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

[not_ya_wify]

And Venat was fucking evil. Yes, I said it. I know everyone thinks Venat is a saint who loves everyone yadda yadda but I hate her with a passion. She chose not to tell the rest of the convocation about the real reason behind the final days and the story excuse for not doing so (um it will make people upset and Hermes could be useful which I know he isn\\\\\\'t because you already told me what happens but anyway) is absolutely ridiculous. She either didn\\\\\\'t try to prevent the final days at all or was just too incompetent to do anything about it. Either way, then of course the final days happen and Zodiark gets called on and Zodiark does exactly what he is supposed to. Yet, Venat is upset about the next sacrifice, so what does she do? She KILLS EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING ON THE PLANET. Can\\\\\\'t be sacrificed if you\\\\\\'re dead amirite? Not only does she kill everyone but even worse she condemns them to eternal suffering. Why? Mainly because it sounds cool when she says "henceforth man shall walk." The explanation for it was once again ridiculous. "Um I make you suffer so you don\\\\\\'t wanna die." Except we see plenty of the species that were crying out for Meteion to kill them did indeed suffer a great deal in the exact same fashion as people today. "Um yeah, but like sundering helps people control dynamis." Except it didn\\\\\\'t. Bitch did you see Thavnair? I\\\\\\'d argue transforming yourself is worse than transforming creation Magicks. You may even argue that the Scions needed to be manipulating the Dynamis in Ultima Thule, except she a) couldn\\\\\\'t have known that and b) she didn\\\\\\'t need to sunder everyone. She literally would only have needed to sunder 6 people not including the WoL who didn\\\\\\'t need to be sundered either.

I also agree that suddenly introducing Meteion last minute as the big villain was kind of anti-climactic. Final Fantasy games have a tendency to switch up the villain with another one in the last part of the story but Meteion and Hermes as the ultimate villain kind of cheapened the past 10 years of story. A much better plot twist would have been to reveal that Hydaelyn is evil (which she actually is but we don\\\\\\'t talk about that here) and that she has tempered and mind controlled us this whole time and that we now need to kill her. Shadowbringers lead up to that very well and then we get this mess in Endwalker.

For me personally, the absolute worst part of the story that I never want to have to repeat is that rapey scene when Zenos forces himself into your body. Then the story slaps you in the face by having him come to your rescue while fighting Meteion (how utterly unnecessary). Not only does this creepy rapey stalker guy get his fetish of fighting us satisfied but he gets to be the final fight of Endwalker. I was hoping he\\\\\\'d die of fungus of screen.

[Carin-Eri]

Then the story slaps you in the face by having him come to your rescue while fighting Meteion (how utterly unnecessary). Not only does this creepy rapey stalker guy get his fetish of fighting us satisfied but he gets to be the final fight of Endwalker. I was hoping he'd die of fungus of screen.

I actually disagree with this assessment.

I enjoyed the fact that the story made me give a measure of respect to a character I once disliked a great deal. I like the fact that, by Endwalker, he is actually pretty unimportant/not really a priority to the WoL - he realises this and decides to not let that bother him. Whilst everyone else is pondering the meaning of happiness, here is a guy who found it and knows that all he needs to learn is how to reach it. And he does, because when Alisaie calls him out, he listens.

And he was right about us, when he identified our 'Adventurer' roots. and recognized that we were heroes through circumstance and a need to do the right thing, rather than choice, and the way we fight reflects that. I feel the only answer that wasn't dishonest was "That, I can't deny" (and the grin that my character gave when she said that is one of best things my character has ever done) when he tells us he knows what we are.

I have to add that I truly enjoyed the fight. We were never really on equal terms with him until this fight, and due to that he truly doesn't hold anything back. He pours everything he is in that fight and so do we. Two souls burning their absolute hottest and brightest - the greatest joy Zenos has ever known and the only joy he can ever share, in stark contrast to the theme of despair that the 'zone' had been about.

[Xirean]

I actually disagree with this assessment.

I enjoyed the fact that the story made me give a measure of respect to a character I once disliked a great deal. I like the fact that, by Endwalker, he is actually pretty unimportant/not really a priority to the WoL - he realises this and decides to not let that bother him. Whilst everyone else is pondering the meaning of happiness, here is a guy who found it and knows that all he needs to learn is how to reach it. And he does, because when Alisaie calls him out, he listens.

And he was right about us, when he identified our 'Adventurer' roots. and recognized that we were heroes through circumstance and a need to do the right thing, rather than choice, and the way we fight reflects that. I feel the only answer that wasn't dishonest was "That, I can't deny" (and the grin that my character gave when she said that is one of best things my character has ever done) when he tells us he knows what we are.

I have to add that I truly enjoyed the fight. We were never really on equal terms with him until this fight, and due to that he truly doesn't hold anything back. He pours everything he is in that fight and so do we. Two souls burning their absolute hottest and brightest - the greatest joy Zenos has ever known and the only joy he can ever share, in stark contrast to the theme of despair that the 'zone' had been about.

Every time a story forces me to "respect" a character. I start hating them. I was a fan of Zenos in StB, but here..... Here I want to do nothing more than delete his mouth and give him cement shoes. His whole character arc this expansion was effectively learning how to say please. That's not a good arc and that's not a good character. The dude ripped my character out of her body against her will then nearly killed her friends/allies with her own body. There is no coming back from that in my eyes. Also they didn't even fully lean into the horror that he provides. He doesn't actually kill anyone, there's no consequences to anything he does except Zodiark being let out, which there's a million ways that could have been achieved without his presence at all.

You mention that in your eyes the only right choice is "That, I cannot deny." How about if I said screw that? Kill him and end his BS OR not fight him at all and walk away like he said he would let us do.

