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

[Fiel_Tana]

The watcher telling us that she sundered herself was one of the many plot-holes introduced for apparently no reason. As was pointed out, that means with each rejoining she got stronger as well so the balance would remain. Unless they plan to address it, then why bother adding it otherwise? It makes no sense unless there was a rushed rewrite and it got left behind in a frantic cleanup, which is still my main theory as to how the story got so messed up.

That line from the Watcher and the scene with Venat showing the WoL how to use the echo to see the past by going where an event took place.. what is the point of that scene other than creating problematic loop-holes. If using the echo in that way was so simple to ancients there's no way Emet would just shrug off his lost memories. We saw in the story that even though he didn't believe us, he had to investigate our story as part of his duty. Also it makes the 'fan theory' that people wouldn't believe Venat completely irrelevant.

What is shown in EW and what is said are often at odds with each other which leaves it as an unsettling and confusing mess of a story in so many ways.

[Teraq]

Getting ready for 6.2, in this great story of "The ends don't justify the means (but in my case they do)" and "The meaning of life is the journey, not the destination (but not in your case, I'm going to have to kill you because of the destination I have imagined you will get to, in my mind, based on this very short report on a completely alien civilisation, and you got there because of my own inaction, which I intended in the first place because I 100% approve of Hermes's fair test)".



I have exactly one expectation I know for sure will come true tomorrow, and that is Themis Elidibus Finalfantasyxiv being a screenshotable babe.

Really? This makes the story even dumber.
[...]
Cheers

This is such a great summary of 672 pages to be totally honest.

I did the side quests. Most of them were nice or neutral with a few rude or mean people. Like humans are. They're scientists, they're not going to be all nice. One or two people would prefer you to die, and several went above and beyond for some random familiar that was not their responsibility.

Not to mention, it is regularly pointed out that you seem to be an exceptional familiar, particularly that you are capable of complex thought and this is why some researchers express the wish to watch you and study you. Hence we can infer that familiars are typically not like us, and more or less akin to AI (which is what Meteion absolutely is). So the one guy saying he'd rather have his observation subject survive than the familiar he doesn't know and assumes to be an AI? Yeah, makes perfect sense to me.
The fact remains that the zone's main side quest line ends with four employees asking a familiar its opinion on funeral rites.

The Ascians were never informed of the cause of the Final Days, so of course the Ardor never would have led them to Ultima Thule to confront Meteion.

Speaking of Emet-Selch's out of character clown takes in Ultima Thule, I would like to point out the following: how did we get to UT again? Oh... that's right... a whole bunch of Aether, with Ancient-made familiars that were capable of designing and piloting spaceships, and in Zenos's case, imitating an alien species (that the Ancients had not met – same goes for Omega and time/dimensional travel) with the power of the Echo, which is an Ancient thing. Now actually setting foot on UT would require Dynamis capabilities of the likes of Meteion, who... is a familiar created by an Ancient, whose concept could have been studied (no matter Hermes's own participation because another entelechy, the Elpis flower, was there to be observed by anyone), refined and iterated upon if someone had brought the significance of Dynamis to widespread attention. ummmmmmm endwalker sweaty it looks like u didnt pay attention to the cutscenes.......


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By the way, anyone here reading current One Piece? Because there is this very amusing situation right now...

Long story short: a 9-year story arc just ended. The backstory of the setting involved a particular clan being hunted down because one of their ancestors attempted a coup. Two of the villains of the arc are survivors of that clan who watched their relatives get murdered because of something they didn't do. They grew resentful and one of them orchestrated a (successful) coup to torture the citizens of the country purely out of spite for 20 years. It was absolutely awful, and everyone hated it, except the guy living out his revenge fantasy.
Anyway, shonen manga stuff happens, there's a big battle and the good guys win. The bad guys from the historically persecuted clan were killed and as far as we know there are no other survivors from that family.
And so the now-reinstated legitimate princess of the country declares, in a snappy, take-that way built off a Japanese pun on the clan's name, that it's a good thing they were all exterminated. All the citizens – understandably – cheer and clap. End of the story arc. This stands, as of today, as the unambiguously good conclusion with no in-universe pushback.

The fanbase erupted, even on the main subreddit. People are calling out the author on the fact that this spiteful, pro-discrimination conclusion seems to be fully endorsed by the story, even though previous arcs have literally been about innocent children not being responsible for the sins of their fathers.

You've all guessed the point I am getting at here, and it is with a very heavy heart I must conclude that a shonen fanbase whose usual preoccupations and discussions revolve around my Zoro could beat up your Sanji in a fight is currently being a lot more sensible about pro-genocide hypocrisy than this Great Community By The Way.

Do better, Final Fantasy XIV white knights.