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

[Lauront]

So the Hermes short story came… and went. A case of “oh, that happened”.

It doesn’t add much in all honesty. It also felt much shorter/easier to digest than the Venat short story, where every other sentence was an attempt to see how many complimentary adjectives and evocative metaphors could be crammed into a single sentence to describe her, each leaving a cloying aftertaste. It’s written from a POV once more, doesn’t really give me much dialogue to do any “showing” part and just tells me how Hermes reacted to some of his sympathetic colleagues attempts to listen to him, his reactions being described in part as “clawing” (I note a difference with the FR version is that it states he’d be forgiven by his colleagues in spite of his lashing out; it also doesn’t try contrast the view of man as the star’s lifeblood and their capacity as nurturer, but rather simply gives this as the reason for mostly settling disputes verbally).

I’ve long thought part of the problem with him is he assumes the worst of his fellow man, and I can’t say this does much to dispel that view. His colleagues seem rather caring, even if they can’t fully grasp what his issue is. Having seen the other stars and alternatives, neither can I, truth be told.

If this story was meant to elicit sympathy for mankind’s first mass murderer, well… it didn’t. Part of the story made me think he hijacked Venat’s brain later on, what with his belief of his fellow man’s inability to deal with the “answer” he got (which she claimed was his own inability but then decided to apply to her entire people)… so nice of the pair of them to collectively decide this for their entire species. The commentary about him perceiving neither kindness nor benevolence in the WoL, just strength, fortifying his resolve, was also something. Perhaps an attempted parallel with their ancient mentor and her words after her trial (yeah, she says justice, whatever.)

I did find the tidbit about Euanthe and some other colleagues tutoring him on how to design the concept’s appearance amusing, at least. For someone so critical of other ancients, he certainly worked those Meteia hard. For all we’re told about how much he “cares” about his creations, he still seemed content to use them as mere fodder to get his precious answers and then condemn them, all of mankind, and other worlds, to doom. While I consider her to mostly dwell in the realm of a glorified, sentient AI (who knows, he never let her be properly tested through the usual process), he did seem to be projecting his own sense of guilt and inability to cope with it onto his entire civilisation.

The comments on the dynamis world with a will of its own is somewhat intriguing. I’m of the view you could write something like this with or without dynamis, but in any case the nature of that world is something they could tap into in the future. The way the story remarks on the Meteia being vulnerable to dynamis is a point I am curious to see if they’ll ever raise with the sundered, as they are, likewise, vulnerable to it, albeit probably less so due to being 8x rejoined for the Source (more if you’re certain people.)

Another point where FR differs a bit is it mentions that the intense feelings of humans (ancients) could sometimes influence dynamis, so it wasn’t just him, per se. Overall, it has a slightly less dour tone to it about his fellow man. No axe to grind here, none at all. Anyway, he resigned himself to making Etheirys a more flourishing star, according to it – truly, what an awful fate. Oh and it doesn’t mince words about the sundering ending his life. I guess the sundered should take comfort when confronting what he did at the end that he meant really well… as should his own people. Totally not a cosmic scale temper tantrum. Surprised Ishikawa didn’t fit in a “first step for mankind… Oh, no, just kidding… unless…?” in there. I wonder sometimes if they forgot to delete the Elpis sidequests from the game before pushing… whatever this all was.

I was expecting worse, really, as I thought Ishikawa’s desire to defend her OC could’ve morphed into full-fledged apologetics for him through once more demonising his society. At worst, it’s just his navel-gazing, self-absorbed resentment of his people, exacerbated by his own hang ups.

I have to say, I side-glanced at some of the strange takeaways people got from the story (again, asserting as somehow self-evident that the ancients lacked anything like “therapy”... plus I guess it's being forgotten that Amon had a pretty dismal view of sundered man, too... and spurned any answer he was being given), but in and of itself? It’s a little cringeworthy but less bad than expected.