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

[aveyond-dreams]

Roughly 6000 words of my rewrite of Endwalker and a potential Garlemald expansion done, though formatting and setting up spoiler text/images will take me a considerable amount of time still. Unfortunately I did not manage to include too much in-depth character arc beats for each party member because of my focus on reworking major plot points in general.

Trying to make this all make sense while still salvaging whatever I could of pre-existing material was an incredible hassle. I definitely feel like I burned myself out with the earlier portions and then started struggling a bit with the later portions, but if nothing else I didn't make for a cakewalk zone like Ultima Thule was. Admittedly, I tried for an ending that cut some slack to the surviving characters and (tried) to respect the decisions and sacrifices made by others who were lost over the course of the story. I challenged myself by trying to make some characters that I actively dislike more likeable, or at least opened the door for them to have something of a decent arc in the future.

I tried to cut back down considerably on the preachiness and didn't delve too much into "yay hope!" aside from the moments where I felt it was most appropriate and I severely limited the "despair" nonsense outside a moment where it is used to advance a specific plot point. I think I cut back on the mouthpieces for hope specifically to just one character, if I did things correctly. Shockingly it's not Alphinaud this time, who barely came into mind as I wrote this aside from one single instance. I found a villain who is more enamoured by the vanity of inflicting widespread torment onto people for her own amusement beneath an unassuming facade far more compelling, though I don't feel like I was able to explore this aspect of her character in my descriptions as much as I would have liked.

I'm trying to be as aware as possible when it comes to the flaws of what I just wrote down, and will try to revise it a bit before posting. But no, I'm not apologizing for not including a bunch of slice of life moments in this outline, I was too busy trying to keep the momentum going - something that I feel writers should strive for in their work. Endwalker did quite literally the opposite, instead of a rollercoaster there were times when things proceed apace at the speed of the Disneyworld teacup ride.