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

[jameseoakes]

Even her backup plan makes no sense as other people have said, like are we presuming metion/endsinger can't just find them after the spaceship blasts off? if you wanted to make it feel more organic maybe include something like maybe one purpose for the mothercrystal was to basically act as a aetheric curtain like zodiark does for example, of course that would require acknowleding zodiark as more then a 'misbegotten wish'

The Moon stuff outright made no sense, as I would assume the end of days would justed have started on the moon almost as soon as people got there and then it would just have been a charnel house.

Edit: which is odd as they have all ready done that as a plot with the Void Ark

[Lauront]

I do find it odd how the Garlean Empire seems to be a much better fit for Venats Ideology than anyone else in the game as they seem to exemplify her suffering makes you stronger and that strength lets you make your own future.

I agree, it's almost silly to me that they didn't make use of this, but I think because there were likely last minute story adaptations in shaping her character, they lacked the benefit of forward planning and by EW, the Ascians are already heavily involved in it, so the ship has sailed. Plus it could also be used to explain why they're incapable (generally, as a people) of using magic - if you thought the magic could pose some manner of temptation, perhaps suppressing it entirely as an experiment and seeing how those in whom it was suppressed fared would be of interest.

That's fair. It would also add some conflict from states that don't want us to go to war with Garlemald lest they be defeated and suddenly states that were dependent upon them would be thrown into economic uncertainty. I didn't really consider that to begin with, but to be fair that's also because the game doesn't really give us any inkling that states like that exist, and I wouldn't know how to fit them in anyway.

It's mostly just relegated to side quest text stuff, and whatever we got from Bozja, but with the advantage of a full rewrite, I'd like them to introduce, or rather, more fully write out such plot elements, as I believe it'd also alter the dynamics of the civil war in interesting ways, and give the Garleans a clearer way forward for the future of their state, again maybe in a similar direction to Archades.

[Rulakir]

Fantastic way of phrasing that, It's similar to thoughts I've had one varying pretentious or very dark ideas/touchy subject matters. You better not be a hypocrite on it, otherwise I may just think it's less honest bringing up the topic and more the author whining about something. Like the many MANY writers who go 'immortality bad' at some point, where it just feels like 90% of the time it's because they're having a mid life crisis or something.

Yeah, there's no overlooking the hypocrisy of it either. Venat is fundamentally similar to several villains we've faced (to the extent Yoshi-P compares her to Ascians) and the excuse of "good people do bad things" doesn't fly when that didn't spare Thordan or Emet for being chastised for their deeds, yet no one has a word for Hydaelyn about it. The other excuse that we say nothing because it benefits us is also disconcerting.

I don't know why, but it seems not enough people realize or care that Venat is responsible for the death of their original self, Azem. This alone made me deeply uncomfortable siding with her. It's not just the WoL either. This is the same woman who left Ardbert to wander the First alone for a century. I could argue she has historically abused every version of Azem we know of, but I never see this mentioned by anyone.

[jameseoakes]

Yeah, there's no overlooking the hypocrisy of it either. Venat is fundamentally similar to several villains we've faced (to the extent Yoshi-P compares her to Ascians) and the excuse of "good people do bad things" doesn't fly when that didn't spare Thordan or Emet for being chastised for their deeds, yet no one has a word for Hydaelyn about it. The other excuse that we say nothing because it benefits us is also disconcerting.

I don't know why, but it seems not enough people realize or care that Venat is responsible for the death of their original self, Azem. This alone made me deeply uncomfortable siding with her. It's not just the WoL either. This is the same woman who left Ardbert to wander the First alone for a century. I could argue she has historically abused every version of Azem we know of, but I never see this mentioned by anyone.

It's odd how Venat does things at least as bad as the villans and for pretty weak reasons, the Sundering as presented seem to be solely about the Ancients failing to meet her standards, they pass Hermes test they avert the End of Days so the Sundering is all about Venats ideology which is pretty vile so I don't see how she is a good person from the story they told

[Iscah]

I can't say I felt I really connected with that closely, I certainly don't think he was written in away espically with how abusive his relationship with Meition is. Also is betrayal of us rather overrights any feel of comrade with him

I didn't see his relationship to Meteion as abusive. I saw that he cares for her and wants her to be happy; tries to shield her from things that would upset her. He might not have done the right thing objectively, but not for lack of intention.

My impression as the Elpis arc played out is that we-the-player were being asked to make the same switch of perception of Hermes that we had previously been asked to make for the Ascians as a whole: that the once caricatured villains were in fact good people at their core who had some tragic reason to do the awful things they later did.

If I am expected to forgive the many monstrosities that Emet-Selch carried out in 12,000 years of rejoinings – and at a more personal level, the overtly abusive way he treats Varis in his early scenes – then it seems that Hermes is intended to be viewed with the same attitude of "he meant well, so we're supposed to like him now".

I don't agree with what Hermes did, but I see it as driven by good intentions turned sour – his search for meaning and his compassion for other creatures, and a desire to protect Meteion and keep her safe. His leap from there to "destroyer of worlds and eraser of memories" is rather too abrupt, but that's tangled up in a lot of the other narrative issues that the game has. The writers wanted him to be sympathetic while needing him to line up with the villain he becomes, and they needed the memory wipe to happen to preserve the existing narrative, and I think the characters got wrangled into the necessary events rather than having story written to fit the characters.

