Tearjerker / Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

In the same fleeting moment
Thou must live, die and know

• The story starts somber as, once again, Tataru must stay behind as her friends head off onto adventure and danger. Once more, Tataru must lament how helpless she is in the face of everything.
• The Lady of Light makes her return and reveals that she’s Hydaelyn Herself. Both of the Warrior’s comments to her is equally What the Hell, Hero? towards her. Yeah, they’re still smarting that they’ve been aiding a Primal this entire time.
• Upon arriving at Sharlayan, we find out that Alphinaud and Alisaie's disowning has passed through the town and that they are pretty much pariahs in the city. They can't even talk to old friends and servants because of this. The only outlier is their mother, Ameliance, who arranges for the twins to enjoy some time at home in secret.
• We learn G'raha's past here, that his homeland was one of many conquered by the Garleans long before he was born. Even more, to protect Allag secrets from the Garleans and with G'raha the last known inheritor, they decided to abandon their old ways, thus ending a tradition.
• During a talk with Vtra, he empathises with the Warrior of Light about the natural attrition that befalls those around beings like them, flashing back to the final moments of Ysayle, Moenbryda, Papalymo, Minfillia and finally Haurchefant, showing that even after all this time the loss of their lives still weigh heavily on them. He concludes by telling the Warrior to keep their companions close and protected as they will be their salvation.
• Alphinaud and Alisaie get a Hard Truth Aesop during the Garlemald arc — "some people just can't be talked out of what they believe, even if that belief is actively harmful to themselves". The twins are earlier encouraged by their mother that words aren't going to sway their stubborn father Forchenault, so they should instead let their actions speak for them. Garlemald is not where you'd expect this lesson to be hammered in. They are expressly on a mercy mission to save the tempered Garleans, only to meet suicidal resistance from the non-tempered Garleans who adamantly refuse to see the Scions and their allies as nothing but vultures, scavenging their destroyed homeland. It's not just the soldiers, either; non-tempered civilians would rather die before accepting that Garlemald is no more. Words do nothing to placate these people; many only "accept" Alliance aid after their choices are reduced to "accept help, or die".
  • The twins meet a group of non-tempered civilians who send them away to get a way to heat them up, led by a woman named Licinia. Shortly after coming back, the refugees tell the twins and the Warrior of Light that Licinia and her sick younger sister fled rather than wait for the Scions to come back, in order to protect them from the non-Garleans. The Dramatic Irony is that the audience knows that the Scions are sincere about wanting to help, but the Garleans don't know that. As for Licinia and her sister, they die pointlessly and tragically. The Warrior of Light finds their bodies out on the ice floe, stabbed in their backs and left to bleed out by wild beasts, for no reason at all. It hammers in the message that the Garleans absolutely will not accept the help of the Scions and the Grand Company of Eorzea until they have literally no choice. Even when Alphinaud starts to say that there had to have been something else he should have said, the tone in Alphinaud's voice makes it clear that he knows there was nothing he could have done.
  • The reasons why Garleans are so mistrustful and resentful as well as the origin of their warmongering ways, are sadly themselves justified. The reaper quest line reveals Garleans used to live in the fertile land of Locus Amoenus before they were invaded and driven north repeatedly by the Corvosi people, people who could use magic. It’s later revealed that the Garleans were on the brink of extinction due to how frigid and harsh the conditions were, and it was only through the discovery of Ceruleum and its uses that this fate was averted. So to say they have a chip on their shoulder would be an understatement at best. Even Emet-Selch under the guise of a young Solus saw their situation couldn’t help but feel sympathy for their plight (until the mortality of his biological Garlean son finally cements his decision to carry out the apocalyptic Rejoining for the last time). The amount of cruelty he witnessed made him think Garlemald was a colder and more desolate place than the heavens above.
  • Add to this, that the Garlean values and objectives are empty lies made by the Ascians who created their empire with the sole purpose of visiting chaos and misery upon the world. Which explains the core of the huge hypocrisy and disparity between their values and actions all this time. The Scions seem to intentionally avoid bringing this up as it would be devastating to the Garleans and only serve to further drive them away, but all bets are off when Zenos launches his attack on the Moon and his former people rightfully demand answers. Learning the truth marks the point where the Garleans finally get the memo that Eorzea is on a Mercy Mission rather than an invasion, but it comes at the cost of every Garlean now being faced with the facts that their empire is truly gone, they were never anything but Ascian pawns, and the only surviving member of the royal family not only gives no shits about his people but was also the one who destroyed them in the first place.
  • One of the soldiers in Quintus' hideout turns out to be a survivor of the Warrior of Light's assault on the Praetorium all the way back in A Realm Reborn. She is clearly traumatized by the event, furiously calling the Warrior of Light a "demon" for killing so many of her friends and comrades that day.
