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

[AwesomeJr44]

Honestly, I've always felt there is a lore disconnect with Haurchefant's death. From the scenes on the Final Steps of Faith where his spirit and Ysayle's help the WoL and Alphi pull the eyes out to when his spirit shield shows up in Aitiascope...

The lore leads you to believe that a "blade of light" renders the soul into dissolute aether. I was always under the impression that he had been killed right down to his soul, so much so that my memory later disregarded the 3.3 scene after Nidhogg on the steps.

That's what made it so poignant to me, but like so many other things, the writers just do not care to adhere to what they wrote before with this game. It makes me sad and mad.

Yeah, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Even assuming that the light spear doesn't just destroy your soul, his appearance in the Aitiascope dungeon just makes no sense for where the character was left off. Apparently the souls who are lingering behind in the Aitiascope are meant to be souls with regrets or something similar. So why is Hauchefant down there? He knows he saved us, if that was really him on the bridge after Final Steps of Faith, he knows we survived the dragonsong war, why is his soul just hanging around in the sea? Maybe the light spear makes it where he can't reincarnate but he's still down there? But then why are other characters' souls who shouldn't have such regrets seemingly stuck there too? Shouldn't he have been reincarnated by now all things considered? Maybe I'm just misremembering how it works, but it doesn't make much sense.

It feels like they kinda just dumped logic for feels on that one. It's not surprising though, that's 90% of this expansion's plot.

[Vyrerus]

Yeah, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Even assuming that the light spear doesn't just destroy your soul, his appearance in the Aitiascope dungeon just makes no sense for where the character was left off. Apparently the souls who are lingering behind in the Aitiascope are meant to be souls with regrets or something similar. So why is Hauchefant down there? He knows he saved us, if that was really him on the bridge after Final Steps of Faith, he knows we survived the dragonsong war, why is his soul just hanging around in the sea? Maybe the light spear makes it where he can't reincarnate but he's still down there? But then why are other characters' souls who shouldn't have such regrets seemingly stuck there too? Shouldn't he have been reincarnated by now all things considered? Maybe I'm just misremembering how it works, but it doesn't make much sense.

It feels like they kinda just dumped logic for feels on that one. It's not surprising though, that's 90% of this expansion's plot.

My assumption is that Hydaelyn got ahold of every friendly soul we see, and put them on our path.

At first it seems like a nice thing to do, but then you remember that it's preventing them from passing on / just so the WoL can make it to her for sure. And we know it's the case for Minfilia's soul at the very least, because of the explicit reference to Ryne being cut off and Emet being brought back in earlier dialogue in the expansion.

I figure it's the case for Moenbryda too, whose soul we see representing by her Dual Haken, but she rode the same currents as Nabriales since her soul was used to fuel the blade of light that killed him.

It's more or less nostalgia bait, the dungeon, and it only gets more fucked up the more you think about it.

[MagiusNecros]

If I were to hazard a guess I would say prior to Aitiascope all those that died did not in fact pass on and return to the Aetherial Sea completely. But rather were absorbed into the Mothercrystal ergo Hydaelyn herself. Considering it's been hoarding massive amounts of aether for several thousand years and likely holds myriads of souls within it's walls up until it's consumption by Zenos+Zero.

Throughout Aitiascope you have a bunch of souls that were killed and went to the AS some of them the antagonists while others were the WoL's allies.

Moenbryda, the Lalafell and Haurche lost their bodies but Minfilia as an oracle retained hers. And you get a brief cameo from Ysayle as part of a scripted boss mechanic.

Primarily to invoke the feels of all the friends that died are here to help you reach Hydaelyn.

This isn't the first time Haurche and Ysayle came to your aid though. They did the same in Heavensward. But I feel their appearance in HW was more impactful.

Having characters like Moenbryda, Ysayle, Noraxia(the sylph) be throwaway characters is pretty disappointing.

Then it gets worse with characters like Minfilia with a 1.0 background and they just get yeeted on a whim.

