I will never see eye to eye with Venat
Mar. 7th, 2026 02:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
requiemsJust finished 5.5 MSQ on Khlip. I was going to give Endwalker a chance but. No. No I hate it here actually.
I don't think I ever caught it before but after Arenvald is injured and Fordola yells at Alphinaud, she says something along the lines of, people die all the time and for no good reason. And if that isn't a core theme for EW idk what it is.
And I get what they're trying to say. This is very much an expac of its time: collectively the world was experiencing loss and despair for no justifiable reason in real life with the (still ongoing) pandemic. However, this is a fictional story. A conscious decision made by writers of a story, to bring a minor Scion back into the spotlight (he's been on the fringes for all post SB and ShB mind you, he's the one leading the charge against the primals whilst you're on the First) to then permanently disable him - to make an example of him but not actually kill him, and then write him out of msq for good. The poorest, most true to life representation of disability or chronic illness that you could ever give, in itself unintentional. His life as it was is over. His time in your life is over. And unless you do healer EW quests you never see him again. These are story beats a group of people chose to do, to make a point. And I think that's what really bothers me a lot about EW. Suffering for suffering's sake isn't what I'm here for. It isn't good. Characters are vehicles for the story you want to tell. I don't want my stories to be without point or meaningless loss. We go from a story about hope - where people do indeed suffer, and greatly, but always get back up again - to a story like this. It isn't one I like to tell myself. It isn't one I want to be in. I exist in it every single day. And I'm not saying my suffering is worth something (it's not) but I would rather conceive of some hope.
I also haven't really engaged with EW msq since DT and whilst I dislike the second half of DT, and Alexandria conceptively, I have very strong negative feelings about it, it is still an engaging story to me? It's meant to make you feel that way. Sometimes stories evoke a specific response and do it well. EW is almost entirely disconnect for me, with a lot of other mingled unpleasantness that don't really need to be there, and those that do serve a purpose are actually upsetting and not things you willingly want to revisit often.
Meh.
Anyway my mood has been better (thank goodness for that), I'm hoping to get most of it not all of my edits done for my wip before groceries on Tuesday. I am trying like the eighth type of lightbulb before having to bite the bullet and spend like £50 instead of £10 to see if something almost alike to what I previously had but not quite will work instead. 🥲 but I could also end up returning all those... eyes pls. We'll see how I feel about Endwalker after I play something else as planned.
I don't think I ever caught it before but after Arenvald is injured and Fordola yells at Alphinaud, she says something along the lines of, people die all the time and for no good reason. And if that isn't a core theme for EW idk what it is.
And I get what they're trying to say. This is very much an expac of its time: collectively the world was experiencing loss and despair for no justifiable reason in real life with the (still ongoing) pandemic. However, this is a fictional story. A conscious decision made by writers of a story, to bring a minor Scion back into the spotlight (he's been on the fringes for all post SB and ShB mind you, he's the one leading the charge against the primals whilst you're on the First) to then permanently disable him - to make an example of him but not actually kill him, and then write him out of msq for good. The poorest, most true to life representation of disability or chronic illness that you could ever give, in itself unintentional. His life as it was is over. His time in your life is over. And unless you do healer EW quests you never see him again. These are story beats a group of people chose to do, to make a point. And I think that's what really bothers me a lot about EW. Suffering for suffering's sake isn't what I'm here for. It isn't good. Characters are vehicles for the story you want to tell. I don't want my stories to be without point or meaningless loss. We go from a story about hope - where people do indeed suffer, and greatly, but always get back up again - to a story like this. It isn't one I like to tell myself. It isn't one I want to be in. I exist in it every single day. And I'm not saying my suffering is worth something (it's not) but I would rather conceive of some hope.
I also haven't really engaged with EW msq since DT and whilst I dislike the second half of DT, and Alexandria conceptively, I have very strong negative feelings about it, it is still an engaging story to me? It's meant to make you feel that way. Sometimes stories evoke a specific response and do it well. EW is almost entirely disconnect for me, with a lot of other mingled unpleasantness that don't really need to be there, and those that do serve a purpose are actually upsetting and not things you willingly want to revisit often.
Meh.
Anyway my mood has been better (thank goodness for that), I'm hoping to get most of it not all of my edits done for my wip before groceries on Tuesday. I am trying like the eighth type of lightbulb before having to bite the bullet and spend like £50 instead of £10 to see if something almost alike to what I previously had but not quite will work instead. 🥲 but I could also end up returning all those... eyes pls. We'll see how I feel about Endwalker after I play something else as planned.
