My main annoyance is that the important stuff happened off-screen. Sure, Savathun was revived, but then her second revival and escape happened off-screen, and we had no idea what Eris did until it was explained to us after. Imagine if we had seen Xivu Arath for the first time in this cutscene, the first actual look at her after we "beat" her, at which point she can explain to "us" (more likely an important hive or by goading Eris) what had just happened, and then we cut back to Savathun escaping. That would've been a more active way to tell us what had just happened, rather than the confusing ending we did get where all the important stuff gets told to us afterwards.
What would've been cool to see is, the moment Eris struck Savathun, Xivu's portal opens up and she comes out of it. And then, just at that moment, Eris banished her with all the power she had gained.
@@allentayoto7387 She banished her from her own Throne World. That wouldn’t work because Xivu Arath would have been vulnerable right in front of two powerful Gaurdians. That’s banishing her and giving her no exit. She would have put her neck on the chopping block if she did that. This leaves her open for The Final Shape episode in hindsight.
It's obvious they had budget and time constraints. They wouldn't end the cutscene in such moment otherwise. Each season has dedicated budget and time to be crafted and it would be quite long cutscene to show that second revival, escape and bargain.
@Altherot that's true. Given they said and I quote Final Shape and it's episode's are supposed to have more cutscenes though they could lying a man can hope.
Agreed. That irritated me a lot. We should have seen her get up again and so on. That said, ... err... Okay so Savathun's last line Sent me. "It looks good on you, Honey." BUT. BUT. The surrounding lore... Like. Holy Shit. The implications of what Eris DID.
I think the idea that there wasn't enough 'fanfare' after Eris killed Savathun is the exact opposite of what that moment wanted to achieve. Right after killing Savathun, Eris says: "I let this moment pass unnamed, without song. This is the rejection of your sad legacy." I belive this line is exactly why there wasn't any big ritual or explosion or anything; it was meant to undermine the sword logic and show the hive that even the act of Eris ascending to the most powerful Hive God means nothing. If there had been any more 'fanfare', it would imply that there was glory in Eris killing Savathun, which would support the sword logic, making the line I quoted from Eris obsolete.
Eris’ reaction in the face of Hive gods and their logic was: “meh, I don’t care, I’m still going to slaughter the Hive to extinction”. Eris was still in control. Both Xivu and Savathun felt so sure of themselves, that she would be their pawn, and be damned to the Deep and the Sword Logic as they were. But her desire for revenge and the Coalition’s survival was stronger than the lust for power. She was offered the sword, and instead broke it. From its splinters Eris’ plan remains the same: slaughter the Hive with the broken splinters of their naïve sword. I do still believe we will kill Savathun, Xivu, and the Worm Gods, leading the Hive on a path to extinction. But that may come to pass later. If Bungie were to add new enemy races for us to fight in the upcoming new era, post Final Shape, then enemy factions like the Hive or Scorn must be killed off to do so.
Personally I don't give a fuck what everyone else is crying about, this ending was PERFECT! Eris gathered all that power and rejects all the Hive stands for which is by far the MOST POWERFUL thing she could have done, take their ultimate power and reject their power at the same time is the one thing neither Savathun nor Xivu would have ever imagined would be the path Eris would take. No ritual, no song, no fanfare... it was amazing! We can almost hear Xivu throwing a temper tantrum as Eris didn't obey the sword logic and yet still defeated Xivu without a single ounce of conflict.
My personal understanding is that the disappointment with the scene is not about a lack of fanfare or glorification but rather a lack of understandability. When I was watching the scene, I also felt like something was missing even after hearing what Eris says. My own problem with the cutscene is that it's difficult to trust and believe the significance of the cutscene. It was good at not being cool but less good at conveying what actually happened. I think that might be the problem that people have. Or maybe I have bad media comprehension.
@@SnyperMK2000JclL I quite enjoyed the cutscenes myself but it could have been improved with 2 things. Xivu Arath should have had lines for that scene and the lore page we got should have been in the cutscene instead. Other then that it was spot on.
Being honest, this was a decent season. There are some bumps but it was one of the better seasons, and while the season finale didnt really stick the landing i'm just glad Savathûn is alive again and we get more of her when it is time to come back to the hive again.
^^ I’m about here with this. I’d say on balance more than decent, but it’s hard to not judge it harshly based on having seen the finale most recently. That’s what’s fresh in our minds. That’s what we’re still focused on.
@S3Cs4uN8 yeah and there's a triumph aswell for it and I won't reveal it cause you know spoilers. Well it doesn't technically reveal anything but it does say what's deep within the Imbaru Engine. Like how there's one final test that needs to be unlocked.
I think that Bungie undercutting the presentation of Eris as the most powerful Hive in history is completely intentional. "I let this moment pass unnamed, without song." That was Eris' way of spitting on everything the Hive worship. And her just being more glowy does a good job of conveying that; she's a lot more restrained than when she became a Hive God in the first place. I fully agree that we should have seen Xivu in that moment of defeat. Or at least heard her scream in fury as she realized she got majorly screwed for the second time in as many years. I also agree that we should have gotten the lore tab as a cutscene, and not just because I like the cutscenes. People are going to miss that lore tab, and it's going to lead to confusion. That said, maybe that's another meta way of generating Imbaru, like Truth to Power. All in all, I think Bungie stuck the landing well enough. P.S. Two things I want to know are: How did we kill the Leviathan Eater so easily when he put up such a fight the first time? Tea is confirmed to exist in the Destiny universe. Why have our Guardians never been able to buy a cup of hot brown?
We met the Leviathan Eater in the third week of the season I believe(might be wrong), and hadn’t seen it until the finale, where Eris instructs us to use our improved Hive abilities to erect the shield during the Hive Tombships bombardment, like a corrupted version of Zavala using Ward of Dawn in the first mission of the Red War campaign(this comparison kinda blew me away while in the mission, cool moment). Before the shield is erected we only get that small bit of the Leviathan-Eater’s health bar because I believe we couldn’t kill it until we used our Acolyte staff, unleashing the Sword and Bomb logic upon our enemies, Leviathan-Eater included. Eris alludes to the fact that as we use the Staff to invoke more rituals, our Hive magic grows stronger, we become more connected to the Sword Logic but purified by Light. As for coffee, I dunno, there’s never been mention of coffee plants being produced, but the agriculture of the Last City is pretty advanced considering most of it is stolen Golden Age tech(can thank Hunters for most of that tech). Maybe coffee is more of a citizen’s drink in the Last City, like the workers and everyday Joe’s/Janes need it more than Guardians, because we don’t need the extra caffeine, seeing as we don’t really need any food or beverage to live, we just have stuff like ramen and tea for the taste. I enjoyed this theorizing about the boss fight and existence of coffee, even though it’s just gameplay and science fiction agriculture, I like hypothesizing.
Yeah, Eris' power up needed something more dramatic. Chantings would have been great, but there was no one to chant, so the other option is this: Have Xivu interact, even as just a voice, during this moment. When Eris kills Savathun and her powers grows, have her shout something like "MY NEWBORN SISTER HAS FINALLY ACCEPTED THE BLADE AND JOINED ME!" or the likes. And then, confusion and maybe a pained scream when Eris cuts Xivu from her Throne World. It would improve the cinematic a whole lot, and sell the idea that Eris was at the peak of her power, and the damage she caused to Xivu.
"We see Xivu step down from her Palace in the portal and start to walk towards giant Hive God Eris. As she readies her sword, Eris crushes her rune, and Xivu's throne world vanishes behind her. Xivu turns in surprise, then turns back to Eris and screams in rage. As she charges the portal, Eris drops her sword and the portal closes, leaving Xivu in the Ascendant Plane. Eris then falls over and shrinks back down to human. Then the interaction with Savathun leaving Immaru with us happens." Man, that would have been nice.
Actually pathetic that we have to fuckin keeping creating scenarios in our heads because bungie doesn't take seasonal content seriously I'm not talking shit about your comment is just I do the same because the idea is always there, yet the execution .......😢
@@padawanjon6441also I could see it being too long to fit into a cutscene let alone a seasonal one, that page was practically a book itself, if anything it should have been the radio message at least
I can't believe the main goal of this season happened off-screen. So much interesting interaction and drama to show in the moment where Savathun comes back to life. Her interaction with Eris and reaction to her plan. Her interaction with us, her killers. Her reaction to the Witness nearing total victory, to the state of things after we ruined her plan that she believed would work. Her explanation of this really interesting and important plot detail. Her reaction to that massive revelation that she learned just before she died but never really had time to process. It was so intriguing to see where Savathun stands coming back to life ahead of going into Final Shape. Yet they basically just brush her aside for later and what they do give happens off screen.
I was not expecting Savathun to call Eris ‘honey’ but it makes sense. Savathun has always been the most, idk, feminine, of the three sisters but her speech to us is very formal. Reflective of her intellect. But since Eris is hive too in that scene, she is talking to someone familiar. Someone hive. It was shocking but the delivery was so good. It just served as a reminder since WQ debuted of how good Savathun’s VA is.
I wanted to see and hear Xivu scream and thrash about in agony as Eris cut her off from her throne world. I wanted to watch Savathun laugh in glee and hold Eris in respect as a sister-god of vengeance. I wanted a conversation between Eris and Savathun, where Eris lays out her cards and shoves Savathun's ideals in her own face, fighting her deceit with a vengeance that we guardians are. I like it, but it could've been so MUCH MORE.
I think we're going to get xivu's reaction when her story arc rolls around again. so there's that to look forward to And also, if you wish things had gone differently, feel free to write fan fiction! there's plenty of people who would read it :3
I think someone put it best, There's spectical in becoming a hive god because she needs the power of the sword logic to do so. however, at the end, with Eris close to finishing her plan, there can be No fan fair. she's rejecting everything that the hive revel, and becoming the most powerful god in existence, means nothing to her except the vengeance she craves for the friends she lost.
Ever since Bungie confirmed that Savathún wasn't gonna play a big role in this season, I was kinda skeptical at first. The first few weeks started out strong but gradually started decreasing imo
I mean… Savathun’s role in this not being huge is par for the course given she spent the whole season dead. I don’t think the balance of whether the season was good or not hung on her alone. That said, you’re right about the tempo of the season. Strong start weaker finish.
I feel like it’s not over. Xivu may strike out at eris and kill her in vengeance. By doing so, it may make arris come back as the hive god of vengeance. The ending for the season feels like everything is too happy and perfect.
Nah, the season seems cut and close. Well likely get some info leading into the Next season. Besides rhwy directly tell you Xivu Will be dealt with after the Witness
Copium. Just look at all the other Bungie seasons... when it's over, it's over regardless of the lingering questions. They might as well just add "TO BE CONTINUED..." when you finish the cut scene/radio transmission.
@@gabrielpineirogarcia2078 It's definitely not over. We've still got another transmission to listen to on the Radio, so we probably have another mission? Maybe like in Defiance with that last mission to avenge Amanda?
12:20 I agree with what you're saying and I want to add that imo hearing our guardian speak and readying whatever weapon we have against savathun, seeing the void form around ikora, and then lowering that would have hit harder then just reading it.
I reckon a ‘dynasty’ type video showing us all the lore surrounding Eris from her early days to now would be insanely good. She’s a huge character in this game and so much of her story is in the lore rather than shown!
Savathun definitely knew this was gonna happen, as soon as she was revived her first act was to taunt eris. I think savathun was willing to sacrifice everything she had aquired so that the witness is destroyed
Would it even be taunting? Kind of seems like she legit thinks just enjoys someone taking on the form of her people. Like for her it could be a form of cultural appreciation.
I mean, I know that seasons don’t exactly have the budget of a campaign, and the conclusion is logical and probably the safest route to take, but like she seriously just crushed a hive rune and called it a day The savathun part was great though, easily one of the coolest cutscenes out there
To the contrary on the display of Eris' power: Eris needed grand ritual circles and many worms to transform. But in the end, a wave of her hand was enough to steal a god's immortality. The display of her power is not in being big and flashy and dramatic but rather a small, simple action with incredible consequences. Building a nuke is a grand act of engineering, but the power and consequences are behind pressing the launch button.
