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

[Lucida3b]

Usually a boss is taken out in a dungeon or a scenario when it comes to the trial bosses.

For StB it was genbu
SHB sapphire weapon
this it was scarm

[Rulakir]

Well, it looks like I made the right decision to unsub. I was not impressed by the MSQ, it seems written by people who didn't want to be too beholden to lore and just wanted to write something 'cool' to the extent that the character of Zero reads like a bad RP description. (I've never played FF4 and could not care less about references to it.) It's clear they have no idea how to write for Estinien. Y'shtola has rapidly turned into someone who ruins every scene she's in, I went from having no ill feelings towards her in ShB to actively disliking her in EW.

The amount attributed to Hydaelyn is absolutely ridiculous. It's like they forgot she's not an actual goddess, just a regular woman whose knowledge of the future ended with her death at the Mothercrystal. It also seems, as I suspected, that there's never going to be any shade thrown her way in the MSQ. It's limited to side content. I suppose at the very least the WoL wasn't involved in the sycophantic gushing this time. Also, LOL at Venat's GPS device curing void corruption because of course it does.

Pandemonium was better than expected with Lahabrea proving to be an incredibly based character, but I have no faith this is going to end well. I'm expecting either more 'deserved' tragedy for the Ancients (WoL's not a bad person because they had it coming!) or more BS like Kairos to happen. I know it's reignited hope in a lot of people, I'm just not one of them, not after 6.0. I also hate how they've written Azem, they just sound annoying AF now. I'm also concerned by everything they know, including that if Azem is aware of the time traveling familiar with Venat in Elpis that conflicts with Emet & Hyth's mind erasure in a significant way. You can't honestly tell me Emet wouldn't investigate it at that point and you know he knew because Elidibus does. At least the Azem crystal codex entry says Azem maintained their position of neutrality to the end.

I read the Tales from the Dawn story, so they've confirmed that Venat did not tell her followers the truth as we'd theorized/suspected. Other than that, it was a whole lot of nothing. It truly read like someone was given a 1500 word writing assignment, only had 500 words worth of story, and padded the rest with descriptions in this case the Watcher's overwhelming simpdom for Venat. (I'm beginning to think that Venat does have some power of tempering and always has, just not the primal version we're familiar with.)

I hope y'all get the ending in Pandemonium you were hoping for ... a year from now. :P I think I'm done short of something miraculous happening. I have less than a week left of forum access. I wish I could say it's been fun, but it really hasn't aside from meeting some cool people in this thread (most of whom I still chat with on discord).

[Lucida3b]

Read the short story

And i am now convinced that one of the writers is the problem and likes venat far too much. that felt far too much like the writer simping then a in-character thing

[Theodric]

It's hilarious to me how Venat ends up looking worse as time goes on and new lore emerges. Not only is it confirmed that she was well respected enough for people to listen to her, we once again see an example of the Ancients showing each other key memories. This happens multiple times during Pandaemonium through different methods.

Granted, I doubt the writers thought to connect the dots but there's no reason for the game not to call her out when the Sundering was very much something she clearly intended to do no matter what and the Ancients were the unwilling sacrifice in that quest. In any other story, or if her target happened to be the protagonists, she'd be considered an unforgivable villain. I don't know why the game is trying so desperately to pretend otherwise.

[Iyrnthota]

It's hilarious to me how Venat ends up looking worse as time goes on and new lore emerges. Not only is it confirmed that she was well respected enough for people to listen to her, we once again see an example of the Ancients showing each other key memories. This happens multiple times during Pandaemonium through different methods.

Granted, I doubt the writers thought to connect the dots but there's no reason for the game not to call her out when the Sundering was very much something she clearly intended to do no matter what and the Ancients were the unwilling sacrifice in that quest. In any other story, or if her target happened to be the protagonists, she'd be considered an unforgivable villain. I don't know why the game is trying so desperately to pretend otherwise.

Is it? Maybe it's me picking up stuff that isn't there, but if there's one fatal flaw I've picked up from the Ancients, it's that they're arrogant. Venat is no exception.
Just as they believe that they know what is best for the star, so does she.

Again, perhaps it's just me, but the impression I've picked up so far is that she was well meaning but ultimately fell into the same trap as her contemporaries, believing that she knew best, and blinding herself to alternatives.
Almost certainly not helped by "knowing" what she did in the past, which may have, perhaps unintentionally, further convinced her that she was on the right path.