[Xeronia]

I really question the overuse of Harchefant in particular as with the ARR cut you barely spend any time with him, a lot of the cut Coerthas quests involved him and I just don't think that connection is really made well anymore. Also I know I am the only person who cared about SB's side characters but what about Meffrid and Conrad? I get Meffrid basically dies instantly and I am in the handful of people who remembered the Commander of the resistance before Lyse but the overuse of just Monebyrda, Harchefant, Ysayle when we have other dead people we knew is pretty annoying.

[grinkdaboy]

i can't say i really enjoyed the meteion asspull. makes me wonder how many rewrites (and what was rewritten) they had during that content drought last year

[MikkoAkure]

i can't say i really enjoyed the meteion asspull. makes me wonder how many rewrites (and what was rewritten) they had during that content drought last year

Per an interview, the idea of Meteion was already there since the very earliest stages of writing the expansion before any rewrites while Ultima Thule and the final act went all the way back to 2019. Hydaelyn and Zodiark were also in there as trials from the very beginning. They debated on having one take over the other to fight us but decided on a "surprise last boss" at the end instead, also before the rewrites.

So we can't really blame Meteion on anything else other than being something unnecessary that they decided to stick with. Hydaelyn and Zodiark's trials at the point in the story they're at is due to SE's refusal to change from the same X.0 story formula they've had since HW where we do trials at specific levels.

[Skyborne]

i can't say i really enjoyed the meteion asspull. makes me wonder how many rewrites (and what was rewritten) they had during that content drought last year

Only tangentially related to her, but it was kind of funny how in this stream commentary ... dynamis wasn't even a thing until after 5.0.

Sure, my interest in the story and lore and investment in it is destroyed with nothing left for me, but at least I was vindicated about the Omega raids being about how it lacked a soul and could not comprehend our actions due to it, and only began to at the very end.

Not that it matters much, aether is king again and dynamis is back in the plot device toybox after serving its singular purpose (for now?).

[AwesomeJr44]

Only tangentially related to her, but it was kind of funny how in this stream commentary ... dynamis wasn't even a thing until after 5.0.

This is honestly why I hate Dynamis as a concept so much. (other than it being so poorly defined) It comes out of the writers' butts at the 11th hour without any build-up and it's obvious that it was only a thing because the writers wrote themselves into a corner. How do you make the society of an ultra powerful and intelligent race of beings, who have a mastery over the lore's main energy source, collapse? The writers seemed to think that the random bullcrap emotion energy that conveniently can counter said race was a good idea. It just reeks of bad planning and last minute excuses made to get out of the corner they backed themselves into. I'm honestly hoping that they drop Dynamis from the story and just ignore from now on, it's so poorly written and defined as a concept, and I'm not interested in expanding on such an awful plot device.

[SentioftheHoukai]

I honestly don't understand folks who are like, "Who's this elf bozo?" It's like y'all aren't even playing the same game at times.

Feel like you're blowing his role in the expansions out of proportion, but really it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, there are gonna be characters in a story one simply doesn't jive with. And that's okay, even if this community fails to grasp that a lot.

Then EW came in and tried to milk his death a bit in Aitiascope. At first I thought it was ok, then I actually thought about it a bit. It was just cheap emotional manipulation, just like the rest of Endwalker. If you give this expac any logical thought, it falls apart instantly. "Hey look at this! Remember that? Doesn't that make you feel bad/sad/mad/happy/*insert other emotion here*?" Then you have the streamers/Youtubers overreacting as always, getting hyper emotional over it and tearing up.

"No, Maaaaaahm!!!! I'm fighting for my life here, in the afterlife remember?! Nostalgia tears in my eyes, blurring my combat vision is the LAST THING I need!"

[AwesomeJr44]

"No, Maaaaaahm!!!! I'm fighting for my life here, in the afterlife remember?! Nostalgia tears in my eyes, blurring my combat vision is the LAST THING I need!"

Gotta milk those memberberries for all they're worth.