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

[Cach]

Nothing within that point of the story is related to Final Days or Blasphemy phenomena, other than, "Oh hey, we know the root cause, so now we gotta rig up this spaceship!" Idk, it just felt like there was very little tension.

Before the spaceship takes off, they do the "everyone gets together" thing, but they previously did that before the Garlemald expedition.
"Oh we doing this again, uh" the scene didn't work for me that second time.

[ReynTime]

Before the spaceship takes off, they do the "everyone gets together" thing, but they previously did that before the Garlemald expedition.
"Oh we doing this again, uh" the scene didn't work for me that second time.

And despite there being no way to know when you'd return from the end of the freaking universe people from all over are gathered and ready to receive you back for the precise day you do.

[Striker44]

Aitiascope was interesting, by the Hydaelyn trial and associated cutscenes were pretty ehhh... and almost invoked another plot hole ( She fights us exclusively with aether, there's no mention of us using Dynamis against her, so it's kind of a head scratcher as to why her test really mattered much at all, other than killing her to get her out of the way and throw down her run away plan).

For this part, I always felt Hydaelyn's "test" was just to see if we were strong enough to stand a chance against Meteion, not necessarily anything specific to dynamis. More along the lies of "if we're going with your plan, then we're sacrificing my plan to flee on the Moon, so let's make sure it's actually worth trying...because if you're simply not strong enough, then everyone on Etheriys is now doomed."

[Tama-Kanzashi]

For this part, I always felt Hydaelyn's "test" was just to see if we were strong enough to stand a chance against Meteion, not necessarily anything specific to dynamis. More along the lies of "if we're going with your plan, then we're sacrificing my plan to flee on the Moon, so let's make sure it's actually worth trying...because if you're simply not strong enough, then everyone on Etheriys is now doomed."

Yeah, cool plan, flee with the moonship which not only lacks Zodiark's shield but also is also not even close to the aetheric density of even the sundered world. Everyone will instantly turn into Blasphemies and it will be the World's End Dancehall up there.
Cool plan mommy. Man you are so smart, you even fooled Striker44.

[Vyrerus]

For this part, I always felt Hydaelyn's "test" was just to see if we were strong enough to stand a chance against Meteion, not necessarily anything specific to dynamis. More along the lies of "if we're going with your plan, then we're sacrificing my plan to flee on the Moon, so let's make sure it's actually worth trying...because if you're simply not strong enough, then everyone on Etheriys is now doomed."

Thing is, ya know, why would it matter if we weren't strong enough to beat her in an aether contest? Meteion couldn't beat her or any other ancient in an aether invoking contest (Meteion couldn't even beat Sundered Zodiark in that regard). Hydaelyn says to us something along the lines of, "I saved just enough power at all times so we could have a true deathmatch whenever the destined day came. So it was a true test of your abilities!"

Like sure, it was a test of our abilities, but since there's no mention of it being our Dynamis abilities, then it's ultimately a fight for fight's sake(brought to you by Kratocrat Barbie!). To wit, pointless. The only thing productive from it is it changing Hydaelyn's Will. Which is necessary for the story, but if you know, it feels very contrived.

And that's further highlighted by Meteion almost instantly killing us all, because she's a practitioner of an art we aren't versed in, Dynamis. It then becomes pure chance that Thancred's will actually contests Meteion, and disrupted her nest enough to create Ultima Thule.

[FatalFatalis]

666 pages, this is now a certified cursed thread

[BaconBits]

Yeah, cool plan, flee with the moonship which not only lacks Zodiark's shield but also is also not even close to the aetheric density of even the sundered world. Everyone will instantly turn into Blasphemies and it will be the World's End Dancehall up there.
Cool plan mommy. Man you are so smart, you even fooled Striker44.

Actual Dead Space moment.

[aveyond-dreams]

The confrontation against Hydaelyn was rather underwhelming in retrospect, from the leadup cutscene to the fight and the difficulty of the fight itself. In my earlier rewrite of Endwalker I had redesigned the meeting and fight against her as follows:

Here, rather than tender memories being projected onto the crystals like in the case of Zodiark, Hydaelyn’s Crystal Memoria showcases the bloodiest moments of human history while “proud angels” and sin eaters rampage through the zone. It is abundantly clear that Hydaelyn/Venat views these struggles as little more than entertainment and that she considers it a lot more “fun” compared to life in the Unsundered World despite the carnage. Her mental state is explored in that she feels that her hands are clean because she merely “guided” people into doing the things they did in these conflicts rather than taking on an active role, leading the party to question whether or not her behavior is all that different from Emet’s. They come to the conclusion that it is different, for while Emet was desperately trying to bring back his loved ones for thousands of years, Hydaelyn inflicted this torment onto humanity for her own vanity.

