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

[MikkoAkure]

After all these pages of reactions and complaining I'm curious, what kind of ending would you have actually expected to see or what resolution with the Garleans and Ascians would have made you happy?


Personally I was expecting the Keening to be some sort of monster the Ancients accidentally created through their subconscious fears over the years and then it snowballed into the Final Days but instead we got a little blue bird girl astronaut that Fandaniel made. Zenos piloting Zodiark should have been the last boss before the big Final Days monster we go underground to fight and Anima deserved a trial instead of a dungeon battle but Garlemald went about the way I knew it was going to go.

And I'm super curious about how people expected Venat to be handled. She sings the main theme of the whole game so it would have been awkward to make her bad all of the sudden. The lyrics even reflect how she ended up being and I wonder if they wrote Venat based on the song, which existed before Hydaelyn was even written. "Life sucks sometimes, but you gotta deal with it, now go on and be free". Meanwhile the Ascians specifically use the word "serve" in regards to Zodiark, who they want to bring back the past. Emet-Selch had already betrayed Elidibus after he got his soul cleansed with a whole expansion's worth of light and doomed the whole Ascian plot, which should've been enough of a clue about how the writers were going to do the next bit of the story. If it was meant to be more morally ambiguous, there wouldn't have been a scene of Emet-Selch saving us in the middle of battle so we can kill the last Unsundered Ascian and Zodiark's heart.

[Teraq]

After all these pages of reactions and complaining I'm curious, what kind of ending would you have actually expected to see or what resolution with the Garleans and Ascians would have made you happy?

I don't feel qualified enough to speak of Garlemald, but I'm sure the usual suspect would love to tell you all about it.

My short take on it is that I was disappointed by Varis's barely on-screen death as I liked him in 4.5 and was excited by the prospect of him being the human antagonist stuck between two Unsundered Ascians, but we know how that went, and rewriting that would be going back pretty far.
Fast-forwarding to post-ShB Garlemald, of course I would have wanted Ilsabard (and the first third of Endwalker basically) to be its own expansion, to involve Gaius, Cid and Nero along with Maxima and the Populares. Nerva, of course, who has been talked about for... quite some time would make an actual appearance.

I had no particular expectations for the nature of The Sound™, only that it would not be a product of the Ancients in any way, shape or form because I frankly am 300% over Endwalker's endless victim blaming. Make it a natural (likely of extra-terrestrial origin) catastrophe that was an unspeakable tragedy they had no control over. A horrible thing happening to good people for no reason or meaning and inducing a chain reaction of tragic events.
I expected it to be 7.0 material, coinciding with a Meracydia or New World expac, as it had been stated the Final Days started overseas from Amaurot / Vylbrand. I had expected it to be dormant after Zodiark's intervention, not constantly persistent as Meteion's song turned out to be.

And I'm super curious about how people expected Venat to be handled. She sings the main theme of the whole game so it would have been awkward to make her bad all of the sudden.

I feel rather confident in saying that a reasoning as black and white as "Make her bad all of the sudden" is not what any of us Antagonist Venat Enjoyers had in mind. But to be fair, she had already unambiguously committed a genocide, voluntarily or not, before EW rolled around, so I'm not going to call her good either...
As I saw the Hydaelyn/Zodiark conflict back in ShB, neither side was "good" or "bad". Both had their points and it just so happened that one side won and proceeded to write history. And now that we finally knew the truth, we would challenge her on that, on her lies, and on her tempering.
Oh, yes, because I did expect Hydaelyn being a primal to have any sort of consequences at all. Remember when it was an ominous reveal in 5.0? And when 5.3 showed her counterpart's identity being seriously affected by the process of being the Heart of a primal? I expected that situation to be very uncomfortable with her as well. But none of this happened.

The lyrics even reflect how she ended up being and I wonder if they wrote Venat based on the song, which existed before Hydaelyn was even written.

I cringed every time Endwalker forcefully threw the "answer" anvil at me, so yes, I think this is the case honestly.

"Life sucks sometimes, but you gotta deal with it, now go on and be free". Meanwhile the Ascians specifically use the word "serve" in regards to Zodiark, who they want to bring back the past.