  • The suicide of Quintus van Cinna. He was a man so willing to believe in the recovery and salvation of Garlemald by their own hands that he is only vaguely an antagonist by circumstance, and one the heroes don't try to fight with. Even when his forces are freezing and broken, his citizens are on the verge of death, and their resources nearly gone, he and his men still hold onto the belief that other Legions will come and aid them in taking it all back. Then he finds out that they're either all dead, or surrendered to the Eorzean Alliance. Playing the anthem of the Garlean Empire on a nearby radio as he stares upon the flag, the standard he swore his life to and believed in with all his heart, he dismisses his soldiers from duty so they can walk free and then proceeds to stick his revolver to his chin. By the time the heroes arrive to tell him the news, it's far too late, and all that's left is his body and gun, and the blood-spattered banner. Tellingly, the moment of a showing his revolver sitting on the table is enough to make most people viewing the scene horrified.
  • The corpse of Varis zos Galvus ends up being cut apart and used for summoning Primals; the very thing he had sworn to eliminate. His My Country, Right or Wrong campaign has unleashed immeasurable evil deeds on the world, but one has to wonder if he ever had the chance to be different considering his upbringing and his grandfather's scheme.
  • Jullus expresses shock and rage when confronting Zenos, the man who brought ruin to Garlemald until it was a complete and literal waste, all because Zenos wanted to goad one person into a fight. Zenos is absolutely unfazed by this and shocks Jullus by callously asking him if he would feel better if "he had a better reason" for laying waste to the empire. All the wonders of the empire, reduced to ash by their very own monster who sees even his own family and citizens as nothing but bodies to discard in pursuit of his goals, nevermind causing the whole world to burn. We can see that Jullus would rip out Zenos' throat himself if he could before Alisaie stops him from getting himself killed and makes him consider that all Garleans no longer want anything to do with the damned traitor prince.
  • Further extolling the tragedy of Garlemald's fall is that all radios plays the song "Home Beyond the Horizon". It's a haunting jazz-like remix of "Imperial Will" with lyrics that tell of the desire to one day regain their ancestral homeland of Locus Amoenus. The surviving Garleans huddled around these radios hoping among hope that some sort of relief is coming, that Varis isn't actually dead and that their empire will rise once again. It's a sad fate for a once-feared foe.
• Zenos reveals that his entire motivation and all the suffering he's caused has solely been for the Warrior of Light, to create a scenario where they can be suitably motivated to fight him again on an entirely different scale with the highest of stakes. The hero bows their head in the face of this, flashing back across all the death and pain that has occurred, burdened by the thought that all of it solely happened not because some villain was trying to rule the world or seek revenge but solely because they were chasing a rivalry against them. They haven't arrived in a strange land yet again to save the day and change things, they are an intricate part of the problem and all the calamity and death has happened for their sake.
• As a side note to the Garlean section, Zenos is given the title their empires founder Solus zos Galvus (Emet-Selch) reserved for the worst traitors in history, "Viator". Viator means "Traveler" in Latin...
• The Warrior of Light's entire struggle in a Garlean body to save their friends, fighting through tempered soldiers and magitek until running into a large group of Garlean civilians still in the city, who have armed themselves and are making a run to escape. You end up cutting your way through the tempered and mecha together only to then encounter a new mutated horror who they all just barely manage to kill, only for it to explode in its death throes and kill every one of them. Which would have included the WoL if they hadn't literally commanded their heart to beat through sheer force of will. Even then, all they're left with is a broken body that is not their own, but even then the WoL desperately drags and crawls it out of the broken freezing city into the frozen snowy wastes across the entire map to save their loved ones from being massacred by their own body.
• Fandaniel hijacking Zodiark, the supposed savior of the Ascians, tricking you into killing it and hastening the end of the entire universe. All of the collective Ascian souls within are practically begging for anything (seemingly even their former enemy Warrior of Light) to stop the madman from destroying their last shot at reclaiming their old lives. The spectacular death of Zodiark would've been the cause of great celebration when His true purpose was still a mystery, but now it only brings even more horror and sadness no matter if you're looking from the Scions or Ascians' point of view.
• Vrtra's love of Thavnair makes him unwilling to put down his former subjects that have turned into Terminus beasts. When we find him in the dungeon conflicted and unable to act as he physically shields his unchanged citizens from a multitude of blasphemies who are hacking away at his body. It takes some serious prodding from the Scions (most of all Estinien with his history in Dragonsong War) to make him finally commit Mercy Kill to save his nation.
  • Knowing full well of his power as a dragon, Vrtra is afraid of revealing his true form to Thavnair's citizens and causing a schism like that of the Ishgardians. It is the Heroic Sacrifice of his loyal subordinate and satrap Decoy Leader Ahewaan during a sudden Terminus outbreak in Radz-at-Han that finally brings Vrtra to stand up before his people.
• An elderly woman in Radz-at-Han kickstarts the second wave of Blasphemies by panicking over what became of her grandson at Palaka's Stand upon hearing that it is overrun with monsters. Shortly after, the very first Blasphemy the Warrior of Light kills upon venturing to that area cries out for its grandmother as it dies.
• It's revealed that Svarbhanu, the final boss of Vanaspati dungeon is the head of Thavnair's trade consortium you met early in Endwalker. He was already barely holding himself in together as he looked after local merchant under his care when the Telephoroi wreck the economy. He had thought his fortunes turned when he got a massive order from a textile merchant in Radz-At-Han, but when the merchant went for someone cheaper, the poor man crumbled into despair and became the first of the Blasphemies.
