Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker is the story of Fandaniel, two men who could not be more different, yet are cursed to share the same soul. The story of Fandaniel is one of identity, and a desperate search for meaning before a cruel and unfair universe. In this essay, I follow the thread of Fandaniel, and ask what it is that caused these two men to make the choices they made.
Intro – 00:00
Part One: Fandaniel – 07:59
Part Two: Hermes – 41:48
Part Three: Amon – 2:05:11
Part Four: Meteion – 2:35:46
Conclusion – 3:36:44
Source for quote from Theseus: http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/theseus.html
Source for “Anagnorisis” meaning: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Anagnorisis
Twitter: @ZuldimYT
source
Well, that's the first time I've heard any sort of distan for Close in The Distance. He doesn't have to like it but…Phil Collins? Really? The song is a rock ballad and it's by the same singer behind Shadowbringers. I just couldn't take that part seriously 😂
Listen what Amon was saying in the aetherial sea isn't exactly wrong.
This is really good content. Basically destroyed my productivity for the week. But really good content lol
So I hate Fandaniel. I think he was a very interesting character. However I couldn't feel any sympathy for him. Especially after Emet Selch and Elidibus I found this odd. Until I realized that's not the point. You aren't necessarily supposed to feel sorry for him. You are however supposed to feel sorry for Hermes but not Fandaniel and most certainly not Amon. He was a very well written character in this way. I still hate him, he was awful. But he is the bad guy which is the point. You were supposed to feel sorry for Hermes because you were supposed to feel sorry for Meition. Amon was never supposed to receive that sympathy. I did find him interesting because at first I couldn't quite tell what he was after It was unsettling to say the least. All in all great job devs you made the perfect villain
Rewatching the last bit for a while, I feel that there can be a little exploration on the Dead Ends duty.
It feels like the first dead end is as the Meteion found it. Mired in sickness, its people only wanting to die and cursing ever having born. It probably gave rise to her idea that not 'not living' is the key but 'not being born at all' will solve issues and this particular one would have likely ushered the last living ones to their deaths.
The second dead end was actually already at peace, but tenacious at best. Meteion shows up and the world government at the time immediately takes this as a sign that they are the One True Path and seeks to stamp out all last dissenting voices. This is probably a shock to the little bird that her very presence has caused an entire world to self-destruct.
The final dead end was also as she found it and she could not understand. And eventually must have learned the lesson that no matter how wonderful you have it, it is all for nothing. But the clue there is on the level design. Have you noticed how rotten and desolate the ground UNDER the golden grasses ones you walk on is? This world was already rotten inside and its sentiment spread to Meteion whom the inhabitants started to worship for death; Ra-La sports some very familiar features to its form after all… Like how its wings extend from the head as ears for instance.
We are being subjected to a few very key moments in the development of the Meteia's belief for how to bring us all 'salvation'.
I dont know why I watched an almost 4 hours essay, but it was worth it. You have an exceptuonally good narrating skill, and the chapter were very coherent and well written, thank you. I hope i can see more ff14 content like this in the future.
Small spoiler for something said around 3 hours in below.
Never did I expect to laugh so loudly 3 hours into a cleverly and remarkably detailed character analysis, but the moment you said "a song from the Tarzan soundtrack" I lost myself for a moment there, I may disagree with how you dislike the song but man did I love the way you nailed that statement. Fantastic work and I intend to watch all your previous videos as soon I rewatch that part a few more times then finish it.
You had me till you bashed Close In The Distance 🔫
Have you heard of the tragedy of Hermes the Woobie?
why you call them asziens?
Dawg you let me enjoy this video for 3 hours before dropping that Close in the Distance take?
Very not tales of loss and fire and faith of you
Great video overall. If I can offer a critique, it does stray from its original subject matter regularly, indulging in the plot of Endwalker which anyone watching an essay on Fandaniel should be familiar with. This critique aside, we FFXIV fans love ourselves a trip down memory lane, so I don't think it necessarily hurt the video.
THE SONG IN ULTIMA THUAL IS THE BEST, YOUR WRONG!
Fandaniel lived for over 100000 years.. that would make anyone insane..
I love your work. I will say you missed some lore on the white robes though. The white robes are a sign of the wearer being enlightened or highly respected. Given that Venat has presumably been alive for thousands and thousands of years, as well as the previous seat of Azem, it isn't hard to guess why she might be afforded that status.
It's why Elidibus wears them too.