Yeah. When your world was cool and you were happy and you end up being the sole survivors of a genocide, and what replaced you seriously sucks and is plagued by war, misery and disease, I agree with wanting to bring back the past.

Emet-Selch had already betrayed Elidibus after he got his soul cleansed with a whole expansion's worth of light and doomed the whole Ascian plot, which should've been enough of a clue about how the writers were going to do the next bit of the story. If it was meant to be more morally ambiguous, there wouldn't have been a scene of Emet-Selch saving us in the middle of battle so we can kill the last Unsundered Ascian and Zodiark's heart.

I think that is because what you think of "the Ascian plot" might be too restrictive. To me, the Ascian plot was also about all the Sundered Ascians that were left – who they were, where they came from as mortals, what they believed in, how they would have reacted to the Unsundered being gone and what their point of view on Fandaniel popping off was. Both Pashtarot and Altima were already mentioned in ARR cutscenes. We've heard of Halmarut via Akademia Anyder. We even had the entire zodiac plainly referenced in 5.3, implying Deudalaphon existed, at least.
Maybe some of them could have sided with us against Fandaniel, not wanting the planet to be destroyed in spite of their defeat. Maybe some others could, on the other hand, want revenge against mortals and go with Fandaniel out of sheer spite. Others could be wild cards or neutral. Not to mention our very own Oracle of Darkness, who appears to be something of a parallel to Minfilia / Ryne. G'raha set a precedent of a side plot character becoming an integral player of the MSQ; why not Gaia? I could imagine her exploring her powers of her own will and slowly gaining control over them, perhaps sensing Zodiark's distress and being instrumental in our fight.

And I would add...

so we can kill the last Unsundered Ascian and Zodiark's heart.

But we did not!

He was still there in the tower.

In fact, when G'raha sent us there WITH A SOUL CONDUCTOR!!, I expected... much more of it than it simply being his login and password...

I would have loved a conflict against Zenos and Fandaniel trying to control Zodiark while we've got his Heart with us, who definitely would not want Zodiark to be used as Fandaniel would.

To be fair, after 5.3 I had also envisioned a part of Elidibus still being within Zodiark, because it made no sense to me that
1. in universe, sacrificing yourself to become the Heart would be such a big deal (see Anamnesis dialogue) if ... you could just fully, 100% exit the premises if you wanted to
2. out of universe, making such a long-standing villain suddenly an even bigger deal by revealing him to be the acting consciousness of Zodiark ... would only be used as an excuse power-up for his WoL fight and that's it. That's literally it. Chekhov's gun was a water gun, just a very realistic looking one.

All in all, Elidibus was far from over to me after 5.3. I had assumed his Ascian self was an avatar and projection of his consciousness from Zodiark, and that by defeating him we had severely amputated him of his freedom, but that he still existed as the very structure of Zodiark.

But as it turned out, he really was 100% split and a completely separate entity, and –– (takes a deep breath of copium)

[CrownySuccubus]

After all these pages of reactions and complaining I'm curious, what kind of ending would you have actually expected to see or what resolution with the Garleans and Ascians would have made you happy?

I would have accepted a flawed Hydaelyn who meant well, and was still ultimately on our side. Pretending the Elpis arc never happened, and there were some other reasons for The Sundering, the WOL could have had a chance to talk to her and make the case that while what she seemed like the last resort, the WOL doesn't condone it and will try to go a new path. If Hydaelyn must die, then it should be trying to put right what she put into motion, so that her children can prosper.

I'm actually okay with the Garlemald plot. As I've said numerous times, since Garlemald is a copy-paste of the Gestahl Empire in FFVI, I found it cool and interesting that they basically suffered the exact same fate: one of their own, hellbent on oblivion, reduces the Empire to such rubble that they're completely irrelevant into the story. I thought that was rather tragic black comedy in FFVI, so I didn't mind it happening again in FFXIV.

As for the Ascians...I honestly have no idea. Fandaniel gave me a BAD first impression in 5.3, so I didn't much care for his character and 6.0 did absolutely zilch to change my mind.

And I'm super curious about how people expected Venat to be handled.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, though...the whole Elpis plotline needs to be chucked into the trashbin. Just let the Final Days be caused by Outer Gods or Space Demons or something. There's NO REASON it had to be native to Etheirys.