The cutscene is perfect.. but then it ends. Eris not becoming a huge hive god is perfect for her rejecting the sword, not showing Xivu is fine since we finally got a drawing of her and her symbol, But everything from the lore book should have 100% been in the cutscene, it leaves way too much important context out for a finale compared to something like seraphs finale which was AMAZING.
Spinfoil hat but read if interested: While her second revival may have happened off-screen, and yeah, they may have needed to show that, I think the reason they haven't shown Xivu's part in all of this is the same reason she is going to appear after TFS takes place: They haven't finished making her yet, or at least in time to animate her. It's also the reason her statue isn't visible during the WQ. They have a VA but may not have a complete model in time for the seasonal story. Not trying to defend this, her side definitely deserved to be shown in some way, but with how much has been allocated to other games, it didn't seem like it was in the cards, which was very disappointing.
Honestly the whole finale not being a bombastic battle or transformation is exactly to plan I believe. The whole point is Eris turned on the entire idea and plan as everyone expected, and instead made it a subtle and devastating win with no fight instead. Now whether that was the right call or not? Eh... not as sure.
I think it was perfect. Use all that power to reject all the Hive stands for rather than bringing war upon Xivu, we learned this a few seasons ago and people seem to not understand. Even if all that power WE COULD NEVER DEFEAT XIVU IN A HEAD ON CONFLICT thus a subtle and cunning play to banish Xivu from her seat of power is far more devastating to Xivu than if we had tried to attack her directly, otherwise Rasputin would still be alive and we would have used the Warsat network to attack Xivu long long long ago... but alas, bringing war upon the GOD OF WAR is the most ignorant and devastating thing we could do to Humanity as a whole. The lack of fanfare, the lack of ritual, the lack of reveling in the deaths, the lack of the sword or bomb logic is 100% the ONLY way we could have ever defeated Xivu, much like the ONLY move Rasputin could make was sacrificing himself and all of the Warsat network so it couldn't be used to bring about war and violence which would only have made Xivu stronger. People really need to start paying attention to things that happen and why those decisions were made. This is literally the one and only way we could have ever defeated Xivu without physical conflict and that's been eluded to for nearly a year+ at this point.
Hey it'd be good to note that after the cutscene you go talk to Eris, and she talks about the second revival of Savathun and that Immaru's being kept as a ward! This information is available to any who finish the seasonal quest. The radio conversation which is the final quest step also has Ikora talking about Savathun's resurrection and her feelings on it.
My problem with this week was the lack of an explanation of how eris severed Xivu's connection to her throne world. I expected the lore tab to go in depth to that as I didn't even know it was possible. I believe the words were "She did something to cut Xivu off from her throne world" or something akin to that at least (I don't feel like pulling up the quote). And it kind of reminded me of a certain line from the 9th movie in a saga that was also prodigiously clowned. "Somehow Palpatine Returned." That's what I noticed as a shortcoming story-wise. We don't really find out how the connection was severed and to my knowledge we have never known how that was done. I may be wrong but that's what i would like to see fixed: an explanation of how eris achieved what she did. Gameplay wise: the bossfight was pretty good, lots of enemies and a decently scary boss. I wish he could move around the arena a little more because he kinda just stayed on the middle track and let me rocket him. Also the middle phase where we were "bombarded..." I was kinda expecting a little more of a bombardment. 2 knights and 4 thrall every 10 seconds isn't exactly difficult to deal with. Overall though a decent ending, time (and the radio messages remaining) will tell how this ending truly shakes out though
I totally understand your concern about the Cutscene but tbf in the last Radio message we get from the Bladed Path Quest, Ikora is talking about that Savathun was revived once more and gave Immaru to the Vanguard. Of course not in depth as in the Lore Tab, but it was mentioned so that all players have the chance to catch up. :)
This situation, where the dramatic impact of a cut scene is significantly diminished because of what is left out (eg Xivu’s pov), is similar to what happened in season of the lost. Osiris’ transformation into Savathun was entirely off screen, which was unsatisfying to say the least. We later learned that Savathun’s character model wasn’t completed in time for that season. Perhaps similarly pragmatic considerations are at play here?
The ending really came out of left field for me. Like… it was a cool concept, locking Xivu out of her throneworld. But since when was that something Eris could do? I guess it could happen, but there was nothing to even hint that this was how it would go down. So instead of being invested and interested the first time I played through I was just left confused. Same with the fate of Savathun, it wasn’t until Ikoras final message I actually realised she wasn’t dead still. I fully thought Eris had changed the plan and binned her off? It was an interesting but very rushed conclusion that pulled abilities and moments out of ‘imagination’ ie with no set up. Also I checked the imbaru engine. Nothing new for Oryx? Seems like a blatant missing piece.
Not just "since when was that something Eris could do" but "since when was that even a possibility?" Literally every Ascendant Hive (orange bars/yellow bars in D1) has a minor "throne world" -- this was even demonstrated for us back in Forsaken with the Mindbender, who built a tiny one partly off of Cayde's death. Could Xivu Arath not simply get a new one? And if not, considering Xivu is now mortal, could her nearest underling general not just murder her and take her place as the new rightful monarch of the Hive? We may have just kicked the can down the road. (Also, where's all that tribute going now?) Also, going from immortal to mortal is a big step for sure, but we have probably done nothing about her actual power. And wait -- if she's *cut off* from her throne world, does that mean the throne world *itself* still exists? Again, could someone come in and usurp it? This definitely seems like the kind of thing Mara Sov has... *literally done before* . (Could even be this is the timeline where it's not Eris but *Mara* who becomes the problem)
@@zfxchip yeah the amount of questions this raises is almost never ending. Thats why some kind of cutscene with Xivu Araths reaction was vital imo. Is she aware this has even happened? Surely she must, maybe sensed it happen. But do her brood know that she is vulnerable now? Or is she keeping this massive vulnerability a secret to avoid the scenario you suggested above. I’m honestly surprised that being cut off from your throne world, which (near enough) seems to be a physical manifestation of your consciousness in a pocket dimension, doesn’t seem to harm or hurt Xivu/Mara all that much. So many questions on top of this that so few players will ever learn that answers to cos they’ll either never be answered or be restricted to lore tabs.
You know I have a sneaking theory that they are clearly gonna kill off Xivu Arath in the Heresy episode and the reason why Eris destroyed her throneworld is so they don't have to build a completely new destination. I feel thats the route they're gonna take and it sucks cause I wanted a DLC outta her.
Possibly. But, I feel Eris and us will kill off Savathun and her entire brood later, after killing Xivu. After the Hive Gods are all head, we’ll hunt down the worm gods next. Then the hive will be doomed to a slow burn of extinction as they eat each other. In my opinion, Eris is playing the long game, striking to kill Savathun, her brood, and the rest of the Hive, only after the Witness is killed, it’s forces destroyed, and when we all are in a better position, with knowledge in hand, to destroy what remains of the Hive. I’m convinced, Eris will outlast the Hive, and slaughter them to extinction. Maybe then, if she’s too far gone, she’ll have left us notes for us and Mara, on how to end her.
I feel like the cutscene only needed like 2 or 3 more lines to add in the fact that Eris is relinquishing all that power in defiance of the Sword Logic and that she's spending it all instead on a spell to remove Xivu Arath from her throne world. It feels really weird us just hearing about what she actually did after being there in the room with her as she did it and not being told.
A finale is really, really important. We should have seen Immaru sneaking in to revive Savathun a second time, and the conversation that occured after. We should have seen Eris on the cusp of ascending, an enormous shadowy figure with terrible wings emanating from Eris, only for her to burn all that power - then the gradual return of the lighting as Eris, human again, collapses.
I disagree... if we had seen fanfare and ritual as Eris underwent another metamorphosis it would have been Accepting the Hive and thus the Sword Logic... but Eris didn't do any of that, she rejected it all, proving that one can win against the sword logic without ever lifting their sword to follow the Bladed Path. She rejected everything it means to be Hive, everything to do with the sword logic and instead pulled off a clever and very subtle move that dealt dealt massively devastating blow to the most powerful of Hive gods, all without physically making war against the Hive God of War thus not empowering Xivu further. Imo this somber and bland ending is perfect as it is the ONE and ONLY way we could have ever defeated Xivu AND not lose Eris to the Hive God Pantheon forever... she took their power, shit upon their logic and dealt the biggest blow to the Hive since the Worms first lied to the Krill and pushed them towards darkness... absolute and utter destruction without firing a single shot or swinging a single sword... THAT is pure perfection!
The prospect of a dark shadowy figure looming above or behind eris, teasing what she could become with all the power would be a great detail. Her turning it down and using all of it to fuck up xivu was the most important part, it would more visualize the trade eris made.
Thanks for this. You verbalized the general thoughts I had about the season and finale that I couldn't fully suss out when I finished it earlier today. I love the season and much of the lore and story, but that finale just was nowhere near enough with all the big stuff that happened as a result.
One annoyance I had was the complete and utter lack of consequences for Eris becoming Hive. No repercussions, in fact she’s actually STRONGER. Turning into another species, essentially, should leave some kind of downside.
As much as I would have liked to see the lore page happen in engine, they have a lot of outs for distributing that information other ways (voiceovers in Spire, etc) and it does feel like we have something approximating another story mission before we move on to the next season. One thing I really appreciated in the mission was Eris calling us back to cast the dome with her when the hive came in for a bombing run, answering bombs with bomb logic. I also think Sororicide absolutely nails the overlay of hive-style writing onto Eris' speech patterns. She sounds like Hive-Eris there and not Eris or one of the other hive gods.
I had to watch a lore video to find out that Savathûn wasn't now powerless, that's how poorly this was handles, Ikora and Eris explain what happenned with Immaru and Savathûn's escape (which is strange because we were cannonically there), but nowhere do they mention that Savathûn still has her powers, all I got was Eris took all of Savathûn's power and then had to offer the vanguard Immaru inorder to leave, from the way it was framed, I thought that meant she was pathetic and completely depowerred, it left a horrible taste in my mouth and I was very underwhelmed until I found out about the lore tab, important details like this shouldn't be trapped as lore.
Honestly though even with that the fact that she was 100% ready to square up with Ikora, known to be incredibly powerful even among the guardians, but backed down when the guardians stepped up to be willing to fight as well. She had zero fear of Ikora but either her and the guardian or just the guardian themself was considered enough of a threat to her to make her back down.
She should still have the light, but her power as a hive god should be long gone. Gone the moment she got rid of her worm. Bungie seems to have a really hard time keeping Savathuns abilities straight. Imbaru for example. Explicilty did not work. If she made Imbaru real, she would have won. But we stopped her from making Imbaru a reality back in Forsaken. Which is why she got rid of her worm in the first place. Bungie forgets their own lore details sometimes, but never something this big before. Savathun is a walking plot hole at the moment, and I hope that bungie finds a way to fix it, which they could certainly do. I just don't think they've even realised theres a plot hole. Most of the playerbase hasn't noticed either, including Byf. Like, the term Imbaru literally originates from a lore entry explaining that Imbaru does not actually work, and that making Imbaru real is Savathuns ultimate goal and victory condition.
@@fluidwolf well... yeah, we are the ones who killed her and her brother, I don't think Ikora could have taken her either, she might be powerful but Savathûn can sling of multiple nova bombs per minute.
So can ikora, guardians are pretty broken in lore. a close comparison to how we are lore wise, would be old Era mayhem where ability regen was cranked up by like 1000% or so. But obviously we can't be like that gameplay wise. So it does leave a slight disconnect for those in the community who simply do not know any better
@@onikemcfee3506 Some guardians can sling back to back supers. Others can't. Cayde can only do a few Golden Guns, and the three shot limit is explicitly mentioned in lore tabs a few times. Ikora being able to drop novas back to back is an exceptional feat. Osiris is possibly the most powerful Guardian we've seen given his constant super use and ability to use multiple at the same time. I suspect super use drains from the same pool of light used for resurrection but thats something the lore has only vaguely hinted at. Its surprising how little we actually know about the basics of Guardian capabilities.
One thing I liked about the final mission was that it felt like the other side of a raid. The enemy was trying to stop us from setting up a hive ritual magic, and we have a special god/person in the background whos immune to damage (because reasons). Then we shift into the bubble and it was DPS phase.
