it'd be Arenvald (although he'll need to trade in that wheelchair for a magitek one!), Estinien, Fordola, Hien, Magnai, Sadu, Riol, Jullus, maybe Gaius... even Gaia. I like Thancred, but he's due a retirement. Don't mind Y'shtola but same sentiment. No love for the twins, Tataru etc. I'd really have loved a sundered Overlord travelling companion, if I am honest, particularly with Zodiark and the unsundered now gone - especially if the Reflections are a destination, it'd be interesting to have one as a guide, with a revised agenda, since they were operating there.

All my top choices are gone now (Emet, Hyth, Elidibus, possibly Laha), but it is what it is.