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

[CrownySuccubus]

It’s less they had to go because they didn’t suffer enough and more that they couldn’t cope with suffering and move on.

In this case, it's the same thing.

As I said, the writers were trying to convey the idea that a life without suffering is either impossible or delusional. That's the entire reason we see the Ancients during the Final Days panicking and longing to go back to the way things were. The argument is that, without a life of suffering to make them "stronger", the Ancients were ill-prepared for when it finally came. Thus, they were doomed to fall into even more delusional and blissfully-ignorant dreams of "utopia" if they ever got their paradise back.

I could spend all day unpacking the faults with this philosophy, why it doesn't quite work as the writers intended, and why it's potentially harmful, but my point at the moment is just to explain why, to the story's logic, the Ancients were painted as "delusional".

[KageTokage]

In this case, it's the same thing.

As I said, the writers were trying to convey the idea that a life without suffering is either impossible or delusional. That's the entire reason we see the Ancients during the Final Days panicking and longing to go back to the way things were. The argument is that, without a life of suffering to make them "stronger", the Ancients were ill-prepared for when it finally came. Thus, they were doomed to fall into even more delusional and blissfully-ignorant dreams of "utopia" if they ever got their paradise back.

I could spend all day unpacking the faults with this philosophy, why it doesn't quite work as the writers intended, and why it's potentially harmful, but my point at the moment is just to explain why, to the story's logic, the Ancients were painted as "delusional".

I am still bothered by the sudden shift in focus from "Sacrificing more lives is bad" to "Not being able to cope with the loss of friends and loved ones is bad".

Confirmation that the Ancients who gave their lives to summon Zodiark were trapped in a state between life and death just made the desire to bring them back seem all the more justified, as being unable to return to the star in a society where doing such was seen as a beautiful fulfillment of one's life and purpose and a privilege would've been profoundly disturbing to them. Tellingly, Elidibus sounds relieved upon hearing that they were finally able to have their peace after Zodiark was destroyed.

Now, if they had been intending to undo all of the damage from the Final Days, including reviving those who had been killed by the disasters and beasts, then would've felt a lot more delusional and like a collapse of their society's values.

They were noted as having unfortunate "work accidents" from time to time, but it seems like they largely just accepted it and moved on and I think as long as they utilized creation magicks some level of suffering was going to be present in their lives.

[CrownySuccubus]

Now, if they had been intending to undo all of the damage from the Final Days, including reviving those who had been killed by the disasters and beasts, then would've felt a lot more delusional and like a collapse of their society's values.

They were noted as having unfortunate "work accidents" from time to time, but it seems like they largely just accepted it and moved on and I think as long as they utilized creation magicks some level of suffering was going to be present in their lives.

As I said, I could literally sit here all day and give a point-by-point list of all the problems with Endwalker's philosophy of "suffering-fetishism", but one of the major ones is exactly as you said. A period of time without major suffering or challenge is, essentially, just a time of normality. Acting as if a life without suffering is bad or makes people weak begs what the alternative should be: should people constantly be striving to make every aspect of life worse, just for the hell of it? If there are no sources of suffering and terror, should we make our own until we eventually get used to that, and then make something even worse just to make sure there's still a prerequisite amount of horror?

Like, if we take the Plenty at face value and assume they solved every problem they ever had, their despair over having nothing left to achieve makes no sense because it presumes that no challenges will ever happen to them ever again. Did no one on their planet invent sports or competition of any sort? Were there no natural disasters? Were there never any asteroid/meteor impact events? Did no one bring up the challenge of expanding offworld and into space? If they were so advanced, surely they could have made contact with other species that were willing to learn from them? I guess we're supposed to assume that their world had eliminated any need or worry about such things, but how or why? That's the thing: the story tells us they achieved a perfect "paradise", but glosses over exactly what that means.

[SeverianLyonesse]

As I said, I could literally sit here all day and give a point-by-point list of all the problems with Endwalker's philosophy of "suffering-fetishism", but one of the major ones is exactly as you said. A period of time without major suffering or challenge is, essentially, just a time of normality. Acting as if a life without suffering is bad or makes people weak begs what the alternative should be: should people constantly be striving to make every aspect of life worse, just for the hell of it? If there are no sources of suffering and terror, should we make our own until we eventually get used to that, and then make something even worse just to make sure there's still a prerequisite amount of horror?

While I do disagree with fetishizing or normalizing suffering as a *necessity*, periods without suffering are actually quite abnormal. They are the improbably infrequent times when peoples manage to collectively pull ahead of a rather harsh and indifferent environment. Which tends to require so much collective education, effort, and care that they are both rare and as fleeting as it takes a generation or two to forget to maintain the edifice supporting them. Not to mention very few--if any--periods of peace or comfort weren't built on the backs of an exploited class.

I appreciate that EW tried to tackle the idea of suffering, and it did inch toward some interesting ideas. But I do think that it fumbled quite a bit and resorted to trite aphorisms to cover up a lack of follow-through. And I think one of the most fundamental missteps it made was painting suffering as *necessary* rather than *inevitable*, two related perspectives with completely opposite implications.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

Acting as if a life without suffering is bad or makes people weak begs what the alternative should be: should people constantly be striving to make every aspect of life worse, just for the hell of it?

