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

[Lauront]

Also I guess I can assume this is Azem's mask?


It being a main feature on Hades's design would make sense, but why is it also on the Hades weapons and why was it in the scene on the moon? Unless it's just an all encompassing convocation mask meant to represent everyone, then why have all the other masks that have clearly belonged to individual characters.

I believe Azem's mask was black based on the Convocation scene where Elidibus is admitted to it - there were some versions of it enhancing the colour saturation floating around. If you then invert the colours on the Scion Traveller's mask, what you effectively get is the mask and the sigil. Or so it's thought.

Personally, I would like more of the ancients - what I'd be weary of is continued use of the Ascians as two-bit villains when we know at this point their backgrounds and motivations - Fandaniel excepted - are much deeper than this. If all they intend to do with any remaining ones is use them that way, I'd rather they didn't bother.

[FatalFatalis]

Fun video. Worth a watch. Explains the story so much better IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IhYo5u568o

The Zenos part is exactly how it went in the game.

[Teraq]

I'd like to point out that that scene is not the first time we see a character's memories not be 100% accurate (unlike Echo flashbacks for... some reason). It's admittedly optional content, but as part of the Bozja storyline you

go into Cid's memories which turn out to be a complete mess, you fight Bahamut and Varis and other such nonsense etc.

Which just makes sense IMO, unless we are talking about a very recent event, memory will never not be subjective, so I am thinking the Echo isn't really relying on actual brain memory but rather ... memory...aether? if I can remember the notion correctly, to get an objective view of what actually happened.

On that point, did it bother anyone else that Venat as Hydaelyn seemed kinda okay with her memories unlike Elidibus? I mean, okay, so there are quite a few reasons you might come up with to explain why it would only be Elidibus (splitting from Zodiark, Zodiark being sealed, "saving the world" being a more frequent and vague wish than whatever the prayer to Hydaelyn truly is), but prior to EW I had been thinking she would retain little of her human identity, because she didn't seem to have any active means of refreshing her memory like Elidibus did – and also, I didn't think she would particularly care about retaining her human memory in the first place, given how highly she ended up thinking of her brethren lol.

This is why I've been worried about Azem being retconned. Also, as much as I like Elidibus, it's a bit odd to be developing this relationship with him now. I know they have the convenience of his failing memories to fall back on, but in ShB there's little indication Elidibus and Azem (or the WoL) were close outside of that one scene where we inadvertently 'call' him. I have seen a theory that his speech preceding the Seat of Sacrifice was about Azem when he says, "This I swore to...to someone." Seems unlikely though given the context.

I mean... right?? Re: my boy was done dirty, character development was absolutely rushed and incomplete in-game (I'm sorry but I think you shouldn't put character development of a main antagonist in a short story most people are not going to read, same goes for Emet and Zenos), and the grand finale to the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga didn't see fit to include the Heart of Zodiark in the MSQ beside a single scene (which ended up saving the world, not that any character really makes mention of that).

I do absolutely headcanon the oath being said to Azem because I got the feeling from the short story that him and Azem were friends, so when Pandaemonium just flat out confirmed they apparently went on adventures together I was just (content sigh) yass

I feel like the honeymoon phase is starting to end and now that people are stopping and really thinking about Endwalker's plot that it's losing a lot of its luster.

I've largely given up on FFXIV social media so I wouldn't know, but I kind of hope you are right. Back in December I really felt like we were a tiny minority. ( @ the poster who saw fit to remind people of this by posting Metacritic scores and the like. Like... we know, it's why it feels so isolating)

Well I was going to post on Monday, but ended up doing something else. I think the main point was my gripes with how Fandaniel. They could have just kept him as someone who had beef with society in general. I mean we kind of got that? But the sympathetic angle about life and death wrecked it for me. Fandaniel would have been fine as a selfish a-hole. Someone who was tired of doing things for the sake of the star and for paradise, tired of being pushed to do what is considered right for their society. He didn't need a good reason, selfishness is good enough on an individual level. He may have not ended up well liked, but when even the main subreddit is poking holes in your life/death argument, then you pretty much failed on the sympathetic front.

