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

[Lauront]

Do the other languages also say it came from within Etheirys or are they different?

The French version certainly supports it. I think with Japanese evidently saying the same, even if there is some ambiguities, it is clear beyond all doubt that this is a correct reading.

However, it's a slightly unfortunate choice because "keening" has been used all the way back to 1.x EN script to refer to the agitation of the Twelveswood Elementals, but in the JP script, the word isn't the same at all. JP references to the agitation of the Elementals refer to something more like "noisiness" or "murmuring"... a general sense of just "making a lot of noise" and "being restless (vocally)". So the connection with the Elementals that you could interpret the EN as implying is not there in the JP script.

Indeed!

[Fiel_Tana]

Snip

Oh, that is interesting, thank you!

I'd assumed that either it was a retcon (still possible), a mistranslation (seems not) or something like this:
Twitter rant aimed in our general direction with us on the other side of the star. The sound echoed through so people just thought it came from the planet.

Possibly though we may find out in Pandemonium which is what I'm hoping for tbh. What I'd give to be able to save the ancients and create an AU or something where they are alive and well (and we could visit them). Perhaps not likely, but that would solve some of the problematic issues with the story by making the WoL not partially/potentially responsible for their total annihilation while Hydaelyn is hailed as a hero (in the alternate AU at least, the current one would still be borked).

Still not sure I'd be ok with EW overall, but that could be better than what we have now depending how it was written.

[Raoabolic]

Meanwhile the lopporbits accidentally with zero prompting nearly destroy the entire moon through there 3d printer robot they made with creation magic

You know, sometimes you accidentally 3d print an assault rifle. These things happen. /shrug

[Skyborne]

Oh, that is interesting, thank you!

I'd assumed that either it was a retcon (still possible), a mistranslation (seems not) or something like this:
Twitter rant aimed in our general direction with us on the other side of the star. The sound echoed through so people just thought it came from the planet.

Possibly though we may find out in Pandemonium which is what I'm hoping for tbh. What I'd give to be able to save the ancients and create an AU or something where they are alive and well (and we could visit them). Perhaps not likely, but that would solve some of the problematic issues with the story by making the WoL not partially/potentially responsible for their total annihilation while Hydaelyn is hailed as a hero (in the alternate AU at least, the current one would still be borked).

Still not sure I'd be ok with EW overall, but that could be better than what we have now depending how it was written.

Unless the writers -- and Yoshida -- shift gears, I'm kind of doubting that we'll even get an AU casually tossed out in the upcoming Tales like what happened with ShB... Yoshida seemed very insistent that the WoL could not change anything in the loop no matter what. It just seems hilariously cruel and awful given that our character is essentially (in)directly responsible for millions of deaths, souls stuck in limbo for 12k+ years, and then the demise of their civilization. And then in 6.1, there is seemingly no thought or reflection about this; WoL's just happy to keep chugging along. Forge ahead, don't think of anyone who might have been swept up in the wake of your 'heroic' actions!

Man... imagine if we got job quests back. DRK-WoL would probably be so torn apart by this realization it'd spawn another mind-buddy or two.

[Theodric]

It's just the same sort of bias that led to me to cease caring about World of Warcraft's story and characters. I was more enthusiastic about that game overall since it was admittedly more to my tastes in terms of aesthetics and I only left as a consequence of not wanting a constantly one sided trauma train of misery being rammed into the characters and races that I liked best. It's very unfortunate that FFXIV has decided to go down the same path.

There's also a very odd shift in terms of FFXIV itself. It both seems to want to be a story driven experience but...also not? I don't know how to describe it other than raising an eyebrow at comments about surprise at people paying attention to the story. What are we meant to make of that, exactly? It's the main thing the marketing department and community itself loves to advertise at every opportunity...

I do hope things improve as of 6.2 and beyond but I suppose that remains to be seen. It's just a shame that there isn't much in the way of viable competition where the MMO market is concerned.

[Rulakir]

It just seems hilariously cruel and awful given that our character is essentially (in)directly responsible for millions of deaths, souls stuck in limbo for 12k+ years, and then the demise of their civilization.

I had figured the WoL wouldn't be tempered because that would upset players, but instead we get our character siding with the person who has historically abused their soul. Sundered their original incarnation, everything that Ardbert went through which was now also to 'preserve the timeline', and everything the WoL's been through. The deceit, the manipulation, the grooming. I think this is substantially worse and it feels awful.

Playing through the game again on an alt I can't stomach any of the Hydaelyn scenes. I thought that writing Emet to be inconsistent with his character in Ultima Thule was bad, but ultimately they wrote against the WoL's characterization as well. The idea that Azem or, by extension, any of their souls would've sided with Venat's ideology is so character breaking I can't believe they went through with it. All I can hope is they're reading this feedback and do some sort of course correction in the future.

[Lucida3b]

I fucking hope so, but arguing with other ff players makes me worry there just gonna listen to those who will instead either headcanon reasons for plotholes or just lie or mob you for having trouble liking the story concepts. I worry they will just go the wow/marvel/dc route of 'ignore past bad writing' and letting it fester over time

[KageTokage]

At this point, I don't think they can reasonably "fix" the awkward writing decisions they made in Endwalker with any manner of supplementary lore or sidestories.

I'm just praying we get more stories with proper nuance to their morality/ideology like HW and ShB going forward.

[Lustre]

I love the fact this thread is still going.

[Akiudo]

on the discussion of "the sound" , the way the final days (in the present) where presented it looked more like meteions song of oblivion or whatever its called in english enabled the transformations but still needed a trigger to activate. if i'm not completly wrong right now than Pandemonium is in fact far below the ground and potentially? going deeper the further we go. considering every raid storyline so far while not absolutely necessary to complete did in fact have some tie ins to the mainstory it certainly is possible that "the sound from below" would in fact come out of Pandemonium and act as a catalyst for meteions song.