SPOILERS FOR FFXIV ENDWALKER AND PRIOR
ever since endwalker's base game story ended and the frankly critically milquetoast post-game story began, i've been thinking about ffxiv's story from shadowbringers and endwalker. controversially, i think that ffxiv shadowbringers and endwalker is really good. it's opposite day but only for the first word of that previous sentence, just for my readers who don't have a calendar!
to be less comically roundabout about it, it's really no secret that shadowbringers and endwalker were basically insanely incredible. no doubt a large portion of the online gaming population has at least one friend who would simply not shut the fuck up about ffxiv or its free trial that go-- one sec i'm getting a phone call. yeah. uh huh. okay gotcha. i've been told that if i finish that sentence they're going to send people to kill me.
there's approximately five million things that make shb/ew work narratively, but for me the thing that kind of blew me away in a way that makes no sense is the way that you - the avatar, the blank slate, the warrior of light - are a character in the story, in a real, meaningful way. you connect with other characters, you grow and have an arc, all while having basically no dialogue and having your actions all preset.
i'd say this started happening meaningfully in the stormblood postgame, but for convenience's sake we'll talk about it beginning in shadowbringers. in shadowbringers, things start actually happening to the player, rather than the player happening to things. i'm looking at that sentence and realising that probably does not really make sense, but basically, the player actually becomes a key part of the story beyond just "the problem solver."
you are the warrior of light
so, so much of shadowbringers is centered around the warrior of light in a non-trivial way. g'raha tia and his plan to save the world is based around bringing YOU to the first because you were his hero, and the scions are there because of that; you destroy the cardinal sins and absorb their light even after concerns are raised about the consequences of this; emet-selch holds off on destroying the world purely because he believes you alone might be different; you, indeed, face the consequences of taking in too much light, and in the end you fight and defeat emet-selch to save the first.
shadowbringers goes beyond having the player avatar be the thing that solves problems so that the plot can continue happening - it acknowledges the avatar's actions, the things they (and thus the player) have witnessed, the pain they have suffered and the hope they have created for the people in the world, and in doing so, it makes the player acknowledge these things. the story tells you, the player, to think of your character as more than a vessel to experience the world through, but as a character themself.
if the player sees their character as a real character, as something more than just their eyes and ears in the story, can it be called anything but beautiful to see this character keep moving forward, even in the most hopeless situations?
in that sense, i would say that endwalker is the perfect conclusion to the warrior of light's story. it is literally and transparently a story about hope and despair. when i typed that sentence a red laser dot appeared on my forehead so i will not be mentioning a certain detective visual novel.
you will save the world
the final act is the culmination of this; the friends you have made along the way, who you have seen suffer and grow, come with you to the edge of the universe to save the world and defeat the endsinger. one by one, your friends all sacrifice themselves to create a path forward for you, and even when everyone else is gone, you still keep going.
if your character wasn't a character, with their own experiences and pain and bonds and motivation, this ending wouldn't have worked. it is because your character, the warrior of light, is a character, that seeing your allies sacrifice themselves to create a path for you is so meaningful and hits so hard.
the ending where you, unsurprisingly, save the world and get your friends back, feels earned - genuinely, truly earned - because you were there, and you know how much has happened to your character and their friends, and it feels beautiful, because why wouldn't it? of course it's beautiful to see your character overcome all of these hardships for so, so long and come out with a happy ending.
your story is over..?
but that's just the rub, isn't it? this is an mmo and the train keeps going. in a sense, it's predictable and understandable that the player character takes the backseat following the events of endwalker's base game. your arc is over. still, it's strange and uncanny to be back in the position of "problem solver." i can't say that i can really blame them, because there's not really anywhere else you CAN go with the player character.
it feels bad finishing this post with such a bummer, but it would feel remiss to not mention it because it is still relevant to the topic. i really would say they achieved the impossible by making a player avatar be such a real, genuine, important character, and it would almost be foolish if they even tried to continue making the warrior of light the main focus of the story, but that doesn't really make it feel any less... sad? your beautiful story has ended, and now you are doomed to stand behind wuk lamat and say "facts."
in a beautiful world, when endwalker's base game ended, Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn Again started, with a new cast of characters, and not a single scion to be seen standing awkwardly in a cutscene and contributing absolutely nothing of emotional value to the story; i have issues with dawntrail, if it wasn't clear.
even still, even if i think that the story following endwalker's base game story as it stands is more likely to tarnish the memory of shadowbringers and endwalker than sweeten it, i wanted to make this post and talk about one of the many things that i think made it so beautiful; shadowbringers and endwalker are the story of you, the player - the warrior of light.