Basically, I think Hermes is intended by the writer(s) to be a sympathetic character, whether it was successfully conveyed or not, but it's the intent that determines he should appear among the "sympathetic characters of Elpis" group.

[jameseoakes]

I didn't see his relationship to Meteion as abusive. I saw that he cares for her and wants her to be happy; tries to shield her from things that would upset her. He might not have done the right thing objectively, but not for lack of intention.

My impression as the Elpis arc played out is that we-the-player were being asked to make the same switch of perception of Hermes that we had previously been asked to make for the Ascians as a whole: that the once caricatured villains were in fact good people at their core who had some tragic reason to do the awful things they later did.

If I am expected to forgive the many monstrosities that Emet-Selch carried out in 12,000 years of rejoinings – and at a more personal level, the overtly abusive way he treats Varis in his early scenes – then it seems that Hermes is intended to be viewed with the same attitude of "he meant well, so we're supposed to like him now".

I don't agree with what Hermes did, but I see it as driven by good intentions turned sour – his search for meaning and his compassion for other creatures, and a desire to protect Meteion and keep her safe. His leap from there to "destroyer of worlds and eraser of memories" is rather too abrupt, but that's tangled up in a lot of the other narrative issues that the game has. The writers wanted him to be sympathetic while needing him to line up with the villain he becomes, and they needed the memory wipe to happen to preserve the existing narrative, and I think the characters got wrangled into the necessary events rather than having story written to fit the characters.

Basically, I think Hermes is intended by the writer(s) to be a sympathetic character, whether it was successfully conveyed or not, but it's the intent that determines he should appear among the "sympathetic characters of Elpis" group.

I don't see how he was suppose to have really been sympathetic with how he was written. He didn't try and keep keep Meteion or her sisters safe he sent them out in the universe with no thought or planning that is not a kind thing to do. He then keeps on around a massive empath who then has to endure and suffer through his mood swings and to be honest there realationship felt like abusive/controlling father and daughter than anything else to me. The man was nasty, I don't see how he was a good man, good people don't at a drop of a hat set about violating his 'apparent' friends minds and orcastrting the murder of his entire culture over nothing, he's a vile man.

Edit: I just don't see what was sympathetic about him, in the way other characters have been. I don't find what's tradgic about him or the good intentions he had behind the monstrous things he does.

[Iscah]

I don't see how he was suppose to have really been sympathetic with how he was written. He didn't try and keep keep Meteion or her sisters safe he sent them out in the universe with no thought or planning that is not a kind thing to do. He then keeps on around a massive empath who then has to endure and suffer through his mood swings and to be honest there realationship felt like abusive/controlling father and daughter than anything else to me.

The thing is, he did have "thought and planning" in sending out the Meteia, but it was very idealistic thought – that they would travel the universe and discover wonders and learn the meaning of life, then return to a joyous homecoming.

As for Meteion experiencing his emotions, I think he actually tries to shield her from a lot of that, like he does when he asks us to take her outside during the meeting when he's stressed and upset.

It seems likely to me that it was probably something he didn't consider when creating the Meteia but, in line with his thoughts on saving other creations at all costs, he wouldn't dream of unmaking her to correct the fault (because he would see that as abusive) and instead tries his best to look after her as she is.

[YukikoKurosawa]

I think we just need to accept that the writers were never the brilliant storytellers they were percieved to be and just made a good story (albiet still flawed) by accident. Watching how the story has unfolded, listening to various interviews where they talk about the story and attempt to explain certain things, it becomes clear they don't really know what they're doing, barely understand their own story even. Listening to story interviews, there's a lot of "ums" and "uhs" and "I think" and "you know maybe....", they don't seem to really be certain about their own story. They're not just sitting down and being like "alright so this is why this happened" with absolute crystal clear clarity and consistency with what they've said before.

This is a lot like George Lucas and Star Wars, where everyone loved the OT and thought Lucas a genius, then the prequels happened, people listening to his takes on his own story through interviews and it became painfully clear he had no idea what the fuck he was even talking about, and that the OT was good was only by pure accident.

Also, much like George Lucas, FFXIV's story cannot entirely be credited to the current writing team. Like how Lucas wasn't actually responsible for as much of the OT as was originally believed, much of the good writing credit FFXIV get's cannot really be attributed to Ishikawa or Yoshi, but various different writers that have been involved since 1.0 in and out of the writing team and are probably more responsible for elements of the story/worldbuilding that we enjoyed than the people ACTUALLY in charge of the story and currently getting all the credit.

[Raoabolic]

I think we just need to accept that the writers were never the brilliant storytellers they were percieved to be and just made a good story (albiet still flawed) by accident.

To be fair, a new writer took over during Stormblood and a lot of questionable parts of the story seem to stem from SB and onwards. Just an observation though.

[Lucida3b]

I feel like fundamentally a lot of EW writing issues seem to primarily be in elpis and especially Venat. There is a reason why one popular theory is that some writer really got into venat or yoshi p altered stuff for venat primarily as like 90% of the biggest issue's are there, fundamentally if elpis was heavily rewritten a lot of this thread wouldn't fucking exist because a lot of it would just be more up to taste or 'this part was a chore or wasnt as good as the rest' or 'i didnt like this part of the expansion' that most things have