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

[MagiusNecros]

I think they really screwed up the core principle of what Hydaelyn was supposed to be and tried to pull a BERSERK on us but only the late Miura or Yoko Taro can feasibly pull it off. Venat ain't no Griffith that's for sure. Pulling an Eclipse might have been better if it was illustrated that Venat fought for the world and was left with no choice but to sacrifice it but the storytelling just isn't there.

But again I can see the intent of "You all must die so my ideals can live" schtick they had going.

[MikkoAkure]

"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 whole concept of “Utopia” from its original inception is that it’s a farce, that’s the way almost every single piece of media has played it to be, and the writers even connected it directly to that original concept with its naming of the main city the civilization centered around.


The way the story interacted with the Ancients was always awkward because it was very roughly tacked on with no foreshadowing and the concept didn’t even occur to the writers until halfway through the life of the game.

The Ancients were always going to die because otherwise our characters and world going back to the very beginning of the game wouldn’t exist. The writers stumbled when trying to make a pre-existing civilization in the middle of the story that’s somehow responsible for everything from the elementals to migrating birds, made them the civilization of our enemies that have caused every bad thing to happen, but also balance that out with being empathetic and the events around them being a tragedy caused by the entity that had been unquestionably good and supportive this whole time.

[Brinne]

The whole concept of “Utopia” from its original inception is that it’s a farce, that’s the way almost every single piece of media has played it to be, and the writers even connected it directly to that original concept with its naming of the main city the civilization centered around.

I mean, it might just be a different in reading styles, but I'm not really into "I instantly know what this is doing without needing to pay closer attention because of [references completely unrelated stories] [also possibly a TV Tropes list]" and "using this Very Symbolic name means I instantly know what this is about, no further observation required." It's a bit frustrating when people point to things like that instead of anything that actually concretely exists or is illustrated in the text or characterization itself. It kind of comes back to that whole "is this a story or a list of author's bullet points?" kind of thing.

I guess some people do approach stories like they're a matter of puzzle-solving author intentions above all else, and that can be fun and interesting sometimes, but it's not really relevant to me in this particular kind of discussion - back to evaluating whether or not the Ancients really just needed to die or if they proved themselves unworthy of existing, somehow, yet again.

The way the story interacted with the Ancients was always awkward because it was very roughly tacked on with no foreshadowing and the concept didn’t even occur to the writers until halfway through the life of the game.

I have a lot of praise to offer Ishikawa in Shadowbringers with how she utilized the pre-existing traits of the Ascians to spin into the Ancients and their culture, and how clever so many of the small touches there felt, but overall, yeah. They ultimately weren't willing to commit to Shadowbringers throwing in a swerve that nobody foresaw the impact of and the reception to. Lots of short-sighted writing blunders that has left us in a really weird, uncomfortable place regarding the most significant and foundational event in the entire lore.

IIRC, it always seemed a little bit interesting to me that Yoshida (?) named Ishikawa, specifically, who wanted to use Shadowbringers as a chance to "humanize" the Ascians, down to Ishikawa pushing for Emet becoming "a part of the party" in the way he did while he had reservations about it. I suppose you could speculate all day where the cracks formed between Ishikawa going hog wild with her vision for Shadowbringers without accounting for and baking in planning for what would inevitably follow, or possibly Yoshida/other writers for being inflexible and not quite seeing what was happening in their own story and being willing to bend to it organically, or everyone's fault for not properly planning things out until the last second across several expansions, or somewhere in between.

[Lurina]

The whole concept of “Utopia” from its original inception is that it’s a farce, that’s the way almost every single piece of media has played it to be, and the writers even connected it directly to that original concept with its naming of the main city the civilization centered around.

I feel like this fanbase has collectively absorbed the superficial detail that Thomas More's Utopia is a satire and assumed it's a satire of the concept of utopias, when that's not really the case at all.

Utopia is a satire of the early Humanist movement of 16th century European society, poking holes in the contradictions between the radical ideals it had on paper, and the structural issues it refused to challenge - such as the influence of religion on government and and the social problems caused by property ownership and the emerging proto-materialist culture of the time. The Utopia in the book isn't named "no-place" because More was arguing it was unachievable or undesirable (in fact, he was almost certainly advocating for a society like the one depicted, judging by the tone and how it mocks a bunch real countries via explicit contrast) but rather because it was so alien to renaissance-era Europe that it was beyond the scope of what most people were even willing to imagine.