• The desperate search for Matsya's friends, a couple with a newborn who fled the village when the blasphemies attacked and everyone started transforming. After tracking them, we find the husband mortally wounded, despairing at failing to protect his family and just barely stop him from transforming (and saving his soul), after reassuring him as he dies that we will save them. We finally find his wife and her baby being set upon by a greater blasphemy, who we and the twins furiously engage with even the wife desperately fighting back to save her child before fleeing after we create a distraction. It is all is for naught however as her assailant single mindedly attacks her despite everyone's best efforts, brutally grabbing and crushing her head before flinging her and the baby in her arms into the deep water nearby. Despite her courageousness, the mother doesn't survive and we rescue the baby from the very floor of the deep pool. Healing magics recover the baby from the brink of death but the child is freezing cold and will not survive without more intensive care. An army of Blasphemies descend upon the group, forcing us and the twins to engage them to buy time for Matsya to carry the baby back to the now safe village alone. However we are later shown his plight as he flees to the village, drawing upon previously untapped bravery only for the baby to cry and show signs of transformation which leads to Matsya himself to also despair and emit the terrible black smoke, He recites ancient scripture to sustain his courage and stave off the change while continueing to charge through the forest, sounding increasingly desperate and terrified until he is fearfully screaming the lines even as the black smoke engulfs him and the child. His path is then blocked by two horrific Arkasodara Blasphemies as he speaks the last lines in quiet hopelessness and can only shield the child with his body as they rise up to strike him down. Fortunately, the game picks up with Estinien's timely arrival shortly after.
• With the revelations on Elpis, Endwalker manages to make Shadowbringers even more bittersweet. The Warrior of Light had travelled to the time of the Ancients looking for a way to stop the Final Days, and met Emet-Selch, Venat and Hythlodaeus, all of whom with various degrees of willingness and belief tried to help them in their quest, only for Emet-Selch and Hytholodaeus to have their memories erased and forget everything about the Final Days and the Warrior. Knowing what we know about the Warrior’s former identity of Azem already makes Emet-Selch’s death at their hands bittersweet. Knowing that the Warrior knew him personally, even in their current incarnation, before he was ever sundered makes it worse. You are unable to do anything to stop their memories being erased, again made worse by the fact that the trio was shown to still be instinctively True Companions despite Azem (now living as the Warrior of Light) reincarnating before the other two, and knowing everything that will come to pass afterwards because of that makes it even more painful.
  • Right before his memory gets wiped, Emet tells the Warrior to not squander the legacy he leaves them. The Warrior fruitlessly reaches back for him with a (wordless) cry, but they're already on the fleeing Argos and can do nothing. The last thing they see is Emet giving them a soft smile and the last thing they hear is Kairos completing the countdown for the memory wipe.
  • The aftermath is also a sobering and grim demonstration of the fate of the world in-depth: Venat, knowing the truth of dynamis being behind the end of their civilization in the Final Days, begs her fellow man to look to tomorrow rather than die for yesterday, but none of them listen, opting to prep to sacrifice themselves for Zodiark in vain hopes of their paradise restored. So she's given no choice but to sunder the world and become Hydaelyn, despite vocally saying it seemed impossible to her earlier. Then we see a montage of her wandering the world in spirit as its new heart, suffering and knowing the suffering of those she created, decaying and gradually breaking down while unable to help directly whatsoever as a means of teaching man to adapt and grow past their pain, with only the grim determination of stopping Meteion guiding her — something she even created a contingency plan for by helping them all run away in case they simply couldn't. All the while, "Answers" in its original form plays, revealing the lyrics to be Venat's words of the suffering and her attempts to instill hope in the face of such an unfair judgement of death.
  • Interspersed in the montage of Venat's pained wanderings are flashbacks to the Warrior of Light staggering towards Emet-Selch for their showdown in Shadowbringers, which hits even harder after what they went through together in Elpis.
• Fandaniel/Hermes' love of all life in the past ironically became the very reason that drove him to end all existence. Having been faced with the lifelong task of terminating Ascians' creations that are deemed unfit to be distributed into the world despite the creation's own struggles and happiness both (a poor proto-Sanuwa under his jurisdiction was nearly offed just because it has wrong color and can't fly before Warrior of Light begged Emet-Selch to intervene), the innocent Ascian man began to question whether life itself is worthy. Meteion's report from space and his refusal to look at life from new angles convinced him that the only meaning of every being no matter how advanced is death, and set in motion an apocalyptic "trial" against the Ancients at the cost of nearly everything in existence... And yet during the last encounter against him in Aetherial Sea, he ends up admitting to the Scions that he still doubts his own 'answer' to the value of living before being dragged off to start his search again from zero by the way of karmic punishment from the late Asahi of all people, unable to come to terms with the concept of death even after millennia of effort and desperation. He claims to be content with the fact that the universe is ending according to his plan, but his tone of voice fools no one.
