Endwalker story doubt: spoiler alert

[Stepjam]

I think it's a bit ambiguous whether her Despair-Bear-Stare was like a focused thing or just a general wave that could cover the entire universe. If the former, then the escape plan could work for a little while at least. If the latter, then it would obviously fail pretty fast, but I don't think anyone knew which of the two it was. And fleeing was always the back up plan, Plan A was for the Warrior of Light to be badass enough to fix things.

[Cleretic]

Stop putting everything on 'time loop requirements', it's really uninteresting and reductive. C'mon, Venat's smart enough to come up with a multi-layered plan like this herself, don't take that away from her.

I think it's a bit ambiguous whether her Despair-Bear-Stare was like a focused thing or just a general wave that could cover the entire universe. If the former, then the escape plan could work for a little while at least. If the latter, then it would obviously fail pretty fast, but I don't think anyone knew which of the two it was. And fleeing was always the back up plan, Plan A was for the Warrior of Light to be badass enough to fix things.

We know that things were focused very specifically on the Source, because we have a decent-ish sample size and know that nowhere else erupted into despair monsters. (The Nibirun got depressed enough to make one themselves, but that was more on them.) So we can reason that fleeing the planet would flee the End of Days, Meteion had a scope and it was one planet.

That doesn't mean everywhere else is fine, of course, and there's decent evidence Meteion is also making the rest of the universe worse as well, but fleeing 'certain immediate doom' in favor of 'likely eventual demise' is still a step up.

[Stepjam]

We know that things were focused very specifically on the Source, because we have a decent-ish sample size and know that nowhere else erupted into despair monsters. (The Nibirun got depressed enough to make one themselves, but that was more on them.) So we can reason that fleeing the planet would flee the End of Days, Meteion had a scope and it was one planet.

That doesn't mean everywhere else is fine, of course, and there's decent evidence Meteion is also making the rest of the universe worse as well, but fleeing 'certain immediate doom' in favor of 'likely eventual demise' is still a step up.

Those worlds died before "our" Meteion even left Etheirys though. She mentions some of them in her report to Hermes. They were what drove her to madness.

[Iscah]

Stop putting everything on 'time loop requirements', it's really uninteresting and reductive. C'mon, Venat's smart enough to come up with a multi-layered plan like this herself, don't take that away from her.

Is that in response to me? That's just fact. At the point the WoL arrives in Elpis, they believe Hydaelyn's plan is to escape the planet. Therefore the WoL – and by extension, everyone in contact with the WoL – needs to be told that's the plan, even if Hydaelyn's real plan all along was to send them to fight Meteion.

So when the Sharlayans come knocking, she tells them the plan is to escape, and sets them working on an interstellar-capable spaceship even though they allegedly only need to get to the moon and back.

Only once the WoL has been to Elpis, she can speak freely without disrupting the WoL's knowledge as relayed to her back then, and she can reveal (or rely on us to find) that the true solution is to take the spaceship and go to Meteion's nest.

What part of this is not ascribing a multi-layered plan to her?

[Cleretic]

Is that in response to me? That's just fact. At the point the WoL arrives in Elpis, they believe Hydaelyn's plan is to escape the planet. Therefore the WoL – and by extension, everyone in contact with the WoL – needs to be told that's the plan, even if Hydaelyn's real plan all along was to send them to fight Meteion.

So when the Sharlayans come knocking, she tells them the plan is to escape, and sets them working on an interstellar-capable spaceship even though they allegedly only need to get to the moon and back.

Only once the WoL has been to Elpis, she can speak freely without disrupting the WoL's knowledge as relayed to her back then, and she can reveal (or rely on us to find) that the true solution is to take the spaceship and go to Meteion's nest.

What part of this is not ascribing a multi-layered plan to her?

Sorry, I kinda jumped the gun there; I'm so used to people completely ripping all agency from her in favor of 'BUT THE TIME LOOP' (usually in bad-faith attempts to make Endwalker look worse), I immediately leapt to the worst interpretation. I shouldn't have done that, and I'm sorry.