Exactly. I muse a lot about Fandaniel because he should be a character I like – I usually like the fun and entertaining villains who just decide to screw with everyone else because they hate them all. I've been trying to put my finger on why his character bothered me so much.

* The "life is death therefore pointless" angle really doesn't work for me, but that's just me. I don't relate to it at all. Whereas Emet and Elidibus's (and Lahabrea's post-mortem, RIP) motivation of "I'd do anything to bring back what was erased from history for a very debatable reason" was much more relatable to me.

* The thing about the "humans are bastards and deserve to be extinct" motivation is that... you kinda need to show us humans really were despicable for it to be truly sympathetic. Rape, war, genocide. Heavy shit. Not a bunch of soft weenwoons who only thought about being the caretakers of the planet and were explicitly shown to mourn creations in Elpis. Except the story still wants you to go along with it and think that "Oh he totally has a point, he's just testing humans like these heartless researchers test animals in Elpis", and pretend this isn't just insane.

* The absolute worst offender is his death scene after the Zodiark trial. It's amazing how it doesn't work in multiple ways:
- The first time you see the scene, it's just... WTF?? Why does Fandaniel, of all people, get the sad piano, slow-mo and monologue? Are you telling me this game wants me to mourn the hateful nihilistic clown who literally made gross flesh towers out of a corpse? It's just really... out of place. You don't have the necessary context for the scene to work.
- When you watch it again in hindsight and you know about Hermes, it becomes kinda worse. First, you totally recognise that sad piano tune is night time Elpis. And then it dawns on you: this game wants you to mourn the unhinged vegan who literally okayed the end of the world and the extinction of every living thing on the planet because they should have reconsidered animal rights in that one facility somewhat. God, so much for being sad for the poor ravenous murder-machine Lykaons.
- This game wants you to mourn Hermes, but actually I am sitting here grieving Zodiark and his contribution to the story of this grand finale as the level 83 trial before we get to the real plot.

* Honestly, I think I don't have this much of a problem with Hermes/Fandaniel himself as a villain, but everything surrounding him and how the plot wants to treat him. The plot offers so little questioning of his reasoning that it feels like it's tacitly justifying him. There is Emet opposing him and telling him his methodology is shit, and that approving the apocalypse on a whim is like kiiiiinnnda cringe, but then Emet gets hit with the meme beam and handed the Idiot Ball. Same goes for Venat just deciding not to tell anyone about him being a complete gremlin. My character just nodded to that? Stop trying to excuse Hermes and just fully commit to him being a bastard, and have characters call him (them both, tbh) out. In the process, flesh out the Ancients more so they aren't just collectively strawmen standing there to validate Hermes's and Venat's respective viewpoints.
(At least Asahi got to drag him down to the worst hell or whatever. I kinda wanted the same scene with Venat and Elidibus.)

Anyway. I just really appreciate the FATE vendor lady in Elpis trading bird meat and eggs for bicolor gemstones, shamelessly sticking it to her deranged vegan boss. What an absolute queen.

[Lauront]

* The thing about the "humans are bastards and deserve to be extinct" motivation is that... you kinda need to show us humans really were despicable for it to be truly sympathetic. Rape, war, genocide. Heavy shit. Not a bunch of soft weenwoons who only thought about being the caretakers of the planet and were explicitly shown to mourn creations in Elpis. Except the story still wants you to go along with it and think that "Oh he totally has a point, he's just testing humans like these heartless researchers test animals in Elpis", and pretend this isn't just insane.

I'm not even convinced that it is saying he has a point. Venat doesn't really absorb any of that - she's only concerned with meeting his test in terms of survival. The sundered make even more gratuitous use of creations, both living and not - Sharlayan even emulates the practice of creating intelligent familiars, in some cases using animals, and let's not even go into what happens in the Ul'dah colosseum, in various fates, via your reaper avatar (which is fed with souls), etc etc., and yet none of that message is directed at them, either. G'raha does word it to suggest Amon/Hermes had grievances with his broader society, but does he take any of their twaddle on board when he's munching down on a burger? No, not really. Moreover, he attributes it to a propensity in Fandaniel's soul. That propensity being of a hypocritical nihilist with a hatred of the concept of death (consequently, also life) and a sadistic streak. Then you have the fact that through allowing Meteion to fly free, he's effectively damning all those creations, plus countless other stars, to doom. To me, the creations are just arcane entities at the end of the day, some of which may qualify for souls to become animals or plant life, with familiars more rarely qualifying for that... so I don't really consider his POV sane, but I also think it's besides the point and is just a means of him expressing his discomfort with death and finding reasons to dissociate with his broader society and justify that.