  • Even the sundered memories of his stint as Amon paints him as a Sad Clown among utopian society that turns to mutilation of fellow man for excitement. He resurrected Xande in a bid to restore Allag to greatness, only to be reminded by the Emperor's failure and Allag's doom that nothing surpasses Death. Before going on to dismiss Hermes' memories returned to him by Emel-Selch as something "not his own" and doubling down on the nihilistic path without growing any closer to the truth.
• The montage of each nation rallying into a unified force to collect crystals for the ark has two notable moments.
  • Emmanellain searches for Artoriel so the two can get to work... and finds the latter at Haruchefant's grave, laying flowers for his fallen brother.
  • Lyse offers the martial force of Ala Mhigo to A-Ruhn-Senna in Gridania, given that she used to be stationed there as a Scion. This is also significant in that a century before, the people of Ala Mhigo invaded Gridania in the Autumn War. As A-Ruhn and the troops leave, Lyse looks to the sky:
    "I won't let it all be for nothing. I promise you, Papalymo."
• Early in the story, Urianger is very uncomfortable to find out that Moenbryda's parents are in the area, as he was never able to give them his feelings about her death in A Realm Reborn. They eventually catch up to him during the preparations for the exodus and are upset... that they couldn't be there for Urianger to help him through his own grief, caring for him as much as they do their own daughter and regretting that he had to go through it alone. Moenbryda's mother, Bloewyda, even hugs Urianger and tells him that they were worried about him too. Eventually, Urianger hugs Bloewyda in response, though the camera zooms in to show his arms shaking, sturggling to hold back his grief over what happened.
  Urianger: (hugging Bloewyda) I'm sorry. I truly, truly am... (Urianger's arms begin shaking) I knew not what to say. Knew not how to express my feelings... The poems and platitudes of wiser men. Musings on sadness and loss... Studied and memorized... and meaningless in the moment.
• The souls of your dead comrades, Scions or otherwise, help you pave the way to Hydaelyn during your exploration of the Aitiascope. Not once did they ever forget you even in the sea of aether.
  • A Sharlayan NPC involved with Aitiascope notes that the place is a closely guarded secret, being the location where Aetheric essence of the dead lingers before they dissolve and pass unto the next life. Such a measure is extremely necessary to prevent more Aether-related mishaps from befalling the world (even more so when it's revealed that Hydaelyn resides here after the Sundering) Recent Eorzean history puts this fact in much more sadder light. From Garlean occupation, to Dalamud's fall, to the apocalypses in Endwalker, there is no "true" closure for numerous people who have suffered from the chaos of the world. Unlike the Scions, they can only take solace in themselves and move on.
• Meeting Hydaelyn herself after traveling the aetherial sea to finally get all your answers - and realizing Venat knew exactly what she was doing and everything was for the single hope that mankind would one day be strong enough to defeat despair itself in the form of Meteion. And, in order to prove that it won't be a waste to send you to the ends of the universe, she demands a trial of you and the Scions...which saps all the remaining energy she ever had. Players must watch the mother figure that has faithfully protected and guided them over ten years and various trials and expansions dissipate into aether, with a smile on her face and her last words being a proclamation of love for her precious children. All the while the hauntingly beautiful song 'Flow' plays. It's a massive kick in the stomach to players - doubly so if they had doubted her at any point. If you're remotely close to any sort of mother figure in your life, expect tears.
  • Additionally sorrowful is that Hydaelyn ceases to exist due to these circumstances. Her soul aether is wholely expended and as a result too widely dispersed to reconstitute itself in the aetherial sea. While, under previously established lore regarding the nature of existence in FFXIV, she would normally have reincarnated after a while, the state of her soul is so that it will not happen. The only comforting thing is that, according to the Watcher, the remnants of her soul instead "fused" with the aetherflow of the planet, including natural phenomenons such as rain or wind. As such, she can watch over the planet in another way.
• Endwalker Tank Role Quest focuses on a man who transformed into a Blasphemy called Gleipnir: Kan-E-Senna's childhood friend Ea-Sura-Supin. Eager to become the Elder Seedseer since youth and trained under E-Sumi-Yan alongside Kan-E (who was resenting her Padjali heritage), Ea-Sura's aspritation is cut short by a cocky adventurer pretending to ask then young Seedseer-to-be for succor only to go and snap off a Guardian Tree branch without consent, incurring the wrath of the Elementals who proceed to deprive the man of his life and Ea-Sura of his power. Heartbroken, Ea-Sura eventually settled down within Twelvewoods under a fake name and found the love of his life in a common woman, only to see his wife to succumb to an illness without any aetheric power to save her, driving him to despair and transforming him into a mindless Blasphemy that Warrior of Light, the Elder Seedseer and her Keeper have no choice but to put him down.