Would’ve been in the dungeon pass, might be an exotic mission with Savathûn taunting and making fun of Xivu for being bested by a human with Hive eyes. Maybe the mission to kill Xivu will be in the Heresy episode considering the image for it is a Hive sword.
i really hope eris cutting xivu off from her throne world doesnt mean we’ll never get to enter xivu’s throne or that xivu will be turned into a strike/dungeon boss. with the way characters have talked about xivu’s throne, it’d be a massive shame to not see it
You know I hadn't thought of it but seeing you say it, yeah Xivu is definitely going to be a dungeon boss or something now. Building up the throne world in lore but never getting to see it sounds like the most Bungie way of doing things lol.
While it’s upsetting there really is no way for us to need to go to her throne room if she can’t even enter it. Maybe we could go to gather information but with Savathun being alive and with Eris I’m not to sure how much that would actually do. I definitely agree that she will most likely become a dungeon boss but who knows what bungie actually wants to do with her considering the fact that we have killed some pretty important enemies in simple story missions 🤷🏻♂️
Here specifically because I heard a back-and-forth with Savathun and Vanguard during the Spire activity while the season was ending, and subsequently heard and saw Savathun herself numerous times during TFS. Don't get me wrong, she's fantastic to experience in the story, but having apparently missed the lore book (and this video itself) there was definitely a "Huh? Wait, she's alive again? Since when?" moment.
They basically failed to follow the first rule of storytelling: show, don't tell. The whole finale was anticlimactic, but including the lore tab in the cutscene would have helped immensely. It honestly reads more like a storyboard than a lore tab, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was originally the plan but it ended up getting cut.
Honestly I don't nessesary agree with you here. I think Eris showing restraint in the moment and simply "Thanos snapping" Xivus throne world away, for a lack of a better term, was really impactful and really showed how strong she truly was. Then seeing Eris comming back from the transformation and being truly at peace, if only for a moment, was really heartwarming to me. Seeing such a haunted character finally reaching her goals and showing restraint in the final moments when everyone thought she couldn't was enough for me. The annoying thing to me is that so much happened off screen.
It occurs that a good way of going about it might have been to show the spell from Xivu's perspective, and all the bombastic display of power on her end contrasted with Eris' understated show of control.
Even a subtle thing like Immaru doing the resurrection ghost animation at the end would’ve made a sufficient visual indicator that Savathun is still alive to the ones who don’t dabble in lore.
I loved this seasons story, and it’s one of my top seasons along with Season of the Haunted. I think they slid in the part of the story that Savathun got rezzed after being killed by Eris, but left us Immaru to spy on us for her and she disappeared. That felt like a cop out and needed more narrative explanation. It would be cool to do a stealth mission in the tower where we sneak in with Immaru and he rezzes her against us knowing better and she runs away saying thanks puppet.
I’ve been waiting for Eris to go full Hive goddess for literal years, and my exact words at the end of this week’s cutscene were “that was underwhelming.”
Just adding in Xivu Arath screaming in anguished rage "NOOO!" as Eris severs the connection to the Hive war god's throne world have made the cutscene more impactful. But actually getting to see Xivu in-game, rather than a comic-style cutscene, would've been even more phenomenal. That said, Eris's words put it best: "I let this moment pass unnamed, without song. This is the rejection of your sad legacy." There wasn't a need for fanfare and ceremony; Eris only concerned herself with finishing what she set out to do. And she did.
I'm still cofused about what Eris even did to Xivu. So what if she is mortal now? How does that make her any less of a threat? It's not like we've seen her personally fight in any battles. What did we do all this for?
More specifically, it helps circumvent one of the major problems that cropped up in Season of the Seraph: how the hell do you fight a War God without playing right into their hands? No matter who wins, it's still war. It's still violence, and chaos, and bloodshed, and in those things is Xivu Arath found, and in those things is she strongest. Banishing her is a non-violent act. It's one of the few things that can really, ACTUALLY hurt her without strengthening her in the end. That's why Rasputin had to destroy himself; Regardless of WHO uses them, the presence of the Warsats and the Warmind himself is inherently violent; he's not called a 'Peacemind'. The only winning move is not to play at all. It also serves as a complete refutation of everything Xivu was hoping for. She loves Oryx, more than anything. She was fully convinced, with all of her heart, that she was right. That Eris would either ascend to a Hive god and join her, or would become the inheritor of Oryx's power, and therefore become Oryx himself. She was so convinced of her own victory, she didn't allow herself any thought of failure. Why would you? No matter what we did, if Eris fully used her power to wage war on the War God, Xivu would have won right then and there. She didn't expect us to banish her, and just let the power go afterward. No song, no ceremony, no fanfare, no battle, no war. She thought she was playing chess, but we weren't even playing checkers. We just packed up the entire board, went home, and left her sitting there. Shocked, furious, mortal for the first time in centuries... and completely, totally alone.
I like that Eris seemed to be aware of the contrast between her initial transformation and her becoming the most powerful Hive god when she starts with "i'll let this moment pass without song or fanfare" and I feel like it fits the fatigue she expresses when you speak with her again at the Athenaeum; the Hive will witness their doom not in the form of a flaming spectacle like that Xivu's brood might celebrate anyways, but with a whisper on the wind as if their bloody campaign across the stars was nothing more than an inconvenience for Eris. but during the actual cutscene I remember thinking "well she's definitely glowing now" when Ikora declared her the most powerful Hive god ever
I would have loved seeing Eris becoming larger, more menacing, more ominous, more "hive god looking", only for her to reject all that after banning Xivu Arath, in her spirit of "rejecting the flawed sword logic"
My biggest gripe is that the whole season felt like it was building up to this big choice for Eris, where’d she either have to give up her life, morals, or humanity in order to stop Xivu, but there was none of that. Eris didn’t have to sacrifice anything to win, other than the power that she had planned on giving up anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I actually think her plan was pretty ingenious, but last time we beat Xivu, Rasputin had to die, and I’m not saying I wanted an exact repeat of that but I wanted… something. Eris got off scott free, seemingly without any lasting consequences and that just feels a little cheap to me
In the novel of a lore card, the 7th story card, Eris is clearly exhausted, she needs Ikora’s help to stand up, and even when she does by herself, she is unsteady, her legs maybe even shaking. The sudden loss of power may have more drastic consequences later, but as it stands now, Eris is basically just having the worst hangover of her three lives, one as a human, one as a Guardian, and her now.
I feel Byf could be a "impartial narrative critiquer" for Bungie. He makes such good points that are both identifying both positive and negative aspects. It's one thing critiquing things after they are made and released, vs having a hand in what actually comes out.
I went from thinking the season was doing pretty good to it leaving a bad taste in my mouth. The end was just such a letdown. We deserved to see and/or participate in this, but instead Eris just says she hurt Xivu. We get no showdown with Xivu We get no conversation with Savathun and Eris. We get no conversation between Immaru and Savathun They had the momentum for an amazing memorable moment, and they threw it out the window and gave us a "nothing burger".
I wouldn’t call Eris becoming the strongest hive in existence and banishing 1 of the 2 remaining hive gods from her own throne world “nothing”. Not saying a fight wouldn’t have been badass. As for Eris talking with Savathun afterwards and maybe discussing the actual way to get into the portal would have been really nice. As for Immaru and Savathun, I really don’t think they like each other especially with some of Immaru’s dialogue from this season so I’m not to sure a conversation would have been that much although I guess it still would have been nice to hear Immaru’s reaction to being stuck with us
You’re looking at it from a cutscene point of view and that’s alright but I’m looking at it from a total view of the story we were given during and after the cutscene and the potential that lies ahead. But hey if you really believe it was “nothing” I’ll just agree to disagree🤝
@@LordxDC we never see Xivus Throne world, we read It in Lore but thats not the same. Theres no chance to compare how powerful Xivu was at her Cenit with post banishment power. So really, Next time we meet Xivu shes just another Big Boss hive to kill. And that amazingly described Throne world we may never see It because shes banished from It. You can see the strings that this is a wya for them not to have to design and model Xivu Arath's Throne world
byf buddy, i love lore! ive been playing multiple games thru this season and i didnt even know we killed the leviathan eater and def didnt know savathun resurrected again and gave us immaru as collateral
Honestly, I think the lack of fanfare in the cutscene made it *more* powerful. Having Eris cut Xivu Arath off from her Throne World with just a motion of her hand shows very clearly that she has so much power in that moment that even this insane feat is as simple as a wave of a hand and a statement of Truth. Adding more fanfare would undermine that, making it seem like cutting Xivu Arath off is a big deal... but in this cutscene *it isn't* , not to Eris. That's what makes it so powerful in my eyes.
Byf, I genuinely Love your content. I have watched almost all of your videos over the years. However, I think your content is at its best when you explain the story and the lore, and not so much when you talk in a way that makes it seem like you are the narrative team’s supervisor.
Agreed, for the first time ever i read the section of text you get after hearing the radio message just to confirm that i did hear it correctly & savathune was resurrected again after eris took her out. 100% this and seeing a furious xivu loosing her throne world should have been a cut scene.
The screen should've went black after Eris banished xivu and panned to xivu screaming in her throne world as it crumbles. Even if we don't see her fully and just a shadow, that impact would've been huge
I honestly kind of preferred a more sort of flat ending to the season because the main objective was to find out how to follow the Witness. Not deal with Xivu. As I understand it, our manipulations of hive magic in order *to* deal with Xivu was the key to this. So now we have all the pieces in place to learn how to follow them into the Traveller which I assume will be next season. Preparing and setting up that initial entry into the portal that will probably be within the first few minutes of The Final Shape. I've had so many villain-of-the-week big baddie clashes at the climaxes of seasons that I was happy to just stick one to the Leviathan Eater and leave it at that. I was sticking around for the magical freaky stuff, not Xivu yelling in my brain in all caps.
I think the reality is that people (myself included) wanted a cool battle but we had no clue how to enter Xivu’s throne world which is the only place where a battle would have actually done something. As for the cutscene, I think it lacked the dialogue that was later given to us by a simple convo with Eris about what she actually did and also Savathuns reaction to what Eris achieved and the info she promised after she was resurrected by Immaru again. Also us being able to hear Xivu the whole time but not getting anything from her during the cutscene was underwhelming. I think it was a good finale overall but it’s hard not compare it to the Season of the Seraph finale when it was something so important
I totally agree with wanting that extra lore in a cutscenes, BUT it is in the radio message that is required to finish the seasonal story quest. I have yet to read the lore, but everything you say that is in that lore page is in that radio message. And this is the first season where you are required to listen to the radio messages each week to progress the quest.
For a moment I thought that Eris killed Xivu in the background until Eris explain it later, I think that should have being the perfect moment for Xivu to show up after Eris killed Savathun and then show what she actually did to Xivu but yep a few problems with the presentation, the Leviathan Eater was a bit let down but that was obviously plot armor, but I enjoyed this season story, let hope the last season before The Final Shape improve a bit but we will see.
This season was awesome. The feedback that Byf provides of "Story shouldn't be in the lore" is the best way to summarize the issues with the finale. My fireteam and I still enjoyed this season a lot, and I still feel like we knew what had happened it just would have been nice to see the conversation after the mission to play out in the Athaneum for us to watch
Season of the Seraph gave us the highest high as a community (that I’ve experienced), our own infinity war moment. And I believe if this season had the same level of finale we would be back on that level. I can only hope next season can do that.
After the end scene, there is some ‘audio’ narrative follow up that give some incite to post Savathun throat cut death. The radio says to keep doing Spire and Alters as Savathun is out and the power of tithe go to you before her. Then when you are in Spire activity post said scene and radio, there is narrative and a banter going between Savathun and guardians/vanguard post Savathans death by Eris. But while slaying out in activity, can be hard to tune in to the conversation. Some good insight tho for those who saw the death and then post accounting.
You mean like, actually showing how the witch queen resurrected and escaped after Eris killed her? Or the secret of how to get inside the traveler? Or how there was no “shadow” of Xivu? Because I also wonder that.
