The Worst Part of Endwalker

[Kolsykol]

Zodiark was just a primal, that was confirmed in Shadowbringers.
He was never a dark lord reigning over the Ascians he was essentially a tool created by the Ancients to stop an unknown threat.

Meteion really wasn't a big bad either she was a victim of circumstance, she didn't really have any real autonomy.
Hermes was the closest to an actual villain.
Thinking of Meteion as the villain is a mistake, and I don't necessarily think that Hermes even was a villain either he was just very troubled and flawed living in a world full of '' perfect '' god-like beings.
And he also made decisions in the moment, if he had let Emet take Meteion away then the decision would've been made for him I dunno if he'd make the same decision even if he had more time to think about it.
Venat at least thought he might tho because that's one of the main reasons she never tells anyone, because Hermes was integral to forestalling the Final Days and he'd likely turn against her if it came out ( not to mention they had false memories and were already divided, people wouldn't just flock to Venat things would more likely just escalate the Final Days ).

In the end of the day it was a more human tragedy and I think on some level it makes sense it'd have such disastrous consequences when an Ancient flips out.
Especially one with knowledge over a mostly unknown force like Dynamism that the Ancients couldn't even control.

Yeah, Zodiark definitely felt throwaway after 8 years of build 2013-2021. The way Ascians spoke about the "one true god" made it seem like there was a plan all along, but the writers had no plan on where it was all going. The build eventually lost momentum when that became clear, then they finally brought it back into focus and hurriedly concluded it in a way that felt like another routine boss disposal.

It's pretty hard for anything to rival the threat level of ARR's titanic primal Bahamut which scarred the land so deeply that maps had to be redrawn, and it would happen again if we allowed its body to be regenerated in the Coils. There are story reasons for why Zodiark and Hydaelyn are much weaker than they once were in legend, but it's still disappointing for Hyd - a primal so exceptional as to have created an artificial moon and intelligent lifeforms - to have a battle that's anything but exceptional. Total mismatch between what was expected and what we got.

That's because they were tempered.
Which is another reason why Venat would've had a really hard time too.
Emet even says it himself in Shadowbringers that Zodiark tempered them, I think it may have been seen as sort of a necessary evil to try and unify people to save the Star.

We learn in EW that the Ascians at least intentionally taught people to instil the want to spread the '' faith '' of the Primals when they taught others about summoning.
They seem to have done this with Zodiark too and basically got caught in a loop of suicidal sacrifice with no real way going back.

It makes sense why they'd talk about Zodiark the way they did, the context just changes when we learn the truth behind it.

[GrizzlyTank]

Zodiark was pretty much done as a major enemy after the revelations in 5.2-3 and with the defeat of Elidibus.

Meteion wasn't really the villain, she was just another victim to Hermes/Fandaniel depression and ignorance.

Meteion really wasn't a big bad either she was a victim of circumstance, she didn't really have any real autonomy.
Hermes was the closest to an actual villain.
Thinking of Meteion as the villain is a mistake, and I don't necessarily think that Hermes even was a villain either he was just very troubled and flawed living in a world full of '' perfect '' god-like beings.
And he also made decisions in the moment, if he had let Emet take Meteion away then the decision would've been made for him I dunno if he'd make the same decision even if he had more time to think about it.

Meteion pretty much ends up being a moral story about ignoring regulations. Had Hermes not been an idiot and presented her to the bureau they could have patched up the issues that led to her becoming a doomsday device. Had Hermes also taken the position of Fandaniel without dooming the world he could also have used it to add new regulations and rules of ethics to the creations of sentient life.

[Rufalus]

That's because they were tempered.

There's internal logic but I just mean they made it seem like more of a big deal. Name dropped at the end of 2.0, stewing in the background for several years after, it's something Ascians were working on rejoining for millennia, countless major events throughout the history of the world were just set up to make a little bit of progress on the Zodiark thing, all the calamities, the wars, the confluence of chaos designed to bring us closer to Zodiark. Entire nations built and were destroyed all towards the long goal of bringing Zodiark back. And then he was just another ordinary boss in Endwalker and pushed aside.

