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

[Brinne]

Always fun to see us circle back to how the Ancients were biologically unfit.

It comes back down to the disconnect. If Venat cast down a bunch of mere thematic symbols, not truly people but just symbolic representations of a part of the human psyche, that she is merely defeating the stand-in for the "temptation for weakness" within the Human Spirit as a whole, then there's no big deal, just coast on the vibes and the theme. However, if you take the perspective that Venat did what she did to people - keeping in mind that the previous expansion's emotional impact depending on the fact that you understand her victims were people, and asking you to empathize with them as such - everything instantly flips and becomes an absolute horror show.

And frankly, even if you try to point out that Endwalker is an expression of Buddhist ideals, the medium it goes about doing it entails the eradication of an entire race of people. It involves the conscious decision of someone who is celebrated as a hero to force people into a world where war, sickness, torture, and death exist where none did before. It portrays suffering as so necessary that it must be actively inflicted upon others if someone decides on some unspecified criteria that they're not experiencing enough. Criticizing how Endwalker conveys themes that may overlap with Buddhism is not the same thing as criticizing Buddhism.

Endwalker isn't subtle about what it's trying to say. At all. Trust me, I get it, and it's even a message I've basically enjoyed and appreciated when explored in other stories and other mediums. Those other stories usually don't underline the theme with "and that is why billions of people had to die in agony to pave the way for You, The One True Sufferer Who Suffers In The Correct Way."

The unsundered werent free of suffering, they just swept it under the rug.

What does this even mean...?

That's why it's a fake utopia like pretty every other utopia in fiction.

"I automatically know what this story is doing with a concept because I've seen how completely different stories do it" is kind of a weird way to engage with a text.

The thing that this game celebrates isnt suffering, it's overcoming it.

w-what does this even mean. what does it even meannnnnn

In seriousness, this is the problem when we, Endwalker-style, engage in these ideas via vague platitudes, generalized discussions of "suffering." What kind of suffering? Illustrate exactly what kind of suffering, what scenarios that teach this suffering, that you're (general you) suggesting is absolutely necessary for one to have a fulfilling life? What does it look like, actualized and concrete? Is it the kids freezing to death in the snow? Is it the wars? Is it the disease? Going to bed hungry? Stubbing your toe? What specifically is the adjustment to the environment that Venat inflicted that was so necessary that lacking it sufficed as reason to destroy an entire world and everything living on it?