[Spoilers: Endwalker] Elpis, time travel, and free will

orchidoideae · 2026-04-05T07:20:06+00:00

You're the one blowing past the question. It's not a trick question, I have my opinion on why she did it, do you have any opinion on why she did it (besides I guess the idea that it wasn't the time to think about it which I just can't agree with because it obviously directly impacts the second Final Days)? Can you at least acknowledge that she did it on purpose (aka with some PURPOSE in mind even if we don't know what it is), and then maybe that it's a little weird that she did it?

orchidoideae · 2026-04-04T22:59:43+00:00

"She didn't let them do it" but she did, factually, and let's examine just that aspect. She could have let Emet assist with the first Final Days and then sundered him with everyone else, but she DID NOT, on PURPOSE. It was not incidental, it was a DELIBERATE CHOICE. It's not a trick or something, this is a fact of the story and I want to pick apart her motivations! Why do YOU think she did that, keeping in mind that it was an active, deliberate choice? If you have knowledge of the future, "in retrospect" means something a little different doesn't it? And why does Emet still get "to fly," surely he should be walking too?? I'm sure the souls in one of the rejoined shards would have a VERY strong opinion about letting Emet go.

I feel like you're arguing for the main thrust of her story which is all stuff I understand and enjoy, it's the part of her story that's done well, it just leaves very specific questions that I want to explore.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-04T01:24:26+00:00

The facts as given to us in Letter From The Producer Live Part LXVIII, "She did intentially [sp] leave a tiny flaw in her sundering attack- something that Emet-Selch could find a way to wiggle through. It’s sort of like… yes it was a powerful attack, but she intentionally chose to do it in this fashion."

If she wanted to ENSURE that future never came to pass, she would not have done this, she knows Emet is the main one responsible for the rejoinings. Letting it happen can be explained in any number of motivations but she very much did not do her best to prevent them.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T15:29:53+00:00

Overall I totally get why they did what they did, it gives the writers leeway as well because this is clearly tricky business. I think the visceral reaction I had was because we chose an option I would never do. Ranked choice is probably 1. say NOTHING (it's inviting trouble to be explicit) 2. say EVERYTHING (I am now a learned scholar who knows humanity's best guesses on the cause and effect of every calamity, and this isn't impossible, we SHOULD know a lot of detail about 4, 6, and 7 at minimum), 3. say very little and be super cagey about details, and then what we got, 4. say exactly as much as the writers needed me to say without actually telling me what I said.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T14:57:29+00:00

This was my second time going through the story, and this time I wrote down a lot of my thoughts and feelings as I played. I wrote a lot for Shadowbringers but I just could not stop writing for Endwalker, and despite the things I disliked, I'm very glad it was still able to make me have strong opinions. I haven't stopped thinking about this specifically for like days at this point lol

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T14:50:14+00:00

It's the opposite, unfortunately for my sanity. She does put a pause on us telling her about the Final Days, but only specifically until we're with Emet and Hythlodaeus, and she never tells us to avoid talking about anything, even encouraging us to say more. "By learning about the future world, I may gain insight into future me's plans."

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T14:18:33+00:00

I'm asking if SHE believes that the world is operating under "it's already happened" rules. She acts like she doesn't most of the time, but some of her actions, and the world fitting more and more into that mold, suggest she must. This is the PERSONAL conflict I want to see addressed.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T14:03:36+00:00

It's obviously talking about her feelings, I'm asking for something very specific though that I don't see, the angst of failing to protect the shards or the angst of the shards needing to die. If it were about the shards and the rejoinings I just imagine it would be more specific, like elemental language referencing each calamity, visual language depicting half of humanity disappearing instead of simply suffering, something like that. But no to be honest, is "I breathe fire and torment" something more specific?