His point was that to attain a perfect society where no one was treated unfairly, just about every cultural sacred cow would need to be slaughtered; money, aristocracy, self-expression, Christian morality, etc. Ironically, by positing that it's wrong for the Ancients to have social and ethical systems unlike our own through a largely emotional argument (see how the critique of their custom of voluntary death is framed wholly through Hermes' visceral discomfort, without even really trying to examine it on merit), the writing is proving his point: That we are too reactionary and defensive regarding our own customs and values to rationally envision a completely different kind of society from the ground up.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I think they really screwed up the core principle of what Hydaelyn was supposed to be and tried to pull a BERSERK on us but only the late Miura or Yoko Taro can feasibly pull it off. Venat ain't no Griffith that's for sure. Pulling an Eclipse might have been better if it was illustrated that Venat fought for the world and was left with no choice but to sacrifice it but the storytelling just isn't there.

But again I can see the intent of "You all must die so my ideals can live" schtick they had going.

Not really, gods are just gods. Theyre not the be all end all of what is ultimately good and evil especially with the writing of your typical fantasy jrpg. Its almost always written were the heroes forge their own path with whatever assistance a benevolent being provided with the end result being the dismantle of the established diety mythos in the world.

So Hydaelyn was written how she was supposed to be all along. Its just people over analyzing it and making these mental gymnastics over trying to give their reasons for meaning when the writers intent was already given clear as day. I dont understand the confusion here with you people.

[Xeronia]

Not really, gods are just gods. Theyre not the be all end all of what is ultimately good and evil especially with the writing of your typical fantasy jrpg. Its almost always written were the heroes forge their own path with whatever assistance a benevolent being provided with the end result being the dismantle of the established diety mythos in the world.

So Hydaelyn was written how she was supposed to be all along. Its just people over analyzing it and making these mental gymnastics over trying to give their reasons for meaning when the writers intent was already given clear as day. I dont understand the confusion here with you people.

I want to remind everyone the interviews/fanfests leading up to Endwalker Yoshi P was gladly telling people to examine everything and that you would never guess where Endwalker was going. I can't really fault people after that kind of build up for doing just that and analyzing the story as heavily as they did. I personally think the choice in the Omega quest of "Everyone was wrong" is the correct answer myself they elected to add that choice there for some reason instead of treating it like the MSQ and never letting me question Venat.

[MikkoAkure]

I feel like this fanbase has collectively absorbed the superficial detail that Thomas More's Utopia is a satire and assumed it's a satire of the concept of utopias, when that's not really the case at all.

Thomas More’s Utopia was designed as a contrast to contemporary European society just as FFXIV’s Amaurot does the same to Eorzea, but from a modern lens it is by no means perfect. In More’s Amaurot, individualism and privacy do not exist and everyone owns slaves.

At the end of the book, More disagrees with much of Amaurot’s society but wants to learn more about it and implement parts of it despite thinking it’ll never happen.

Much of what More actually meant is still up for debate and unless FFXIV’s writers told us the intention and the angle they were going with the references, we’ll just end up in circles.

That we are too reactionary and defensive regarding our own customs and values to rationally envision a completely different kind of society from the ground up.

This could also apply to the pearl-clutching reaction people have to Venat’s actions and labels of evil and genocide.

Elpis established that they believed everyone back then was in service of the Star and an intrinsic part of it while at the same time being so powerful that they felt they had the right to make extreme decisions on behalf of everyone else.

Would they consider it genocide? Or would they consider it just a continuation of their souls being recycled? This never comes up and these questions are never asked.

While an immediately bad thing that breaks everyone and everything into 14, it’s never treated by the story as a genocide and also not treated as a maliciously heinous act of evil. Venat never gets a dressing-down from Emet-Selch or Hythlodeus and the story continues to treat her as good.

[Lurina]

Since this thread is kind of hell, I'm not really interested in diving into the actual discourse here (though I'm not sure how you could play Shadowbringers and get the impression that at least Emet didn't essentially consider the Sundering a war crime; he condemns the heck out of Hydaelyn there, to the point that his final EW scene comes across as sort of a forced happy resolution), I just wanted to confront the idea that merely by referencing More's Utopia, FFXIV could only have been foreshadowing the Ascians utopian society as a "farce", since his work - irrespective of its sometimes dated values - largely presented the society positively. Even at the end of the book, his concerns are more about the impracticality of its implementation than it being bad for its own sake.