- When you watch it again in hindsight and you know about Hermes, it becomes kinda worse. First, you totally recognise that sad piano tune is night time Elpis. And then it dawns on you: this game wants you to mourn the unhinged vegan who literally okayed the end of the world and the extinction of every living thing on the planet because they should have reconsidered animal rights in that one facility somewhat. God, so much for being sad for the poor ravenous murder-machine Lykaons.

The lykaones remind me of Zenos and that entire lone soldier test he administers in Garlemald reminds me of the Sundering as a whole. I do think the game was marking him as tragic, but more in the sense that no matter what answer he got, he'd never be happy.

- This game wants you to mourn Hermes, but actually I am sitting here grieving Zodiark and his contribution to the story of this grand finale as the level 83 trial before we get to the real plot.

I think he is by far the biggest victim of the storytelling. At least he got the cool moon chanting.

* Honestly, I think I don't have this much of a problem with Hermes/Fandaniel himself as a villain, but everything surrounding him and how the plot wants to treat him. The plot offers so little questioning of his reasoning that it feels like it's tacitly justifying him. There is Emet opposing him and telling him his methodology is shit, and that approving the apocalypse on a whim is like kiiiiinnnda cringe, but then Emet gets hit with the meme beam and handed the Idiot Ball. Same goes for Venat just deciding not to tell anyone about him being a complete gremlin. My character just nodded to that? Stop trying to excuse Hermes and just fully commit to him being a bastard, and have characters call him (them both, tbh) out. In the process, flesh out the Ancients more so they aren't just collectively strawmen standing there to validate Hermes's and Venat's respective viewpoints.

If that was the aim of those scenes, they did a pretty poor job of it.

(At least Asahi got to drag him down to the worst hell or whatever. I kinda wanted the same scene with Venat and Elidibus.)

Yes, so long as he gets to leave once the job is done.

[DevonEllwood]

Azem mask is unknown at the moment when Emet-Selch glimpses Azem in us, he sees Azem without the mask, but the face appears blank to the player. Elidibus later also perceives the us as Azem, and in that vision Azem is wearing a black mask

Then I guess this mask is just a generic red mask? It's weird it's on a lot of the Hades weapons and prominently on his design and I could have swore the scene on the moon focused on it as well. I originally thought it was the "un angry" Hades mask, but in Elpis he uses the one on his chest. My initial confusion was because of the circles on the mask are pretty similar.

[Rosenstrauch]

The sundered make even more gratuitous use of creations, both living and not - Sharlayan even emulates the practice of creating intelligent familiars, in some cases using animals

Speaking of Sharlayan, there's a funny story in Labyrinthos. One of the aether current quests reveals that Trolls—the giant furry monsters seen in their big old wildlife preserve—are actually soul-bearing lifeforms. Nobody in Sharlayan actually knew this until one of them happened to speak in the WoL's presence, whereupon it's revealed that you can understand him via the Echo (because he has a soul). Despite this revelation, he is told upfront that if he can't prove his worth to Sharlayan by solving a Sharlayan-created problem, he'll have to go back to being a specimen. Trolls are also a valid target for daily hunts, and can only be found in Labyrinthos. Make of that what you will.

[Teraq]

I originally thought it was the "un angry" Hades mask, but in Elpis he uses the one on his chest.

I'm picturing Emet painstakingly swapping masks to suit his moods. He should just walk around with a Mood Ring Flower, seems like less trouble.

