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

[Cutes]

To elaborate on the 'dumb', I don't really think the Plenty were well thought-out on a sub-textual level. The messaging of perfection = bad—which is straight up bizarre when interpreted as a moral for real life—raises more questions, like where the line is drawn between acceptable advancement and dangerous perfection. Did the Ancients need to be Sundered because they were too close to said line? If so, how does Sundering them and wiping them out resolve this problem? Would sensitivity to Dynamis prevent this ultimate fate, or were the Ancients essentially dealt an impossible hand in life? Are the Sundered going to be at risk if they advance too far, or are they immune to such apathy and/or existential dread because they have Dynamis?

There is also a moral problem which lies in the decision that “Men shall walk” solely being made by Venat as she becomes Hydaelyn. Even if one were to argue that Venat was trying to spare the Ancients the fate of the Plenty or the Ea, using their ends as a justification for her actions ex post facto, is it morally right for her to be the sole individual to make this decision for her fellow men? The story presents her as a caring Mother, but even a parent that wants the best for their children can make mistakes. One could say the supporters of Hydaelyn believed the Sundering to be acceptable but at least half the Ancients would not have agreed as they wished to struggle and save their star and society under Zodiark or they would not have summoned Him in the first place. Even if Venat had popular support, she is still operating with the foreknowledge that she would become Hydaelyn and cause the Sundering in the first place, the causality loop once again robbing her of her agency and any logical or moral choice. Any moral conflict can be absolved with “well since I am meant to become Hydaelyn, this must have been the reason. Therefore, it follows I must become Hydaelyn”

[Lauront]

Part of the issue I have is they don't really want to commit and just say she is doing it because of the time loop (this can be seen from the Q&A responses Yoshi gives) - they instead give the impression that she's choosing to do this (=ensure the timeline doesn't "go awry") of her own accord, for her own reasons, and when these reasons are interrogated, Yoshi defaults to the defences I mentioned before and tries to frame this as the way an ancient would think (never mind that we've seen several sundered antagonists do the same now.) Probably because those reasons fall apart under scrutiny.

[Cutes]

It's funny, 'cause things like Dynamis are fairly common in anime and Japanese stories, and to a lesser extent western ones inspired by such. Think Undertale's "Determination", or "Spiral Power" from Gurren Lagann. The difference is that their respective "Believe in yourself!" magic systems were built into the setting from the beginning, while Dynamis is rather haphazardly thrown in.

I'm not sure if I want the writers to expand on Dynamis, ignore it going forward, or to dismiss it outright. Like, going "Actually Dynamis is completely unusable, and everyone who appears to use Dynamis was actually just using Aether". No matter what they do, I don't expect them to make it a worthwhile addition to the setting. But it's already poisoned the well, so to speak. You can try to take the poison out, but someone in the village still drank it and died.

Dynamis is a retcon for a lot of things, including things like the Limit Break mechanic and it’s place in the story. These things were previously attributed to the Echo and not really touched on too much (things like the Echo status effect say “breaking your limits in the way only a true Warrior of Light could”), but after we learn that the Echo itself is a property of having some fragment of the soul of a sundered Ancient it may seem weird. This becomes a bit more troublesome if you know the Echo in Japanese is called something entirely different: “the power to transcend”

One of the worst parts of the sundering is even if Hydaelyn thought the sundered races could be more in touch with dynamis, she didn’t have faith that they would be able to solve the problem as she made the escape moon as a final “out” from the Final Days. Ultimately this proves correct as not only do the Sundered fail to understand more about dynamis, they may understand even less as the concept of “Akasa” is limited to one culture and considered to be purely theoretical as it cannot be measured. She has no way of knowing this will come to be, but every sacrifice and loss of life becomes less justifiable when even Hydaelyn Herself doesn’t completely convince Herself that the Sundered will save the Star and it’s Reflections from the Final Days.

[Lauront]

Interesting, as the lorebook also refers to it as the Power to transcend as a heading from what I remember, and then breaks this down into its various facets. It also has aether-based explanations for virtually all the LBs.

[Cutes]

Interesting, as the lorebook also refers to it as the Power to transcend as a heading from what I remember, and then breaks this down into its various facets. It also has aether-based explanations for virtually all the LBs.

Since I believe the Encyclopediae Eorzea are written from an in-universe perspective it could be retconned by saying “they simply didn’t know about dynamis/akasa” but it obviously wasn’t the intention at the time. The implication is that dynamis is the source of Limit Break, that we are passively building and harnessing the empathetic energy of dynamis. Entelechy like Meteion are able to do this naturally by design, but one of the intentions of the Sundering was to create aetherically thinner beings that could be more in touch with dynamis, as the Ancients were so aetherically dense as to be completely unable to interact with dynamis at all. Hence why their magicks went wild and summoned Blasphemies, whereas the sundered themselves become the Blasphemies. It’s still a really big retcon by making it the dark matter of the world of XIV and saying it simply just couldn’t be perceived prior to that point and only the Hannish alchemists even had a concept close to understanding it.

[Lauront]

It is written from such a perspective but aether is something measurable via various devices. And to add to this, if the ancients in Ktisis Hyperboreia are not using aether for their LBs (which are accompanied by dialogue, with Emet referring to aether), and neither is Elidibus in his WOL-primal form, where he ramps it up a notch to LB4, does that imply through such mechanisms they are wielding dynamis? Or is it aether? Obviously the story doesn't say, and in both cases we have confounding factors, i.e. the suppression field in KH (which would then constitute a possible workaround?), and Elidibus taking on a primal form, which draws on the power of prayer; while that has an aetheric association, it is also said to be correlated with dynamis according to the story.

