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

[ArcturusWhisper]

I am a latecomer to these discussions, I have never posted in the Forum before. But given the continuous proclamation that goes like "95% of players love it, who are you to object", I feel like it's my duty to detail my dissatisfaction, lest the fact that I am still paying my monthly subscription is taken by the developers as I am loving it.

It's weird to me that in an expansion that lauds the idea of never giving up hope, that even the "situations of despair" those other societies had fallen to--that the Scions attempt to answer in their sacrifices--there still might have been a way for them to live on and find happiness, ONLY the Ancients are subject to this bizarre, "nope, chuck them in the trash, they were done, the moment you go into a tailspin your plane is doomed to crash so you might as well let go of the controls entirely" reaction. I would put forth even if the Ancients were about to make a horrible mistake, they still had the right to MAKE that mistake. FFXIV is a game that puts forth the idea that as long as you don't give up, you can atone for horrible things. I believe even the Ancients at their worst could have still had better days ahead of them, just like every other single person or society we see in the game, including those in the Dead Ends.

This is exactly how I feel about the situation regarding the Ancients. Somehow they are singled out as the ONE group that doesn't deserve to hope, to live on. Somehow they alone deserved to be wiped out, everybody else deserve to persevere, but nope, not the Ancients. The most hilarious thing is that some people keep dismissing these opinions regarding Venat as "Ancient lovers just want to hate Venat". It couldn't be further from the truth in my case. Back in Shadowbringer, I was exactly those that want to stick game texts to the screen of those who couldn't stop gushing about how "perfect" the Ancient society was, so that they can properly read them. And yet here I am, despairing at people's ability to be consistent. Regardless of how "imperfect" that society was, regardless of what flaws they had, declaring that they deserved to be wiped out by one woman flies in the face of the morals of Shadowbringer.

5.0: No matter how imperfect, or flawed, people deserve to live.
6.0: lol nope, this particular group deserved to be wiped out for their flaws.

Seriously.

And the sad thing is I adored Venat so much at the beginning of Elpis. She's portrayed as this unconventional, but brave, kind, and adventurous woman who loves people. I wish I can get that Venat back.

[Edit] I forgot, I agreed completely with people that just by wiping her memory together with Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus, a lot of this could already be prevented. Or just not do this time-travel at all, use the Echo! I don't know why they chose the worse possible way to go about it.

[ArcturusWhisper]

(Post was too long, have to be split in two)

Her actions never receive the same scrutiny as those of the Ascians, which is part of the problem. [/I]

And this is almost my entire gripe with her character.

I find it funny when people keep bringing up "how about the Ascians?!", they do realize the Ascians are the villains in the story right? That we (WoL) fought with everything we had to stop them. And if it's their opinion that Venat is even slightly similar to the Ascians, why are they fighting so hard when people just ask for Venat to be GIVEN SIMILAR TREATMENT TO ASCIANS? You don't even need to treat her as a villain. Just don't treat her as this 100% benevolent goddess that has done no wrong. Is that too much to ask for?

These are my personal grievances with the story. Emphasis on "personal" since I understand why some people would enjoy it and I recognize the appeal, but it just didn't resonate well with me:
...

And I want to frame this whole post and hang it on my wall.

[Solarra]

Back in Shadowbringer, I was exactly those that want to stick game texts to the screen of those who couldn't stop gushing about how "perfect" the Ancient society was, so that they can properly read them. And yet here I am, despairing at people's ability to be consistent. Regardless of how "imperfect" that society was, regardless of what flaws they had, declaring that they deserved to be wiped out by one woman flies in the face of the morals of Shadowbringer.

5.0： No matter how imperfect, or flawed, people deserve to live.
6.0: lol nope, this particular group deserved to be wiped out for their flaws.

Indeed, Ancient society in ShB did seem less perfect than it did in EW, if you talked to the NPCs in Amaurot. The instance when our party is mistaken for children and warned that it would be best to don robes as they were probably being watched was particularly chilling.
Yet, there was no further development of this idea and Venat removing her mask in the EW short story is clearly not treated as a major infraction.

Had we been presented with a society where every action was watched and deviation from the norm had dire consequences, it might have been easier to accept Venat's actions. Instead the EW story presents us with a society closely resembling our own, only in some respects better. E.g. Hermes' rejection of society's norms is met with attempts at understanding and does not prevent him being promoted to the highest office.


My feelings about EW have made me look at the rest of the story and see that many of the flaws have been present from the start.

There has always been a tendency to tell rather than show.
E.g. We are told Minfillia does important work, but most of the time she's seen in her office alone doing nothing.
We are told Tartaru prevented undesireables from joining the scions, but we never see her doing that, she simply checks your name is on the list and lets you in.
We are told Lyse is the best person to lead the Resistance, but we never see her doing much to justify this.

Pacing has often been off.
The Loporits getting so much attention is the latest example, but the pre-HW quests dragged painfully and the return to Uldah in HW, felt like a very unwelcome interruption to an exciting MSQ.

Fake deaths have been overused from HW onwards. And Scion plot-armour means we're probably stuck with them forever (can't sell as much merchandise if you kill them). I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they tried to revive Emet Selch at this point!