Agree with the thought on how the story has been put into form, and my thoughts on it was connected to the episode format you mentioned later on. At this point, so much critical story moment is going on, it is better to put all of them into cutscenes, something that the episode format supposedly will do, less episodes per year, but more cutscenes and more "watchable" narrative as opposed to "readable". In short, I think the season was good, but in my opinion, clearly shines light on how the writing and/or narrative has outgrown the seasonal model's shorter or "cutscene-ly limited" timespan and capacity. Also, putting Xivu on the bench is a really nice move, I think it's basically to "preserve" her and that whole part of the lore for an episode, maybe it'll be the reclamation of Torobatl, maybe it'll be her resurfacing due to finding a tiny crack in Eris's spell and breaking it, making her a threat once again. All in all, the story is good, and looking forward to what they'll bring and how they'll put it to form.
Yea, having to listen to the radio message before getting that final lore tab meant I was as a little taken back when Ikora casually mentioned what happened and why Immaru was still around
Presentation is all the more important when we can't replay any of this story content. You get a couple chances to play it if you play multiple characters but not everyone does. Presentation is so critical to make sure something sticks in your head and that you fully understand the importance of what is shown, knowing Bungie has to choose certain critical moments l, potentially over others, because they have budgets and deadlines and whatever other real world restrictions. I hope eventually we get the ability to be able to replay through all the campaign stories as well as seasonal stories. I am admittedly not the best at picking up on all the important story beats right away but in D1 I was able to replay the story missions as many times as I wanted, and I did replay through the campaigns fairly frequently. The lore books are great and do serve to be able to recap seasonal story stuff alongside providing additional story beats but they need certain things fresh in your mind to get the full benefit from. As well as being able to quickly and easily remember which lore book goes with which season and what important cut scenes may have been played in between entries. Destiny 2 has great story elements and characters but I feel like the vast majority of the player base misses out on it because of presentation.
I was just trying to describe my similar thoughts on another video - Byf summed it up pretty well. Basically, as soon as I know I'm going to have to explain something to my brother, who is super casual and plays maybe once a week, I know something important has been lost in the narrative somewhere. The whole point of this season was to get information from Savathun - you can't immediately kill her and then just drop a quick note from Ikora via radio log that she's back actually and left us a vague clue somewhere... one is FAR more memorable than the other. Especially when it's a cut scene where a giant 3-eyed, skull faced, alien moth lady calls someone else 'honey'...
I’m kind of hoping that the Player Guardian not just showing up in a lore tab, but also having a speaking role, is a sign that Bungie has finally hear the criticism I know that quite a few people have that… it kind of feels like the PG just disappears in anything where we’re not directly controlling them Also another positive I’ll give this season is that it finally feels like we’re more then just the driving force that progresses the plot, it actually really felt like the PG was really involved *with* this seasons plot, rather then being an outside observer when we’re not just being sent out to kill stuff
This season also felt like you're an outside force sent to kill stuff. Theres one or two times where Eris directly adresses you as "Guardian" but the rest youre pretty much unmentioned
Destiny's biggest narrative flaw is that 2000s fps silent protagonist schtick. If Destiny had text based dialogue so that our character can actually interact with other characters in the setting a lot of its narrative issues would go away. In most stories, the player character is your window into the world. In Destiny, the player character actively obscures our view of the world by their lack of interaction with it. For the majority of Destiny's narrative the player has not just known more about the setting than the character, but also had no idea how much information the character actually has, because they never speak. On the flip-side, the player character to this day knows things that we as players don't, because we can't interact with the world in any way other than silent violence. We're apparently really good friends with Eris and Crow. But we've also never said more than a few words to either of them. Imagine if, instead of lore being relegated to lore tabs and grimioires, you could just ask Eris about stuff. Every good RPG does this because its so effective. You leave the player unvoiced, so that they can still be easily projected onto, but you allow the player to pick dialogue options to ask questions and choose how they talk to people. Its so cheap and so effective. The fact that, for 90% of Destiny's story the player character could literally not exist, have anything they did instead get attributed to the closest npc, and the story actually makes more sense this way, is insane. (Seriously, the narrative makes way more sense if you, for example, attribute all of our anti-hive deeds in Destiny 1 to Eris) We're such a non entity in the plot that our presence literally detracts from the narrative more than it adds outside of very specific storylines. And even in those, the narrative is really hurt by us not having text dialogue. The only times we've ever not been a figurative black hole tossed into the plot, bulldozing our way through everything and removing any stakes, is the handful of times we get mentioned in lore tabs. Which is terrible for a character, let alone a player character, but the way the PC is handled in Destiny is so bad that a brief mention in a lore tab is actually an improvement.
It’s very exciting that each season has me excited for the next. So much of destiny has been disjointed having the year of lightfall feel more connected has been great
To be fair, Savu coming back again was also in the radio broadcast you have to do for the quest, not just the lore tab. I never read the lore and I knew she was alive because of that. But still, yeah, lots of people don't listen while those play.
I think they did the smart move this season and actually made them required to continue the quest. It MIGHT give the players more incentive to listen to them that way XD
I agree with the end needing a more adequate explanation n the finale cutscene but, this doesn’t make me view this season n an overall negative light whatsoever. Imo this is a top 3 or 4 season for D2. A lot of good steps forward for the seasonal/episode model n D2. They changed things up and it was a big W imo. Sure, there r always things that can be improved upon. But they deserve some positive feedback for changing things up n multiple ways this season.
Before talking about the presentation I have one thought; Xivu is now mortal, yes? Like Calus? Does that mean the Witness could make her a disciple? That would amp her power back up and set up for a lot more chaos in the next season, Final Shape, and beyond if she survives past Final Shape. I agree 100% with you on both fronts; I'd love for more of what is in the Lore Book to be on screen but I also get they have a limited amount of time and resources and have to pick and choose what is on screen and what is in books. They for sure chose the right moment to be on screen; Eris taking down Savathun with one swipe of her sword when it took us so much to do it before speaks volumes in my mind of how powerful she was as the Hive God of Vengence.
I fully agree on presentation being the main issue here. I'd even include tuning in this final story mission as a big issue, because this entire "grande finale" against Xivu's greatest champion hit like a wet noodle. I'd even compare it to just patrolling in the EDZ. You can stand in front of this boss without it really being able to take you down (which i had to do because my fight was bugged)
There were 2 new lore pieced released this week that heavily imply Eris was saved from Crota by Savathun, and Savathun gave her the hive eyes. It's the Sororicide XII and the lore from the seasonal story sparrow, Laminos.
looking forward to whatever is coming next this season, also glad we won't have a season of the seraph issue where it's the story conflicting with the seasonal event. would be interesting to get definitive answers to the headless ones bit now that there's not really any tension to overshadow it
I wonder if the Way to Follow the Witness has something to do with Imbaru - maybe you have to understand how the portal works and how it will affect you to pass through and survive? Savathun said in season of the lost to "Stand on the line between light and dark, and look up" Well - Stand in the Ooby (Idfk how its spelled) - and Look Up.
The second part of the Imbaru engine can be unlocked by obtaining an opaque card from the enterance of the savathun spire bosses and use it to unlock the strength test
Gotta respectfully disagree with a lot of the points, this feels very knee-jerk reaction to a very intentional ending. If anything, I'd say that we needed more time to build up the Leviathan-Eater as a threat, and I agree that Bungie's decision to make the events during and after Savathun's 2nd resurrection offscreen was a misstep. Otherwise, the climax was perfectly fine: fun boss with a lot of good gasp-worthy moments. I also don't understand the argument surrounding the part of the cutscene where Eris becomes the strongest Hive in history? Yes, it should've had a bit more meat to it, show Xivu pleading with and screaming at Eris as she's forced out of her throneworld or something to that effect, but what we got was intentional, Eris even proclaims as such. The entire point is that it's anti-climactic: A visibly powerful (but not too showy) Eris performs a speech essentially proclaiming the Sword Logic false/flawed, and the Osmium Dynasty's legacy to be sad and pointless, before quickly and quietly disconnecting Xivu's life support and subsequently turning down the opportunity to stay the most powerful Hive in existence. That's pretty effective to me, I didn't need massive fanfare to get the idea, and it feels pretty blind or short-sighted to not see that, to be honest. As a small little ending tangent I know Byf was in the heat of the moment grasping for an example, but if somebody actually asks "wait I thought Savathun died", they either heard from a friend that Savathun was alive and killed during Witch Queen (they didn't play Season of the Witch) or they were only told the first half by said friend, or they're just stupid and watched the finale cutscene only to skip the holoprojector transmission immediately afterward that describes Savvy's re-resurrection and retreat. Of those only possibilities, Bungie is not at fault, the person is.
To me the main problem in the finale is the portal. We did all of this just so savathun can tell us "to be continued" is really a bummer. I also think savathun is one of the best if not the best villan but its not her time. Now its about the portal, the traveler, the pale heart, the witness, the final shape. Nothing else. I thought the finale we would see savathun telling us we need to use some kind of link from the veil to get access to the pale heart and the next season will be focused on getting the connection, Just like how the witness did. But "tbc" really killed the mood for me
They did so much to set up the fact that Xivu would, in spite of her own slavish adherence to the Sword Logic, attempt to exact vengeance for the death of Oryx, thus empowering the Hive god of Vengeance, only for that narrative thread to fade away.
Honestly, my biggest problem with that important bit being in the lore book was the fact that you'd have to read the lore book in between the cutscene and when you go back to the HELM. I enjoy reading the lore entries after i complete the game bits, so i was so confused when Ikora said savathun was alive again and had escaped
When i finished the week 7 quest there were two thing that annoyed me. As when Eris became a Hive God i had goosebumps all over my skin, but when she became the most powerful Hive God I just felt dissapointment that nothing happened. Also very dissapointed of how easy it seemed for Eris to give up the immense power she possessed. i would have liked to see a struggle. I would have believed she at least would consider to keep the power to have a bit more suspense in that moment. Otherwise a great season so far! Really enjoying it.
I felt underwhelmed by it all and when all the characters started talking about what happened afterwards I was like wtf?! The story was really good and Eris's choice surprised me, I just wish I could have seen more.
My main annoyance is that the important stuff happened off-screen. Sure, Savathun was revived, but then her second revival and escape happened off-screen, and we had no idea what Eris did until it was explained to us after. Imagine if we had seen Xivu Arath for the first time in this cutscene, the first actual look at her after we "beat" her, at which point she can explain to "us" (more likely an important hive or by goading Eris) what had just happened, and then we cut back to Savathun escaping. That would've been a more active way to tell us what had just happened, rather than the confusing ending we did get where all the important stuff gets told to us afterwards.
What would've been cool to see is, the moment Eris struck Savathun, Xivu's portal opens up and she comes out of it. And then, just at that moment, Eris banished her with all the power she had gained.
@@allentayoto7387 She banished her from her own Throne World. That wouldn’t work because Xivu Arath would have been vulnerable right in front of two powerful Gaurdians. That’s banishing her and giving her no exit. She would have put her neck on the chopping block if she did that. This leaves her open for The Final Shape episode in hindsight.
It's obvious they had budget and time constraints. They wouldn't end the cutscene in such moment otherwise. Each season has dedicated budget and time to be crafted and it would be quite long cutscene to show that second revival, escape and bargain.
@Altherot that's true. Given they said and I quote Final Shape and it's episode's are supposed to have more cutscenes though they could lying a man can hope.
Agreed. That irritated me a lot. We should have seen her get up again and so on. That said, ... err... Okay so Savathun's last line Sent me. "It looks good on you, Honey." BUT. BUT. The surrounding lore... Like. Holy Shit. The implications of what Eris DID.
I think the idea that there wasn't enough 'fanfare' after Eris killed Savathun is the exact opposite of what that moment wanted to achieve. Right after killing Savathun, Eris says: "I let this moment pass unnamed, without song. This is the rejection of your sad legacy." I belive this line is exactly why there wasn't any big ritual or explosion or anything; it was meant to undermine the sword logic and show the hive that even the act of Eris ascending to the most powerful Hive God means nothing. If there had been any more 'fanfare', it would imply that there was glory in Eris killing Savathun, which would support the sword logic, making the line I quoted from Eris obsolete.