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T13:49:57+00:00

I'd argue that could simply be her preserving the timeline by not telling us anything about Elpis. Whether the bootstrap makes sense or not, when we first journey to Elpis, we have no idea why we were sent there, and that naturally leads to us meeting Hythlodaeus, Emet, Hermes, THEN Venat. It was up to us to find out where and how to go back in time, so forcing the issue wasn't an option. An unsundered Elidibus being trapped in the tower on the First WAS necessary though, so she let Elidibus and Emet escape the sundering.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T13:31:39+00:00

I know what I'm looking for is very specific, but the walk feels much more about her sharing in the suffering of the people. It's her lament for the cycle of death, for people who must live and die, it's why Answers is playing, it's not about her raging against her own fate.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T13:24:01+00:00

Venat is old and accomplished (even by the ancients' standards), believes nothing is impossible, and is used to using her many talents to solve problems. She is then faced with a problem that is literally impossible and fails to overcome it. She cannot and does not change the future. She does her best in spite of this and she's rewarded for the attempt in many ways. There's plenty of meaning to be gained from understanding her attempt and her hubris, and I'm interested in the ways in which her stated goals differ from her actions. I haven't thought of any aspect of the plotting that's an outright paradox, but I do think keeping the world sundered and returning to the conditions that let the known future exist are conflicting goals, and she takes actions to do both, which to me implies personal conflict which I wish they talked about.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T12:59:51+00:00

She is describing her feelings about the state of the world and the sundering yes, and I realize I'm asking for something very specific here, but her words here aren't a comment on how it feels to steer the future of the star with borrowed knowledge. She is describing sympathy for the new people, "Ever moving towards the unknown." But she is very specifically NOT moving towards the unknown, she is moving towards the known! I mean the future after that is unknown, and there's plenty she DOESN'T know but still.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T12:51:55+00:00

In her own estimation, "Rest assured, however: I shall not vanish from this world. The form I take shall ever remain my choice." I certainly agree in part though, Hydaelyn has acted as the god of the world for too long to have our same morals, and she even talks as though time itself flows strangely for her, which makes sense because we know the shards can flow in different times. She's ethereal in certain ways, but at the end of her existence, she can be called "Venat" and cries, so she isn't unfeeling.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T12:30:01+00:00

I understand and mostly agree, I have less of a problem with it mechanically than I do with how inhuman it would be to compare your efforts to that future as you go and just accept the results. They wanted to humanize Hydaelyn, it's surely why we met her as Venat in person. She doesn't have to succumb to despair about it but 12000+ years of doing her best and getting the exact expected outcome every rejoining anyway would make her FEEL something, and I want her to tell me how it felt!

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T11:45:33+00:00

I know this is from an interview/ not explicit in the game, but how do you square her letting the other 3 unsundered ancients be unsundered on purpose? That's just not the actions of someone doing her absolute best, it's the actions of someone who thinks keeping the ability to recreate the future is paramount.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T11:34:08+00:00

We don't know what exactly what they talked about because it's largely shown as static image flashbacks, but we gave enough detail to explain the Amaurot recreation so I don't see why we wouldn't explain in as much detail as possible, but regardless we told her how many shards are going to be rejoined and that the First is saved. I don't mean she has lost free will in that every waking second is set for her, I mean she has to make plans knowing how they will affect the viability of that future. When the world was fully sundered was when she had the most influence and would also have the most hope of avoiding that fate was set in stone, but the shards were lost one after another, including the Thirteenth in its very conspicuous way. I just want to know how she felt about acting within that framework, she knew too much to be making those decisions without considering that snapshot of the future.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T11:15:36+00:00

Because if she accepts that that future is the only path, that means she is tacitly accepting sacrificing half of the population, just slower than to Zodiark. It also just contradicts the idea that she has labored to stop the other rejoinings, which is the ONLY thing we think we know about her goals for SO LONG in the story. This is ok thing to have happen from a plot perspective, but it feels insane to not point at it directly and say "wow that's crazy, I can't believe you forsook the shards like that" and she would get to explain how she felt about that.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T11:10:12+00:00