• The story of the Omicrons in Ultima Thule. They were once organic beings, but were weak and feeble. When their homeworld of Alphatron was invaded, they resorted to giving themselves cybernetic implants and prostheses to gain an edge against their assailants. And once they won that war, they began to fear that a stronger race might try to attack next, and began adding more and more machinery to their bodies to become stronger and stronger. Eventually, they were able to replace 100% of their body with machinery, turning them into a race of robots. But as one of their leaders laments, when they finally became the strongest race in the universe, they suddenly found themselves with no purpose, and since cybernetics ate their souls, they were also now unable to dream or have aspirations to find something else to work toward, having wholely specialized themselves into the sole pursuit of self improvement with every other aspect not contributing to this goal having been long since discarded.
  • This adds another layer to the tragedy of Omega's dream to return home and answers why it wasn't receiving any more signals from back home despite repeated requests. It was already an impossible one where it would either remain stranded on another world forever or lose its mind on the long journey home were it able to develop a "heart", but even if it had managed to somehow retain its will all that distance and return at long last to its home, Omega would only have come back to a dead or dying Alphatron.
• This also gives more context to the fate of the Dragonstar and Midgardsomr fleeing. While The Fog of Ages left Middy and Omega unsure of who struck first, this zone makes it plain very early on; the Omicron picked the fight as part of their galactic conquest pre-emptively, the Dragons were completely innocent and only defended themselves, which they did ferociously. Neither side won the war, the Omicron coming victorious but leaving because the war had completely despoiled any of the planet's resources and their military strength having been decimated, and all of the remaining Dragons left on the planet had crossed their Despair Event Horizon as their world was no longer suitable for any life, and the corruption had damaged the hatcheries to the point where any new dragonets hatched as suffering, mutated abominations. The memories of the last surviving Dragons from their old world are left sitting immobile in resignation, slowly starving to death and drinking water so tainted one of them warns you it would probably kill a mortal in minutes, as they wait for their extraordinary lifespans to finally fail from starvation so they can die.
• The trauma and hell of numerous past civilizations meeting their existential crises and extinctions is a nightmare as it is, but The Dead Ends is Amaurot on a cosmic scale. From a plague that wiped out its seaborn civilization with what it didn't turn into abominations, to the Global Community world where its authorities and freedom fighters genocided eachother to the end in the name of "peace", to the realm that seemingly attained perfection, only to realize they lost feeling for everything so much that they created a Primal-like being to commit mass assisted suicide.
  • The Global scenario is probably the worst, between an everlasting war between the Global Citizens "World Order" and the independance seeking freedom fighters, the Global Citizens mass produce a new type of autonomous mecha with the directive to "take action against all enemies of peace". It responds by categorizing all life as inherently violent due to the everlasting war and starts killing all organics to achieve "peace", including their creators as their actions put them under the previous category as well. Due to this, one surviving soldier activates a mass high-yield missile system that targets the extermination mechs... which are all located in every populated area across the globe, with us witnessing a nearby city skyline get vaporized. The counter attack leaves them as the last person on the planet as they stare into the harsh clouds and glow of nuclear armageddon. Even worse, you see this very same person early on desperately running to reach this switch while all their comrades died, willing to risk it all for what they presumed would be the salvation of their world.
    Global Citizen: I did it! I killed them all!
    Global Citizen: I... killed them all...
  • Worse still, if for some reason you go back through that section of the dungeon, you'll find that particular NPC is no longer there, whereas in the other sections there are still people standing around and talking.
  • The Global Community section specifically is also a dark reminder that Varis' dream could never have come to fruition: invading others and forcefully making them have "peace" doesn't work and would only lead to revolutions and more war until it finally ends in death. Seeing that Shadowbringers implies that Varis would have caused the 8th Umbral Calamity with his Black Rose in his attempt to cause peace for the world, he was terrifyingly close to repeat the mistake of that culture, only with poison instead of machines.
• One by one, the Scions give themselves up to Ultima Thules' Dynamis to create a way forward and even create new regions and their dead civilizations to progress across, which is explicitly referred to as essentially a death sentence, in order to open the path to the Endsinger. Each time, they give a final speech to the Warrior of Light, knowing they will never see each other again. Not helping this is that each time there is a sacrifice which , the BGM of the area becomes more and more refined, from a distant fragmented tune gaining clarity to the addition of instrumentals and beyond, as if their souls and sacrifices are contributing to the melancholic song itself.
• When G’raha Tia sacrifices himself the area undergoes one final change. Ultima Thule suddenly gets lyrics and you hear a lone male voice singing, telling you that even though their memories are fading they gently encourage you to move on. Even though all the scions have died they still live on through you and the voice gently reassures you of that, and the voice believes in you. It’s strongly hinted that it’s G’raha who is singing to you and even if you can’t hear him he still believes in you even to the bitter end.
• The entirety of the quest "You're Not Alone" is one tear-jerker after another. After the twins' sacrifices, the Warrior of Light ends up all alone. Yet, still determined, they move forward. During that small section, you can only walk, affected by a debuff called "Endwalker" which "Walking alone unto journey's end, the burden weighing heavy". Essentially, the Warrior of Light just watched all of their friends die, and is the last one standing to face Meteion. And in spite of everything, you have to keep going. You slowly walk to reach Meteion's egg, as uncredited "voices from the past" give you words of encouragement and stating their belief in you, while the sorrowful song of Ultima Thule rings in the background. All of these voices belong to allies you met during your journey, some still alive (and even from another shard, as you can hear Ryne's voice), some dead (including Minfilia and Haurchefant). The very first and last voice you hear? Ardbert, reflecting your own resolve.