Eris’ reaction in the face of Hive gods and their logic was: “meh, I don’t care, I’m still going to slaughter the Hive to extinction”. Eris was still in control. Both Xivu and Savathun felt so sure of themselves, that she would be their pawn, and be damned to the Deep and the Sword Logic as they were. But her desire for revenge and the Coalition’s survival was stronger than the lust for power. She was offered the sword, and instead broke it. From its splinters Eris’ plan remains the same: slaughter the Hive with the broken splinters of their naïve sword. I do still believe we will kill Savathun, Xivu, and the Worm Gods, leading the Hive on a path to extinction. But that may come to pass later. If Bungie were to add new enemy races for us to fight in the upcoming new era, post Final Shape, then enemy factions like the Hive or Scorn must be killed off to do so.
Personally I don't give a fuck what everyone else is crying about, this ending was PERFECT! Eris gathered all that power and rejects all the Hive stands for which is by far the MOST POWERFUL thing she could have done, take their ultimate power and reject their power at the same time is the one thing neither Savathun nor Xivu would have ever imagined would be the path Eris would take. No ritual, no song, no fanfare... it was amazing! We can almost hear Xivu throwing a temper tantrum as Eris didn't obey the sword logic and yet still defeated Xivu without a single ounce of conflict.
My personal understanding is that the disappointment with the scene is not about a lack of fanfare or glorification but rather a lack of understandability. When I was watching the scene, I also felt like something was missing even after hearing what Eris says. My own problem with the cutscene is that it's difficult to trust and believe the significance of the cutscene. It was good at not being cool but less good at conveying what actually happened. I think that might be the problem that people have. Or maybe I have bad media comprehension.
@@SnyperMK2000JclL I quite enjoyed the cutscenes myself but it could have been improved with 2 things. Xivu Arath should have had lines for that scene and the lore page we got should have been in the cutscene instead. Other then that it was spot on.
I like this take, it kinda reshaped the way I thought about that scene
Being honest, this was a decent season. There are some bumps but it was one of the better seasons, and while the season finale didnt really stick the landing i'm just glad Savathûn is alive again and we get more of her when it is time to come back to the hive again.
^^ I’m about here with this. I’d say on balance more than decent, but it’s hard to not judge it harshly based on having seen the finale most recently. That’s what’s fresh in our minds. That’s what we’re still focused on.
@@MynameisByfI mean it seems like there's something after this aswell so I wouldn't say this is the 'finale'
@@dropkick3024 Especially since there's still 3 more audio logs to hear unless I somehow missed a bunch.
@S3Cs4uN8 yeah and there's a triumph aswell for it and I won't reveal it cause you know spoilers. Well it doesn't technically reveal anything but it does say what's deep within the Imbaru Engine. Like how there's one final test that needs to be unlocked.
@@MynameisByf I'm hoping that the season finale is a good one. maybe that'll help remedy the abrupt ending.
I think that Bungie undercutting the presentation of Eris as the most powerful Hive in history is completely intentional.
"I let this moment pass unnamed, without song."
That was Eris' way of spitting on everything the Hive worship.
And her just being more glowy does a good job of conveying that; she's a lot more restrained than when she became a Hive God in the first place.
I fully agree that we should have seen Xivu in that moment of defeat.
Or at least heard her scream in fury as she realized she got majorly screwed for the second time in as many years.
I also agree that we should have gotten the lore tab as a cutscene, and not just because I like the cutscenes. People are going to miss that lore tab, and it's going to lead to confusion.
That said, maybe that's another meta way of generating Imbaru, like Truth to Power.
All in all, I think Bungie stuck the landing well enough.
P.S. Two things I want to know are:
How did we kill the Leviathan Eater so easily when he put up such a fight the first time?
Tea is confirmed to exist in the Destiny universe. Why have our Guardians never been able to buy a cup of hot brown?
We met the Leviathan Eater in the third week of the season I believe(might be wrong), and hadn’t seen it until the finale, where Eris instructs us to use our improved Hive abilities to erect the shield during the Hive Tombships bombardment, like a corrupted version of Zavala using Ward of Dawn in the first mission of the Red War campaign(this comparison kinda blew me away while in the mission, cool moment).
Before the shield is erected we only get that small bit of the Leviathan-Eater’s health bar because I believe we couldn’t kill it until we used our Acolyte staff, unleashing the Sword and Bomb logic upon our enemies, Leviathan-Eater included. Eris alludes to the fact that as we use the Staff to invoke more rituals, our Hive magic grows stronger, we become more connected to the Sword Logic but purified by Light.
As for coffee, I dunno, there’s never been mention of coffee plants being produced, but the agriculture of the Last City is pretty advanced considering most of it is stolen Golden Age tech(can thank Hunters for most of that tech). Maybe coffee is more of a citizen’s drink in the Last City, like the workers and everyday Joe’s/Janes need it more than Guardians, because we don’t need the extra caffeine, seeing as we don’t really need any food or beverage to live, we just have stuff like ramen and tea for the taste.
I enjoyed this theorizing about the boss fight and existence of coffee, even though it’s just gameplay and science fiction agriculture, I like hypothesizing.
@@sn0wyc0sm0 am i the only one who got final encounter kings fall dome vibes lol
Honestly after she said that line I went to make myself a cuppa XD.
Perhaps, but I just can't shake the fact this is a conveniently cynical way to overlook a story beat since they don't want to put a budget to it
Personally I just can't wait for the Xivu Arath arc, I bet it's going to open with her reaction to losing connection to her throne world
Yeah, Eris' power up needed something more dramatic. Chantings would have been great, but there was no one to chant, so the other option is this: Have Xivu interact, even as just a voice, during this moment.
When Eris kills Savathun and her powers grows, have her shout something like "MY NEWBORN SISTER HAS FINALLY ACCEPTED THE BLADE AND JOINED ME!" or the likes.
And then, confusion and maybe a pained scream when Eris cuts Xivu from her Throne World. It would improve the cinematic a whole lot, and sell the idea that Eris was at the peak of her power, and the damage she caused to Xivu.
About the chanting, Eris herself said something about "without a song" so I'd say that was meant this way with intend.
"We see Xivu step down from her Palace in the portal and start to walk towards giant Hive God Eris. As she readies her sword, Eris crushes her rune, and Xivu's throne world vanishes behind her. Xivu turns in surprise, then turns back to Eris and screams in rage. As she charges the portal, Eris drops her sword and the portal closes, leaving Xivu in the Ascendant Plane. Eris then falls over and shrinks back down to human. Then the interaction with Savathun leaving Immaru with us happens."
Man, that would have been nice.
Actually pathetic that we have to fuckin keeping creating scenarios in our heads because bungie doesn't take seasonal content seriously
I'm not talking shit about your comment is just I do the same because the idea is always there, yet the execution .......😢
That 7th page should have been in that cutscene 100%
I completely agree, but they probably didn’t want to pay all the guardian VAs for a single cutscene in a season.
That's extremely depressing
@@padawanjon6441also I could see it being too long to fit into a cutscene let alone a seasonal one, that page was practically a book itself, if anything it should have been the radio message at least
Link to the lore?
Possibly. I think it's because they had a limited budget and need to show what's most relevant. I wish it was in there tho.
I can't believe the main goal of this season happened off-screen.
So much interesting interaction and drama to show in the moment where Savathun comes back to life. Her interaction with Eris and reaction to her plan. Her interaction with us, her killers. Her reaction to the Witness nearing total victory, to the state of things after we ruined her plan that she believed would work. Her explanation of this really interesting and important plot detail. Her reaction to that massive revelation that she learned just before she died but never really had time to process.
It was so intriguing to see where Savathun stands coming back to life ahead of going into Final Shape. Yet they basically just brush her aside for later and what they do give happens off screen.
say what you will about the finale, but savathûn calling eris "honey" was too good
I was not expecting Savathun to call Eris ‘honey’ but it makes sense. Savathun has always been the most, idk, feminine, of the three sisters but her speech to us is very formal. Reflective of her intellect. But since Eris is hive too in that scene, she is talking to someone familiar. Someone hive. It was shocking but the delivery was so good. It just served as a reminder since WQ debuted of how good Savathun’s VA is.
I wanted to see and hear Xivu scream and thrash about in agony as Eris cut her off from her throne world. I wanted to watch Savathun laugh in glee and hold Eris in respect as a sister-god of vengeance. I wanted a conversation between Eris and Savathun, where Eris lays out her cards and shoves Savathun's ideals in her own face, fighting her deceit with a vengeance that we guardians are.
I like it, but it could've been so MUCH MORE.
why would u say this now i'm mourning what COULD HAVE BEEN
"What could have been" is always what Destiny 2 is.
Been saying that since 2013. The game that could of been.
I think we're going to get xivu's reaction when her story arc rolls around again. so there's that to look forward to
And also, if you wish things had gone differently, feel free to write fan fiction! there's plenty of people who would read it :3
I think someone put it best, There's spectical in becoming a hive god because she needs the power of the sword logic to do so. however, at the end, with Eris close to finishing her plan, there can be No fan fair. she's rejecting everything that the hive revel, and becoming the most powerful god in existence, means nothing to her except the vengeance she craves for the friends she lost.
The ending left me wanting more, but the part where Eris just hacks down that witch with almost no hesitation was beautiful.
I feel like Xivu's reaction should be an epilogue, similar to Season of the Haunted or the true Final Seraph Mission
But Bungie doesn’t want you to give your opinion on what you want to see remember 💀 somehow your supposed to give feedback without an opinion. 😂
I was expecting a Kong vs. Godzilla-type finale. It's a bit disappointing to not see Eris transform into a proper hive god as big as Oryx.
Any action at all wouldve been preferable tbh
EXACTLY THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR, not some smol nitwit with a green level world drop sword to slash savathun and thats the end of it.
You expected too much.
To be fair, it took one slash to the neck to kill Savathûn. It took us a considerable amount of effort to kill her in The Witch Queen.
@@acgearsandarms1343 plot armor
Ever since Bungie confirmed that Savathún wasn't gonna play a big role in this season, I was kinda skeptical at first. The first few weeks started out strong but gradually started decreasing imo
I mean… Savathun’s role in this not being huge is par for the course given she spent the whole season dead.
I don’t think the balance of whether the season was good or not hung on her alone.
That said, you’re right about the tempo of the season. Strong start weaker finish.
Yet you think Sonic prime is peak knowing it's not
@@MynameisByfDude, it’s called season of the WITCH and Savathûn is the WITCH QUEEN. We know dang well that death doesn’t stop her schemes.
I feel like it’s not over. Xivu may strike out at eris and kill her in vengeance. By doing so, it may make arris come back as the hive god of vengeance. The ending for the season feels like everything is too happy and perfect.
Nah, the season seems cut and close. Well likely get some info leading into the Next season. Besides rhwy directly tell you Xivu Will be dealt with after the Witness
Copium. Just look at all the other Bungie seasons... when it's over, it's over regardless of the lingering questions. They might as well just add "TO BE CONTINUED..." when you finish the cut scene/radio transmission.
@@gabrielpineirogarcia2078
It's definitely not over. We've still got another transmission to listen to on the Radio, so we probably have another mission? Maybe like in Defiance with that last mission to avenge Amanda?
@@twiz66 Then how do you explain the 3 radio messages, the missing lore, and everything else?
Xivu definitely seems like a post Final Shape adventure
12:20 I agree with what you're saying and I want to add that imo hearing our guardian speak and readying whatever weapon we have against savathun, seeing the void form around ikora, and then lowering that would have hit harder then just reading it.
I reckon a ‘dynasty’ type video showing us all the lore surrounding Eris from her early days to now would be insanely good. She’s a huge character in this game and so much of her story is in the lore rather than shown!
Savathun definitely knew this was gonna happen, as soon as she was revived her first act was to taunt eris. I think savathun was willing to sacrifice everything she had aquired so that the witness is destroyed
Would it even be taunting? Kind of seems like she legit thinks just enjoys someone taking on the form of her people. Like for her it could be a form of cultural appreciation.
Sounded less like taunting and more like a "You go, girl!" To me
Show, don't tell. The greatest lesson a writer can ever learn.
Uh this seasons are planed so
@@lazyvoid7107 huh?
The irony is the writing becomes the example to show when they do not learn this lesson.
@@zperk13 Non of this two seasons can't be fix since it's already finished and planed now so criticizing now won't fix the next season
Never make people read. They hate reading.