I still disagree that she would've disclosed that without the time loop situation, just because tactically it's kinda the right move for that plan; she needs Sharlayan to help with the evacuation and spaceship-construction part, but not only does that part not require the knowledge of Plan A, I feel Sharlayan's likely to get distracted by Plan A to the point where they might neglect the thing they really need to chip in on. It's kinda hard to tell exactly when Hydaelyn gave them the rundown of all this--like, was this in the Antitower days or did they get details through the Aitiascope--but if it was to generally the same rather conservative Forum that we met I could absolutely see them going 'no, we'll focus entirely on blasting this bird out of the sky ourselves', thereby screwing up not just the evacuation plan, but also the Plan A.

If it was Thavnair that contacted her, I think they could be trusted. But Sharlayan? No, they would genuinely do a better job if they're not given the whole picture until later.

[Carin-Eri]

I think it's a bit ambiguous whether her Despair-Bear-Stare was like a focused thing or just a general wave that could cover the entire universe. If the former, then the escape plan could work for a little while at least. If the latter, then it would obviously fail pretty fast, but I don't think anyone knew which of the two it was. And fleeing was always the back up plan, Plan A was for the Warrior of Light to be badass enough to fix things.

Agreed - a backup plan necessitated by the possibility of the Warrior of Light not actually being alive to confront Meteion. And, in fact, we know there is at least one timeline where the Warrior of Light didn't survive to do so.

[Alleluia]

Agreed - a backup plan necessitated by the possibility of the Warrior of Light not actually being alive to confront Meteion. And, in fact, we know there is at least one timeline where the Warrior of Light didn't survive to do so.

This brings up a good point. 8th umbral timeline: screwed or no? I mean the WoL is dead, but the rejoining is proceeding apace, and a new WoL can be reborn later. I think. Unless black rose prevents that? Either way they at least won’t be alive to kill Zodiark at this point. Or weren’t since that timeline is continuing 200 years in the future. And the unsundered are still around presumably to keep Fandaniel in check.

Can’t imagine Venat’s freak out when the 8th umbral killed the WoL that she met in Elpis.

[Iscah]

This brings up a good point. 8th umbral timeline: screwed or no? I mean the WoL is dead, but the rejoining is proceeding apace, and a new WoL can be reborn later. I think. Unless black rose prevents that? Either way they at least won’t be alive to kill Zodiark at this point. Or weren’t since that timeline is continuing 200 years in the future. And the unsundered are still around presumably to keep Fandaniel in check.

Can’t imagine Venat’s freak out when the 8th umbral killed the WoL that she met in Elpis.

The other timeline is on a completely different set of concerns.

Emet and Elidibus didn't die fighting us, but went on to rejoin the First.

Assuming we didn't kill them some other way in this scenario*, they are still likely in control of the Ascian agenda and Fandaniel remains a miserable underling for now.

Hydaelyn likely remembers us telling her the story about how we averted the bad timeline and deduces that she has ended up in it. She may also reason that this is still just a necessary middle step in the saving of the good timeline. (Though these terms are eventually muddied by the writers' decision to have the bad timeline's situation come good after all.)

It's also possible that the abundance of Light from this particular rejoining might have given Hydaelyn more strength to last another few centuries and communicate with the newly reborn WoL – more openly this time as she is not bound by the need to only tell us certain things or risk corrupting the time loop.

Or maybe she dies and the Rejoining continues unobstructed.

Maybe Zodiark is never destroyed in this timeline at all.

There are lots of variables and they can be anywhere from safe to doomed, as the writers wish.


*I like to think that defeating Elidibus-as-Zenos at Ghimlyt was the other timeline's turning point, demoralising the Garlean troops and causing them to feel increasingly threatened by the enemy capable of defeating Zenos.

[Iscah]

The best logic I can think of is that it's a deliberate "fake plan" (because she can't reveal the real one until the time loop says so) that still achieves the primary thing needed for the real plan: construction of a spaceship capable of reaching Meteion's nest, because that is the only thing that can actually halt the disaster.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

Meteion didn't need to attack the Star itself though, did she? It's the people that need to turn to Blasphemies, so that their souls may be added to the Egg.