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

[KizuyaKatogami]

This is exactly how I see it too. In my opinion, Venat and her supporters are the same as Hermes - different sides of the same coin in that they decided to judge mankind as if they are the creator of the universe, take away their agency and consent, and decide for everyone how they would live. In Venat's case, it's actually kind of twisted for me because it's like someone giving you the choice between getting r*ped or killed. And then everyone else is like "Well yeah that was morally questionable but it's better than losing your life!" It's a gross violation of a person's autonomy and some things are worse than death in my opinion. I can't imagine it felt good to be torn apart like that, even though the writers don't get into those specifics. But if we were to go by the "stylistic" cutscene of Venat limping around, it looks like it was probably a very painful thing.

Imagine being an ancient and you just lost everyone you care about and are still grieving while trying to hold it together. Meanwhile someone you probably respect a lot is judging you and looking at you with a mix of self-righteousness and pity before basically taking on a role as the judge of the whole planet and deciding how your life will look from now on. Venat and her supporters betrayed their people and then "traded" them in like they were currency for a new group of beings who would maybe or maybe not find an answer to the sound and the only reason it all worked out is because it's an mmo and we can't die so it has to end in our favor.

Anyway, that's my opinion of the whole Venat thing. As far as the story goes for the future expansions...I'm going to be honest and say that I probably won't be invested at all in the future arcs. As several posters have mentioned, it could be better for some players not to look at the story too closely or else you might not enjoy it anymore lol so in my case this probably calls for a casual glance at the new stories but no more analyzing. A lot of it falls apart for me when I delve deeper into EW like I do with books.

It’s really interesting to me because before, when seeing the name Venat i didn’t think they were actually going to go through with making a 1:1 rendition of the same named character from 12, but in the end they really are mirrors of each other. Both go against their own people. Both side with the human type race and thinks what they’re doing is for the betterment of them, but in FF12 Venat’s case, what she did actually ended up being bad for humanity. Her actions and manipulation resulted in magic slowly being taken away from the world. This is essentially what the sundering was. It’s crazy though how in 12 it’s a pretty clear cut, she isn’t good, but in 14 they try and paint her as this benevolent hero. It’s why i can’t really take any of these themes seriously. If the writers consider what she did worthy of being called a hero…i don’t trust them to be trying to preach about any themes lol.

[OhNooo]

It’s crazy though how in 12 it’s a pretty clear cut, she isn’t good, but in 14 they try and paint her as this benevolent hero. It’s why i can’t really take any of these themes seriously. If the writers consider what she did worthy of being called a hero…i don’t trust them to be trying to preach about any themes lol.

I need to play FF12. Currently I just started on FF9 which is the only other FF series besides XIV that I've done. Eventually I'm hoping to get to the others. But yeah, I've heard others mention the Venat in FF12 and I wonder if they intended to go in that direction but then changed it? To be honest, it looks to me like they really didn't have a clear plan on how to end the arc. When you compare the elements of the story from the beginning to EW (such as their portrayal of the Ascians among other things), it looks like they were just writing for each individual expansion and then building upon that as the years went by.

At least in the previous expansions I felt like the writers were displaying their work for the player to come up with their own interpretations. EW is the first time I felt like they were really pushing for a point of view and were trying to *tell* me how to interpret the story and I'm not a fan of that. I wanted more...show not tell? And instead, I felt like I got way more tell - "life is meaningless but push through suffering and have hope! Hope hope hope. Did I mention don't give up and have hope?"

[TaleraRistain]

It’s really interesting to me because before, when seeing the name Venat i didn’t think they were actually going to go through with making a 1:1 rendition of the same named character from 12, but in the end they really are mirrors of each other. Both go against their own people. Both side with the human type race and thinks what they’re doing is for the betterment of them, but in FF12 Venat’s case, what she did actually ended up being bad for humanity. Her actions and manipulation resulted in magic slowly being taken away from the world.

It wasn't bad for humanity. The Occuria had used the Sun-Cryst to completely control Ivalician history. They crowned Dynast Kings who would do what *they* wanted and run things their way. They locked away beings like the espers who disagreed with them. Venat's actions freed humanity from Occurian control by ending the Age of Stones.

They were using Rasler to manipulate Ashe into doing what they wanted the entire game. The Occuria were the true villains.

[KizuyaKatogami]

It wasn't bad for humanity. The Occuria had used the Sun-Cryst to completely control Ivalician history. They crowned Dynast Kings who would do what *they* wanted and run things their way. They locked away beings like the espers who disagreed with them. Venat's actions freed humanity from Occurian control by ending the Age of Stones.

They were using Rasler to manipulate Ashe into doing what they wanted the entire game. The Occuria were the true villains.

Except they were the only thing keeping humanity from collapsing on itself and they were preventing it’s extinction. Yes they locked up the Espers because they literally led a revolt against them with Ultima at the head of it all. Yes they manipulated Ashe, because what Venat was doing would doom both sides and in the end it essentially did. Magic is slowly sucked out of the world. We see partial results of all of this in 12-2 as well. Venat’s actions caused untold suffering for the rest of humanity and the worlds existence. The “freedom” was a bit of a sham as humanity itself mostly had freedom, it was only until they would cause themselves to wipe themselves out that the occuria intervened.

