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

[myahele]

Due to time travel Venat had to allow events to play the same way as WoL told her

[Skyborne]

Considering that codex entry, it does seem like the devs fully intended for us to take that as a stylized rendition of the actual events... no matter how biased and eyebrow-raising it all is. The writers truly, fully believe that it's the right idea to push and they seemed confused about why some wouldn't accept it, as shown by the Q&A. Do not question it, citizen.

Luckily, to quote a certain funny clown, we are sovereign individuals and can disagree with or reject the writer's morals or the way they were told to our heart's content. I can agree with the themes/morals... the way it was presented? Absolute trainwreck.

[PawPaw]

Ok, that gives her even less excuse for her failure.

Yep, and that's what makes the fact that she didn't emerge from the bushes behind her goofy dog to march Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus back up to Poiten Oikos to recall their arrival with us, the conversation where we do the stupidest thing possible as time travelers and tell everyone in detail about their futures, the scene where the Meteia are let loose and the confrontation with Hermes even more absurd.

Due to time travel Venat had to allow events to play the same way as WoL told her

When this was a major driving force behind the entirety of the last expansion pack, you'll have to forgive me for having doubts when I am suddenly told that fixed time loops are now the only possible way forward.

[PawPaw]

Considering that codex entry, it does seem like the devs fully intended for us to take that as a stylized rendition of the actual events... no matter how biased and eyebrow-raising it all is. The writers truly, fully believe that it's the right idea to push and they seemed confused about why some wouldn't accept it, as shown by the Q&A. Do not question it, citizen.

I mean...it's not though. The Final Days had been stopped and the world had been restored before the Sundering. There was no fiery Amaurot for her to slowly walk through on her way to chastise a faceless group of people after she'd allowed 75% of the population to be sacrificed. I'd say the only part of that nonsense that could have been accurate was Emet-Selch saying goodbye to Hythlodaeus and Hermes being emo and staring at the sky. I am sure they are trying to double down on this idea of the pure, good, goddess now by writing flowery prose about her actions in retrospect but I have eyes of my own and I 'member.

Even if they had intended it to be, they reaffirmed during the Q&A that the Anamnesis scene with her followers is canonical, which obliterates any notion that that scene is in any way accurate to the events in its totality. I think what Skyborne is getting at, though, is they're attempting a sleight of hand where, if you don't think hard enough, that's all there is to the tale.

Curious, since they've doubled down on that being canonical how will they explain her loyal followers seemingly not being aware that summoning Hydaelyn would kill them all body and soul? As others have mentioned before, they speak as though they will be going on after she is gone and lament her not being there to lead them. Guess we'll never know!

[cooker]

Do we know the timeline between our visit to Elpis/Meteion's turn and the Final Days? I figured that Meteion wouldn't wait all that long before triggering it. Honestly, with her goal as it was, it seems like she should have just triggered it right away, I don't think she had to go store up dynamis or anything.

(Though I assume they wouldn't want to do that since they want you to be able to go back and do stuff in Elpis pre-Final Days, but maybe the Pandemonium raid line will touch on it in the end)

[PawPaw]

Do we know the timeline between our visit to Elpis/Meteion's turn and the Final Days? I figured that Meteion wouldn't wait all that long before triggering it. Honestly, with her goal as it was, it seems like she should have just triggered it right away, I don't think she had to go store up dynamis or anything.

(Though I assume they wouldn't want to do that since they want you to be able to go back and do stuff in Elpis pre-Final Days, but maybe the Pandemonium raid line will touch on it in the end)

I don't think we know for sure. Meteion says something about going to the edge of the Universe to build her nest and hoard despair, but that's all we've got as far as her plans directly after her escape. I don't think we have a timeline for Pandemonium either, as in are we there before or after the events in Elpis with Hermes? We could assume that it's after since Themis mentions Azem being aware of us but since we are still unaware of how Azem manages to know everything we do before we do it, that might not mean anything either. Hopefully we'll find out in the end, as you said.

ETA: I still want to know how we were able to use the same portal that we used the first time we traveled to Elpis which hadn't been changed in any way, but managed to arrive correctly sized and completely visible this time. Not to mention the portal dropping us in a completely different location from the one the original let us out in.

[Lauront]

2. The Fermi's Paradox with a dead space answer is hardly lackluster. And makes me questions ones intelligence for not finding really entertaining and interesting considering the magic fantasy game actually did something unique and have aliens and real world philosophical questions beyond the normie level of good vs evil in it.

Others have addressed the remaining points well, but on this one, I don't see what a lack of intelligence has to do with it.

My issue with it isn't even that they involved aliens, as we already knew of the dragons and Omega's creators, and that events had resulted in the ruination of both their worlds, although we were never quite told what. I would've very much liked some tale of cosmic horror threading these worlds' tale of misfortune...

Where it utterly fell apart for me was the highly caricatured view of these very sophisticated civilisations. One just decides to collectively sit around and then kill themselves because they couldn't figure out ways to entertain or amuse themselves or stimulate their brains and apparently not once pondered such issues. I guess we're good then, since we have gaming consoles and the like to gobble up our time... The game was also trying very hard to nudge me into seeing them as the ancients' fate, because "look! they're dressed the same, and they have butterflies and pretty fields, so it's totally the same!", when the Elpis quests/sidequests paint a very different picture of them, as does what we know of them from Amaurot, and their commitment to debate and philosophical pondering. Then we have the Ea, a civilisation spanning multiple stars, where they lose their wits at dealing with a problem that would only eventually impact them (and for all we know, is potentially solvable), and go all "guess I'll just die then"... which Y'shtola just shrugs her shoulders at. Being immortal doesn't prevent you from doing that. The idea of perfection they present is nonsensical, because it isn't truly perfection in the sense that the form of it they attain (and again, the plausibility here is being stretched very thin) is just a shift to other forms of strife.