  Voice from the past (Ardbert): If you need a push, I'll be right there behind you. [...] Let's finish this.
• One by one the Scions are defeated by the Endsinger until she uses her power to throw them into a black hole. Realizing that they still have the power to save their friends the Warrior of Light activates the the teleportation tomestone that was given to them before they left Ethyris, but before it can work on them the Warrior of Light lets it slip gently from their hands so that they can stay behind to fight.
  • Worse here is that Alisaie sees them doing this and begs them to stop. All the player character can do is smile gently and tell them it's all right. ^note While the player character doesn't talk, their lip movements look similar to the Japanese words Daijoubu which can be translated as such.
• Meteion and her sisters are the creations of Hermes made out of pure emotion, who have both mental state and experience of children. Due to their extreme ability as the Empath, their inability to distinguish others emotions from their own, and how Ascian society functions (that they do not recognize the value of overcoming suffering or that it is inevitable) while simultaneously having a cavalier notion towards death which is romantic for themselves but thoughtless for any creations percieved as flawed, the sisters bear the full brunt of despair when they learn about how inevitable suffering and death is by encountering thousands upon thousands of dead or dying worlds without a single exception, lacking the insight to temper it (akin to a newborn baby not knowing why they shouldn't stand in front of a moving car), and jumping to conclusions without considering other possibilities. By the time of the story's ending, a shadow of her civilization and mere Elpis flowers (summoned by the Warrior of Light) are all that's left to remind Meteion of her beloved creator Hermes, which finally crumbles the wall of denial inside her heart. Even if Meteion survived Endwalker, she has to deal with the fact that she wiped out her own creator's entire race as it was which she loved among numerous others, all because she and her sisters were too innocent to understand. The core Meteoin goes from feeling physical pain if people speak too loudly in her presence to having a thousand thousand apocalypses across the universe downloaded into her brain in a single moment.
  Meteion: "Greetings, you who are my final encounter. I wish to hear your words... Share your feelings... Know your thoughts. May we please... be friends?"
• There's something somber about Zenos' death. As he and the Warrior of Light are both spread out on the ground, having beaten each other within an inch of their lives, Zenos reflects back on how nothing ever really excited him short of his battles with the Warrior of Light, thus leading him to never figure out the point to his life. He asks the Warrior of Light if they had found purpose and meaning in their own life, only to die before he gets an answer, albeit with the consolation of dying after getting his much desired fight with his foe and friend.
  • There's also the Warrior of Light's fate. As determined as they are, their body is still mortal, having taken so much lethal damage that they too collapse on the ground and start slipping away. If it weren't for that emergency teleportation device making its way back to them to give an out from the edge of the world, it would have been it for them. They truly would have died after saving the world, their body either left behind at the very edge of existance alongside their mirror image rival's, having finally been consumed by their (possibly) shared bloodlust or on the operating table surrounded by their dearest remaining loved ones, having finally truly given their all for their star. The following scene, while bittersweet, is still quite heavy; Alisaie is tearfully begging for the Warrior of Light to wake up while the other Scions can only despondently watch, wait, and hope while their friend is being healed. When the Warrior of Light does wake up, everyone is overjoyed and sad at once. They were this close to accepting the Warrior of Light had died. Estinien jesting that they've made quite the show but sounding uncharacteristically relived, Alphinaud sheds a tear in relief. G'raha Tia cries in joy. Y'sthola and Thancred scold the Warrior of Light for nearly getting themselves killed, with the former stating she would have been inconsolable and the latter remarking that they are being harsh its because they care. Urianger is just glad that his friend is safe and sound. Alisaie completely tears the Warrior of Light a new one, yelling at them for nearly getting themselves killed fighting alone in the sort of noble sacrifices she has spoken against in the past on multiple occasions and making them worry when they didn't show up like Meteion said they would and then damning them for basically breaking her heart while she sobs her eyes out. Everyone's reactions can hit quite close to home for those who had a friend or family member that nearly died or almost getting themselves killed.
  • Or anyone who just spent the last two hours watching the Scions dissolve by ones and twos.
• After having the grand finale of an adventure, Alphinaud narrates one bittersweet line. It's not the end of a journey, because everyone is still in touch, but it's the end of a chapter.
  Alphinaud: We are disbanding the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.
  • (At least, that is what the story will be.)
• After raiding the underwater treasure vault in 6.1, Vrtra through Varshahn tells the Scions that he was there when the Allagan Empire fought against the Meracydians using voidsent to bolster their ranks and saw his sister Azdaja fly through a void gate to stop the demons. He hoped his sister would return and he waited for over a thousand years. When Vrtra saw a planar fissure in the vault, he was torn between wanting to expand it so he can go through and find Azdaja and keeping it sealed so his people wouldn't be in danger from the voidsent. He chose the latter and basically gave up on ever seeing his sister again. Even though his closest allies and the Scions gave him the courage and hope to see Azdaja again once they come up with a plan to open the void gate, it still stings to see sibilings being separated from each other, human or not.
