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

[Rulakir]

Y'shtola feels like a developer's mouthpiece more than a character to me these days.

Frankly, Yoshi-P has the polar opposite personality of mine. I already have issues with Azem being written as some kind of "chaos goblin", as I've seen on Reddit, and now my WoL is apparently a traveler at heart who is always in search of greater challenges. Since when? It feels like Yoshi-P has a certain idea about the typical gamer he wants to superimpose on the WoL that is just not me. I also don't care for Y'shtola, she's one of my least favorite Scions, so if she's going to become the developer mouthpiece it means I'll never have a moment's peace from her.

But I just couldn't help feeling like the game's overarching theme of "suffering is not only inevitable but something to appreciate because it makes the good times seem even better!" was an absolutely horrible message.

It is. I suspect that chronic health issues weren't a factor in the writing, which unfortunately makes the messaging come across as tone deaf. I especially hate the "forge ahead" nonsense, which is just another version of 'bootstrap'. At least the Social Darwinism was walked back in the Omega quest chain, although, it amusingly also made the sundering even less justified in the process. The way 6.0 made it appear, basically if you had mental health issues you were screwed.

I can't remember where I heard it, but something about studies showing that the people who suffer the least were the happiest overall and I couldn't help but laugh because the exact opposite is portrayed in EW. It's one of those r/im14andthisisdeep things that isn't rooted in reality.

I also love works where life-affirmation is a central theme, no matter how shallow they might be.

I don't know that I look for themes. I'm more of a character person. As far as characters went, Emet is the one who spoke to me the most. His feeling compelled to continue even when he didn't want to, using sleep as an escape, being isolated with his feelings. All of that is what resonated with me. It's also why I wanted to see him get a happy (or at least happier) ending. Despite all the platitudes of EW, the characters I cared about the most had the worst outcomes so it certainly wasn't a feel good or uplifting story for me.

[jameseoakes]

Frankly, Yoshi-P has the polar opposite personality of mine. I already have issues with Azem being written as some kind of "chaos goblin", as I've seen on Reddit, and now my WoL is apparently a traveler at heart who is always in search of greater challenges. Since when? It feels like Yoshi-P has a certain idea about the typical gamer he wants to superimpose on the WoL that is just not me. I also don't care for Y'shtola, she's one of my least favorite Scions, so if she's going to become the developer mouthpiece it means I'll never have a moment's peace from her.
.

The story really seems to be trying to push a characterisation that's almost come out of nowhere on the player character and I find it really jarring as it just kills my immersion and I am finding the supporting cast friendships increasingly forced, I feel like I am being used by Y'stola and not that we are team mates

[Misplaced_Marbles]

The story really seems to be trying to push a characterisation that's almost come out of nowhere on the player character and I find it really jarring as it just kills my immersion.

EW is like the dark knight story in that regard.

[Theodric]

The story really seems to be trying to push a characterisation that's almost come out of nowhere on the player character and I find it really jarring as it just kills my immersion and I am finding the supporting cast friendships increasingly forced, I feel like I am being used by Y'stola and not that we are team mates

Yep. It happens on two fronts as well.

On one hand, the story itself will insist that the player has to consider G'raha Tia to essentially be their best friend. On the other, there's a portion of vocal players who insist that the player is obligated to dislike certain characters and factions. If they don't? Then they're attacked and accused of all manner of horrid things. It's very bizarre to me.

[YukikoKurosawa]

The story really seems to be trying to push a characterisation that's almost come out of nowhere on the player character and I find it really jarring as it just kills my immersion and I am finding the supporting cast friendships increasingly forced, I feel like I am being used by Y'stola and not that we are team mates

This happened the moment ShB established that "actually the player character (who is supposed to be a blank slate with no official backstory or personality) is the reincarnation of a super awesome and powerful convocation member who was all about adventuring and stuff that's why you're character is became an adventurer", which breaks the entire point of having a blank slate character in an RPG : not having an established backstory or personality.

And now they are quite blatantly forcing this "adventurer at heart" persona onto us , one's own personal RP for their character be damned.

[Lucida3b]

Depending on how literal you wanna take the nier crossover, either they literally stopped being people for a long time and were just mindless lumps of aether or they were rendered back to pre stoneage levels...