I would have rather he stay dead the first time.

[OhNooo]

Yet, Venat is upset about the next sacrifice, so what does she do? She KILLS EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING ON THE PLANET. Can\\\\\\'t be sacrificed if you\\\\\\'re dead amirite?

The explanation for it was once again ridiculous. "Um I make you suffer so you don\\\\\\'t wanna die." Except we see plenty of the species that were crying out for Meteion to kill them did indeed suffer a great deal in the exact same fashion as people today. "Um yeah, but like sundering helps people control dynamis." Except it didn\\\\\\'t. Bitch did you see Thavnair?

Nah but see you don't get it. It's not murder! Like for real, if I slash at you and your whole family and break you up into tiny little entities that are way weaker and basically have the lifespan of a gnat compared to what they used to have - people who can't even form words and have to learn how to do everything all over again...it's not a form of murder just because none of you remember anything from before and don't have the same personalities. I mean yeah you're all basically different people now and any friends you had from before who didn't get sliced up are gonna mourn you since they lost the friends they knew, but hey it's a clean slate right? What you can't remember doesn't matter right? It's not like all your hopes, wishes and history matter anymore since it's all wiped clean. If I see one of your friends that I let escape, I'll try to cheer them up and tell them that their friends aren't dead, they just now have 14 new friends they can get to know (I mean since you won't remember them, they'll have to re-introduce themselves and stuff but yeah).

You just don't get it. You can't become too complacent or too comfortable in life - that will lead to apathy and then you'll just wish for death because you're so bored and nothing is fun anymore because you don't experience torture or extreme hardship so you have nothing to compare the feeling of fun to. You gotta like, experience both joy and sorrow to have balance. Idk maybe you can like have a couple of happy days and then we could manufacture some suffering in there to keep the balance that way our civilization won't end up so bored we wanna die. Because feeling like you're ready to pass on is super evil - your personal choices and autonomy have nothing to do with anything. I can't think of anything worse than someone living for thousands of years and then deciding they're ready to pass on - TRUE EVIL RIGHT THERE. A more meaninful existence would be living through unbelievable torture everyday but Forging Ahead ™ and then giving a monologue to your oppressors about how all the torture they're doing to you is just making you stronger, or better yet it would be more noble to be in a remote village starving and dying of malaria. Don't you see that the ones going through all that suffering have a much better existence because they're better equipped to deal with suffering since they deal with it all the time, whereas the first person I mentioned lives a comfortable life with no hardships. Just unbearable! They need to at least have a couple of diseases or maybe a little poverty in their life. I mean look at Sisyphus, one must imagine he's overjoyed:



No but seriously. EW literally turned me into a cutscene skipper. I feel so silly spending so much time looking into the lore..and then seeing the joke they gave us as an ending to a 10 year arc. At this point I wish I could have enjoyed it. But now I'm just a jaded player that chuckles a little when I see an excited sprout "Aww yeah I remember when I was excited to play this game..."

[Lauront]

No but seriously. EW literally turned me into a cutscene skipper. I feel so silly spending so much time looking into the lore..and then seeing the joke they gave us as an ending to a 10 year arc. At this point I wish I could have enjoyed it. But now I'm just a jaded player that chuckles a little when I see an excited sprout "Aww yeah I remember when I was excited to play this game..."

And as a bonus, we're going to ignore Elpis sidequests and Amaurot, and go with the idea that... they're just gods, doing godly things to each other, so you see, it's more like a mythological origin story, and it's hard to see that as genocides or see it as an atrocity... again, just gods doing godly things to each other! All that effort humanising them, showing they valued debate etc? Nope, the ancient thing to do is a bit of casual totally-not-genocide (come now, you're creating life... if we ignore the minor cost of the ancients going extinct...) whenever someone reacts the wrong way emotionally to your pearls of wisdom! Or better yet, dooming the entirety of the universe because you, fine Overseer of Elpis, are the only person with feelings and totally not someone with their head firmly entrenched up their buttocks most if not all of the time. A veritable first step for mankind!

[OhNooo]

Or better yet, dooming the entirety of the universe because you, fine Overseer of Elpis, are the only person with feelings and totally not someone with their head firmly entrenched up their buttocks most if not all of the time. A veritable first step for mankind!

Hermes: "No one understands me. I'm so alone...." *is antisocial and doesn't make any effort to reach out to anyone or understand anyone else* "Noooo don't you dare kill this violent predator! They deserve to live at the cost of the other species they killed!" *doesn't mourn for all the species the predator decimated*

*cue Linkin Park background music CRAWLINGGG IN MY SKINNNNNNN, THESE WOUNDS THEY WILL NOT HEEEEEAAAALLLLLLL*


"Can't pass my test if you don't know the rules amirite. Humanity deserves to die anyway." - Hermes probably

[KizuyaKatogami]

Hermes: "No one understands me. I'm so alone...." *is antisocial and doesn't make any effort to reach out to anyone or understand anyone else* "Noooo don't you dare kill this violent predator! They deserve to live at the cost of the other species they killed!" *doesn't mourn for all the species the predator decimated*

*cue Linkin Park background music CRAWLINGGG IN MY SKINNNNNNN, THESE WOUNDS THEY WILL NOT HEEEEEAAAALLLLLLL*


"Can't pass my test if you don't know the rules amirite. Humanity deserves to die anyway." - Hermes probably

And our lovely qween Venat goes along with his shitty test because......idk she crazy.

[Teraq]

And our lovely qween Venat goes along with his shitty test because......idk she crazy.

Um because she's an Ancient, sweetie, duh. That's just what these kooky old Ancients did, murder by negligence (those attempts to warn people sure seemed half-assed given the results we know of rather than what she told us she would try doing) to prove a point about humanity.