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

[FirstGearFirstGear]

You are not your character. You are a human being who lives on or in the very close proximity of the planet Earth in the dimension of reality. You are also not a fractured piece of a larger whole whose existence is mutually exclusive to yours.

Perhaps I should be clearer. FF14, like a lot of good fiction, use its setting and characters to explore ideas that relate to the real world. Ideas like colonialism, prejudice, camaraderie, and the meaning of suffering. These are ideas that, even if explored in a fantastical space, are quite relevant to the ourselves as human beings. A large part of the reason that FF14 has such a good story is that it handles and explores these themes in a mature way. Its not high literature but its pretty high-tier for the medium and especially this specific genre.

This matters because CBU3 is pretty clear that we as real world human beings are far closer to the sundered people of FF14 than the unsundered. No, you are not your character but you are still a flawed, imperfect being doomed to suffer and one day die. You have to find meaning in your life to get out of bed in the morning and a large part of what CBU3 argues is the meaning to life is the companionship that we form with others, not just of our kind but of everyone on the whole of the star.

It also matters because the logic used by the Ascians and by their defenders, that all non-Ancients are subhuman and not worth preserving, is the logic used by loads of real world perpetrators of genocide. You yourself literally equated people to monkeys and said that it would be better to kill all the monkeys in the world than the humans. Its a real short skip from there to some very, very bad ideas about the actual world.

This really isn't about a whose standard of existence is worth more or less, Ancients came first, the sundered only being able to exist due to the mass genocide, the rightful owner of those souls would be the ones who were hacked into pieces, not the random personality that happened to come afterwards. That is my outsider perspective. It's a shit circumstance, the Dying Gasp probably puts it simplest, the victor will be hailed as a hero and it's loser as the villain, yet they're basically two sides of the same coin in terms of morality.

Why aren't the sundered the rightful owners of their own souls? Why do they have to give them up for people who died twelve thousand years ago (incidentally those people can themselves only exist through even more mass genocide)? And if you're going to make the argument that the Ancients were there first therefore they own them in perpetuity, I have very bad news for you about what claim you or your home country have to the land you're standing on.

If we are going for metaphors, she placed the gun on the table knowing with certainty that they would use it to start 'blasting everyone in range'. She is culpable for giving them the means to do so, she enabled it from the beginning and is every bit as guilty as they are.

The analogy doesn't work. Venat placing a gun implies that all she did was giving them the tools, but that's not what happened. She gave them both the gun and the motivation to use it.

It would be like telling a guy in immense grief that killing someone would bring back his family, invite that someone to be in shooting range, giving the first person a gun and then being shocked they actually do it. There's a point when it goes beyond just complicity and it becomes actively malicious.

The problem with this is that the Ascians still had to pull the trigger. At any point, Emet could have stepped back and realized what he was doing was wrong. He didn't until we threw an axe through his chest.

I am merely describing the sundered as exactly what they are; fragments of the ancients that came before them that only exist due to Venat's actions. Nor did I say they are only good for being murdered or worthless, you're extrapolating things from my post that I haven't even remotely implied.

You're trying to wriggle out of your own words.

Venat also took her own people and reduced them to their current state of vulnerability and mortality against their own will, she then referred to those broken, incomplete remnants of her former peers as her children. Regardless of motive, I find that quite disturbing.

If you want to claim you're just neutrally describing the sundered, you should probably avoid calling the condition of existence "disturbing".

[Seraphor]

Perhaps I should be clearer. FF14, like a lot of good fiction, use its setting and characters to explore ideas that relate to the real world. Ideas like colonialism, prejudice, camaraderie, and the meaning of suffering. These are ideas that, even if explored in a fantastical space, are quite relevant to the ourselves as human beings. A large part of the reason that FF14 has such a good story is that it handles and explores these themes in a mature way. Its not high literature but its pretty high-tier for the medium and especially this specific genre.

This matters because CBU3 is pretty clear that we as real world human beings are far closer to the sundered people of FF14 than the unsundered. No, you are not your character but you are still a flawed, imperfect being doomed to suffer and one day die. You have to find meaning in your life to get out of bed in the morning and a large part of what CBU3 argues is the meaning to life is the companionship that we form with others, not just of our kind but of everyone on the whole of the star.

