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

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

on the topic of meteion earlier in the thread, why was what the last race of the dead ends dungeon did considered bad again? they willingly let themselves be erased because they've lived perfect lives and that's... wrong? I don't know how to really explain it but if I had to try I'd say that EW trying really, really hard to hammer that 'perfect is bad' (as someone called it) point down was really off-putting for me, and even seemed pretty childish with their message that you must experience suffering or bad things or you're, well, bad

It was more that they gave up on life, not that perfect is bad.

[Rinhi]

It was more that they gave up on life, not that perfect is bad.

but it was by their own choice, unless meteion influenced it? I don't see it as something bad, I guess

[Vahlnir]

but it was by their own choice, unless meteion influenced it? I don't see it as something bad, I guess

Giving up on life is generally considered a bad thing. That was the entire point. Not sure what's so hard to understand about that.

[Rinhi]

Giving up on life is generally considered a bad thing. That was the entire point. Not sure what's so hard to understand about that.

they've lived their life free of pain and sorrow, attained everything they wanted and more and every single one of them decided that they should go back to the aetherial sea, to so speak
I don't see anything bad about this, but this is certainly not the forum to discuss things like that lol

Pretty sure suicide is frowned upon.

No, all of the cultures she found did this on their own, without outside influence. That's what drove her insane to begin with

it's still a game, though, and holding it to the same standards as the real world in this case is weird when various other things in the game aren't held to the same real world standards either

thought so, though she certainly caused other stars to die after succumbing to despair

[Vahlnir]

they've lived their life free of pain and sorrow, attained everything they wanted and more and every single one of them decided that they should go back to the aetherial sea, to so speak
I don't see anything bad about this, but this is certainly not the forum to discuss things like that lol



it's still a game, though, and holding it to the same standards as the real world in this case is weird when various other things in the game aren't held to the same real world standards either

thought so, though she certainly caused other stars to die after succumbing to despair

And yet they showed it in full display to drive the point home that giving up on life is a bad thing. lol It is one of the major themes of Endwalker. Seriously.

[KizuyaKatogami]

And yet they showed it in full display to drive the point home that giving up on life is a bad thing. lol It is one of the major themes of Endwalker. Seriously.

I don’t think they’re arguing that the story did or didn’t say it, but the story has a lot of “themes” that it tries to portray and a lot of the time players either don’t agree with them or some find it humorous when they try to push themes but then have the main cast contradict them lol.

[KariTheFox]

but it was by their own choice, unless meteion influenced it? I don't see it as something bad, I guess

Isn't Meteion influencing them exactly what happened? They were living a perfectly serene and peaceful life with no awareness of the outside universe, then Meteion showed up and they decided to make Ra-la in response, seemingly on a whim.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

but it was by their own choice, unless meteion influenced it? I don't see it as something bad, I guess

Pretty sure suicide is frowned upon.

Isn't Meteion influencing them exactly what happened? They were living a perfectly serene and peaceful life with no awareness of the outside universe, then Meteion showed up and they decided to make Ra-la in response, seemingly on a whim.

No, all of the cultures she found did this on their own, without outside influence. That's what drove her insane to begin with

[Rulakir]

No, all of the cultures she found did this on their own, without outside influence. That's what drove her insane to begin with

The notes within the Dead Ends say otherwise. Meteion is credited with both triggering the world war that decimated world #2 as well as her incessant pestering having caused the existential crisis of world #3 leading to the creation of Ra-la.

[EaraGrace]

The notes within the Dead Ends say otherwise. Meteion is credited with both triggering the world war that decimated world #2 as well as her incessant pestering having caused the existential crisis of world #3 leading to the creation of Ra-la.

World 2 had a preexisting conflict that used Meteions arrival as justification. Their World War was inevitable. And World 3’s people had already accepted they wanted to die before she came. The reason for her pestering was their answer that existence was pointless, and she hated that answer because of what it meant. If anything, it was Meteion who had the existential crisis, not those who created Ra-La, for them she was a pitiable creature who hadn’t accepted the truth yet.

The implication that "perfect is bad" is hard to shake off when they show different societies which reached different states of "fulfillment", "enlightenment", "perfection", "immortality", etc. and they all "reached" a catastrophic end (in some cases by nothing more than the power of the writer's pen imo and not a natural progression of events). Not a single one managed to keep living their lives. How can you shake off the implication that reaching such a state is indeed a bad thing with such representation?

The alternative explanation is that their societies weren’t perfect and instead simply traded one form of suffering for another. They achieved what they thought was perfection, worlds without sadness, pain or loss, when in reality they were just as plagued with suffering as “lesser” races. A perfect society would not kill itself after all. Perfection thus is bad, not because it’s a bad thing in itself, but because it’s an unobtainable goal that one will never achieve. And if one does think they have reached it, then they are wrong.

And this is the weird thing. The Ancients didn’t stop striving to do better. They got essentially detoured, but it’s as Hythlodaeus says. After all was said and done they planned to go back to their duties of being the stewards of the star and bettering it. So i’m curious what the message with them is.

What happens when there’s nothing left to create, nothing left to do to make the star “better”?