She does at least appear to have remorse for her actions taken, per the post trial dialogue:
"'Twas the trial to which I subjected mankind, and it hath led to untold blooshed and suffering. There was no kindness nor justice in teh tragedy I wrought"

[Lauront]

I don't see that as their fatal flaw. I could just as easily read an entry about Amon, or Vauthry's father (or Vauthry himself), or Ilberd, or Ysayle, or Aulus, or Zenos, or pre-voidsent Scarmiglione, or Thordan, or even Y'shtola, and deduce that a fatal flaw of the sundered is that they're arrogant. We're shown a few that fit the bill: Hermes, Venat, Athena. But then equally, we're shown no small number of sundered for whom the characteristic of "arrogance" would be very apposite.

I'd sooner put too much trust in the goodness of their fellow man as their flaw, than arrogance, but equally, in most cases they'd be correct to place that trust... and it's not like they were naive to the potential for things to go awry.

If anything, the way in which they bent their power to a cause they considered good, and limited its application to achieving that, rather than running amok with it in a similar way to the Voidsent, shows the opposite to me. Characters like Athena (and yeah, Venat and Hermes) are very much anathema to their cultural mores.

[Lucida3b]

I desperately hope they make pandemoium a alt timeline or osmething

I desperately hope it at this point, i dont want a timeloop again (Also it would feel semi-forced as there gonna have to erase memories again...)

[PawPaw]

I desperately hope they make pandemoium a alt timeline or osmething

I desperately hope it at this point, i dont want a timeloop again (Also it would feel semi-forced as there gonna have to erase memories again...)

Same. I actually need this to be able to continue with this game full stop. If Pandaemonium ends being just another way to say "And then the Ancients had to die because muh hubris, muh arrogance, muh scariness" then I am officially the hell out of here. I played the patch and while the MSQ did nothing for me, personally, Panda was incredible. It actually gave me a modicum of hope again. And maybe I'm a fool for having that hope, but it is feeling like a hopeful story and I can't help having the desire for there to be an ending for the Ancients that isn't wholly bad because Reasons.

And as for that short story? Way to go writers! Thank you for confirming that Venat kept the truth of the Final Days to herself (as most of us have been saying for months). The unashamed groveling at her feet done by the Watcher was honestly ridiculous to read but, still, bravo! Someone has infiltrated that team and is making sure that we know Venat is a self-centered megalomaniac one small step at a time!

Also, I know I wasn't the only one dying of laughter as Panda showed us, once again, how very simple it was for the Ancients to share memories. What a plot hole. What a story.

Off to unsub again. I'll check back in with this shitshow when Panda is ready to wrap up.

[Lauront]

Thought I’d post my impressions on the new stuff.

MSQ: It was alright. I’m just not feeling it yet. A bit too much exposition on things we already knew, some world-building aspects which I wasn't that impressed by and the Void felt altogether a little bit too orderly in spite of the fact that it's meant to have something of a Mad Max vibe to it.

Zero could be an intriguing character, but I feel the writing is in too much of a rush to get not from A to B but A to K (to pick an arbitrary letter), and it is introducing contrivances to hit upon this, starting with the way the crystal Hydaelyn (really, again?) left resonating with Zero to practically solve the issue of her corruption itself. Perhaps a function again of changing planned writing, but who can say for sure. We’ll see what they do with Golbez. He may have a deeper underlying motivation. I like Zero's colder, more utilitarian and to the point attitude, for now. I probably differ on this point to many here, but I enjoy her type of character.

It's interesting that the Echo can even peer into the minds of voidsent, warped through thousands of years of aetheric corruption and practices that warp their souls.

Panda: I’ll come back to this later.

Short story:

I admit, I needed something bitter like a strong, dark coffee (or some fish liver oil) while reading this due to the sheer saccharine overdose in reading how Venat’s as yet nameless arch-simp characterised her. To me, it seems like the approach they’re using to engender sympathy to Venat is, as before, praising her as the ultra-special crystal woowoo lady who is just so grounded unlike everyone else, right down to tying in the incident that led to her unspecified epiphany (saw it in the stars that she’d meet a brave little spark one day…? Less facetiously, I guess it’s her research on the “miracle” of their inevitable existence.) As Answers says, "so believe..."

Stuff like this:

Venat was cheerful, well spoken, and undeniably brilliant. Her carefully crafted arguments drew sighs of admiration from her audience and concessions from her opponents. A rounded gemstone, without edge or flaw─the refracted light rendered a soft glow.