If Venat existed as separate character, it should been solely as the pilot inside the Hydaelyn mech, like Elidibus was to Zodiark.

[Lunaxia]

After all these pages of reactions and complaining [...]

According to... somewhere (either it was mentioned in the game or by the developers, I can't remember which), Emet's act was as much about helping Elidibus as saving us. He didn't want Elidibus to remain behind alone to bear the burden, and I think it's safe to say with Emet gone and the mental degradation the three of them had already been begun to experience in their individual ways over the past millenia, it was a lost cause that would have only have been agonisingly and fruitlessly drawn out than it needed to be had he not. It was an act of mercy more than anything else.

With the Garleans, I was fairly satisfied and actually pleasantly surprised. I didn't respond much to the mechanical attempts to incite sympathy for them, but the setting was chillingly atmospheric and I found their section of the story far more interesting than I thought I would. We'd already walked around in a desolate, grey-toned snowscape being called a savage for ten hours by xenophobic locals until we had earned their favor in Heavensward, and the writers did well to avoid that repetition while still being able to relate their story and give us a good insight into their state of mind from an unexpectedly refreshing and novel direction, so I have to give them kudos for that. In From the Cold was so much fun in how unsettling it was, it was probably one of the highlights of the expansion pack for me. I just wish they'd had a little more daring to really go through with the set up, because having Zenos go to the trouble of possessing the WoL's body only to stand there and smirk menacingly for five minutes was the definition of an anti-climax.

With the Ancients, I just wanted more. More of Zodiark, more of the Convocation, more of what happened before, during and after the Final Days pre-Sundering, more of whatever the hell Azem was meant to be doing and and more of Amaurot and their world leading on from what we saw in SHB. I wanted to see more of a battle between Zodiark and Hydaelyn, and I wanted quite literally any Ancient to appear in some way and call Venat out on her actions, her disturbing lack of interest or empathy for her own people and how she alone conveniently ended up in a position of godhood and spent the past twelve thousands year having a little nap in the aetherial sea while everyone else dealt with the devastating ramifications of what she did (only to then have the audacity to lament on how long she'd had to wait.) I also wish the source of the Final Days was... quite literally anything other than a hasty, final minute plot addition/ mechanic (suddenly, a form of energy not even the Keeper of the Aetherial Realm knew about! But for some reason, an unhinged animal conservationist did) and that Fandaniel would have betrayed Zenos, either by feeding him to Zodiark or quasi-killing the WoL right in front of him, because it would have been viscerally satisfying to see him denied what he wanted most for once.

More than anything, I just wanted the thoughtful storytelling, engaging characters and subtle nuance that brought me in with Heavensward and made me love the game so much in the first place. Garlemald for a moment really hit that spot - the part with Quintus was a bittersweet reminder of how good they can be when they don't hold back - and then it just became a tired rehash of every preachy JRPG plotline out there (Tales of Symphonia called, and it wants their companion death fakeout scene back.) The game fell prey to what every other franchise does when it reaches new heights of popularity - it discards everything that endeared it to its fans in the first place and shamelessly appeals to the new majority in a bid to hold onto it, even at the cost of its identity. Honestly, I regret SHB's success if this is where it led us.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

I just wish they'd had a little more daring to really go through with the set up, because having Zenos go to the trouble of possessing the WoL's body only to stand there and smirk menacingly for five minutes was the definition of an anti-climax.

And considering how the WoL always likes to beat people up so their on their knee and then just stops for no discernible reason (except no mercy for poor, hapless mooks), Zenos could have done the same since the writers are afraid of killing off characters (although i'd still root for a death).

Also, since in Stormblood they made a point of telling that little story of Zenos soloing a bunch of samurai bare-handed, there wouldn't have been any need to make different animations based on job if he just punches and magics them instead. Then we have the different sized race problem, but i'm sure saying "Zenos possessed WoL single handedly besting the scions was the most difficult/expensive part to animate" would be more impressive than Estiniens foot on a window or whatever the hell it was (personally i think they most likely just blew their budget on tail and ear wagging along with all the BS that entails (ugh...) and this was just the scapegoat. Edit: then again, i suppose those two things aren't mutually exclusive).