[Teraq]

Since this thread is kind of hell, I'm not really interested in diving into the actual discourse here

A mood of significant proportions. For the sake of my mental balance, I try not to dive into the war zone too often. The fact is, I would much rather be in my Art Deco metropolis, having tea with all the other (charitable, not patronizing) wizard scientists in my big comfy snuggie… Regrettably however, this isn't that kind of role playing game, so the playable character I personally do not particularly identify with is stuck in this rather middling and boring fantasy world, with all these sundered protagonists I've never felt particularly attached to but have been willing, so far, to suffer to catch a glimpse of the far more interesting antagonists.
Speaking of… …sort of… I enjoyed Rubicante; it's just a bit of a shame he was more or less a one scene wonder. Now I feel like the only interest in the story I have left is the prospect of Deep-Voiced Final Fantasy Villain In Big Bad Armor name dropping Zodiark. Just name dropping will do. Endwalker in general has trained me to lower my standards. (Also, loud shout-out to the French localization team for having Golbez refer to the "Ascians" who told him of the 13 other worlds as actually singular and female, alluding to Igeyorhm in all but name. For once, this is not me dunking on the EN localization (wow?!), because the original JP also talks of "Ascian", unspecified. I just wanted to acknowledge these French guys and gals sure can ascian, and they have my respect for that!)

Anyway, I look forward to the next instance of this thread being called an echo chamber, even though it seems as liable as ever to turn overnight into what can only be described as the terrible, cursed lovechild of the lore subforum and /r/ffxivdiscussion's story threads, babysat by The Balance's lore channel. Mercifully, it does not have nearly enough horny fan art of female WoLs and average screenshots of in-game scenery to be taken to the daycare by /r/ffxiv.

In the meantime, I had thought we all agreed on time travel being a very risky plot device that can go horribly wrong at the drop of a hat, and yet here we are, transported right back to July 2019 by FirstGearFirstGear. Peculiar! I suppose she also used the second bad plot device, Kairos, to wipe from her memory the responses to those musings she probably got for the past three years and a half. Personally I am quite baffled that anyone would call these arguments "a breath of fresh air", because to literally every Ascian fan since patch 5.0, they smell rather stale. Are you guys excited for the first tier of Eden to drop? I hope the remix of Force Your Way slaps! (It did, thank you Soken)
While I personally disagree that the Unsundered had a better reason to exist than the Sundered, I see the point of players who think they do by virtue of the former being the original whole and the latter being the broken result of a… sigh… intended and purposeful planet-wide extermination of their people, culture, history and civilization (sorry, some people don't like it when we use the G-word to speak of an act done by a good guy!), but I don't reason that way myself. Whatever. I'm not particularly offended by other people's takes on complicated moral matters as long as everyone involved in the discussion is respectful, especially when the subject matter is ultimately fiction.
In an in-universe context however, I have always interpreted the situation in Shadowbringers as one where both sides deserved the right to fight for their existence, in tragic circumstances where it didn't look like both sides could feasibly coexist – though it wasn't for a lack of trying on Emet-Selch's part, as he makes a point of, both in-game and in his first short story. I perfectly understand however where the Unsundered are coming from, as both Emet and Elidibus make very clear that they were simply unable to relate to the Sundered and consider them "human" from their PoV, owing to the massive cultural differences resulting from the Ancients' immutable biological characteristics. It does not matter how human you think the Sundered are. To the Unsundered, things seemed so different as to be irreconcilable, and to consider their stance, you also need to take into account that they were governmental officials of the highest level, supposed to oversee the planet and represent their people. The former is, to their eyes, unambiguously broken into pieces, and the latter are either 1) locked up and expressing a wish to be made whole again and go back home, or 2) shadows of their former selves living very short (again – to them) and cruel lives.
Back in 5.0, anti-Ancient people used to argue that Emet's account of his society was too rose-tinted and that it was actually a not-so-secretly dysfunctional dystopia, ergo not nearly perfect enough, thus the Ancients were Wrong™. Now, after 6.0 (which, To Be Fair, You Must Have A Very High IQ To Understand…), it is apparently also a valid argument to say that the Ancients' society was too perfect, thus the Ancients were Wrong™. That's the brilliant thing with Endwalker, you see: no matter how you look at it, you can ALWAYS say the Ancients were Wrong™ and feel good about yourself being on the side of Good™! Marvelous. This story was almost threatening to be morally complex at one point. Aren't we all glad Endwalker put that to rest? I sure am wiping the sweat off my brow!
But the thing is, Ancients being simultaneously too perfect and not perfect enough should have never even mattered in the first place. Because who are we to judge them when the Sundered have such marvels as the pirate rape cave, Doman pimps being given a slap on the wrist, magic-capable people chasing the magicless out to cold inhospitable lands, the Xaela and some of their frankly ridiculous customs existing, racist wood people ruled by weirdly obtuse spirits, and rampant pint-sized capitalism? Emet throws what amounts to this argument in the Scions' faces, and Alphinaud doesn't have much to answer to this plain truth. Regardless, it still feels justified for the Sundered to fight him and Elidibus, and of course it does. You don't have to justify your existence. Neither the Sundered nor the Ancients should.

