Hi All,
Unfortunately I was under a bit of rush this time with the video so it’s not 100% up to the standard I’d like, but the point I’m trying to make is pretty damn good so maybe second monitor or background noise just this time.
Thank you again for all the support, it’s been wonderful to see so many people come and watch my content, I really do appreciate your time.
Have a great day all!
Timeline:
0:00 Spoiler Warning
0:30 Introduction
1:05 Story lore vs World lore
3:03 What is cosmic lore
4:22 Shadowlands
10:02 Shadowbringers
13:33 Comparison
16:58 Conclusion
source
10:27 Dearly Beloved. We talking cosmic lore here while Kingdom Hearts cosmic lore is a separate can of worms to open … if you dare …
I'm expecting explanation of True Annihilation that Emmet mentioned, about the Final Days
5.55 spoilers
The twins are our children now, I’m on my way to Ul’dah as I type this to spend company seals on the adoption registration papers.
I feel like Endwalker is so massive in scale (1.5x the writing of Shadowbringers) because its going to be a "reset" of sorts that would allow our character to potentially go back to being a nobody likely via timeskip or perhaps by being trapped in one of the alternate worlds.
One thing I want to mention in the writing of WoW is how the marrative likes to use "corruption" as an excuse to make villains for their story, which I think makes for weak and flat writing. They have no other reason for being evil other than because they're "corrupted" somehow
The same things you've said can also be applied to Warframe as well
Very good video! I think another fundamental issue that seperates FFXIV vs WoW's approach to this sort of thing is that XIV, at the end of the day, remembers that the lore exists to support the story and actually help convey its points and meaning, whereas modern WoW increasingly feels like its the other way round for the sake of COOL MOMENT spectacle; everything related to Hydaelyn vs Zodiark, the different worlds and the Ascians has very clear, direct emotional/thematic meaning in the context of the story (or at least once you reach Shadowbringers and how it contextualizes them), whereas for all the discussion about WoW's recent narrative, no one appears to have any idea or strong opinion about what the POINT of any of this actually is, as in, as something we're meant to engage with and take away something from. This is fundamentally why I think the Jailer and the quasi-retcons surrounding him rankle people so much; by association he represents this relatively empty spectacle style of narrative rewriting and potentially trivializing things that originally had specific, emotional impact. Arthas can't just be a dark twist on the Arthurian archetype who slowly, tragically falls into darkness by alienating his friends and loved ones through increasingly extreme decisions that seem completely justified at the time as harsh calls made in the worst of circumstances, whose nature was then perverted by that willingness for extremity. No, he now has to be a pawn in some 4D chess game by a guy who's only going to matter for like one expansion as an obligatory Big Bad to fight.
they wont change stuff about eorzea… atleast not thatbig in the starting areas, since literally every üöayer has to go through the beginning and the 3 starting areas are still the most populated
My opinion lines up with pyro's "I will never serve"
5.3 SPOILERS
I never noticed this until now but the dream with the Ascian can be interpreted as reality as it’s an Ascian who is attempting to recruit the WoL to join the Ascians because essentially the WoL is a sundered Ascian and in a way this is how they pick up the black masked Ascians like Fandaniel. But instead Hydalin interceded and stole us away and gave us the Echo. Basically using one of them to kill them. Which in a way is totally fucked cuz it’s counter genocide to toward their already low population of unsundered Ascians to stop them from committing genocide against all the shards. So in a way when we kill Elidibus we exterminated the last of the the dying race of unsundered Ascians.
@11:56
I got that far video editor, and I feel appreciated.
God the guild motd in the wow clip at 6:00 being “this guild is on hold until bfa” is pretty depressing, especially as a recently former wow player
The biggest differences imo between the two storytelling methods is twofold: first, all significant and not so significant lore in FFXIV is accessible in the game itself, and major plotlines for expansions have been planned out at least two expansion cycles in advance. This means that not only are players fully equipped to recognize payoff on foreshadowing, but the foreshadowing makes sense and is paid off. Let me give you a pretty spoilery example in Shadowbringers.
In Shadowbringers, we find out that Hydaelyn and Zodiark are in fact primals. This is a huge twist, pretty akin to the Jailer being the true mastermind in WoW. The reason why this reveal is so much more impactful, however, is twofold. We've already had this idea of Hydaelyn being not as good as people claim she is seeded in the text. All the way back in ARR when we first fight Ifrit, he mentions that we have "the stink of Hydaelyn" on us, implying that Hydaelyn has tempered us. In fact, people were theorizing that the Echo or Blessing of Hydaelyn we have is just being tempered by Hydaelyn all the way back in ARR (there was also the theory that the WoL is actually a primal as well). So this reveal not only makes sense to us players, but also doesn't invalidate anything we've seen before. It flows very naturally with the story, especially because we've already seen and heard Hydaelyn. The reveal that she's a primal is new, but Hydaelyn herself isn't.
The Jailer, on the other hand, is not as received very well because he's completely new to the story. He's a completely new character who has now taken the credit for almost every significant story beat, especially the beloved story of Arthas. It feels like a slap in the face because you can TELL this was not planned out in advance whatsoever. There's no foreshadowing that the Jailer influenced everything to lead up to this event. There is no payoff on anything. He's just a new tall guy who showed up and said "You thought all of these disasters were the old gods and the Burning Legion, but it was ME, Denathrius!" That doesn't have impact. It doesn't matter, because he's not been established. And if you don't know half of what is going on in the game anyway because the lore isn't in the game but in book series you have to purchase separately, your ability to care decreases even further.
So, the reason why Shadowbringers' recontextualization works while Shadowlands doesn't is because Shadowbringers is working with existing material the players know about, with the details of the recontextualization planned out in advance. It's a well organized setup and the payoff is just as organized. Shadowlands doesn't give players the context in the first place to recontextualize anything, and the payoff is unorganized, sloppy, and feels hollow.
you know you can see your cut scenes in the inn right? no need for this 15:29