• One coming from, of all things, an Ultimate: Hraesvelgr, now being controlled by an Allagan neurolink in the alternate timeline where Haurchefant lives, is forced by Nidhogg to lay waste to Ishgard after King Thordan's defeat. In the midst of the battle, he pleads with the party to not let him take a single life so that he can honor his vow to Shiva. Should the party fail and have anyone die as a result of his attacks, he loses it, gaining a Vulnerability Down and Damage Up buff. Whether the sheer despair from breaking his promise to his beloved causes him to fall into Nidhogg's control entirely, or he simply undergoes Sanity Slippage and starts trying to kill the party since there's no going back now is never made clear, but either way, Hraesvelgr has become a broken dragon. And it's all your fault.
  • What's worse is that it's either he kills you or you Mercy Kill him so he can stop fighting. In his dying words, he is at least able to have the repose of joining Shiva. Except that gets robbed from him for a while longer when Thordan takes his eyes from his corpse to become the Dragon-king.
  • Compounding this is that when you clear the trial, it ends on a somber note as the Dragonsong War comes to an end. Though you may have emerged victorious, Hraesvelgr's spirit disappears into the light alongside Nidhogg's. It's the only Ultimate trial that doesn't have a triumphant celebration, with your character looking on sadly as the dragons pass on.
    So ends an alternative chapter in their tale.
    What lessons, dear listener, might we derive from this Dragonsong reimagined?

    Be it that of man or dragon, all life is precious,
    and the loss of loved ones shall ever darken the hearts of those left behind.

    Yet death is not the end of what was wrought.
    The memories forged, the affection shared, the hope inherited...

    Such things grant us the strength to walk unto the morrow,
    and there is no greater proof of this than the Warrior of Light's journey.

    From the fantastical works of a wandering minstrel
    Heavensward: A Reimagining
• Lahabrea appears in the flesh in 6.2, revealing things that turn what we know on its head. The Lahabrea Erichthonios knew is actually an Enemy Without creation of the real Lahabrea, meaning that while he was technically correct, he's also technically wrong, because Lahabrea wasn't directly involved with the experiments in Pandaemonium at all. On top of that, Lahabrea, while deeply flawed, turns out to be a reasonable and honored figure among the Warders, shouldering all the hate from his son because he can't bring himself to break the Awful Truth to him. Then come 6.4, despite expelling Athena's corruption from his soul and planned on destroying it, he decides he needs to become whole again to perform his duty, and face those consequences. In doing so, he seals his fate in becoming the madman he is in current-day.
• While the Hildibrand quest chain is, as ever, full of light-hearted insanity, Godbert's reasoning for wishing to recreate the Mandervillian weapons is born from a tragic one; he was in Thavnair on business when the Final Days hit, and he like any of the strong-hearted was trying his best to save as many people as he could from the Terminus beasts, but he still witnessed plenty of death and likely transformations. It's a somber reminder of just how deep and traumatic the Final Days were that even a goofball like Godbert Manderville carries scars from being witness to it.
• The Grebuloff are first seen in the Dead Ends where they are horribly warped by disease while the survivors either beg their dying loved ones to hang in there or blame each other for what happened. Two of the Grebuloff are recreated via dynamis by the Omicrons to help Jammingway get the Last Dregs up and running, but the two Grebuloffs are completely depressed and burst into tears over the fact that their home is gone and they can never return to it or see their friends and loved ones ever again. While the Warrior of Light does help them overcome their sadness, it's still quite heartbreaking to see a race of people whose home was destroyed and they're quite literally a Fish out of Water.
• In the patch 6.3 MSQ "Gods Revel, Lands Tremble", it's hinted at by Cagnazzo and outright stated by Rubicante that some of the Four Fiends, along with Golbez, had a motivation for coming to the Source in the first place: they want to die. Their Resurrective Immortality in the Thirteenth was causing an excess in Sanity Slippage, with Rubicante lamenting that he was becoming less of a man and more of a monster the longer he was there. Rubicante even acknowledges the hypocrisy of wanting to end a war by starting another, but he saw no other way. Zero admits that she can see where Rubicante is coming from, having lived in the Thirteenth for so long herself. It makes the Four Fiends into Tragic Monsters, and paints Golbez in a somewhat better but still villainous light, highlighting how depressing things are around the Void.
• Rubicante gets double the dose of tragedy from his backstory, in contrast to Scarmilione being a deserter and Barbaricia being raised by assholes. He had close comrades during the Contramemoria, and was once a memoriate himself. However, he lost his brother to a voidsent that was once an Auri (or Thirteenth equivalent) child's mother, resorting to using his memoria powers to Mercy Kill her. He yearned to see the sun again after the war, but between losing family and taking someone's life, he sees himself as a Failure Hero who couldn't save anyone.