[Lunaxia]

I'm really relieved to see other people taking issue with the perspective on suffering (outside of religious/ writing viewpoints.) It was possibly my biggest gripe with the game, but I felt reluctant to voice it because even in more critical circles it isn't touched upon and I was left wondering if I had read the game wrong. But I just couldn't help feeling like the game's overarching theme of "suffering is not only inevitable but something to appreciate because it makes the good times seem even better!" was an absolutely horrible message. More than anything, I felt angry; while I'd rather not touch on my personal experiences, suffice it to say it is incredibly patronising to say to someone going through the worst kind of pain that somehow their suffering is necessary or beneficial. It is not. Grief is not. Unrelenting physical pain, mental anguish, illness and traumatic events are not, and never will be. You endure and live through them because you have to, there is no reasoning or justification behind any of it, and I highly doubt if you offered to remove that pain from any given individual, anyone would actually refuse. It's the sort of meaningless platitude you give to someone going through a breakup or some sort of stressful period in their life - something you look back on and realise was a period of change, or learning about relationships, yourself, and so on (which the Ancients did!), not torment and suffering the likes of which Venat bestowed upon mankind with the sundering.

And on a similar note, while I don't have a problem with the notion of letting yourself depend on and seek help from others in times of difficulty, to me the game seemed to push this underlying message that your life is essentially meaningless and intolerable without people around you, which is… really, really awful, although they've been at this for a couple of expansions with their habit of turning isolated and tormented characters suicidal and/ or into irredeemable villains. Some people are unfortunate enough to go through painful and difficult periods of their life alone, or lacking a loving and supportive network around them, and there is something offensively tone deaf and potentially harmful about the way they write off such characters as doomed or hopeless. I think Krile alone had one line prior to UT about remembering/ holding onto your passions because they are what drive you, which for a moment was a breath of fresh air and seemed like a promising exploration of what other kinds of "meaning" life might hold for someone… only to add that it's because "you share them with others!" It was like G'raha in Garlemald during the Final Days section, where he gets angry about the future they fought for being jeopardised, and for all of 0.5 seconds behaves like a character with his history would. For a fleeting moment, I actually found him a promising character.

…and then in UT he's trailing around after the WoL with all our friends supposedly gone in the middle of a potential cataclysmic universal destruction event with no clear end in sight asking if he thinks he'll be in a song one day.

Utter confusion and bewilderment, followed by brief rays of hope… only to be even more disillusioned than before. It sums up my issues with Endwalker quite well, in all honesty. I'm glad to have found this thread and find some catharsis, at least.

[CrownySuccubus]

And on a similar note, while I don't have a problem with the notion of letting yourself depend on and seek help from others in times of difficulty, to me the game seemed to push this underlying message that your life is essentially meaningless and intolerable without people around you, which is… really, really awful, although they've been at this for a couple of expansions with their habit of turning isolated and tormented characters suicidal and/ or into irredeemable villains. Some people are unfortunate enough to go through painful and difficult periods of their life alone, or lacking a loving and supportive network around them, and there is something offensively tone deaf and potentially harmful about the way they write off such characters as doomed or hopeless. I think Krile alone had one line prior to UT about remembering/ holding onto your passions because they are what drive you, which for a moment was a breath of fresh air and seemed like a promising exploration of what other kinds of "meaning" life might hold for someone… only to add that it's because "you share them with others!"

What you experienced in Endwalker is another example of this; you are correct in that Endwalker's ultimate "lesson"...the thing that the audience is supposed to take away from the story...is "life sucks but it sucks less when you're part of a collective, so make sure you're part of that collective at all costs". The "bonds you share with others" is repeated and touted over and over again as the key to everything..

Japan is an extremely collectivist society. How collectivist? Collectivist to the point that people are afraid that helping someone on the street would make them stand out too much. Japanese culture praises the value of the group over the individual. It's one of the reasons that social change is very difficult there; pointing out problems or stating that something isn't good for society is shunned because it's considered worse to introduce negative feelings.

For more on the subject, I have to recommend this video by "Let's ask Shogo", who is a Japanese man who explains it better than I do.

It's exactly why I think that a broader variety of viewpoints need to be brought to the forefront and pushed as acceptable.

This is not an issue that could be solved by a "broader variety of viewpoints", unfortunately. Subjects on matters of mental health, depression, suicide, etc. are, in fact, the opposite.

It's a subject that you should not be bringing up without listening to the experienced and trained professionals who handle it.

[Theodric]

It's exactly why I think that a broader variety of viewpoints need to be brought to the forefront and pushed as acceptable. I'm honestly getting pretty tired of reading things along the lines of 'Venat had no option but to...' in response to any suggestion that murdering her own people and then lying about it was a pretty messed up thing to do. I really don't understand what was so hard about having someone be disgusted with it all and very sternly call it out during the MSQ's.

That aside, the game has players from many different countries, backgrounds, belief systems and personal experiences. Trauma is regrettably not something few have dealt with though many players have experienced it and I'm pretty weary of it being pushed that Hermes was 'totes relatable111' when that simply isn't the case. At least Ishikawa acknowledged that most people would not agree with or like him.

[YukikoKurosawa]

At least Ishikawa acknowledged that most people would not agree with or like him.

Than why did she even write him?