I mean, I know that seasons don’t exactly have the budget of a campaign, and the conclusion is logical and probably the safest route to take, but like she seriously just crushed a hive rune and called it a day
The savathun part was great though, easily one of the coolest cutscenes out there
Thats what we saw. I wouldnt reject some more details about how it worked, but it was a fucking epic moment nontheless.
To the contrary on the display of Eris' power: Eris needed grand ritual circles and many worms to transform. But in the end, a wave of her hand was enough to steal a god's immortality. The display of her power is not in being big and flashy and dramatic but rather a small, simple action with incredible consequences. Building a nuke is a grand act of engineering, but the power and consequences are behind pressing the launch button.
Oryx: "You sure are a Hive! Just not a Hive God!"
Eris: "Oh Yeah? What's the difference?"
Oryx: "PRESENTATION"
The cutscene is perfect.. but then it ends. Eris not becoming a huge hive god is perfect for her rejecting the sword, not showing Xivu is fine since we finally got a drawing of her and her symbol, But everything from the lore book should have 100% been in the cutscene, it leaves way too much important context out for a finale compared to something like seraphs finale which was AMAZING.
Spinfoil hat but read if interested: While her second revival may have happened off-screen, and yeah, they may have needed to show that, I think the reason they haven't shown Xivu's part in all of this is the same reason she is going to appear after TFS takes place: They haven't finished making her yet, or at least in time to animate her. It's also the reason her statue isn't visible during the WQ. They have a VA but may not have a complete model in time for the seasonal story. Not trying to defend this, her side definitely deserved to be shown in some way, but with how much has been allocated to other games, it didn't seem like it was in the cards, which was very disappointing.
Honestly, I wouldnt discard that idea
Honestly the whole finale not being a bombastic battle or transformation is exactly to plan I believe. The whole point is Eris turned on the entire idea and plan as everyone expected, and instead made it a subtle and devastating win with no fight instead. Now whether that was the right call or not? Eh... not as sure.
I think it was perfect. Use all that power to reject all the Hive stands for rather than bringing war upon Xivu, we learned this a few seasons ago and people seem to not understand. Even if all that power WE COULD NEVER DEFEAT XIVU IN A HEAD ON CONFLICT thus a subtle and cunning play to banish Xivu from her seat of power is far more devastating to Xivu than if we had tried to attack her directly, otherwise Rasputin would still be alive and we would have used the Warsat network to attack Xivu long long long ago... but alas, bringing war upon the GOD OF WAR is the most ignorant and devastating thing we could do to Humanity as a whole. The lack of fanfare, the lack of ritual, the lack of reveling in the deaths, the lack of the sword or bomb logic is 100% the ONLY way we could have ever defeated Xivu, much like the ONLY move Rasputin could make was sacrificing himself and all of the Warsat network so it couldn't be used to bring about war and violence which would only have made Xivu stronger.
People really need to start paying attention to things that happen and why those decisions were made. This is literally the one and only way we could have ever defeated Xivu without physical conflict and that's been eluded to for nearly a year+ at this point.
Sounds like mighty convenient reasoning for a company who need to save resources for final shape/marathon..😅
Hey it'd be good to note that after the cutscene you go talk to Eris, and she talks about the second revival of Savathun and that Immaru's being kept as a ward! This information is available to any who finish the seasonal quest.
The radio conversation which is the final quest step also has Ikora talking about Savathun's resurrection and her feelings on it.
My problem with this week was the lack of an explanation of how eris severed Xivu's connection to her throne world. I expected the lore tab to go in depth to that as I didn't even know it was possible. I believe the words were "She did something to cut Xivu off from her throne world" or something akin to that at least (I don't feel like pulling up the quote). And it kind of reminded me of a certain line from the 9th movie in a saga that was also prodigiously clowned. "Somehow Palpatine Returned." That's what I noticed as a shortcoming story-wise. We don't really find out how the connection was severed and to my knowledge we have never known how that was done. I may be wrong but that's what i would like to see fixed: an explanation of how eris achieved what she did. Gameplay wise: the bossfight was pretty good, lots of enemies and a decently scary boss. I wish he could move around the arena a little more because he kinda just stayed on the middle track and let me rocket him. Also the middle phase where we were "bombarded..." I was kinda expecting a little more of a bombardment. 2 knights and 4 thrall every 10 seconds isn't exactly difficult to deal with. Overall though a decent ending, time (and the radio messages remaining) will tell how this ending truly shakes out though
I totally understand your concern about the Cutscene but tbf in the last Radio message we get from the Bladed Path Quest, Ikora is talking about that Savathun was revived once more and gave Immaru to the Vanguard. Of course not in depth as in the Lore Tab, but it was mentioned so that all players have the chance to catch up. :)
This situation, where the dramatic impact of a cut scene is significantly diminished because of what is left out (eg Xivu’s pov), is similar to what happened in season of the lost. Osiris’ transformation into Savathun was entirely off screen, which was unsatisfying to say the least. We later learned that Savathun’s character model wasn’t completed in time for that season. Perhaps similarly pragmatic considerations are at play here?
The ending really came out of left field for me. Like… it was a cool concept, locking Xivu out of her throneworld. But since when was that something Eris could do? I guess it could happen, but there was nothing to even hint that this was how it would go down. So instead of being invested and interested the first time I played through I was just left confused. Same with the fate of Savathun, it wasn’t until Ikoras final message I actually realised she wasn’t dead still. I fully thought Eris had changed the plan and binned her off?
It was an interesting but very rushed conclusion that pulled abilities and moments out of ‘imagination’ ie with no set up.
Also I checked the imbaru engine. Nothing new for Oryx? Seems like a blatant missing piece.
Real.
It's probably that whatever gets us through the portal since one of the triumphs says 'Unlock Savathun's Vault'
Not just "since when was that something Eris could do" but "since when was that even a possibility?" Literally every Ascendant Hive (orange bars/yellow bars in D1) has a minor "throne world" -- this was even demonstrated for us back in Forsaken with the Mindbender, who built a tiny one partly off of Cayde's death. Could Xivu Arath not simply get a new one? And if not, considering Xivu is now mortal, could her nearest underling general not just murder her and take her place as the new rightful monarch of the Hive? We may have just kicked the can down the road. (Also, where's all that tribute going now?)
Also, going from immortal to mortal is a big step for sure, but we have probably done nothing about her actual power. And wait -- if she's *cut off* from her throne world, does that mean the throne world *itself* still exists? Again, could someone come in and usurp it? This definitely seems like the kind of thing Mara Sov has... *literally done before* . (Could even be this is the timeline where it's not Eris but *Mara* who becomes the problem)
@@zfxchip yeah the amount of questions this raises is almost never ending. Thats why some kind of cutscene with Xivu Araths reaction was vital imo. Is she aware this has even happened? Surely she must, maybe sensed it happen. But do her brood know that she is vulnerable now? Or is she keeping this massive vulnerability a secret to avoid the scenario you suggested above. I’m honestly surprised that being cut off from your throne world, which (near enough) seems to be a physical manifestation of your consciousness in a pocket dimension, doesn’t seem to harm or hurt Xivu/Mara all that much. So many questions on top of this that so few players will ever learn that answers to cos they’ll either never be answered or be restricted to lore tabs.
You know I have a sneaking theory that they are clearly gonna kill off Xivu Arath in the Heresy episode and the reason why Eris destroyed her throneworld is so they don't have to build a completely new destination.
I feel thats the route they're gonna take and it sucks cause I wanted a DLC outta her.
Wow that makes a lot of sense
It wasn’t destroyed, she was simply cut off from it. It could still possibly exist.
@@nemokrad2650idk still feels like we aren't ever gonna see it. Why would we visit it if we don't need it to kill her?
That our a dungeon boss next season
Possibly. But, I feel Eris and us will kill off Savathun and her entire brood later, after killing Xivu. After the Hive Gods are all head, we’ll hunt down the worm gods next. Then the hive will be doomed to a slow burn of extinction as they eat each other. In my opinion, Eris is playing the long game, striking to kill Savathun, her brood, and the rest of the Hive, only after the Witness is killed, it’s forces destroyed, and when we all are in a better position, with knowledge in hand, to destroy what remains of the Hive. I’m convinced, Eris will outlast the Hive, and slaughter them to extinction. Maybe then, if she’s too far gone, she’ll have left us notes for us and Mara, on how to end her.
I feel like the cutscene only needed like 2 or 3 more lines to add in the fact that Eris is relinquishing all that power in defiance of the Sword Logic and that she's spending it all instead on a spell to remove Xivu Arath from her throne world. It feels really weird us just hearing about what she actually did after being there in the room with her as she did it and not being told.
A finale is really, really important. We should have seen Immaru sneaking in to revive Savathun a second time, and the conversation that occured after. We should have seen Eris on the cusp of ascending, an enormous shadowy figure with terrible wings emanating from Eris, only for her to burn all that power - then the gradual return of the lighting as Eris, human again, collapses.
I disagree... if we had seen fanfare and ritual as Eris underwent another metamorphosis it would have been Accepting the Hive and thus the Sword Logic... but Eris didn't do any of that, she rejected it all, proving that one can win against the sword logic without ever lifting their sword to follow the Bladed Path. She rejected everything it means to be Hive, everything to do with the sword logic and instead pulled off a clever and very subtle move that dealt dealt massively devastating blow to the most powerful of Hive gods, all without physically making war against the Hive God of War thus not empowering Xivu further.
Imo this somber and bland ending is perfect as it is the ONE and ONLY way we could have ever defeated Xivu AND not lose Eris to the Hive God Pantheon forever... she took their power, shit upon their logic and dealt the biggest blow to the Hive since the Worms first lied to the Krill and pushed them towards darkness... absolute and utter destruction without firing a single shot or swinging a single sword... THAT is pure perfection!
The prospect of a dark shadowy figure looming above or behind eris, teasing what she could become with all the power would be a great detail. Her turning it down and using all of it to fuck up xivu was the most important part, it would more visualize the trade eris made.
Thanks for this. You verbalized the general thoughts I had about the season and finale that I couldn't fully suss out when I finished it earlier today. I love the season and much of the lore and story, but that finale just was nowhere near enough with all the big stuff that happened as a result.
One annoyance I had was the complete and utter lack of consequences for Eris becoming Hive. No repercussions, in fact she’s actually STRONGER.
Turning into another species, essentially, should leave some kind of downside.
As much as I would have liked to see the lore page happen in engine, they have a lot of outs for distributing that information other ways (voiceovers in Spire, etc) and it does feel like we have something approximating another story mission before we move on to the next season.
One thing I really appreciated in the mission was Eris calling us back to cast the dome with her when the hive came in for a bombing run, answering bombs with bomb logic. I also think Sororicide absolutely nails the overlay of hive-style writing onto Eris' speech patterns. She sounds like Hive-Eris there and not Eris or one of the other hive gods.
I had to watch a lore video to find out that Savathûn wasn't now powerless, that's how poorly this was handles, Ikora and Eris explain what happenned with Immaru and Savathûn's escape (which is strange because we were cannonically there), but nowhere do they mention that Savathûn still has her powers, all I got was Eris took all of Savathûn's power and then had to offer the vanguard Immaru inorder to leave, from the way it was framed, I thought that meant she was pathetic and completely depowerred, it left a horrible taste in my mouth and I was very underwhelmed until I found out about the lore tab, important details like this shouldn't be trapped as lore.
Honestly though even with that the fact that she was 100% ready to square up with Ikora, known to be incredibly powerful even among the guardians, but backed down when the guardians stepped up to be willing to fight as well. She had zero fear of Ikora but either her and the guardian or just the guardian themself was considered enough of a threat to her to make her back down.
She should still have the light, but her power as a hive god should be long gone. Gone the moment she got rid of her worm. Bungie seems to have a really hard time keeping Savathuns abilities straight. Imbaru for example. Explicilty did not work. If she made Imbaru real, she would have won. But we stopped her from making Imbaru a reality back in Forsaken. Which is why she got rid of her worm in the first place.
Bungie forgets their own lore details sometimes, but never something this big before. Savathun is a walking plot hole at the moment, and I hope that bungie finds a way to fix it, which they could certainly do. I just don't think they've even realised theres a plot hole. Most of the playerbase hasn't noticed either, including Byf. Like, the term Imbaru literally originates from a lore entry explaining that Imbaru does not actually work, and that making Imbaru real is Savathuns ultimate goal and victory condition.