It also matters because the logic used by the Ascians and by their defenders, that all non-Ancients are subhuman and not worth preserving, is the logic used by loads of real world perpetrators of genocide. You yourself literally equated people to monkeys and said that it would be better to kill all the monkeys in the world than the humans. Its a real short skip from there to some very, very bad ideas about the actual world.

Why aren't the sundered the rightful owners of their own souls? Why do they have to give them up for people who died twelve thousand years ago (incidentally those people can themselves only exist through even more mass genocide)? And if you're going to make the argument that the Ancients were there first therefore they own them in perpetuity, I have very bad news for you about what claim you or your home country have to the land you're standing on.

Well said, thank you.

I usually stay away form these discussions because it's tiring dealing with the same absolutist ideals every time from those who either fanatically worship or oppose the Ascians, and ignore the larger literary and philosophical concepts that are trying to be communicated, and the overall fiction of it.

The Unsundered world is Utopia, in every aspect, and by that I mean Utopia as written by Thomas Moore. Not the perfect existence we should be striving for, but a folly of unattainable and contradictory flawed perfection. This should be more than apparent simply from the names of Hythlodeus and Amaurot, if you're aware of the book.

What's more, is that the idea of suffering being a vital part of life, and being what gives meaning to joy, is not only blatantly spelled out by the game in the form of the fate of the dead worlds Meteion visited and the world of Ra-La. It is also a core tenement of Buddhism, Jainism, and even a bit of Hinduism.

These two combine into a clear narrative that justifies Venat's actions, within the limitations of the story that has been designed around it. To not do so would be to doom the Unsundered to repeating the same self-destructive fate of the Ra-La's.
This isn't a sycophantic worshiping of a fictional character, it's a sound philosophical and literary interpretation of a fictional story, which is designed to go the way the writer planned it to. It can't be held to the same standards of real life choices and actions, it's far too directed and focused.

Buddhism isn't a 'bad' philosophy, and Moore's Utopia isn't an invalid critique of the folly of perfectionism, Endwalker merely combines these in an admittedly flawed setting (time loops are always quirky like this), but the sources it draws upon are not evil just because you identify with Hades' character and wish you were an Ascian.

[jameseoakes]

Well said, thank you.

I usually stay away form these discussions because it's tiring dealing with the same absolutist ideals every time from those who either fanatically worship or oppose the Ascians, and ignore the larger literary and philosophical concepts that are trying to be communicated, and the overall fiction of it.

The Unsundered world is Utopia, in every aspect, and by that I mean Utopia as written by Thomas Moore. Not the perfect existence we should be striving for, but a folly of unattainable and contradictory flawed perfection. This should be more than apparent simply from the names of Hythlodeus and Amaurot, if you're aware of the book.

What's more, is that the idea of suffering being a vital part of life, and being what gives meaning to joy, is not only blatantly spelled out by the game in the form of the fate of the dead worlds Meteion visited and the world of Ra-La. It is also a core tenement of Buddhism, Jainism, and even a bit of Hinduism.

These two combine into a clear narrative that justifies Venat's actions, within the limitations of the story that has been designed around it. To not do so would be to doom the Unsundered to repeating the same self-destructive fate of the Ra-La's.
This isn't a sycophantic worshiping of a fictional character, it's a sound philosophical and literary interpretation of a fictional story, which is designed to go the way the writer planned it to. It can't be held to the same standards of real life choices and actions, it's far too directed and focused.

Buddhism isn't a 'bad' philosophy, and Moore's Utopia isn't an invalid critique of the folly of perfectionism, Endwalker merely combines these in an admittedly flawed setting (time loops are always quirky like this), but the sources it draws upon are not evil just because you identify with Hades' character and wish you were an Ascian.

I despise the frankly vile suffering fetish this game pushes, pushing that a world with out want is bad and then glorifying the societies that let children freeze to death it's disgusting

[MagiusNecros]

Emet Selch did nothing wrong. Probably the biggest victim. Emet and the Convo offered at least the option for Sacrifice. And this is them working off of no info given putting in a memory wipe as the biggest ass pull in storytelling.