Edit: just wanted to say shots fired on the "Close the Distance" track. The lyrics are, to me, rolled up with so much meaning. It makes literal sense for those to be the words of your allies egging you on. It also makes sense being testament from the denizens of Ultima Thule. Furthermore, it makes sense as a celebration of the closing of the story of Hydaelyn and the Ancients. Finally, I think it has a lot of meaning for Soken, who wrote it not long after his battle with cancer. I found it incredibly moving and every time I hear a new spin or cover it just gets better and better.
The "Song of Despair" might be the best piece of music ever composed to fit a feeling.
The thing they do with Meteions eyes they did in the prior expansion with Tesleene just color inverted (white). Really creepy.
Ikarus would fit visually but not emotionally.
Hey, was listening to this and not looking at visuals. I sent a rather nasty message about spoiling Wandavision, then I actually looked at the video and deleted the message. I don't know if a spoken warning would also help, because some people look at video essays and some people listen to them solely.
Are you kidding me? You do not like the song of Ultima Thule?
?
WAT DE FACK
He was just very stupid and did not care for others, just himself and his stupid view of things. Extremely annoying character, glad he is never coming back.
I skipped all cutscenes but I watched this entire video. This is an amazing expansion that I never would have experienced if it was not for this video.
This is an EXCELLENT video, takes about a particular song notwithstanding
Most of the youtube content for FF14 is pretty bad, but this was great. Subscribed and gonna watch the Garlemald video next.
From a very distance and cynical point of view it was all caused by a bug/error in a creation. If Hermis had ha a good QA team used on Meteion and tested it well this whole thing wouldn't have happened 😀 😀 :D:D :D:D
I think this is the best essay of Endwalker I watched so far. I cannot do much but I will like and share this video and revisit it to give you additional views. (watching it completely already took 4 views :D)
Amazing 👏🏻
What an illuminating and thoughtful video!!! Great job. Subbed
In the second phase of the final trial, the music that kicks in, isn't meteion's. it's your theme brought to life as a bosstheme.
I feel this tale cannot be fully grasped without going deeper into Zenos, and how opposite he and Fandaniel are. Where fandaniel got lost in the great questions of life, Zenos got lost entirely in the little moments. To the point he became consumed by one. a warning that while they are what makes life worth living, there is such a thing as going too far.
That last bit at the end that showed ultima Thule reminds me, I hear a new planet has begun to form recently
there were no sacrifices for Hydaline. Hydaline was an Auracite Primal with the auracite in the form of her sword. Just like Odin, Just like the many lesser primals found in Bozja and, and just like Ultima in the Ivalice raids
The line that hits me the hardest is when Meteion is talking to you after The Final Day and says "there was never a single answer." Hermes' question and philosophy erred in one key way, he never looked for his own answer. He was always looking to others to give him a reason. You can't live a fulfilling life if you don't have your own reason to do so, you can't borrow purpose from someone else.
watching this back made me think.. why didn't Hydaelyn consult with the other shards about the final days? She only prepared an evacuation route for the source and (albeit rarely) communicated with Sharlayan to help them prepare. am I missing something?
"The thought of having to bear such a burden for a thousand thousand lives horrifies me."
This is what hits me the hardest. I've always said, back in Shadowbringers, that Hades (and of course Lahabrea and Elidibus) had to bear an unimaginably tormenting burden. The time span they spent apart from everything they loved, forced to live in the world of their perceived enemy (Hydaelin's new world order), living that reality every waking moment… our human minds simply cannot comprehend how terrible that is. Indeed horrifying.
Hades himself says that he tried to live lives away from his duty, had families, settled down… but it never satisfied him. That terrible truth always gnawing at his mind… his sanity. The Emet-Selch we meet in Shadowbringers is so tired of it all. He WANTS to lose. It's a prelude to the hopelessness introduced on Endwalker, wherein every world died in suffering. He can't take it anymore… and sees the faintest glimmer of a possibility that YOU, the Warrior of Light, whom he perceives to be his lost friend Azem at the ultimate end, might just be able to save the world. And he finally lets go of everything, resolving to die rather than perform on this painful stage a single day longer.
Absolutely tragic.
It's an error to say the new Fandaniel is Amon, just as much as it is to say he was Hermes or the old Fandaniel, any of his individual lives. The story doesn't describe a process where one person takes the memories of another while retaining self, but where your own memories are the memories of BOTH people.
This is what the unsundered don't really understand: They aren't bringing anyone back, but making someone new, a personality blended from the ingredients added. New Fandaniel is a new, separate personality. He admits this in dialog you include, that he has also grown past being Amon.
