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

[EaraGrace]

1.)Yes, theres good info to suggest limit breaks in some form are indeed a part of Dynamis control, which prayer is also a part of, hence we see this with Elidibus and in Ktisis.

We have clear confirmation that the Ancients largely could not manipulate Dynamis in a meaningful, and uncertain lore that hood that LBs can be aether or Dynamis. The conclusion is clear and unambiguous.

2.)She approached them after the Final Days occurred, when in reality she could have approchaed them beforehand. I've reiterated this point numerous times now and you keep ignoring it or saying "but, well...there were problems with that." No there weren't.

I’m not the one ignoring the text. It’s stated clearly why that wouldn’t work and the consequences that would stem from it, yet you repeatedly handwave it away and then wonder why she didn’t do that. Thats not a point, that’s ignoring evidence.

She chose to not even give them a chance then, she kept her secrets to herself and continued to keep them and lie in our own time as well. Shes a manipulator and deceitful person.

Why are you so set on making her villain when not even the Unsundered dislike her as much as you do?

3.) He does it purely against limit breaks, if you want to amount it to something else thats on you.

Yes, its a shield of aether, it does not involve the manipulation of Dynamis at all.

4.) Thats about what 90% of the arguments advocating for Venat are based around.Dont see you equating it as such when it benefits your argument hm? Regardless i've given absolutes before and people simply dodge around them or avoid those points entirely.

There are no maybes in the text. I don’t have to jump through hoops to argue my point about what she did or why. The game gives plenty of evidence to that.

5.) As for your point about the creating beings just to suffer, please, pray tell, explain to me how this is any different from us summoning primals in the Empty just to kill them without their consent.

Sure, a primal born from aether, not souls, is not a living being. The Ancients feel similarly. And whether such a being can even manipulate Dynamis at all, is also uncertain.

Whether it can affect soul aether is unknown. Whether it needs to (the WoL themselves being 9/14ths dense at the soul level) is unknown. Whether it could be modified to if necessary is an open option, as is use of it as-is.

Given Hermes had to make Meteion aetherically weak for her to manipulate Dynamis I believe it would be necessary.

Bizarre framing. They're just arcane constructs at the end of the day, much like Primals or egis are. And that isn't why. The reason is to help them track and hunt down Meteion and stop her from hiding, to ultimately get to her and put her out of her misery. For that, ability to manipulate dynamis is required. If one had to, one could endow it with the purpose of protecting the universe itself - quite a noble purpose. If it did not work, there is the option of selective sundering of some of their own.

We have no clue if constructs can manipulate Dynamis, as it is not aether and no confirmed arcane construct as ever manipulated Dynamis, only ensouled beings. And the idea of sending beings whose purpose is out of their control, with wills of their own, into a hellish world simply so you can avoid destruction, seems almost like a Nier plot.

Didn’t work so well there.

Then revise the concept to circumvent that little problem.

The one constant we’ve seen is that only those with wills of their own manipulate Dynamis, to do this would strip them of that.

What was stopping a sundered being from doing the same, knowing of their broken existence, after they were made to suffer in this state thanks to a Supreme Deity? You could ask the same question here.

There was nothing stopping a sundered being from doing the same. Venats hope however, is that living beings would be able to find meaning in their lives even when faced with suffering, that beauty would exist even would faced with death. If they couldn’t, then no one would be able to stand against Meteion, and that would be that.

So what? It's linked to both. Primals happen to have an awful lot of it to tap into.

Anyway, I'm not really interested in endless back and forth over this. It is clear that there is enough room in the plot to allow for it.

There being a potential room for further developments and “this proves that the Ancients could manipulate Dynamis” are not the same arguments.

[Stachiko]

snip

This makes me regret trashing my notes. I had quite a list by the time we landed on the moon. Unfortunately, reading through it I realized it would only serve to upset the people who asked me to enjoy it.

Thank you for your post. It quite nicely sums up many of the sore points I had with EW's story.

[Sicno]

Mmmmm not really. The most Dynamis manipulation from an Ancient we see is Hermes, whose noted as being the only one to change the Elpis flowers colors.

You may be confusing this. He was the only one for whom they changed to BLACK (or purple-ish) specifically. That's why Meteion wanted you to change it to black too, so he could see he wasn't alone in his sorrow.

[Lauront]

Glass houses, and all that...

[Jandor]

Glass houses, and all that...

Yeah yeah...

[Maxilor]

I enjoyed Endwalker a lot but as previously mentioned, whenever Time Travel gets involved it almost never works out story wise.

Also, I hated it in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria and I hated it here, 'feelings' magic is just a boring idea in my opinion. Dynamis just felt like a giant ass pull at the 11th hour and just makes me question how much Dynamis is responsible for everything our PC has done over the years...forget Willpower and Determination...DYNAMIS!

[MagiusNecros]

Just want to comment on Venat a little bit. Kinda have a love/hate kind of deal.