Venat just wanted to win her philosophical debate with Hermes and chose to kill everyone to do it. You kinda see the same mistakes being made with Minfilia #264 as well as the First Reflection.

Venat chose to keep silent to protect her own self image...even though the entirety of her society worships the ground she walks on and would believe anything she said.

Somehow I feel that Venat siphoning the lives of others(that she created) for 12,000 years so "her champion" can defeat Hatsune Miku left much to be desired and just proves that Lahabrea/Hephaestus was correct in her just being a parasite.

But I'm sure everything will make sense 3 expansions later and will perfectly explain why Venat was a not so distant copy of World of Warcraft's Azshara who caused a Sundering of the world out of selfishness and curiosity.

I'll always be so disappointed with Shadowbringers set up for something promising and how Endwalker just handed you a lackluster product.

It's like ordering a steak and get a undercooked burger.

I can't wait until the revelation that the true cause of the End of Days was ironically the Warrior of Light themselves by virtue of putting the thought into Venat's head.

As is the WoL is a paradox in history. And history abhors a paradox and must therefore be expunged.

[MagiusNecros]

Chrono Trigger pulls off the Utopia that fell to ruin story so much better then how it was wrote here. Like I understand what they were going for but it wasn't well written at all. Might have been better if the characters introduced had a lot of development but they kinda were introduced and killed off in one patch cycle and that's pretty tiresome.

Really hope the scenario for 7.0 is much better and has good pacing.

[Necrotica]

Ok.
I want you to go away and read the Tipitaka or the Zen Sutra's, and then come back and explain to me why Buddhism is evil.
Then go away and read Thomas Moore's Utopia, and tell me why his critique is wrong and why absolute perfection is both attainable and the only thing that matters.

If you can't do that, you're not disagreeing, you're missing the point.
I look forward to you calling an entire religion evil.

No one is glorifying freezing children or fetishizing suffering, and you are missing. the. point. No actually you're wilfully misrepresenting it, if you're claiming that's what is happening here.

I could call quite a few religions evil. Lot of pagan tribes that practiced human sacrifice and what not.

But to address the problem with how this game fetishizes suffering, it does not define the end point. Venat does not want the Ancients to rebuild their society and save those trapped within Zodiark and unable to re-enter the aetherial sea. She sees these acts as a rejection of suffering and believes Ancient society should move forward as is. They are not allowed to rebuild, they are not allowed to save their loved ones. They must suffer because to her that has moral value. They are supposed to accept and overcome the bad that happens.

Except post sundering she empowers heros to stop suffering. There was too much.

We are now left with the question of how much suffering is the correct amount according to the Supreme Goddess. She never tells us. Because she doesn't know. Because the whole premise is stupid.

"To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom─it is indolence."

The game pushed this phrase during the patch content leading up to Endwalker. Venat did not save the Ancients. She killed them. She did not teach them. She did not show them a way to build new that did not require sacrificing others. Her perfect vegan Utopia that also somehow never killed any other life to include plants was never shown. Instead she created a world where countless more die constantly.

If Venat wanted to go suffer alone in a hut, fine. She can do her own thing. The problem came when she forced her beliefs on others in a bloody crusade.

[Saraide]

The unsundered werent free of suffering, they just swept it under the rug. That's why it's a fake utopia like pretty every other utopia in fiction. This is a recurring theme in fiction: look under the rug of any utopia and you will see its rotten core, the ancient's society is no different. The thing that this game celebrates isnt suffering, it's overcoming it. A real utopia is unachieveable but that doesnt mean we shouldnt strive to improve the lives of ourselves and others. Suffering doesnt stop existing just because we refuse to acknowledge it, this is why the ancients were doomed to fail and why hydaelyn took away their flawed perfection.

[Brinne]

Always fun to see us circle back to how the Ancients were biologically unfit.