Or…

Unadulterated, unabashed joy─a jubilance that sparkled in her ocean-hued eyes. I recall not when you removed your mask, but I am grateful that you did.

Or…

As she enthusiastically regaled him with her adventures, he was struck by how different this Venat was from the brilliant yet rather more subdued scholar he had met once upon a time. A crystal bathed in sunlight. So blinding in her delight she outshone the very stars.

Ok ok we get it, mommy travelled a bit, the first step for mankind, the most brilliant being to ever exist…

It just feels so needlessly OTT. They wrote this character to be besotted with her. I was trying not to laugh at the FR version, where it veered into even more over the top characterisations of his obsession with her. She’s so perfect she just relinquishes her seat to pass the opportunity to someone else to grow in it (FR adds this was upon meeting a fascinating individual). I am sorry but this almost reads like a parody character.

Another funny one (from FR):

"Don't you think you still have a lot to do as Azem?
- The world doesn't need me to turn, you know.”

Your codex in EN says otherwise.

It has decent little tidbits in it, like explaining the mask custom and when they would unmask. The FR version adds close relations as a scenario where this would be suitable. Sources of danger in the world that would warrant a seat of Azem (or indeed, Pashtarot), such as accidental acts of creation by children (FR: through a dream), which apparently could tower in size. This underscores how natural this power was to them.

The structure of the story seems to be to spend 2/3 of itself establishing why she’s so brilliant and respected and beloved etc., because in the final section, it really doesn’t add that much to what we already knew about the Final Days altercation between her faction and their broader society, other than on a few points, spoiler tagged to cut down length.

1) It further reiterates that their objection to the sacrifices was in the context of some ideological view of not hindering the progress of man through clinging to the past and that they saw Zodiark’s power as a risk in that sense. Again the exhortation to accept pain and loss comes up. I cross-checked with FR and it s very clearly laid out as a concern of trading the future for the past, rather than a focus on the things to be sacrificed.

2) On the point of the sacrifices EN says a bounty of souls to replace those within Zodiark – at the end it adds nothing to what we don’t already know from the JP version of the Hyth dialogue on the final stage of sacrifices, and clarifies little as living creations also gain souls.

There appears to be some confusion when checking the FR (and DE) localisations as to whether it is talking about the second voluntary stage (French even refers to the second stage and the translation I’ve seen of DE refers to some of mankind offering themselves up for life to blossom on the star, i.e. the second stage) or the ambiguous third one, which EN seems to be more directly referencing. As the second one would enable the third, my reading of this when taking in the other two localisations is that that it’s referring to the second stage as setting into motion her faction's manoeuvres… probably to help reconcile it with the Elpis “stylised” scene, which showed the world still on fire.

3) They seemed to know their souls would be wholly consumed, but apparently she kept the reasons for what she was doing (her glimpse of the future; FR narrows this to the space around the star, but says she’d not revealed the full picture) hidden from them. It does not seem like they knew she was going to sunder her own people. This was done on trust. The expectation on her faction’s part - certainly the Watcher and Venat - seems to be that if Zodiark was shackled, they’d “grow” like them.

On 1, sorry, but I will never be convinced by this presentation. Unless she gave her people the truth of the situation, their reaction (which had led to division amongst them) was natural. We know she didn’t even entrust her followers with the truth now, and really this all seems to have been driven by engendering a fear of Zodiark becoming an obstacle to progress (which again would tie into her fear of them ending up as the Plenty.) Fine – give them the truth. In reality, I suspect she didn’t want to level with her followers on the true intentions she had, which was to sunder her own people and ultimately, in order to be able to overcome Zodiark, the star. In the end, even if her people did change, she still harboured the belief that they wouldn’t be able to deal with Meteion due to their aetheric levels (again – an assumption.) She speaks of not what is anticipated and what comes to pass not needing to be the same, but from everything I see, she tried her damndest to ensure it did.

It was a nice touch to reconcile this with the Anamnesis dialogue, but I am afraid it still makes very little sense for them to speak of missing her given that their souls would be devoured by the summon.

Really, the entire dialogue struck me as hopelessly sycophantic, idealising her (and I guess whatever the Watcher saw in himself) above her own people as a form to which he aspired mankind would “grow” into. I guess the comparison Omega made between her and Hermes and their own kind wasn’t so flawed after all, and makes her faction that much less sympathetic to me… and no, sorry, you're not going to convince me this is a general ancient thing.

looks at the average Sundered…

Yeah they totally grew into a bunch of rounded gemstone Venats.