Venat "Mary Sue" Hydaelyn effectively commits genocide by splitting Etheirys into 13 pieces, kills(sunders) every living being on the planet without giving them the option of a choice, condemns everyone to perpetual suffering in order to prevent ever reaching the point of civilization seeking death after attaining perfection so instead they chase something that can never be attained, in a crowning act of narcissism names the Source Hydaelyn after herself, decides that no one can be trusted and withholds information and deceives her friends and foes alike and condemns even more to die such as say Minfilia and several lives on the first and creates the Sin Eaters as a result, has an initial plan of kill Meteion but also has a backup plan to flee the planet although it is eventually revealed that every other planet is a dead world meaning that the finite resources of the Moonship would eventually run out so plan B would ultimately fail and she bound Zodiark to use as an Aether Battery to keep the Aether Shield up but was also siphoning a portion of that Aether to the Mothercrystal making her a monstrous parasite that feeds and hoards the Aether of others. The mothercrystal is insurmountably large and is the result of leeching Aether for 12,000 years.

Other then a few Ascians and the WoL no one and nothing criticizes her actions and is rather seen as a benevolent being that can do no wrong. Likely because every race is a "child" of Hydaelyn and they have a certain attunement towards her leaving them to have favorable opinions of her.

There is a whole lot in her characterization that can paint her as a Mary Sue archetype. And generally with time travel you can't tamper with events but I do feel she unknowingly caused alterations by encouraging you to spill the beans.

Given the nature of events you can easily see Zodiark as being more a hero and Hydaelyn the villain.

Do I think Venat is inherently evil? No but the path of evil is often paved with good intentions. A future was granted but it came at a great cost.

At which point you can objectively see Venat in 2 ways. One as a deceitful creature or as a devout follower who can understand her intentions at the cost of cruel unforgivable choices.

After all Lawful good is not Lawful nice.

But the idea of the Ancients have such powercreep that the Sundering was caused by the entity that effectively created you is interesting in both good and bad ways. Good as a twist but also bad in a "are we the baddies" kind of deal. And I also think it kinda cheapens the overall story quite a bit. It's a whole lot of "To save the world I had to destroy it".

[linayar]

But the idea of the Ancients have such powercreep that the Sundering was caused by the entity that effectively created you is interesting in both good and bad ways. Good as a twist but also bad in a "are we the baddies" kind of deal.

Whether we are the "baddies" is a matter of perspective, and according to the story's pov, we are not.

And I also think it kinda cheapens the overall story quite a bit. It's a whole lot of "To save the world I had to destroy it".

I don't see how that cheapens the story. Rather, it puts into perspective that Venat had faith for our future over the past that the unsundered wanted to reclaim. And it's quite clear that Venat sees us as heirs of the unsundered, presumably helped in part through our interaction. So sundering the world is not really destroying it, but merely creates 13 other possibilities in addition to the original.

[Rokke]

Now with a few playthroughs under my belt the last bit of msq feels a bit muddy for me. Prior to Elpis the story is about finding hope in moments of hopelessness, which is a nice sentiment and par the course of FFXIV's overarching story. Once we hit Elpis it then shifts to Perfect Is Bad, which even gets a speech from a bunny in the 2nd part of Labrynthos explaining that Perfect Is Bad and we should stay in our lane and just make due with what we have. Then we reach the last zone and attempt to juggle Perfect Is Bad (Ea, Omicron, Peace wars, Ra-la), Stay In Your Lane Or Die (little fish people), finding hope in moments of hopelessness (friends, flowers, etc) and the dragon ghosts...that never chased perfection or things outside their means.

I think the funniest summary of how sideways it gets is when the Ea spend their whole area being our example as to why Perfect Is Bad in that they learned everything there was to learn and it ended poorly and Yshtola just says NO U as her rebuttal. She wants to learn everything she can learn! But now its ok because she is doing it I guess.

[EaraGrace]

You may be confusing this. He was the only one for whom they changed to BLACK (or purple-ish) specifically. That's why Meteion wanted you to change it to black too, so he could see he wasn't alone in his sorrow.

I was remarking that he’s the only one who showed any ability to effect change dynamis, limited as that manipulation may be. It’s explicitly stated that the color never changes around everyone else. It’s certainly possible that’s not the default color for Elpis flowers and they were simply all expressing the exact same emotion, but either way it’s more about how limited the ancients were to interacting with it. You can just as easily point to the way Venat, Emet, Hermes, and Hythlodaeus we’re unable to hear Meteions pleas, while the WoL could as another example.

Hermes: And those entities like the Elpis flower, that have the ability to interact with this energy, converting emotions into tangible phenomena...
Hermes: ...Are entelechies.

If a presumably soulless flower can…

The Elpis flowers respond to the emotions of others, it doesn’t effect change as it lacks a will to do so. Standing near an Elpis flower won’t make you susceptible to its influence through dynamis, but standing near Meteion? Different story.