Obviously (/s) sleeping on a warm soft bed makes us soft and weak, so we should all move back to caves and sleep on rocks. It builds character or whatever.

[Brinne]

Acting as if a life without suffering is bad or makes people weak begs what the alternative should be: should people constantly be striving to make every aspect of life worse, just for the hell of it? If there are no sources of suffering and terror, should we make our own until we eventually get used to that, and then make something even worse just to make sure there's still a prerequisite amount of horror?

I mean, this is more or less exactly what Venat did, so the answer is unironically yes, apparently?

I guess we're supposed to assume that their world had eliminated any need or worry about such things, but how or why? That's the thing: the story tells us they achieved a perfect "paradise", but glosses over exactly what that means.

I still have a strong feeling that EW came out the way it did in part because the devs were determined to make it as positive and encouraging for the player as possible, given their acknowledgment that so many these days are having a difficult time--but then when you start to think about it, the ultimate message of "things may be hard, and you're a cool and strong person for living in these conditions - but also, did you consider that if your life was better, it'd actually suck?" seems... incredibly tone-deaf.

[AziraSyuren]

In this case, it's the same thing.

As I said, the writers were trying to convey the idea that a life without suffering is either impossible or delusional. That's the entire reason we see the Ancients during the Final Days panicking and longing to go back to the way things were. The argument is that, without a life of suffering to make them "stronger", the Ancients were ill-prepared for when it finally came. Thus, they were doomed to fall into even more delusional and blissfully-ignorant dreams of "utopia" if they ever got their paradise back.

I could spend all day unpacking the faults with this philosophy, why it doesn't quite work as the writers intended, and why it's potentially harmful, but my point at the moment is just to explain why, to the story's logic, the Ancients were painted as "delusional".

I don't think it's the same thing. I think the story was attempting to portray the Ancients constantly trying to undo their suffering rather than living on and learning from it, which supposedly would've led directly to them being unable to stop the Final Days should Zodiark falter. However, we were never actually shown that and just left to infer it from the potential third sacrifice, a few lines of dialogue in the last Elpis cutscene, and the last dungeon in the Dead Ends, so there's not nearly enough reason to believe that that's the case.

[Skyborne]

I don't think it's the same thing. I think the story was attempting to portray the Ancients constantly trying to undo their suffering rather than living on and learning from it, which supposedly would've led directly to them being unable to stop the Final Days should Zodiark falter. However, we were never actually shown that and just left to infer it from the potential third sacrifice, a few lines of dialogue in the last Elpis cutscene, and the last dungeon in the Dead Ends, so there's not nearly enough reason to believe that that's the case.

It doesn't really help that they introduced Dynamis and the idea that the Ancients would've somehow never ever ever gotten to Ultima Thule because they couldn't interact with it (nevermind humans irl cannot survive in the vacuum of space for very long but made workarounds to it... and this is a magical fantasy race that can create anything their heart desires). So even if they did accept everything and simply move on leaving all those souls cooped up in Zodiark... Hydaelyn would be sundering them anyway for that reason alone, or so the writing would have us accept. On top of that, the time loop meant Venat already knew her future besty was waiting for her.

[tokinokanatae]

I don't think it's the same thing. I think the story was attempting to portray the Ancients constantly trying to undo their suffering rather than living on and learning from it, which supposedly would've led directly to them being unable to stop the Final Days should Zodiark falter. However, we were never actually shown that and just left to infer it from the potential third sacrifice, a few lines of dialogue in the last Elpis cutscene, and the last dungeon in the Dead Ends, so there's not nearly enough reason to believe that that's the case.

I agree that this is what the third sacrifice was supposed to imply, but the narrative undercut itself by having all those souls that sacrificed themselves for the planet existing in (an implied painful!) purgatory for thousands and thousands of years. 75% of the Ancients were basically being tortured and taken out of the cycle of life! Leaving them alone is like having proof that Hell exists and that you could save everyone suffering there, but shrugging and saying, "well, they chose eternal pain to save their loved ones, all we can do is accept that and move on with our lives."

[AziraSyuren]

I agree that this is what the third sacrifice was supposed to imply, but the narrative undercut itself by having all those souls that sacrificed themselves for the planet existing in (an implied painful!) purgatory for thousands and thousands of years. 75% of the Ancients were basically being tortured and taken out of the cycle of life! Leaving them alone is like having proof that Hell exists and that you could save everyone suffering there, but shrugging and saying, "well, they chose eternal pain to save their loved ones, all we can do is accept that and move on with our lives."

I don''t know if the Ancients were aware of that, and even if they were, the only other option was to sacrifice half of the newly-sown life on the planet, leaving them in the same situation. That would've left them culpable for that too lest they destroy Zodiark at a later date, something which they probably couldn't have done due to being tempered (unless Hermes lost his mind again LMAO) and would've just caused the Final Days to continue anyways.

That also would've left Venat a lot more justified in the Sundering, so it might've been better for the narrative.