[Cutes]

It is written from such a perspective but aether is something measurable via various devices. And to add to this, if the ancients in Ktisis Hyperboreia are not using aether for their LBs (which are accompanied by dialogue), and neither is Elidibus in his WOL-primal form, where he ramps it up a notch to LB4, does that imply through such mechanisms they are wielding dynamis? Or is it aether? Obviously the story doesn't say.

For them it is probably indicative of how the magicks of an unsundered Ancient are powerful and trivial for ones so aetherically dense to perform. The dynamis retcon still has implications in the new encounter with Rhitahtyn sas Arvina now that the Cape Westwind duty as been removed. He appears to be able to Limit Break himself. The instance shows the line “Rhitahtyn’s rage grants him strength beyond his limits!” While he is not a native of Garlemald, and thus not incapable of manipulating aether, the line from the instance is certainly tying his strong emotion to his ability to break his limits. Could it be dynamis? It’s definitely muddy and maybe a bit of both, but it’s not inherently bound to the Echo/nature of an Ancient’s soul.

[Lauront]

It's probably something for another Q&A (giving Yoshi another chance to say we pay very close attention to the story) to address, but I will say the way Emet words it is consistent with what the EE describes of LB build up. It may be they're capable of being fuelled on an either/or basis. I am not expecting the writers to really touch on this again, but maybe they will.

[anhaato]

In case anyone is wondering, I am indeed trying to do my own little Garlemald expansion writeup. I'm doing a lot of worldbuilding though, just because I enjoy thinking of that kind of stuff. The zones will be sections of Werlyt, Thavnair (the southern shore and northern desert), Nhalmasque, the Magna Glacies (outer capitol), and the inner capitol. Market board city is, of course, Radz, and the end hub will be a large train station between the capitol and the Magna Glacies that offers loading zones between both areas. The station itself will be inspired by steampunk train station concepts as thus [lower level, outside view, upper level with airship landing] but obviously with a heavy magitek twist on the aesthetic. Less Victorian, more Soviet.

In case anyone is wondering why no Corvos or Dalmasca, I wanted Corvos to be used for exploratory content (unyielding blade and what have you) while Dalmasca I feel should be dignified with an expansion of its own along with Nagxia.

I'm still thinking about Werlyt, but so far for Nhalmasque I've decided I want it to be inspired by Romania, since Romania was historically conquered by Rome and targeted by the Slavs, both of which are obviously inspiration for the empire, and Nhalmasque was the first territory taken by the empire so it just makes sense to me.

The land of Nhalmasque was too militarily weak to go to war with the empire, so instead they settled for an agreement of sorts in which they retain their status as a Garlean annexed territory, but they're allowed to practice magic and religion (though still heavily watched in case they start showing signs of too strong a faith). The resulting culture is, aesthetically, more of a magical take on steampunk. Classical Eastern European architecture with traces of magitek throughout. The region itself is mountainous, as it's on the other side of the Magna Glacies, but a bit more temperate with pine forests and coursing rivers. The zone ingame would have a large sanctuary in the northwest, a city of that magical steampunk aesthetic nestled into the foothills of the mountains which serves as the capitol of the state of Nhalmasque. The sanctuary would be comparable in size to a place like the Steps of Thal, not actually the size of a hub city by any means but still serves its purpose well as showing that there is definitely prosperity "despite" being owned by the empire.

That's all I have so far for locales. I'm trying to gather my thoughts properly, but it'll take a bit. I just hope I can post it in time for people to still be seething about Aveyond's thread when they're faced with mine.

[MikkoAkure]

That's all I have so far for locales. I'm trying to gather my thoughts properly, but it'll take a bit. I just hope I can post it in time for people to still be seething about Aveyond's thread when they're faced with mine.

That sounds alright so far. I too would have been more comfortable with this in two expansions as long as the first wasn’t “Stormblood 2”.

My problem is when the idea of a “rewrite” turns into “fantasy AU where characters act in a completely different way from the original in a reactionary way because some people didn’t like it”.

I think what we have in Endwalker can be expanded upon and clarified/written better in a way that doesn’t throw out the plot or randomly add in new characters. Garlemald could have had more time on it since they were the main enemy for 12 years. Anima also seemed to have a large amount of press for something that ended up being a dungeon boss.

The moon felt like a letdown since I’ve been waiting for it since HW and it was just one small outdoor area and an indoor rabbit playhouse. Elpis unleashed the screams when Emet-Selch and Hythlodeus showed up, but the writers fumbled the rest of the time travel stuff, Meteion, and story/motivations around Venat. Ultima Thule wasn’t as exciting as Elpis to me and it seemed like it was there because Banri Oda likes space and the Sharlayans were connected to space since the 1.0 story behind the scenes.


There are some things I would point out though. The dev team and the playerbase seemed to really want Sharlayan to be present sooner rather than later and the end of ShB points us there so I don’t think that can be ignored unless you want to rewrite that part too. And if you’re doing the fantasy counterpart culture thing, the Hrothgars/Bozja already claimed the Slav culture in the far southeastern part of Ilsabard.