So, I'm not expecting anything better from this writing team in the future. The story is pretty good for an MMO, and there have been flashes of brilliance now and then, but overall I wouldn't say it's great literature. After ShB, I was expecting so much more from this story and for me, it totally failed to deliver.

[KageTokage]

Indeed, Ancient society in ShB did seem less perfect than it did in EW, if you talked to the NPCs in Amaurot. The instance when our party is mistaken for children and warned that it would be best to don robes as they were probably being watched was particularly chilling.

That was another case of...strange translation because it's worded much more mildly in the other languages and more along the lines of "people will think you're weird if you don't wear robes".

[ArcturusWhisper]

Indeed, Ancient society in ShB did seem less perfect than it did in EW, if you talked to the NPCs in Amaurot. The instance when our party is mistaken for children and warned that it would be best to don robes as they were probably being watched was particularly chilling.
Yet, there was no further development of this idea and Venat removing her mask in the EW short story is clearly not treated as a major infraction.

Had we been presented with a society where every action was watched and deviation from the norm had dire consequences, it might have been easier to accept Venat's actions. Instead the EW story presents us with a society closely resembling our own, only in some respects better. E.g. Hermes' rejection of society's norms is met with attempts at understanding and does not prevent him being promoted to the highest office.

Exactly. Some finer details of that society are chilling, and it is quite obvious that Emet-Selch doesn't see those because 1) it's his cherished society and 2) he's in his grief and obsession for 12000 years, which made for a rather compelling story. But even if they have continued with that aspect, I think I will still take issue with Venat basically hiding critical information from that society, instead of working to better it. Her decision would certainly be more palatable, but not by much in my view. Let's just take, for example, Eulmore. That's basically a degenerate and depraved society with very few redeeming qualities, but I would take issue if the protagonists' solution to make this society better is to just erase them and make a better society out of beings that arise from their ashes. That's different than if the protagonists have no choice but to wipe Eulmore out in say, an existential battle. But "wiping out a society in order to make it better" is just...nuts in my opinion.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they tried to revive Emet Selch at this point!

This is very much a possibility, though I pray so hard that they won't. It would just destroy his character. Let him rest in peace!

[ArcturusWhisper]

That was another case of...strange translation because it's worded much more mildly in the other languages and more along the lines of "people will think you're weird if you don't wear robes".

That's interesting! But I still think the ancient society in ShB has its clearly "imperfect" implications, even if not as chilling as the translation made it out to be. But regardless, as I said in my previous post, it's immaterial. Even if the ancients have even bigger flaws, it would still be nuts to do what Venat did to them. The entire premise of Shadowbringer is that "better" beings don't get to decide who deserves to live; and continued "existence" in a completely different form, with their memories and history and civilisation completely destroyed, is not something people would desire.

[Kyrj]

Imagine going from Emet to Hawkgirl, pathetic.

[ArcturusWhisper]

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.

YEAH! I completely forgot my gripe regarding how they go about fleshing out Elidibus. It IS odd to basically shoehorn him into the role of "Azem fanboy" this late in the game. I know that ShB short story basically established a foundation for this fanboyism, but it wasn't exactly at this level. In the short story, he looks up to the whole Convocation, not just Azem, and the way this "looking up to" was portrayed much more naturally.

I'd much rather they flesh out the Ascians by telling their stories.

It's like the screenwriters are one-trick ponies and couldn't portray a sympathetic villain without tying them closely to our previous life. It worked with Emet-Selch, and that's great. But it's getting tiring if it keeps being repeated. They could easily build Elidibus's story around the whole of Convocation and his duty. With Emet-Selch being an already sympathetic Ascian, people would be interested. It wouldn't be easy, because they don't seem to have the best of relationship after 12000 years of getting on each other's nerves, but that in itself would have been an interesting aspect to explore.

But NOOOO, it must be us. It always must be us. lol.

Seriously, characters don't need to always be simping for us to be sympathetic. It's just extremely lazy writing. I am so disappointed with how they handle Elidibus, as much as I enjoy Themis in many ways.

(I am reading over the thread slowly and I feel like in the next few days you guys are going to see so many of my posts, I apologize in advance.)

[Edit] I forgot to add, I find in the short story, where Emet asks Elidibus whether he wants to access his memory crystal a very well-written scene with both of them. So sad such a compelling aspect of their story is relegated to short stories that most players won't even see.

[Vyrerus]

Yeah, on that note, we could stand to have less WoL simping in general. We don't need to be reminded every other cutscene that we're the most epic bestest hero ever that has it so hard but is so valiant and virtuous. Like, we know that already. We're the one toiling to save the country, world, continent, everything.

And yeah, the lodestone shorts are usually pretty dang good. A lot of people do read them, and a lot of folks also believe these should be in the game in some form. I've always kind of hated any time media has outside the base material that tells a better story than the base material. Got a better representation of the Sundering in a Nier game recent-ish.

I hope you're still reading through the thread. There's some real gem posts in here.

[Vyrerus]

Man, did we get april fooled, or did Arcturus just forget about this thread?

Hah, *sigh*