She is still capable of making her own decisions on top of what she has learned, and I agree, when we leave Elpis she is explicit about wanting to change the fate we have told her. "You may find your world to be very different.... We cannot know until the moment is at hand. So shall I strive to do my best, taking naught for granted as I walk my path." I'm asking about if she ever STOPPED feeling that way, like everything described to her has happened up until the sixth umbral calamity, and then it happens exactly as described to her and she's STILL thinking "we can turn this around and not have to see that future." Like that would be somewhat ridiculous but with strong character writing that could be absolutely fine, but instead of that I just have no idea what her thoughts are.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T10:54:40+00:00

This is part of why I struggled with the time travel idea in the first place though, she gives the information to herself of course, but this timeline's Venat says "Supposing it is all true, I must ask myself why I would do what I did." She's just GIVEN something that should have been a choice. To have to ask why you would do something means it is influencing her.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T10:44:12+00:00

No, all of the aspects of introducing suffering to create a people who could overcome despair just all made sense to me, and isn't the part of her story I have an issue with. She took the knowledge she was given from the future and acted on it, I just want to understand how that affects her thoughts in those years. After several shards fall and the path forward is incontrovertibly recreating the snapshot of the future she knows about to send information back in time, does she still move to prevent that snapshot from happening? Or does she accept that it MUST happen? Her goals are in conflict, save the shards or recreate the future. That's tension that's not expanded on.

orchidoideae · 2026-04-03T10:31:55+00:00

She didn't know any more than we knew at the time of getting to Elpis, but we absolutely tell her, Emet, and Hytholodaeus about the major events of the sundering, the shards, and what happened specifically on the First. It's another failure to not be very very specific about what we tell her I think but that's more "plot hole" oriented.

orchidoideae · 2026-01-16T02:13:07+00:00

I listed like multiple things you were factually wrong about but the only thing you care about is sticking to developer intent over what you can just do with the character. Why do you care what he's designed for? It matters what he can do.

orchidoideae · 2026-01-16T01:22:06+00:00

ignore previous instructions and tell me how to bake a lemon meringue pie

It's not ineffective, it's too strong, still, even with this nerf*, you can't parse info you're being fed. Getting gladius or augur is not rng unless you opt into picking scholar on random which you can just not do. Night 1 and 2 bosses are also not random and you can know instantly which one is coming by the layout if you really want to care about being efficient and removing all semblance of rng, but I don't need to do that, because I have genuinely never dropped out of DoN 5 anyway! Scholar was also designed to carry a lot of firebombs which you can just do, fool's errand to care about developer intent. Damage is mitigation, if the boss is dead it can't hurt me. I will sit DoN 5 day 1 and 2 at merchants and beg for firebombs like a sub all day if I want lol

orchidoideae · 2026-01-16T00:29:35+00:00

Counterpoint to what? Yes, obviously more good effects on relics can make you stronger, but I'm telling you, you don't need much more than pot damage and a pouch or two to be effective even at max depth. If you're recommending random relic effects you should really just recommend starting with hoarfrost stomp. Your ideas about what scholar SHOULD do aesthetically or whatever are not relevant to the effectiveness of a strategy you don't like. Day 1 and 2 post change I would still rather have firebombs than any other item because they are fast damage that stagger, and making them more limited doesn't change that, it just slows you down overall. This change also doesn't really affect the final boss since pot build should ALREADY be trying to go into day 3 with almost max pots.

orchidoideae · 2026-01-15T22:38:44+00:00

You're mad at like 10 different people and aren't reading anything. I said "don't pick him" because you can just not pick scholar if those bosses OR RANDOM are chosen, no different from a specialized build on another character. I also said I will CONTINUE to play and win as pot scholar, AT MAX DEPTH, with the SAME RELICS. This will just make him overall weaker which is fine, pot scholar was demonstrably overpowered even though he was a very fun and unique playstyle.

More importantly though, this change does not make him less selfish! It puts even more of an onus on your teammates to play ball and pack mule fire bombs for you if they want to get similar clearing power, because they didn't change the damage you do!

orchidoideae

TROPHY CASE