@@fluidwolf well... yeah, we are the ones who killed her and her brother, I don't think Ikora could have taken her either, she might be powerful but Savathûn can sling of multiple nova bombs per minute.
So can ikora, guardians are pretty broken in lore. a close comparison to how we are lore wise, would be old Era mayhem where ability regen was cranked up by like 1000% or so. But obviously we can't be like that gameplay wise. So it does leave a slight disconnect for those in the community who simply do not know any better
@@onikemcfee3506 Some guardians can sling back to back supers. Others can't. Cayde can only do a few Golden Guns, and the three shot limit is explicitly mentioned in lore tabs a few times. Ikora being able to drop novas back to back is an exceptional feat. Osiris is possibly the most powerful Guardian we've seen given his constant super use and ability to use multiple at the same time.
I suspect super use drains from the same pool of light used for resurrection but thats something the lore has only vaguely hinted at. Its surprising how little we actually know about the basics of Guardian capabilities.
One thing I liked about the final mission was that it felt like the other side of a raid.
The enemy was trying to stop us from setting up a hive ritual magic, and we have a special god/person in the background whos immune to damage (because reasons). Then we shift into the bubble and it was DPS phase.
this finale actually sets up a possible dungeon with savathun and xivu as bosses.
Would’ve been in the dungeon pass, might be an exotic mission with Savathûn taunting and making fun of Xivu for being bested by a human with Hive eyes. Maybe the mission to kill Xivu will be in the Heresy episode considering the image for it is a Hive sword.
The events from the lore tab are summarized in the radio message for the week. Which accessing is required for the main story progression.
i really hope eris cutting xivu off from her throne world doesnt mean we’ll never get to enter xivu’s throne or that xivu will be turned into a strike/dungeon boss. with the way characters have talked about xivu’s throne, it’d be a massive shame to not see it
You know I hadn't thought of it but seeing you say it, yeah Xivu is definitely going to be a dungeon boss or something now. Building up the throne world in lore but never getting to see it sounds like the most Bungie way of doing things lol.
While it’s upsetting there really is no way for us to need to go to her throne room if she can’t even enter it. Maybe we could go to gather information but with Savathun being alive and with Eris I’m not to sure how much that would actually do. I definitely agree that she will most likely become a dungeon boss but who knows what bungie actually wants to do with her considering the fact that we have killed some pretty important enemies in simple story missions 🤷🏻♂️
@@LordxDCUnless we access Xivu's Throne World somehow and use it to get to her.
Here specifically because I heard a back-and-forth with Savathun and Vanguard during the Spire activity while the season was ending, and subsequently heard and saw Savathun herself numerous times during TFS. Don't get me wrong, she's fantastic to experience in the story, but having apparently missed the lore book (and this video itself) there was definitely a "Huh? Wait, she's alive again? Since when?" moment.
They built up a climatic battle between 2 hive gods. All they had her do is crush a symbol
They basically failed to follow the first rule of storytelling: show, don't tell. The whole finale was anticlimactic, but including the lore tab in the cutscene would have helped immensely. It honestly reads more like a storyboard than a lore tab, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was originally the plan but it ended up getting cut.
Honestly I don't nessesary agree with you here. I think Eris showing restraint in the moment and simply "Thanos snapping" Xivus throne world away, for a lack of a better term, was really impactful and really showed how strong she truly was. Then seeing Eris comming back from the transformation and being truly at peace, if only for a moment, was really heartwarming to me. Seeing such a haunted character finally reaching her goals and showing restraint in the final moments when everyone thought she couldn't was enough for me. The annoying thing to me is that so much happened off screen.
It occurs that a good way of going about it might have been to show the spell from Xivu's perspective, and all the bombastic display of power on her end contrasted with Eris' understated show of control.
Even a subtle thing like Immaru doing the resurrection ghost animation at the end would’ve made a sufficient visual indicator that Savathun is still alive to the ones who don’t dabble in lore.
Bungies' "don't over deliver" policy is killing the content.
I loved this seasons story, and it’s one of my top seasons along with Season of the Haunted. I think they slid in the part of the story that Savathun got rezzed after being killed by Eris, but left us Immaru to spy on us for her and she disappeared. That felt like a cop out and needed more narrative explanation. It would be cool to do a stealth mission in the tower where we sneak in with Immaru and he rezzes her against us knowing better and she runs away saying thanks puppet.
I mean I dont think she would need to be rezzed again in the tower
I’ve been waiting for Eris to go full Hive goddess for literal years, and my exact words at the end of this week’s cutscene were “that was underwhelming.”
exactly what i said word for word
Just adding in Xivu Arath screaming in anguished rage "NOOO!" as Eris severs the connection to the Hive war god's throne world have made the cutscene more impactful.
But actually getting to see Xivu in-game, rather than a comic-style cutscene, would've been even more phenomenal.
That said, Eris's words put it best: "I let this moment pass unnamed, without song. This is the rejection of your sad legacy." There wasn't a need for fanfare and ceremony; Eris only concerned herself with finishing what she set out to do. And she did.
I'm still cofused about what Eris even did to Xivu. So what if she is mortal now? How does that make her any less of a threat? It's not like we've seen her personally fight in any battles. What did we do all this for?
More specifically, it helps circumvent one of the major problems that cropped up in Season of the Seraph: how the hell do you fight a War God without playing right into their hands? No matter who wins, it's still war. It's still violence, and chaos, and bloodshed, and in those things is Xivu Arath found, and in those things is she strongest. Banishing her is a non-violent act. It's one of the few things that can really, ACTUALLY hurt her without strengthening her in the end. That's why Rasputin had to destroy himself; Regardless of WHO uses them, the presence of the Warsats and the Warmind himself is inherently violent; he's not called a 'Peacemind'. The only winning move is not to play at all.
It also serves as a complete refutation of everything Xivu was hoping for. She loves Oryx, more than anything. She was fully convinced, with all of her heart, that she was right. That Eris would either ascend to a Hive god and join her, or would become the inheritor of Oryx's power, and therefore become Oryx himself. She was so convinced of her own victory, she didn't allow herself any thought of failure. Why would you? No matter what we did, if Eris fully used her power to wage war on the War God, Xivu would have won right then and there.
She didn't expect us to banish her, and just let the power go afterward. No song, no ceremony, no fanfare, no battle, no war. She thought she was playing chess, but we weren't even playing checkers. We just packed up the entire board, went home, and left her sitting there. Shocked, furious, mortal for the first time in centuries... and completely, totally alone.
I like that Eris seemed to be aware of the contrast between her initial transformation and her becoming the most powerful Hive god when she starts with "i'll let this moment pass without song or fanfare" and I feel like it fits the fatigue she expresses when you speak with her again at the Athenaeum; the Hive will witness their doom not in the form of a flaming spectacle like that Xivu's brood might celebrate anyways, but with a whisper on the wind as if their bloody campaign across the stars was nothing more than an inconvenience for Eris. but during the actual cutscene I remember thinking "well she's definitely glowing now" when Ikora declared her the most powerful Hive god ever
I had a good time.
I would have loved seeing Eris becoming larger, more menacing, more ominous, more "hive god looking", only for her to reject all that after banning Xivu Arath, in her spirit of "rejecting the flawed sword logic"
My biggest gripe is that the whole season felt like it was building up to this big choice for Eris, where’d she either have to give up her life, morals, or humanity in order to stop Xivu, but there was none of that. Eris didn’t have to sacrifice anything to win, other than the power that she had planned on giving up anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I actually think her plan was pretty ingenious, but last time we beat Xivu, Rasputin had to die, and I’m not saying I wanted an exact repeat of that but I wanted… something. Eris got off scott free, seemingly without any lasting consequences and that just feels a little cheap to me
In the novel of a lore card, the 7th story card, Eris is clearly exhausted, she needs Ikora’s help to stand up, and even when she does by herself, she is unsteady, her legs maybe even shaking.
The sudden loss of power may have more drastic consequences later, but as it stands now, Eris is basically just having the worst hangover of her three lives, one as a human, one as a Guardian, and her now.
@@sn0wyc0sm0Yes, she got off scott-free.
I feel Byf could be a "impartial narrative critiquer" for Bungie.
He makes such good points that are both identifying both positive and negative aspects.
It's one thing critiquing things after they are made and released, vs having a hand in what actually comes out.
I went from thinking the season was doing pretty good to it leaving a bad taste in my mouth. The end was just such a letdown. We deserved to see and/or participate in this, but instead Eris just says she hurt Xivu.
We get no showdown with Xivu
We get no conversation with Savathun and Eris.
We get no conversation between Immaru and Savathun
They had the momentum for an amazing memorable moment, and they threw it out the window and gave us a "nothing burger".
"deserved"
I wouldn’t call Eris becoming the strongest hive in existence and banishing 1 of the 2 remaining hive gods from her own throne world “nothing”. Not saying a fight wouldn’t have been badass. As for Eris talking with Savathun afterwards and maybe discussing the actual way to get into the portal would have been really nice. As for Immaru and Savathun, I really don’t think they like each other especially with some of Immaru’s dialogue from this season so I’m not to sure a conversation would have been that much although I guess it still would have been nice to hear Immaru’s reaction to being stuck with us
@@LordxDC it was nothing. Did you see it happen? No. Eris said it happened.
Show vs tell. It was poor storytelling.
You’re looking at it from a cutscene point of view and that’s alright but I’m looking at it from a total view of the story we were given during and after the cutscene and the potential that lies ahead. But hey if you really believe it was “nothing” I’ll just agree to disagree🤝
@@LordxDC we never see Xivus Throne world, we read It in Lore but thats not the same. Theres no chance to compare how powerful Xivu was at her Cenit with post banishment power.
So really, Next time we meet Xivu shes just another Big Boss hive to kill. And that amazingly described Throne world we may never see It because shes banished from It. You can see the strings that this is a wya for them not to have to design and model Xivu Arath's Throne world
byf buddy, i love lore! ive been playing multiple games thru this season and i didnt even know we killed the leviathan eater and def didnt know savathun resurrected again and gave us immaru as collateral
Honestly, I think the lack of fanfare in the cutscene made it *more* powerful. Having Eris cut Xivu Arath off from her Throne World with just a motion of her hand shows very clearly that she has so much power in that moment that even this insane feat is as simple as a wave of a hand and a statement of Truth. Adding more fanfare would undermine that, making it seem like cutting Xivu Arath off is a big deal... but in this cutscene *it isn't* , not to Eris. That's what makes it so powerful in my eyes.
Byf, I genuinely Love your content. I have watched almost all of your videos over the years. However, I think your content is at its best when you explain the story and the lore, and not so much when you talk in a way that makes it seem like you are the narrative team’s supervisor.
I have a sneaking suspicion the story isn’t truly over…
Agreed, for the first time ever i read the section of text you get after hearing the radio message just to confirm that i did hear it correctly & savathune was resurrected again after eris took her out. 100% this and seeing a furious xivu loosing her throne world should have been a cut scene.
First, the ending was kind of underwhelming tbh.
Obviously, Xivu’s throne world was not a legendary collector’s, and thus gets none of the premium cosmetics like a cutscene appearance.
How subtle how Gambit is double exp and rewards this week, Drifter feeling happy ha 😮
I got a good chuckle out of that notification when I loaded into the game 🤣
The screen should've went black after Eris banished xivu and panned to xivu screaming in her throne world as it crumbles. Even if we don't see her fully and just a shadow, that impact would've been huge
I hope theres a seasonal finale this season cause i wanna learn WHAT THE FUCK THE RELIC THERE TALKING ABOUT IS.
I honestly kind of preferred a more sort of flat ending to the season because the main objective was to find out how to follow the Witness. Not deal with Xivu. As I understand it, our manipulations of hive magic in order *to* deal with Xivu was the key to this. So now we have all the pieces in place to learn how to follow them into the Traveller which I assume will be next season. Preparing and setting up that initial entry into the portal that will probably be within the first few minutes of The Final Shape.
I've had so many villain-of-the-week big baddie clashes at the climaxes of seasons that I was happy to just stick one to the Leviathan Eater and leave it at that. I was sticking around for the magical freaky stuff, not Xivu yelling in my brain in all caps.