If I had felt a morsel of sympathy for the Watcher before this, I now feel none. The entire story reads as a rather crushing devotion to Hydaelyn and an utter lack of faith in their own people and ideological fixation with "change", that I simply cannot relate to on any level. Really it read as “YASSS KWEEN: The story”. Given that Yoshi had alluded to having to hold back tears or somesuch over her model design, I have to wonder if the Watcher is his self-insert.

Same. I actually need this to be able to continue with this game full stop. If Pandaemonium ends being just another way to say "And then the Ancients had to die because muh hubris, muh arrogance, muh scariness" then I am officially the hell out of here. I played the patch and while the MSQ did nothing for me, personally, Panda was incredible. It actually gave me a modicum of hope again. And maybe I'm a fool for having that hope, but it is feeling like a hopeful story and I can't help having the desire for there to be an ending for the Ancients that isn't wholly bad because Reasons.

I agree with all this and your remaining points. If any of the other short stories or future content seeks to walk back any of this and retreat back to trying to find ways to justify wiping the ancients out, I am done with it.

[Teraq]

It's hilarious to me how Venat ends up looking worse as time goes on and new lore emerges. Not only is it confirmed that she was well respected enough for people to listen to her, we once again see an example of the Ancients showing each other key memories. This happens multiple times during Pandaemonium through different methods.

Same brain cell. I've only played the only interesting part of the patch yet, Pandaemonium, but I found it pretty hilarious. Elidibus respected her and would have obviously taken her very seriously. Lahabrea dissed her (lmao slay, king), but his willingness to concede that our method of tackling Pandaemonium works would imply to me he would be willing to take his former colleague seriously as well. And the two instances of outright showing memories... Hahahahahaa. YUP. She could have shown anyone everything. As we guessed.

Oh, and Elidibus hearing about Venat hanging out with a strange being in Elpis... he might have learned this from the employees of Elpis. You know... All these people who saw her and you walk into Ktisis and not come out the same way. Once again, that this incident was seemingly NEVER investigated properly is a massive plot hole, and Elidibus also being aware of it makes it all the more egregious.

Then of course we have Pandaemonium showing us two literal world leaders explicitly renouncing "playing god".

Everyone liked that.

Also, Athena is my new queen. An Ancient woman being portrayed as an outright villain and flaunting it like the narc she is? How refreshingly honest! If only all narcissistic Ancient women could be like this.......

Same. I actually need this to be able to continue with this game full stop. If Pandaemonium ends being just another way to say "And then the Ancients had to die because muh hubris, muh arrogance, muh scariness" then I am officially the hell out of here. I played the patch and while the MSQ did nothing for me, personally, Panda was incredible. It actually gave me a modicum of hope again. And maybe I'm a fool for having that hope, but it is feeling like a hopeful story and I can't help having the desire for there to be an ending for the Ancients that isn't wholly bad because Reasons.

And as for that short story? Way to go writers! Thank you for confirming that Venat kept the truth of the Final Days to herself (as most of us have been saying for months). The unashamed groveling at her feet done by the Watcher was honestly ridiculous to read but, still, bravo! Someone has infiltrated that team and is making sure that we know Venat is a self-centered megalomaniac one small step at a time!

Also, I know I wasn't the only one dying of laughter as Panda showed us, once again, how very simple it was for the Ancients to share memories. What a plot hole. What a story.

Same brain cell as well, just like the army of Theodric alts we actually are.

Count me in the club of people who hope more than ever that Pandaemonium ends up as an AU.

Let me tell my precious babyfaced short king everything so he can be mankind's hero and its final hope.

--

As for the short story, it doesn't say much that we didn't already know. Only three sacrifices ever implied to be planned. Seeds of new life being sacrificed, again implying the wildlife sown by Zodiark to repopulate the planet. Here Lies GigaSimpeus Of Anyder – He Never Scored.

What it does do is retcon the 5.2 Anamnesis dialogue to include the new canon of her slurping up their souls and clarify, hilariously again, that she kept even her most loyal follower in the dark. So much for doing her best to prevent the horrible event we plainly told her would happen. But you gotta keep Hermes's not-at-all-spite-driven test totally fair, right? Thank you, queen. Very sane. Wholesome!