It comes back down to the disconnect. If Venat cast down a bunch of mere thematic symbols, not truly people but just symbolic representations of a part of the human psyche, that she is merely defeating the stand-in for the "temptation for weakness" within the Human Spirit as a whole, then there's no big deal, just coast on the vibes and the theme. However, if you take the perspective that Venat did what she did to people - keeping in mind that the previous expansion's emotional impact depending on the fact that you understand her victims were people, and asking you to empathize with them as such - everything instantly flips and becomes an absolute horror show.

And frankly, even if you try to point out that Endwalker is an expression of Buddhist ideals, the medium it goes about doing it entails the eradication of an entire race of people. It involves the conscious decision of someone who is celebrated as a hero to force people into a world where war, sickness, torture, and death exist where none did before. It portrays suffering as so necessary that it must be actively inflicted upon others if someone decides on some unspecified criteria that they're not experiencing enough. Criticizing how Endwalker conveys themes that may overlap with Buddhism is not the same thing as criticizing Buddhism.

Endwalker isn't subtle about what it's trying to say. At all. Trust me, I get it, and it's even a message I've basically enjoyed and appreciated when explored in other stories and other mediums. Those other stories usually don't underline the theme with "and that is why billions of people had to die in agony to pave the way for You, The One True Sufferer Who Suffers In The Correct Way."

The unsundered werent free of suffering, they just swept it under the rug.

What does this even mean...?

That's why it's a fake utopia like pretty every other utopia in fiction.

"I automatically know what this story is doing with a concept because I've seen how completely different stories do it" is kind of a weird way to engage with a text.

The thing that this game celebrates isnt suffering, it's overcoming it.

w-what does this even mean. what does it even meannnnnn

In seriousness, this is the problem when we, Endwalker-style, engage in these ideas via vague platitudes, generalized discussions of "suffering." What kind of suffering? Illustrate exactly what kind of suffering, what scenarios that teach this suffering, that you're (general you) suggesting is absolutely necessary for one to have a fulfilling life? What does it look like, actualized and concrete? Is it the kids freezing to death in the snow? Is it the wars? Is it the disease? Going to bed hungry? Stubbing your toe? What specifically is the adjustment to the environment that Venat inflicted that was so necessary that lacking it sufficed as reason to destroy an entire world and everything living on it?

[Saraide]

What does this even mean...?

"I automatically know what this story is doing with a concept because I've seen how completely different stories do it" is kind of a weird way to engage with a text.

w-what does this even mean. what does it even meannnnnn

Did you not notice how hermes and eric were suffering? People like them existed back then but their suffering was ignored. No one tried to understand them.

To me it sounds like you argue under the idea that a perfect utopia is infact possible. I disagree and (caution: very judgemental statement following) and think you need to stop huffing lethal amounts of copium. The trope of the seemingly perfect but actually rotten utopia is a common one because fiction is generally written by humans. Many people in our world have declared themselves or their way of live perfect. Fiction authors want to convince you how foolish that is. However, while perfection is unattainable, improvement is attainable.

What it means is that instead of settling for nothing less than perfection (and growing more and more desperate in the search of it) you should strive for improvement. That striving is what is being celebrated in the game. This cannot make sense if you cling to the idea that a perfect utopia can exist (or worse if you think it already exists).


On the topic of 'was venat justified?':
I think we need to ask a different question first: Was she looking for justification? What kind of justification?
In the cutscene after her trial I think she said something like "there was no kindness in the destruction I wrought". I dont think she was looking for moral justification, ever. It was always my interpretation that she was acting out of desperation and this is supported imo by the completely doomed backup plan of using the moon as an escape vessel. Faced with the choice of letting the ancients work themselves to their unavoidable doom or shattering the world and having the remnants be inhabitated by living feeling beings that have a better chance of defeating the catastrophe unleashed on the universe, she made her choice.

I found the omega beyond the rift quest very interesting in that regard. It poses not only the question of 'do you think what she did was justified?' but also includes hermes into that. He was desperately looking for justification for his actions. A search that not only doomed the world on accident but a doom he, given knowledge of the consequences of his action, also embraced in his authority as judge over the rights to existence of living beings on etherys.