…except, of course, when you ineptly introduce, right in the last episode of your arc, a plot device that you can very conveniently point to and say "B-bb-but look! The Ancients were literally biologically incapable (and culturally, and emotionally as well, because why the hell not? Might as well throw it all in!) of manipulating The Power Of Friendship IN SPACE™! They were doomed! TEAM HYDAELYN WINS!". Dynamis is so terribly-written that it appears to act literally like the well-established Power System that already existed in-universe for years, with somewhat loosely defined rules that we the audience were gradually learning about, except it kinda tosses these rules out the window, so the writers can sort of make things up as they go. What does it do that Aether cannot? Well… Nobody's really sure. It can transform people into grotesque monsters, but so can Aether. It can create things, including living and self-aware things, but so can Aether. Limit Breaks are Dynamis, except they've always been defined as Aether before, and surely some LBs must be Aether still, otherwise surely the literal Unsundered Ancient juiced up on sweet Elder Primal Aether shouldn't be able to spam LBs at us?? The alliance raid tells us the Twelve are given their shape by the prayers and emotions of people, and so, ohhhh, could it be DYNAMIS?!?! But this sounds just like what Aether has always done with Primals?…
Not content with merely being a useless addition, it also does a number on the world building. So, apparently, it was largely under-researched by the immortal scientist wizards with an insatiable thirst for knowledge (of course, otherwise the writer's fave wouldn't be A Very Special Boy as required by this convoluted plot). Well, makes sense, because they were so uninterested in space, right? Ah, except they apparently knew enough about space for Venat to conjure up a whole bunch of spaceship-building, space-faring familiars, which we can surmise she based off the Anamnesis Anyder archives on space Simpeus of Anyder gave her in his short story. Well, all right. Let's just accept anyway the immortal scientist wizards were totally uninterested in this thing they were aware made up two thirds of a universe they had not even begun to explore yet. What of the Sundered and their science, then? If the Elpis flowers survived all the way to 12,000 A.S., then we can surmise they also existed before then, with all their tantalizing mood-ring mystery that isn't Aether. So, I suppose even the incredibly technologically advanced Allagans were also terribly uninterested in this mysterious energy. Even though they were also interested in space! Everything back then was also made of 4/14th density Aether, so logically Dynamis should have had more of a presence then than during our 8/14th density Aether era prior to Zodiark's death, during which Thavnairan alchemists were aware of the concept. There is apparently no trace of it ever being researched before Thavnairan alchemy. Nope. I guess everyone in this universe simply found the thing too boring to ever be properly researched at all and passed down history before Endwalker suddenly introduced it to us.
Dynamis is poorly introduced, fits awkwardly into the lore, and doesn't seem to do anything much that Aether could not do. It has no good reason to exist in the story.
I kid. Of course it does, and that good reason is palatable justification for genocide, effectively undermining what made Shadowbringers and the Ascians' struggle so poignant in the first place.