[Skyborne]

On that point, did it bother anyone else that Venat as Hydaelyn seemed kinda okay with her memories unlike Elidibus? I mean, okay, so there are quite a few reasons you might come up with to explain why it would only be Elidibus (splitting from Zodiark, Zodiark being sealed, "saving the world" being a more frequent and vague wish than whatever the prayer to Hydaelyn truly is), but prior to EW I had been thinking she would retain little of her human identity, because she didn't seem to have any active means of refreshing her memory like Elidibus did – and also, I didn't think she would particularly care about retaining her human memory in the first place, given how highly she ended up thinking of her brethren lol.

It struck me as really weird, too, especially given that the Watcher on the moon explicitly states that she was sundered along with everything else. She also goes on about what a tough foe Zodiark was and that she barely won -- but he's the one who looks all battle-scarred and with visible chunks taken out of him while she is pretty and flawless and clean. Hmm.

Fandaniel stuff

The 'uplifting' story is supposed to make us believe these soft weewoos deserved it for having a nice peaceful prosperous society that, for all we know because we got absolutely 0 history, they had struggled and built up. After all, that shade in Amaurot who lectures us on our outfit indicates that the Ancients were more than capable of feeling envy, hate, etc., and that the feeling of unity was supposed to minimize that and their whole society was built around bringing out the best in people. But yeah, they're apparently beyond hope and might hurt themselves! The sundered killing and raping across the countryside and nearly wiping out unicorns and gorillas, etc., though, they are just children who don't know any better, uwu.

Also, I think they tried too hard with Fandaniel/Amon... felt like an attempt to make Emet 2.0 complete with funny clown dancing because people loved Emet's flamboyant Jojo poses, right? (funnily enough I recall most people hating the guy before ShB... I myself didn't like the Garlemald as an ascian plot reveal either)

[Lauront]

Then I guess this mask is just a generic red mask? It's weird it's on a lot of the Hades weapons and prominently on his design and I could have swore the scene on the moon focused on it as well. I originally thought it was the "un angry" Hades mask, but in Elpis he uses the one on his chest. My initial confusion was because of the circles on the mask are pretty similar.

Another point on the mask - it's speculated he has two to highlight the aspect of Gemini. He is tasked with overseeing the Underworld, which is where the souls of the dead go, and apparently the full mask can be taken as a funeral mask so you can read it that way, too. As for Azem, the mask would be black.

Speaking of Sharlayan, there's a funny story in Labyrinthos. One of the aether current quests reveals that Trolls—the giant furry monsters seen in their big old wildlife preserve—are actually soul-bearing lifeforms. Nobody in Sharlayan actually knew this until one of them happened to speak in the WoL's presence, whereupon it's revealed that you can understand him via the Echo (because he has a soul). Despite this revelation, he is told upfront that if he can't prove his worth to Sharlayan by solving a Sharlayan-created problem, he'll have to go back to being a specimen. Trolls are also a valid target for daily hunts, and can only be found in Labyrinthos. Make of that what you will.

Ah yes, like the moral dilemma of the sentient mochi from one of the previous New Year fates.

[Teraq]

The 'uplifting' story is supposed to make us believe these soft weewoos deserved it for having a nice peaceful prosperous society that, for all we know because we got absolutely 0 history, they had struggled and built up.

I remember a mention somewhere of Etheirys being a wild and hostile place before they made it actually liveable.

After all, that shade in Amaurot who lectures us on our outfit indicates that the Ancients were more than capable of feeling envy, hate, etc., and that the feeling of unity was supposed to minimize that and their whole society was built around bringing out the best in people. But yeah, they're apparently beyond hope and might hurt themselves!

Yeah, that and their laws on creation magic, rigorous testing of living concepts, Emet's mention of Kairos being dangerous and that its existence might aggro Pashtarot... all make sense when you consider pretty much any one of them could come up with a creation that might wind up wiping out entire planets throughout the cosmos. The fact they seemed to be living in peace in spite of what they could do to each other is a real testimony to how good (or reasonably acting like it) they were tbh.

The sundered killing and raping across the countryside and nearly wiping out unicorns and gorillas, etc., though, they are just children who don't know any better, uwu.

Wait... the sundered made wars... were susceptible to disease...

Oh dear, it's the Dead Ends strawmen civilisations! Tangible proof that the sundered do not deserve to live, just like Ancients and the Plenty. /s