• From the Myths of the Realm storyline in 6.3, we meet a Lamb of Dalamud for the first time since A Realm Reborn. Turns out they weren't always an Apocalypse Cult, but started out as a peaceful cult in the older sense of the word who wanted nothing more than to worship their beloved Menphina via her hound, only for Dalamud to start falling and drive nearly all of them insane. This Lamb, who found comfort in Menphina after he proved to kind to live the cutthroat life of an Ul'dahn merchant, is one of the only ones who didn't go crazy and wanted to continue worshipping Menphina peacefully. As a result, he lost everything. The Lambs ostracized him for not following them into depravity, while others immediately assumed he was evil because he was a Lamb. Once the Warrior of Light appears, he immediately assumes they're here to finish the job of hunting down the Lambs, but is so deep in despair that he believes it's the will of Menphina and welcomes death. Deryk is thankfully able to snap him out of it and Menphina personally gives him her blessing as he goes on with a renewed will to live, but it's still a tragic story of a kind man who did absolutely nothing wrong and got his life destroyed as a result.
• An offhand comment from Erichthonios puts a sobering light on all the times you fought Elidibus: "Themis would never have wished to be your enemy." Yet fate dealt a cruel hand between him and the Warrior of Light, putting them at opposite sides despite having bonded over the course of investigating Pandaemonium. From A Realm Reborn to Shadowbringers, he was acting out Zodiark's will, and thus, lacked autonomy to do otherwise. Then later, you have to fight him again because he's under Athena's will, with no guarantee that fighting him will dispel her control. At the very end of it all, he does at least return to the aetherial sea with no regrets, as all of these encounters made it clear that they'd eventually reunite as allies.
• While it is a Foregone Conclusion given what we know of the fate of the Ancients, Erichthonios' final recordings in the memory stone are still bittersweet as they confirm he was killed and sundered during the Final Days. His final message shows his character growth as he chooses to stay behind even if it means his death, just so he can make sure Pandaemonium is not breached in the midst of all the chaos. All this is both made worse by the fact he wishes he could've seen his "dear friend" the Warrior of Light again, but also better with newfound knowledge that Claudien, the eccentric researcher who befriended and tasked you to look into Pandaemonium in the first place, is a shard of Erichthonios reborn. One that, while still very much his own person, has awoken memories of his past as Erichthonios.
• The 6.4 MSQ has the Warrior of Light, Y'shtola, Estinien, Zero and Vrtra arriving on the Thirteenth's moon, where Golbez eventually makes himself known. Golbez then proceeds to unshackle Azdaja, who has made it clear that the very shackles that bound her are also what have kept the darkness of the Thirteenth from corrupting her now-weakened self. Unfortunately for Vrtra, Azdaja immediately grows corrupt until Golbez pushes her over the edge and transforms her into the Shadow Dragon. Imagine going many hundreds, thousands of years, hoping to find and save a lost family member, finding a group of allies that help push significant progress toward said hope becoming a possibility... only for them to be taken from you right as you're within reach.
  • Then after Golbez is defeated, he proceeds to take Azdaja as the Shadow Dragon and feeds her to the Thirteenth's remnants of Zodiark's aether, to feed toward the creation of an even more powerful voidsent: Zeromus. Vrtra's Big "NO!" as Azdaja is tossed into the abyss is heartbreaking.
  • It's made clear that, should they wait for Zeromus to break the barrier between the Source and the Thirteenth, and make its way to the Source to take it down, this can mean losing Azdaja forever to the natural flow and cycle of aether. Their best chance to save Azdaja is by defeating Zeromus on the Thirteenth, where death means aether doesn't return to the flow. It's not a guarantee, but it's the best chance Vrtra has of saving her.
  • Then there's Zeromus itself. Though visually identical to its original incarnation, it is visibly based on Azdaja's form, bloated and corrupted after being possessed by the void aether released from Zodiark's defeat. just when you think it'd be a feral monster simply using that homesickness Golbez called upon as carrot on a stick, it speaks in Azdaja's voice. Zeromus is voidsent born not of hatred, but of longing for a home that it and its people may never see again, and that fact is plain in the sheer desperation in its voice as it begins casting larger spells and thrashing against its restraints. Its very first words to you are a genuine plea to simply let it go home.
  Zeromus: Move aside, I beseech you.
• The finale of Myths of the Realm might have instead been called Twilight of the Gods; we find out that the Twelve Gods have taken a page from Hydaelyn's book and the whole plan of us fighting (and defeating) them was to weaken them enough to dissolve back into the lifestream and to return the aether they've accumulated over centuries of worship back to the star.
  • The final god to fight you is Oschon, the Wanderer, who has actually been travelling by your side this entire time under the Hyuran guise of Deryk. His voice can be heard for the first time in this fight, and he is voiced by none other than Joe Dempsie, the voice actor for Ardbert. Not only is this extremely fitting, but Dempsie gives a spectacularly emotional performance, practically pleading with you to soldier on, wishing you well on your journey.
  • While it was the Twelve's wish to return to the star, Oschon has a last minute change of heart, spurred on by the cries of his animal companion, instead choosing to live as a mortal.