[Noire_Truthseeker]

I thought this expansion had brilliant storytelling as did millions of others. Maybe you just have bad taste.

[Theodric]

A not insignificant amount of people in the present day consume and approve of whatever is put before them. As such, fast food is amongst the most popular cuisine in the world. Yet one would not be incorrect to state that such fare simply does not compare to much of what is on offer elsewhere.

[Lauront]

I thought this expansion had brilliant storytelling as did millions of others. Maybe you just have bad taste.

The game barely has over a million players. So where are you getting these "millions"? Trying to gaslight people with this sort of tactic is in poor taste.

[Leptys]

I apologise in advance cuz i havent read through all of this thread and if those issues i mention were adressed before i apologise. I just made an account for the sole purpose of getting all of this stuff off of my chest...

Expansion has some pacing issues – the first half proceeded rly slowly, but I cannot undermine the importance of the events that happened – there was some exposition, introduction to new zones and characters, we had to craft talismans that offered protection against tempering, mount large scale assault on Garlemald, deal with Fandaniel/Zodiark and then proceed to uncover the truth about Final Days.. It is when we arrive in Elpis the story gains momentum and also introduces the main antagonist of this expansion along with explaining and establishing Dynamis as the source of cataclysmic events. The main issue I have is the Dynamis and Meteion themselves. Afaik there was no foreshadowing of the hidden source of energy akin to that of real life dark energy unless doing LBs count. (one of the Ancients mention that it's density is about 68,3% - same as hyphotetical dark energy). As of Meteion the entelechy girl was just naive, empathic, sensitive child granted with powers beyond her master's comprehension and later the same traits brought her downfall as she witnessed the fall of countless civilisations. As Hermes stated he did not learn her how to walk on earth, she was still a child, uneqipped with any psychological mechanisms that could help put up with everything she saw, the utter despair and nihillism she witnessed. Meteion served her purpose in the plot, but the late intoduction of an important character (introducing main antagonist after about 10 years...) sin feels rly meh to me and it also makes her shallow, simply because she doesnt have enough time for development. Also rouge AI is not a new concept...

Zenos pretty much did nothing much of importance to the expansion. Given how much development time he got i expected... something else? He still wants for more power, still is a bored psychopath wreaking havok around him. Getting stronger and a promise of another fight with us is what kept him going. He went all the way to the edge of the universe to just help us get rid of the nuissance that stopped us from fighting him."Never have I understood those around me. Understood their obsessions. Besieged by their banality, the world was a mire of tedium and trivialities". That's what he told us in his final moments indicating that in reality he saw no purpose in his life. He just succumbed to apathy and only when fighting with us he felt his blood boiling. Would i grant him this final fight? No fucking way, i would just yeet him in space and flew away. I think that Zenos is still NOT trully dead and SE might just make some sort of redemption arc for him cuz he helped us save the universe and is absolved of all wrongdoings right, right?...

[Leptys]

During the expansion i did not rly feel the sense of despair and hopelessness. In ShB we metaphorically speaking collapsed under the weight of responsibility of saving not only our world but The First as well. We tried our best, killed the Wardens but we failed, doomed to turn into a monster. But we didn't give up, fought back and won. We earned it. In EW there is nothing like that. NPCs talk about failing and getting stronger but in reality we do not fail. We just go through every encounter with a breeze. When we arrived at Ultima Thule and Thancred died I was hoping that finally we might face some long term repercussions, embrace dread of losing our dear comrades but nope, we still had Azem stone in our pocket and after each and one of them gave their speech we just magically brought them back to life...

Correct me if im wrong but I think the principle of causality got betrayed in the storyline. When we traveled to Elpis and do the thingies, only us and Venat remembered the events that occured in the end. Memory of those events we're also the reason why The Sundering happened in the first place. So she waited thousands of year for us to be born to go back in time and witness the events in Elpis. Effect cannot happen before the cause yo, bootstrap paradox right there... I know i know we already had something similar with Alexander and i didn't like it. Also why couldn't we change the past? Just because papa Elidibus told us so? By going to the First and doing all of the stuff there we averted the 8th Umbral calamity and proved that timelines not converge to the same outcome...

Also i was thinking about the Sundering and it's influence on aether. If Hydaelyn split the world into smaller pieces it's safe to assume that aether got divided and aetheric density of each planet's atmosphere got thinner. Why didn't Meteion invade then? After the Sundering Zodiark's power was just a fraction of what he wielded back then and all of it was necessary to make the stagnant aether flow again and create aether barrier around the planet strong enough to keep Meteion at bay.

I don't hate this expansion but i cannot say i liked it either. Whole EW is like a love letter to Scions and although themes on nihilism and importance of life are syplhlike, they could have handled them better.

[TMW001]

While I do agree Zodiark was a let down he sadly wasn't at full power but then again it was said he dwarfed Hydaelyn in strength so should he have been much stronger even not at full?