Warning: The following contains heavy spoilers for Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker. If you want to avoid spoilers, DO NOT CONTINUE.
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As my warning said, this is about FF14: Endwalker. While I have not finished the game, I've come across a part of the story that is fundamentally broken and cannot work in any possible way. For how well crafted the story has been, it honestly saddens me that at the end of a long road, they drop the ball in such an awful way. it's my hope that by detailing this issue, they can write in a work-around to make things work as intended. With that, let me begin by describing the events that cause the problem.
Following a trip to the moon where Zodiark is destroyed and a second visit to Thavnair, the first place to fall victim to the new coming of the Final Days, the Warrior of Light is sent to the Crystal Tower in the First to speak with the soul of Elidibus, if it remains, after it's noted that emotions play a part in the transformation of people and how the Ancients called the flower that reflects emotions as "Elpis." This, in turn, leads to Elidibus using the Crystal Tower to throw you into the past to a place called Elpis, where the flowers grew, at a time before the world was sundered. Thanks to this, you meet with Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, and Hermes (who is soon to become Fandaniel), though you can't tell them why you're there. While there, you meet a creation of Hermes known as Meteion, a familiar who can fly and who intentionally has low aether (like you) so that she can be better attuned to an energy called dynamis (this is the same emotional feeling that Thavnair describes as akasa). Meteion, you later learn, is also not the only one of her. She has many sister whom Hermes has sent out into space to other worlds, to learn what living means to them, and that they have a shared consciousness they can connect to. Later on you, you meet Venat; the ancient who will become the heart of Hydaelyn. When you meet Venat, she can recognize the Blessing of Light on you as an enchantment she created. Given she doesn't know you, however, she immediately knows you're from the future. This, in turn, leads to you telling the whole tale to her as well as Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus and Hermes, as they try to figure out how to deal with the catastrophe you're dealing with.
It turns out that it's Meteion who is to be the cause. What her sisters find and share through their shared consciousness is that... no other life exists. Everyone is either dead or kills themself. All knowledge they find leads to nothing but utter despair. This, in turn, warps Meteion into a being who seeks to give the same despair to this world as, to the Meteia, it's what clearly is all life has to offer. Hermes decides to let Meteion escape to flee to the edge of the universe with her sisters, where they'll begin to enact powerful waves of dynamis that will trigger the Final Days when the waves reach, with his intent being that if man is worthy of living then they must prove it. He also tries to use a memory wiping machine he has to wipe the memories of everyone else present: Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, Venat and the Warrior of Light. However, both Venat and the Warrior of Light escape.
With this knowledge of Meteion and what she will eventually cause, Venat heads down her path that will lead to her becoming Hydaelyn, while the Warrior of Light returns to their time. As for Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus and Hermes, their memories are wiped in such a way that they KNOW they were wiped, but they think it was wiped in a different way. Venat, however, doesn't go back to them with the tale and instead lets events play out as they had been described by the Warrior of Light.
If you've been following, this means that the story creates a causal loop where the Warrior of Light has to go back in time for these events in order to ensure everything happens. However, there is a massive problem with this: the fact that the Warrior of Light goes to Elpis in an alternate timeline and NOT the main timeline. In the last expansion, Shadowbringers, we learn that an Eighth Umbral Calamity was supposed to happen. This calamity would be the result of the First, one of the Thirteen reflections of the Source, joining with the Source and would coincide with the Empire using a chemical weapon called Black Rose. In this calamity, the Warrior of Light dies. Some 200 years later, G'raha Tia would embark on a journey to stop the Eighth Umbral Calamity from happening. He uses the Crystal Tower and leaps back 200 years as well as across the Rift to the First. There, he would summon the Warrior of Light to the First to save it from destruction, though in the process he would also pull in the Scions. The ultimate end is that the First is saved and the Eighth Umbral Calamity is averted, creating an alternate timeline. However, G'raha doesn't vanish. He instead remains, a clear sign that the original timeline still exists.
So why is this a problem? Well, if the Warrior of Light needs to go to the past to Elpis to ensure Venat gets this information to set things in motion, how can they do so if they die in the main timeline before they would do that? Keep in mind, Shadowbringers is the ALTERNATE timeline. It's created due to a time traveller coming back and changing things. In that original timeline, the Warrior of Light would never go back to Elpis and thus would NEVER give this information to Venat. As such, Venat would not have the information needed to plan.
If I'm not making sense, here's a graphic I made quickly to try and explain.
Starting from Elpis, it's a straight line up until you get to The Bad Future, where G'raha Tia then time travels from. His actions create the alternate timeline. From here, Shadowbringers and Endwalker happen in an alternate timeline. In Endwalker, which again is an alternate timeline, the Warrior of Light goes back to Elpis. Things after this visit are marked as well. However, the devs are now trying to push a timeline where the ALTERNATE timeline is somehow the main one. This just doesn't work. If you're thinking "couldn't Venat still have made Hydaelyn regardless," you would be correct. Even without the Warrior of Light going back, things could still be the same. However, the devs ended up writing a single thing into the story that ultimately throws this out: Argos.
When you go to the moon, you meet this golden dog named Argos who is so happy to help you. Argos is a creation of Venat, which is why Argos is on the moon. When you go to Elpis and meet Venat, you also meet Argos again. However, unlike on the moon, Argos doesn't like you and doesn't want to help you at all despite his creator's orders. It's not until you prove yourself worthy to Argos that he helps because, as Venat puts it, Argos doesn't like strangers. This deliberate line, which is intended to explain why Argos doesn’t make copies for Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch to escape from the memory wipe, ultimately causes all the problems. If Argos had simply helped you, it would've been fine. However, the fact that Argos will only help people he likes means that the Argos on the moon MUST know the Warrior of Light! This can only happen from travelling back in time! In short, Argos is the thing that creates the causal loop; for Argos to help you on the moon, you have to go back in time.. yet that is only in an alternate timeline.
Now with this all said, there IS a simple fix for this if the developers are interested in doing it: that Venat chose to change Argos so that he could smell souls, and to make it that Argos meets and loves Azem, the Ancient whom the Warrior of Light is the reincarnation of. We know Azem, and thus the Warrior of Light, have a very unique colour to their soul. As such, if Argos could be given the power to smell souls and such a power was established to exist regardless... everything would be right. It would mean Argos doesn't recognize you for who you physically are but because he smells your soul and knows you're Azem. That’s honestly all it would take. While I’ve not seen the end of the game yet, I do hope they have the ability to get this in.