[Skyborne]

"Life sucks sometimes, but you gotta deal with it, now go on and be free"

Oops, turns out that the writers made everything be deliberate and on purpose! Because nothing can really be an accident, aside from the birdloli being corrupted. To seal this, they added the time loop, because everyone loved Alexander with the *touches scar* and gobbycheese.

There's the daily grind of life, losing friends and family, illness, making ends meet... then there's having an apocalypse deliberately dropped on you twice with a little soul-breaking and civilizational erasure in between. Then the message comes across as someone stomping on you with the expectation that you smile through the bootprint on your face as you ask for more.

I used to like Answers a lot, too, and it was especially powerful with the T12 version, I feel, considering the great sacrifice he made. Kind of like a certain white-robed red-masked shortking!

Since you asked the question I will hard pass, since it's always followed up by someone wandering in to go "wow, you guys think you're better than the writers, lol your fanfic sucks, glad you didn't write!"

[Vyrerus]

She sings the main theme of the whole game so it would have been awkward to make her bad all of the sudden.

Actually, that's a woman named Susan Calloway. :P

But to provide answers(winking face) to your questions I'm gonna hafta get long winded as I am wont to do.

At a fundamental level I would not have had a problem with Endwalker if it didn't sacrifice characters on the altar of Venat. Basically, if they'd had the cast react more realistically, and had a real heart to heart, real depiction of what she did, then I would likely have no big grievances with Endwalker. Of course, they didn't do that, and what they chose to do was rather foolish. What they chose to do was try to walk back the moral grey area they had laid the story into in Shadowbringers. Worse still, they tried only to walk it back, not depart from it fully. Rather than painting anyone as the villain, they attempted to paint no one as a villain, and it fell flat on its face as a result. And they didn't stop there. Simultaneously, they entered into this Venat praise cycle with the NPC companions, singing her praises even when she herself did not. It was jarring. Immersion was at a negative level. In no other expansion did I get to the final area, and say to myself constantly, "It's only a game. Try not to think about it too hard." Which is something the devs themselves bid us to do, too.

I was fine with the Garlean arc. I had no strong expectations for it, and it was rather enjoyable overall save for Zenos doing absolutely nothing with our body.

In regards to the Sound and the Ancients being the root cause for it... I was expecting that, and I would have been fine with it. I would have liked a monster far more monstrous than Meteion. I'm sure they saw her as killing three birds with one stone though. She's technically a product of the Ancients, but also technically an outside force. I would have preferred something like one of the raid bosses from Pandaemonium or hundreds of such things. I would have preferred the Ancients actually being monstrous enough that the Sundering was actually reasonable. My issue with the Sundering is entirely that it was an unreasonable reaction to events, especially since she had foreknowledge and her memories. But if the Ancients had really been monsters churning out monsters rather than milquetoast undergrads shipping their government figures together...

Endwalker is essentially a lukewarm bride with clear commitment issues that goes through with the marriage anyway.

[anhaato]

-

I agree with everything except the bit about the ancients. Any justification for a race getting wiped out that tries to frame it as the “correct” option, even if it involves writing them down to being completely evil strawmen, will always be diabolical to me. Pro-genocide narratives are bad no matter what, and that’s why this thread has so many pages.

We all thought the sundering was an accident, or that Hydaelyn was simply not good. There’s really no good way to portray her as good if the sundering was purposeful. A “better” setup of the ancients as a race that “needed” to die wouldn’t fix that, and would’ve made the writers even more reprehensible in my eyes.

[Lauront]

I agree with everything except the bit about the ancients. Any justification for a race getting wiped out that tries to frame it as the “correct” option, even if it involves writing them down to being completely evil strawmen, will always be diabolical to me. Pro-genocide narratives are bad no matter what, and that’s why this thread has so many pages.

We all thought the sundering was an accident, or that Hydaelyn was simply not good. There’s really no good way to portray her as good if the sundering was purposeful. A “better” setup of the ancients as a race that “needed” to die wouldn’t fix that, and would’ve made the writers even more reprehensible in my eyes.

Agreed. I was ironically relieved by how poor a job they did of trying to justify the Sundering and extermination of all those other civilisations as an attempt to prop up the sundered... or at least what appeared to be the message they were going with before the Omega quests clarified matters a bit. This particular approach would be a red line for me if fully embraced, especially after SHB.