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

[aveyond-dreams]

Well here’s my filled-out chart, not nearly as scathing as I’m sure some would expect but it makes my feelings on these characters clear enough:

G'raha's people held the land thousands of years ago during the time of the Allagans so I don't think it's as simple as that. Fourchenault even says as much:

Ok so to recap: Magic putty from the sundering -> evolves and moves to/builds the Clockwork City of Goug -> Ramza battles Subject 6 and destroys half the city in the process -> the city is abandoned and the survivors move to the (seemingly) hospitable Corvosi lands -> magic wielding races push them further and further north until Emet-Selch intervenes.

Given how these events played out, it seems that the means of building and maintaining Goug’s machina was lost over time which led to the Garlean people having to revert to a life prior to that technology’s existence. Now as farmers who are unable to wield magic, they don’t exactly pose a threat to anyone. Then come in the other races who can wield magic and use to displace them, a clearly antagonistic action that was eventually returned in kind.

For a game that preaches on and on about helping and saving refugees it sure seems that they were unwilling to extend the same mercy to the Garleans in their compromised state after Goug’s fall, and then continues to paint their retaking of Corvos as evil when the Corvosi were, in fact, the first to aggress against them.

I also strongly suspect that the final role quest was pieced together rather quickly at the last minute because the development team realised that having a storyline about the Russian inspired race reclaiming their ancestral homeland at the same time as their real world equivalent engaging in a 'special military operation' had the potential to be controversial.

Which sucks, since I don't think real world events should be influencing the direction of the ongoing story but I get it when accounting for the sort of black and white morality large swathes of this game's community cling to.

It might even explain the weird decision to tie Hildibrand to the relic weapon this time around, especially if Corvos was originally planned to be the Bozja and Eureka equivalent. We might still go there at some point though it was name dropped far too heavily and it does seem as though the writers are struggling to figure out where, exactly, to take the Garleans next. That we haven't heard anything in regards to content equivalent to Ishgard's reconstruction efforts is suspicious as well. Other than a passing comment before Endwalker.

All just speculation, though. We'll never know for sure unless they bring it up in an interview.

The trend that I see of CBU3 altering their plans/story content in response to world events is not sustainable long term. If a new disease breaks out, there goes any potential involvement of a plague or anything similar in the story. If there is war and global conflict, then that cannot be used as a plot point either.

It’s a form of self-censorship that I simply do not agree with, and also speaks to a lack of confidence in being able to tackle these difficult subjects in tasteful ways that lean more towards fantasy and less so moralizing. A surviving Larsa or Anastasia-like figure to guide the empire to better days would have done so much more than the overt preaching in the role quest.

In any case the decision to tie Hildibrand to the relic weapons is something that has turned me off from pursuing the relic entirely unless there is something so unique and different about them that I can’t get from any of the relics/crafted/savage weapons that I already own.

[Rulakir]

Well here’s my filled-out chart, not nearly as scathing as I’m sure some would expect but it makes my feelings on these characters clear enough:

I like how I'm the only one who's just outright canceled Scions so far. I didn't think I'd end up being the one harshest on them!

Some of them I've never liked, but some tanked for me in EW. I was probably even too generous with Thancred.

I watched Spiderman: No Way Home today. I wish we'd gotten similar from EW.

Not only does Peter fight to save people who arguably didn't deserve it (which is framed as being the right thing to do), giving them a second chance instead of a guaranteed death, but at the end everyone forgets who he is. Imagine if EW had ended with no one remembering the WoL and having to really start over from zero?

Alas.

[Lauront]

I like how I'm the only one who's just outright canceled Scions so far. I didn't think I'd end up being the one harshest on them!

Only because I didn't do one. Just thought there's no point. Even thinking of characters who are closer to the protagonists' side, I'd have sooner gone with the likes of Ardbert or Hien. The only Scions I like much are Estinien and Thancred, and even then, it's mostly lukewarm, and Thancred felt very boring and at times out of character in EW, for example with how passive he is about the fate of the shards in Venat's escape pod plan. He's mainly just eye candy and my tank trust option. Y'shtola became more interesting in SHB due to seemingly wanting to carry the torch for keeping memory of the ancients alive, and then came EW. So I'd end up with two 3.5* and a bunch of cancelled ones.

I feel like the best case scenario would be for an arrangement to be made for them and the other people of Ilsabard to co-exist in Corvos and other provinces that are amenable to the idea.

There doesn't seem to be any indication that that wasn't the case originally, as the G tribe was stated to have lived there since the time of the Allagans, but it's only at some later point that aggressors from neighboring regions chased out the Garleans. For all we know there might be only one specific group that was responsible for that, but the Garleans ended up pursuing disproportionate retribution and decided to make enemies of the entire continent; even those who had no hand in their exile.

Those years of bad blood aren't just going to wash away quickly, though, and I can easily see a new conflict brewing as a result of the remaining Garlean legions desiring to reclaim Corvos after the Final Days largely eliminated their presence in the region. I will welcome such a thing if it's not a simple matter of right vs. wrong and radical parties on both sides of things serve as obstacles to peace.

Agree with all this.