Eventually the party comes before the Mothercrystal and the WoL uses the blessing of darkness to shatter it, while the spirit of Emet-Selch looks on. The crystal disintegrates and Hydaelyn emerges from it, unfurling her wings and looking down at the WoL with cold eyes. She again remarks on their progress and how far they’ve come, and the party declares their resolve to fight against her and free the star from her influence. Hydaelyn attacks them without warning and Meteion leaps in front of the WoL to take the hit intended for them. This shocks and enrages the party, who immediately retaliate. Vrta reverts to dragon form and lunges at her only for Hydaelyn to encase him in a block of crystal, and casts down the remaining other party members before challenging “Azem” once more.

A 3 phase fight ensues, with the first phase taking place at the “Lake of Ice” as seen in the original Endwalker MSQ. The 2nd phase involves her subjugating and riding away on Midgardsormr in order to escape the WoL’s final blow and recover her health. By this point Vrtra breaks free of his crystal prison and lets the WoL on their back in order to pursue his father. They are accosted by the last of Hydaelyn’s sin eaters in this add phase before the dragons both release their riders from their backs and send them plummeting towards the surface of the moon. Hydaelyn’s wings are damaged by the fall and is thus forced to fight on land with no means of escape, and in her frenzy nearly overpowers the WoL. Themis and Hythlodaeus release themselves from crystal stasis in order to hold her back while the WoL deals damage to her, but both are ultimately sacrificed in order to render her vulnerable. With one final blow, the WoL slays Hydaelyn who disperses into light and moondust.

[Rulakir]

I don't believe it's discussed enough how Venat/Hydaelyn has no downsides.

We have the unsundered Ascians on one hand who are depicted as struggling emotionally and psychologically with everything from the end of their world to their laborious efforts to restore it over the course of several millennia. This eventually leads them to making missteps by the time the WoL encounters them resulting in their deaths and failure of duty.

Meanwhile, supposedly Venat had suffered for the same amount of time, but displays no ill effects from it. On the contrary, she is the picture of mental clarity and purpose. At most she says she had bouts of despair, but was able to overcome them thinking about the WoL.

She's also singularly the only primal to have no consequences of being one. She doesn't require aether beyond her original sacrifices and she doesn't temper. Conversely, even though the first part is also true for Zodiark, there are still numerous people who insist by nature of being a primal he was some sort of blood god who demanded endless sacrifices. This mentality is never applied to Hydaelyn who, as a primal, should be no different using that logic.

I suppose I should just chalk this up to the rules don't apply to the "protagonists" because that seems to be how the writing for this game has operated since HW.

[Layte_Aeon]

I don't believe it's discussed enough how Venat/Hydaelyn has no downsides.

We have the unsundered Ascians on one hand who are depicted as struggling emotionally and psychologically with everything from the end of their world to their laborious efforts to restore it over the course of several millennia. This eventually leads them to making missteps by the time the WoL encounters them resulting in their deaths and failure of duty.

Meanwhile, supposedly Venat had suffered for the same amount of time, but displays no ill effects from it. On the contrary, she is the picture of mental clarity and purpose. At most she says she had bouts of despair, but was able to overcome them thinking about the WoL.

She's also singularly the only primal to have no consequences of being one. She doesn't require aether beyond her original sacrifices and she doesn't temper. Conversely, even though the first part is also true for Zodiark, there are still numerous people who insist by nature of being a primal he was some sort of blood god who demanded endless sacrifices. This mentality is never applied to Hydaelyn who, as a primal, should be no different using that logic.

I suppose I should just chalk this up to the rules don't apply to the "protagonists" because that seems to be how the writing for this game has operated since HW.

I mean, they are different situations.

The unsundered struggled yes but all for different reasons: Lahabrea's fanatical devotion and going through other bodies at the pace he did wore his mind to the point that he seemed focused on the destruction caused by rejoinings more that their actual purpose. Emet fundamentally was tired and didn't entirely believe his own spiel about the sundered not being living (he thought them lesser sure, but that's different than not living), and Elidibus, due to not refreshing his memories entirely forgot why his duty may or may not have mattered, though his drawing on the hopes of sundered beings very much exacerbated this.

Venat/Hydaelyn however doesn't fall into these pits. She has no need to possess bodies, until canocially very recently and even then it's short enough that she wouldn't suffer ill effects, she doesn't have Emet's sense of exhaustion and need to rationalise her deeds, she knows exactly what she's done, and all the good and ill that's come of it and she never put herself in a situation where she'd lose sight of why she was doing what she was doing the same way Elidibus did.

Besides she and Zodiark while being, as Emet called them "the eldest primals" they are for the most part just powerful creations. Zodiark's tempering wasn't even intentional, it was a side effect of how big a creation he was and the large scale he was designed to act on. Venat meanwhile is noted to have been a smaller creation, so of course unintentional tempering wouldn't happen.

The rules apply, the parties are just different enough that they are affected differently.