Then we go to worlds one and two in the Dead Ends, which were scarcely "perfect" in any way, and really failed to make the point the dungeon was trying very hard at that stage to convince you of; the only world that I think succeeded to some degree was the Dragonstar's destruction, because it was a blissful world, destroyed for totally irrational reasons that unwound the Omicrons as well as a civilisation. Those two depictions I thought succeeded to some degree in pushing a viewpoint of why one might fall to nihilism, because that was truly a tale of senseless and heart-wrenching destruction, but even so, Midgardsormr did not succumb to despair. The other worlds collectively just reminded me of some of the more cartoonish aspects of ARR beast tribes (including the Omicrons, really), trying to pose as dEeP pHilOsOpHy.

Worst of all, the same perfectionist impetus exists in the sundered too, with their commitment to reducing misery, epitomised by the Scions and their usual saying of "brighter tomorrow".

I'm afraid it's not one's intelligence that is up for question if they don't like this plot, but the degree to which the writers thought they could get away with insulting it.

I mean...it's not though. The Final Days had been stopped and the world had been restored before the Sundering. There was no fiery Amaurot for her to slowly walk through on her way to chastise a faceless group of people after she'd allowed 75% of the population to be sacrificed. I'd say the only part of that nonsense that could have been accurate was Emet-Selch saying goodbye to Hythlodaeus and Hermes being emo and staring at the sky. I am sure they are trying to double down on this idea of the pure, good, goddess now by writing flowery prose about her actions but I have eyes of my own and I 'member.

Even if they had intended it to be, they reaffirmed during the Q&A that the Anamnesis scene with her followers is canonical, which obliterates any notion that that post-Elpis scene is in any way accurate to the events in its totality. I think what Skyborne is getting at, though, is they're attempting a sleight of hand where, if you don't think hard enough, that's all there is to the tale.

Curious, since they've doubled down on that being canonical how will they explain her loyal followers seemingly not being aware that summoning Hydaelyn would kill them all body and soul? As others have mentioned before, they speak as though they will be going on after she is gone and lament her not being there to lead them. Guess we'll never know!

Acceptable costs to her, I guess.

[SpectrePhantasia]

You know, having sat on our collective criticisms for a good long while now since December, all I can really do now is wonder "What happened?" Natsuko Ishikawa has displayed very competent writing skills with her work on both the Shadowbringers MSQ and Dark Knight questlines. I understand not everyone was a fan of the fact that her writing was often more emotionally charged and leaned into that, but I don't believe it had ever been as egregious as it became in Endwalker (being literally emotionally charged with Dynamis as a concept, oh my god).

The writing in those previous quests posed complicated ethical and moral questions and above all else, made it apparent these things had more than one side to them. Especially with the Ancients, no one was 'correct,' it was just different people having different beliefs on how best to save and preserve their world. And then there was Emet-selch, a man who'd lived through a society that simply didn't have the human vices that led to endless conflict, death and misery, and it makes you wonder 'can we really blame this guy for thinking this way?' It was heartwrenching, I would even go so far as to say that, at the end of 5.0, it was profound.

And then Endwalker retroactively spat in it's face and worked to shatter everything its predecessor built up by going "actually the Sundered are just better" and trying to paint it like the original people were arrogant bliss-obsessed idiots instead of the scholarly gentle people we knew them to be, And of course, the person responsible for their eradication was the only one who knew the truth, and is just absolutely vindicated by being RIGHT.

It genuinely is so baffling that I almost refuse to believe they are written by the same person. I can only assume people higher up the food chain muddied these waters somehow, it's that insane to me.

[Jybril]

I just hope that the writers don't just decide to write off characters as potential companions just because they aren't as popular as the likes of G'raha or Estinien.

Unpopular Opinion but G'raha now sucks.
I like the Crystal Exarch way, way better. I actually wish G'raha never tagged with us and stayed there and help his people there
and possibly fall in love with Lyna (Sorry her name escapes me, I think that's it but the Viera.)

He has now suffered the 'Cute Neko Man" diseases where he does cute things like eat borgers
and do nothing but be useless the entire time. I actually kinda side with Eistenin now. He's good company
and he isn't idolizing me at every second...though he reminds me of Kain Highwind and I can't stand that mfer.
But anyways yeah lol. Just wish G'raha wasn't turned into this now because he lost his character for me.

[HollowedDoll]

Unpopular Opinion but G'raha now sucks.
I like the Crystal Exarch way, way better. I actually wish G'raha never tagged with us and stayed there and help his people there
and possibly fall in love with Lyna (Sorry her name escapes me, I think that's it but the Viera.)

He has now suffered the 'Cute Neko Man" diseases where he does cute things like eat borgers
and do nothing but be useless the entire time. I actually kinda side with Eistenin now. He's good company
and he isn't idolizing me at every second...though he reminds me of Kain Highwind and I can't stand that mfer.
But anyways yeah lol. Just wish G'raha wasn't turned into this now because he lost his character for me.

Hard agree, there's been maybe one instance in Endwalker where he actually acted like the same character we've got to know in SHB ( post-reveal mind you), it seems like he threw away his character arc and regressed back into quirky catboy from ARR with the added "benefit" of being an insufferable fanboy who's there purely for fanservice in what you'd think is a slice of life anime. Seriously feels like character assasination.