A missed opportunity I think (slightly DT spoilerly)

[Nadda]

Let me start by saying I'm not writing this to really be critical of Dawntrail's story as there are so many and I'm not intending to be negative, more so I want to note something of a Missed opportunity I think would have been cool and I wanted to comment on it.

First let me explain my premise from something another videogame franchise did.

In The Elder Scrolls specifically, the event covered in the fourth game for those that don't know was called Oblivion Crisis (Essentially vortexes of hell opened up and demons poured out across the land)

This event ravaged the whole world and brought many nations to the brink.

BUT in Argonia the Argonians (Lizardmen) actually fought so well they managed to not only repel the invasion but they managed to enter the Oblivion Gates (vortexes to hell) and capture some ground within.

And I always thought that was a cool bit of lore.

Something absent from the New World is their own account of what happened during the Final Days. This calamity should have affected the whole world. People know the Warrior of Light saved the Star. Wuk Lamat in particular that's why she recruits our aid.

I don't believe it was ever made clear to us how the people of Tural handled that situation and I think it'd have made the forces of the New World seem more imposing if we had an account of them perhaps holding their own during a crisis that affected the whole star. (especially since we are leveling up from 90-100)

Yet we never got that. I think it would have contextualized the power of Gulool Ja Ja.

Maybe his other half died casting some type of continent-wide warding spell to keep them from being tampered?

I don't know it feels like a blank space that wasn't filled in.

Anyways that's all - maybe more astute loremasters would know more than me. Was there an account?

[Ryvick]

Just a theory but it is entirely possible it never affected certain areas of the planet due to what I call "Ignorance is Bliss". According to what I remember from in game the effects of the End of Days were not immediate planet-wide, it started as losing contact with certain areas of the planet and eventually the effect spreading. During the Final Days in Eorzea it similarly seemed to be spreading slowly more due to fear as a contagion thus triggering an event. Tural and Meracydia and others may have heard about it all simply too late for it to trigger anything.

[Daralii]

Hythlodaeus said in either ShB or EW that the original Final Days popped up in a handful of areas and gradually spread until the end of the world that Emet showed us. It absolutely should have affected more areas in EW, since we only saw the burning sky in 2 zones and only saw the burning sky and terminus beasts together in 1, but that's the unfortunate result of Ishikawa and Yoshida combining 2 expansions because they thought the plot would have been too thin. Tural probably never saw the Final Days because we nipped it in the bud early on.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The Head of Reason died three years before the events of Dawntrail, so unless the Golbez arc took a lot longer than it seemed, he was long gone.

The Final Days started in places with the most despair (Garlemald, where the Empire had just collapsed and left its citizens at the charity of invading savages, and Radz-at-Han, undergoing a total financial collapse), then spread elsewhere from there (the role quests in the surrounding territories). We have no indication it made it any further. The only place we've seen farther out than that was Sharlayan, which showed no signs of blasphemies. We have no indication it actually made it out to Tural before we put down the Endsinger and stopped it.

[Jeeqbit]

Even if the Final Days did make it there, they likely just took care of them. Tural has established hunters that kill vidraal, particularly Vipers. You see this in the Viper story but also Wuk Lamat shows you how there is a prevailing hunt culture there and wants to hunt with you. So of course they'd set these hunters on them that are no stranger to even the scale of beasts you fight in the Role Quests.

Not to mention, if something attacked Tuliyollal, Gulool Ja Ja would probably just defeat it for sport, considering how few have ever even matched him (you and Estinien among them).

I agree that they didn't really cover it in depth, but they didn't really in the other city states either. You would think the Role Quests were just the tip of the iceberg and that numerous friends and people you'd met got transformed, but it didn't really go like that. Somehow despite all their stresses, none of the people you've helped in 10 years worth of quests transformed and no big names such as city state leaders transformed. Seems a bit unrealistic.

We didn't even get a scene where city state leaders in Limsa, Ul'dah and Gridania were overwhelmed fighting them off similar to how we did when Eulmore attacked Lakeland, or during The Heroes' Gauntlet. We just had to face one big boss and a few others and assumed the city state soldiers took care of the rest.

That part of it just wasn't thought of much, tbh, to the point the Role Quests didn't make much sense after the Final Days were over despite the developers knowing we'd finish them after the MSQ.

[Kuroka]

Well they still made sense, stopping the final days doesnt undo the transformations, thus the monsters are still out there... but yeah, they did very little with it.

[CuteBucket]

They do have an explanation for why it didn't spread everywhere (as others have commented), but I do agree that it was a missed opportunity. For something that was called "The Final Days" it should have WAY more catastrophic dramatic than it ended up as, which in retrospect is like "Garlemald and Thavnair's Very Bad No Good Day (Week?)." It's almost like Endwalker should have been two expansions or something.

[Mecia]

To my knowledge it didnt affect Tural at all as it didnt have time to spread there.

[Vyrerus]

*sigh* Y'all can't remember anything without a little Zodiark Trancing, can you?

Anyway, the Final Days first afflicted all regions of Etheirys where the, "Celestial Aether Currents" were at their weakest. These are the aether currents that are planet wide, and exist basically where the scriptwriter says so (for a semi-accurate read just look at the CS where The Watcher explains them by casting them over the non-descript globe he has on The Moon).

In order for The Final Days to manifest as it did in Thavnair or Garlemald, the region must be under a weak Celestial Current. Surely, a space across these two continents must have had a region under a weak Celestial Current, but the scriptwriter hasn't cared to say so, so it hasn't been so.

I agree that it's a big old thing that's missing, but then again, Tural is somewhat isolated from the rest of the world, so they don't exactly have depressed merchants or evil wizards magically erecting soul enslaving towers. Granted, you'd think that since the WoL did kill a Blessed Sibling in ARR that Mamook woulda had some sort of extra suffering on top of their ecological blue forest hardships.

Or perhaps that the Trolls, sorry, Giants... that wanted the Giants' empire to come back into being would be feeling some sorta way.

But nah, this is rubber bullets land, after all. What oppressive and depressive hardships could they really be facing with Gary Stool Jaja leading the perfect diversity utopia by being really good at fight?