He uses that more recent Amon face as a fight visual, but not because he will say anything like "this is who I am" but rather "this is the face I prefer." It is a link to his will and choice being what Xande chose, the end of existence. His closing dialogs and monologs has him switching names a few times, not settling into one persona. Sometimes the nameplate will say Amon while he talks of the answers he sought as Hermes, with flashbacks of Meteion. It is showing that they are all his own memories, regardless of which name those memories come from.
Edit : forgot til I got to that part, but G'raha describes his experience the same way: a blending of two versions of himself, being neither version independently.
Can't believe you disliked the music for Ultima Thule. When I realized it was adding parts over time for who you lost, it was really fucking with me.
Enjoyable retelling of the tale overall though
A few notes. I respect your right to not like Close in the Distance, but the criticism of it really misses the message of the song and how it belongs in the set piece for that part of the story, and it is a demonstrably good piece.
Additionally, you state Hydaelyn separated Elidibus from Zodiark but this is not true, Elidibus stepped out as the heart if Zodiark to resume the role of his station when there was strife among the Convocation. He explicitly states this, and it’s even referenced in his dying monologue. He wanted to achieve reconciliation but in this case it wasn’t going to happen. He felt he could do more resuming his previous role as a primal version of Elidibus than waiting around as Zodiark. The specific wording he uses is that he withdrew himself from Zodiark, which also implies he did so shortly before Hydaelyn sundered the world, as Elidibus, Emet-Selch, and Lahabrea were together when the sundering happened. It would also explain why he remained unsundered while Zodiark was fragmented across the reflections.
“Henceforth he shall walk” is one the hardest lines ever delivered in media
It's really cool to see longform video essays on the game! I think it deserves them, though the barrier to critics seeing the entire story is pretty high. I had no idea who the Ossians were though, until I realized you were referring to the ascians 😛
Im surprrised Dr Who was referenced in this in regards to the Amon regenerations lol…great video, perfect breakdown
Depending on your perspective there are two ways of looking at this:
1. This is why you don’t F with time travel. If you hadn’t gone back to get answers you wouldn’t have pushed Hermes along the path he choose. If you hadn’t stalked Metion and forced her to provide the report the events in present day wouldn’t have unfolded as they did. No sundering, no zodiark, none of it.
2. There is no such thing as free choice, Fate is master of time and space. No matter what you do, what anyone did this would always occur. Go back to Elpis, or don’t go, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things, for you personally yes, but for the big picture the end singer will come, the sundering will happen and they will all fall before you or someone else.
So which will it be your either the big bad or at best the unassuming catalyst of all the pain and suffering, or your an insignificant speck blown around by the winds of fate?
Why do you pronounce ascian like that
Also this is my favourite part of EW, of the entire story actually. The ancients, the story, it all surpasses the rest of the zodiark saga by a mile.
I cannot listen to close in the distance without crying omg, you're lucky you don't like it xD
would love to have an essay about zenos, there's so much to say in my opinion!
Aah seeins
You're good. You're really good.
This is unironically one of the greatest things I've ever watched. Up until I watched this, I had a somewhat empty feeling regarding the Endwalker story. I liked it, I thought it was good and pretty timely considering the state of the world, but it felt like it was missing something to me. Like it needed more exposition, more time to explore the topics. The actual problem was that I hadn't taken the time to sit down and actually digest what they were saying. I had dismissed much of what Hermes and Meteion were saying because I have been in those places before and thought is nothing more than the familiar but ultimately empty words of the depressed. In my own efforts to never allow myself to become that depressed again I had become the person who told them "just don't think about it". Now I am sitting at my computer at 2 am, writing out why I disagree instead of hand waving it. I owe it to my six years of therapy and to my past self. I owe it to my future self as well, just to show her how far we've come.
So thank you for sharing this.
10:32 "Except for four beings, Hydaelyn/Venat, Zodiark/Elidibus, Emet-selch and Lahabrea"
Venat didn't ascend to godhood, she was used as Hydaelyn's base. It's an important distinction to make because Hydaelyn and Zodiark were both created to fulfill a function, and aren't something like an actual 'god'
Elidibus had withdrawn from Zodiark before the sundering as he says once Seat of Sacrifice is beaten. "Reconciliation. I was needed, and so I withdrew myself from Zodiark" so he, Emet-Selch and Lahabrea found a way to avoid or withstand the sundering.