[Adamantini]

(...)Lets start with Zodiark. They did not handle him the way I think anyone was expecting. This could be a good thing is the subversion had actually been done properly, but no it was compete shit. We has spent years playing through a storyline that talks up Zodiark like he is going to the be most epic and legendary reveal that we will ever experience in the game. The entire MSQ was based around the plots that were all taking place in an attempt to rejoin the worlds and unbind him; everyone expected him to be the final baddy in the EW expansion. What did we get instead? A rather rushed sequence of events where suddenly his seal is magically broken and now we are suddenly fighting him at what, level 84????? Disappointed is the only work I can use to describe it, but you know what, I thought to myself, why not give ole Yoshi-P the benefit of the doubt? I mean if he is gonna just toss away 8 years of buildup like that, then surely there must be something even better planned out.....right?(...)

I really expected that he wouldn't be the final boss, in that SE couldn't surprise me (by the way, this expansion didn't surprise me at all). But that's not the problem here, let me explain why this expansion, in my opinion, was horrible in terms of history (but I'll focus only on Zoldiark):

- It was said that we would have an end to the story of Zoldiark
- Everything led us to believe that he would be a huge challenge

What we got:

- We will never know what Zoldiark really was. We didn't get a chance to talk to him, to see him act. Zoldiark was nothing more than a puppet, which everyone wore like a glove. You know that story about how powerful he was? It became a joke to me after this expansion. He needed sacrifices to keep the world, but then they cut him into a thousand pieces and now he doesn't need it anymore... I wanted to hear from his mouth what he had to say about it.

- Is it just me or even watching him die, did it feel like we still didn't have an end for him? It was all so superficial, so silly, that I still stop and think "it's true, right? We killed Zoldiark".

- We never fought Zoldiark, in the end. It was just Hermes using his body.

[Kaurhz]

My only gripe with regards to Zodiark is that he was just ultimately a puppet for Fandaniel to use, this part of the story was designed really poorly. But with respect to the power of Zodiark, he was never going to be as powerful as how the unsundered remembered him, simply because he was sundered -- He isn't retaining that godly amount of power when he is sundered.


I think the Zodiark plotline should've been a bit longer, and I honestly think that Elidibus should've been with us on that journey. Just a consequence of consolidating effectively 2 expansions worth of story into a singular expansion.

[TheMightyMollusk]

My main gripe was that it was clearly two expansions of story mashed together. As a result, Garlemald and Zodiark feel rushed, and the Final Days get very little buildup, leading to Meteion being barely more than a diabolous ex machina. Everything up to the moon should've been one expansion, with Zodiark as our level 90 boss; the patches could've built up the return of the Final Days, with Vanaspati as our 6.4 or 6.5 dungeon to really up the dread factor of what's coming; and then 7.0 should've been the Final Days in its full terrible glory, giving more time for the plot to actually build up Meteion and explore what dynamis really means to the setting other than just "Heroic Willpower trope with a new name".

[LaylaTsarra]

No the worst part about Endwalker is threads like this and the crew that thinks their view of the xpac represents what everyone thinks. Sorry to break it to you but many of enjoyed the story and think it's at least on a par with Shadowbringers.

If we need anything if for mods to consolidate these threads into one.

[Carin-Eri]

No the worst part about Endwalker is threads like this and the crew that thinks their view of the xpac represents what everyone thinks. Sorry to break it to you but many of enjoyed the story and think it's at least on a par with Shadowbringers.

If we need anything if for mods to consolidate these threads into one.

I agree, actually. Whilst I see the points of those who disliked Endwalker, the most disappointing aspect of this for me personally is that there is almost no 'positive' discussion about it anywhere here.

There are what? Two? Three? Long running threads with replies numbering in the hundreds but I've seen nowhere to discuss any positives.

[Listrella]

the 2nd visit to labyrinthos was the worst part to me, after all the excitign stuff before it with the final days in thavnair and going back in time to elpis. we're just running around doing fetch quests and nothing much interesting happens storywise until the end of it when you go to the altiascope.

[aveyond-dreams]

I agree, actually. Whilst I see the points of those who disliked Endwalker, the most disappointing aspect of this for me personally is that there is almost no 'positive' discussion about it anywhere here.

There are what? Two? Three? Long running threads with replies numbering in the hundreds but I've seen nowhere to discuss any positives.

There may be a reason for that. Several, in fact, with the ones spelled out over the course of this thread so far being among them.