But I digress and am off-topic. This is, after all, What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Thomas More's Utopia? Silly me!
SPOILERS for the latest installment of Thomas's magnum opus

It does not matter how smart you think you are for citing Utopia (at least before you got told by a lit major who actually read the thing). This is Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker we are talking about. That a JRPG makes a reference does not imply its story even has to follow the same moral and point. It could very well subvert it, or it could also just be a shallow reference you aren't supposed to give too much thought to – and Final Fantasy XIV has never exactly been a stranger to things you aren't supposed to give too much thought to. (Case in point, I think I've just given Dynamis far more thought than it actually deserves. Perhaps more thought than even went into creating it. This particular bar doesn't sound very high, if I can be honest with you all.)
Neither themes nor literary references make a plot good or well-executed. Imagine the makers of something pretty universally panned and/or disappointing like the final season of Game of Thrones, or Rise of Skywalker, saying that actually, you didn't get it, they really did their research and were referencing this old as balls work of classical literature, and that maybe if you weren't such a boorish, low-brow rube, you would appreciate their masterpiece. Is this supposed to make the story's weird change in tone, tired old plot devices or weirdly anticlimactic conclusion to years of build-up that apparently went nowhere more satisfying to the audience? What even is the point here? (Other than condescension on an online forum because you might frankly be more upset than you should be at people not liking a thing you like.)
It's not that deep. Especially not shōnen-trope-heavy Endwalker, of all things.

I also find it kind of funny that the example we have of Venat saving Ancient lives is just as bad as killing them apparently.

Now, we all know you simply couldn't be arguing this in good faith, for a couple of reasons:
1. "Saving Ancient lives" (from… from her own genocide??) absolutely was not the intent of Venat allowing Emet-Selch (and two really unlucky dudes, if I am to believe what this story and the Q&A told me) through the Rift. She did so out of the hope the time loop would eventually happen. As she knows, this entails the Ascians committing genocides. They have to for the loop to close and for her brave little spark to benefit from the Apple Tag she deftly threw on a flying target. She didn't just put a gun on a table and then the Ascians shot up planets with them. She was actively planning on them to do that.
2. Yes, allowing three people to live as survivors of a genocide and suffer for an eternity from loneliness and enough mental distress that one becomes depressed, another's identity devolves into a cackling villain, and the last willfully lets himself forget his human life because the alternative would hurt more, hanging onto the vague hope (that turned out to have always been futile, because it's a time loop, and it ends with them being killed by the broken remnants of their former colleague and friend that Venat groomed for the job. Cool.) that they will one day succeed and see their loves ones again and finally rebuild their home world… sounds kinda bad to me, honestly. Killing them with the rest would have been a mercy. But perhaps you were coming at this from the point of view of Endwalker's "life must continue at all costs, even if it means an eternity of suffering". In which case… well. This is your brain on Endwalker, I suppose.

Yes, please continue to completely miss the point.
Like I said, this is why I don't do this...

Oh! Well then. Be our guest.

[Rosenstrauch]

Dynamis is poorly introduced, fits awkwardly into the lore, and doesn't seem to do anything much that Aether could not do. It has no good reason to exist in the story.

I mean, Spiral Power Dynamis does have one obvious meta use aside from being an easy means of justifying the extinction of entire worlds because they can't git gud at using it.


After Shadowbringers firmly established that Dark and Light are the Active and Passive polarities for aether, there was a pressing, overwhelming need to simplify things so players would understand who the good guys and bad guys were. Enter Dynamis! The miracle power that... is exactly the same as aether in every way, as you've said. But unlike aether, it's explicitly coded to be Good or Evil depending on what sort of character is using it. Good Dynamis is always bright, shiny, and either colorful or white. Bad Dynamis is always icky, grungy, and purple or black. Good Dynamis creates Good People replicas of civilizations long dead, and can even create whole planets out of nothing more than wishful thinking. Bad Dynamis destroys planets and creates scary monsters that scream in despair as they burn down cities and eat people.


… So, how long do you think it'll be before the writers get bored with Dynamis and try to play with it in more interesting ways than just "Aether, but with color coded morality"?

EDIT: I should clarify that I don't dislike simplistic visual displays of moral alignment in fiction. Gods know I love me some Star Wars, where you can tell at a glance whether someone is good or evil by the color of their sword. But I will never not disappointed that the devs backslid into one of Fantasy's biggest comfort zones after taking a few baby steps away from it and inviting us to think a little more critically about it.