I think the reality is that people (myself included) wanted a cool battle but we had no clue how to enter Xivu’s throne world which is the only place where a battle would have actually done something. As for the cutscene, I think it lacked the dialogue that was later given to us by a simple convo with Eris about what she actually did and also Savathuns reaction to what Eris achieved and the info she promised after she was resurrected by Immaru again. Also us being able to hear Xivu the whole time but not getting anything from her during the cutscene was underwhelming. I think it was a good finale overall but it’s hard not compare it to the Season of the Seraph finale when it was something so important
I totally agree with wanting that extra lore in a cutscenes, BUT it is in the radio message that is required to finish the seasonal story quest. I have yet to read the lore, but everything you say that is in that lore page is in that radio message. And this is the first season where you are required to listen to the radio messages each week to progress the quest.
For a moment I thought that Eris killed Xivu in the background until Eris explain it later, I think that should have being the perfect moment for Xivu to show up after Eris killed Savathun and then show what she actually did to Xivu but yep a few problems with the presentation, the Leviathan Eater was a bit let down but that was obviously plot armor, but I enjoyed this season story, let hope the last season before The Final Shape improve a bit but we will see.
This season was awesome. The feedback that Byf provides of "Story shouldn't be in the lore" is the best way to summarize the issues with the finale. My fireteam and I still enjoyed this season a lot, and I still feel like we knew what had happened it just would have been nice to see the conversation after the mission to play out in the Athaneum for us to watch
Season of the Seraph gave us the highest high as a community (that I’ve experienced), our own infinity war moment. And I believe if this season had the same level of finale we would be back on that level. I can only hope next season can do that.
After the end scene, there is some ‘audio’ narrative follow up that give some incite to post Savathun throat cut death.
The radio says to keep doing Spire and Alters as Savathun is out and the power of tithe go to you before her.
Then when you are in Spire activity post said scene and radio, there is narrative and a banter going between Savathun and guardians/vanguard post Savathans death by Eris. But while slaying out in activity, can be hard to tune in to the conversation. Some good insight tho for those who saw the death and then post accounting.
You mean like, actually showing how the witch queen resurrected and escaped after Eris killed her? Or the secret of how to get inside the traveler? Or how there was no “shadow” of Xivu?
Because I also wonder that.
Agree with the thought on how the story has been put into form, and my thoughts on it was connected to the episode format you mentioned later on. At this point, so much critical story moment is going on, it is better to put all of them into cutscenes, something that the episode format supposedly will do, less episodes per year, but more cutscenes and more "watchable" narrative as opposed to "readable". In short, I think the season was good, but in my opinion, clearly shines light on how the writing and/or narrative has outgrown the seasonal model's shorter or "cutscene-ly limited" timespan and capacity.
Also, putting Xivu on the bench is a really nice move, I think it's basically to "preserve" her and that whole part of the lore for an episode, maybe it'll be the reclamation of Torobatl, maybe it'll be her resurfacing due to finding a tiny crack in Eris's spell and breaking it, making her a threat once again. All in all, the story is good, and looking forward to what they'll bring and how they'll put it to form.
Yea, having to listen to the radio message before getting that final lore tab meant I was as a little taken back when Ikora casually mentioned what happened and why Immaru was still around
Presentation is all the more important when we can't replay any of this story content. You get a couple chances to play it if you play multiple characters but not everyone does. Presentation is so critical to make sure something sticks in your head and that you fully understand the importance of what is shown, knowing Bungie has to choose certain critical moments l, potentially over others, because they have budgets and deadlines and whatever other real world restrictions.
I hope eventually we get the ability to be able to replay through all the campaign stories as well as seasonal stories. I am admittedly not the best at picking up on all the important story beats right away but in D1 I was able to replay the story missions as many times as I wanted, and I did replay through the campaigns fairly frequently.
The lore books are great and do serve to be able to recap seasonal story stuff alongside providing additional story beats but they need certain things fresh in your mind to get the full benefit from. As well as being able to quickly and easily remember which lore book goes with which season and what important cut scenes may have been played in between entries.
Destiny 2 has great story elements and characters but I feel like the vast majority of the player base misses out on it because of presentation.
I really wish we could have seen xivu arath throne world. It's description us so freakin cool
I love that Starforge is sponsoring you now.
Its at least a company I can trust just wants to put out a good product
I was just trying to describe my similar thoughts on another video - Byf summed it up pretty well.
Basically, as soon as I know I'm going to have to explain something to my brother, who is super casual and plays maybe once a week, I know something important has been lost in the narrative somewhere. The whole point of this season was to get information from Savathun - you can't immediately kill her and then just drop a quick note from Ikora via radio log that she's back actually and left us a vague clue somewhere... one is FAR more memorable than the other.
Especially when it's a cut scene where a giant 3-eyed, skull faced, alien moth lady calls someone else 'honey'...
I’m kind of hoping that the Player Guardian not just showing up in a lore tab, but also having a speaking role, is a sign that Bungie has finally hear the criticism I know that quite a few people have that… it kind of feels like the PG just disappears in anything where we’re not directly controlling them
Also another positive I’ll give this season is that it finally feels like we’re more then just the driving force that progresses the plot, it actually really felt like the PG was really involved *with* this seasons plot, rather then being an outside observer when we’re not just being sent out to kill stuff
This season also felt like you're an outside force sent to kill stuff. Theres one or two times where Eris directly adresses you as "Guardian" but the rest youre pretty much unmentioned
Destiny's biggest narrative flaw is that 2000s fps silent protagonist schtick. If Destiny had text based dialogue so that our character can actually interact with other characters in the setting a lot of its narrative issues would go away. In most stories, the player character is your window into the world. In Destiny, the player character actively obscures our view of the world by their lack of interaction with it. For the majority of Destiny's narrative the player has not just known more about the setting than the character, but also had no idea how much information the character actually has, because they never speak. On the flip-side, the player character to this day knows things that we as players don't, because we can't interact with the world in any way other than silent violence. We're apparently really good friends with Eris and Crow. But we've also never said more than a few words to either of them.
Imagine if, instead of lore being relegated to lore tabs and grimioires, you could just ask Eris about stuff. Every good RPG does this because its so effective. You leave the player unvoiced, so that they can still be easily projected onto, but you allow the player to pick dialogue options to ask questions and choose how they talk to people. Its so cheap and so effective.
The fact that, for 90% of Destiny's story the player character could literally not exist, have anything they did instead get attributed to the closest npc, and the story actually makes more sense this way, is insane. (Seriously, the narrative makes way more sense if you, for example, attribute all of our anti-hive deeds in Destiny 1 to Eris) We're such a non entity in the plot that our presence literally detracts from the narrative more than it adds outside of very specific storylines. And even in those, the narrative is really hurt by us not having text dialogue.
The only times we've ever not been a figurative black hole tossed into the plot, bulldozing our way through everything and removing any stakes, is the handful of times we get mentioned in lore tabs. Which is terrible for a character, let alone a player character, but the way the PC is handled in Destiny is so bad that a brief mention in a lore tab is actually an improvement.
It’s very exciting that each season has me excited for the next. So much of destiny has been disjointed having the year of lightfall feel more connected has been great
To be fair, Savu coming back again was also in the radio broadcast you have to do for the quest, not just the lore tab. I never read the lore and I knew she was alive because of that. But still, yeah, lots of people don't listen while those play.
I think they did the smart move this season and actually made them required to continue the quest. It MIGHT give the players more incentive to listen to them that way XD
I agree with the end needing a more adequate explanation n the finale cutscene but, this doesn’t make me view this season n an overall negative light whatsoever. Imo this is a top 3 or 4 season for D2. A lot of good steps forward for the seasonal/episode model n D2. They changed things up and it was a big W imo. Sure, there r always things that can be improved upon. But they deserve some positive feedback for changing things up n multiple ways this season.
Before talking about the presentation I have one thought; Xivu is now mortal, yes? Like Calus? Does that mean the Witness could make her a disciple? That would amp her power back up and set up for a lot more chaos in the next season, Final Shape, and beyond if she survives past Final Shape.
I agree 100% with you on both fronts; I'd love for more of what is in the Lore Book to be on screen but I also get they have a limited amount of time and resources and have to pick and choose what is on screen and what is in books. They for sure chose the right moment to be on screen; Eris taking down Savathun with one swipe of her sword when it took us so much to do it before speaks volumes in my mind of how powerful she was as the Hive God of Vengence.
I can't help but wonder if the Imbaru Engine holds the anwser to following the Witness.
I fully agree on presentation being the main issue here. I'd even include tuning in this final story mission as a big issue, because this entire "grande finale" against Xivu's greatest champion hit like a wet noodle. I'd even compare it to just patrolling in the EDZ. You can stand in front of this boss without it really being able to take you down (which i had to do because my fight was bugged)
There were 2 new lore pieced released this week that heavily imply Eris was saved from Crota by Savathun, and Savathun gave her the hive eyes. It's the Sororicide XII and the lore from the seasonal story sparrow, Laminos.
Byf, I'm sure we're going to get a Seaso- I mean, Episodic Vendor Savvy sitting at the tower going "Howdy Guardian" with a Tex Mecanica hat
looking forward to whatever is coming next this season, also glad we won't have a season of the seraph issue where it's the story conflicting with the seasonal event. would be interesting to get definitive answers to the headless ones bit now that there's not really any tension to overshadow it
I wonder if the Way to Follow the Witness has something to do with Imbaru - maybe you have to understand how the portal works and how it will affect you to pass through and survive? Savathun said in season of the lost to "Stand on the line between light and dark, and look up"
Well - Stand in the Ooby (Idfk how its spelled) - and Look Up.
I think this is why theyre making the effort to pivot to episodes. Lets hope it improves the seasonal experience
The second part of the Imbaru engine can be unlocked by obtaining an opaque card from the enterance of the savathun spire bosses and use it to unlock the strength test
Gotta respectfully disagree with a lot of the points, this feels very knee-jerk reaction to a very intentional ending. If anything, I'd say that we needed more time to build up the Leviathan-Eater as a threat, and I agree that Bungie's decision to make the events during and after Savathun's 2nd resurrection offscreen was a misstep. Otherwise, the climax was perfectly fine: fun boss with a lot of good gasp-worthy moments.
I also don't understand the argument surrounding the part of the cutscene where Eris becomes the strongest Hive in history? Yes, it should've had a bit more meat to it, show Xivu pleading with and screaming at Eris as she's forced out of her throneworld or something to that effect, but what we got was intentional, Eris even proclaims as such. The entire point is that it's anti-climactic: A visibly powerful (but not too showy) Eris performs a speech essentially proclaiming the Sword Logic false/flawed, and the Osmium Dynasty's legacy to be sad and pointless, before quickly and quietly disconnecting Xivu's life support and subsequently turning down the opportunity to stay the most powerful Hive in existence. That's pretty effective to me, I didn't need massive fanfare to get the idea, and it feels pretty blind or short-sighted to not see that, to be honest.
As a small little ending tangent I know Byf was in the heat of the moment grasping for an example, but if somebody actually asks "wait I thought Savathun died", they either heard from a friend that Savathun was alive and killed during Witch Queen (they didn't play Season of the Witch) or they were only told the first half by said friend, or they're just stupid and watched the finale cutscene only to skip the holoprojector transmission immediately afterward that describes Savvy's re-resurrection and retreat. Of those only possibilities, Bungie is not at fault, the person is.
To me the main problem in the finale is the portal. We did all of this just so savathun can tell us "to be continued" is really a bummer. I also think savathun is one of the best if not the best villan but its not her time. Now its about the portal, the traveler, the pale heart, the witness, the final shape. Nothing else. I thought the finale we would see savathun telling us we need to use some kind of link from the veil to get access to the pale heart and the next season will be focused on getting the connection, Just like how the witness did. But "tbc" really killed the mood for me
They did so much to set up the fact that Xivu would, in spite of her own slavish adherence to the Sword Logic, attempt to exact vengeance for the death of Oryx, thus empowering the Hive god of Vengeance, only for that narrative thread to fade away.
Honestly, my biggest problem with that important bit being in the lore book was the fact that you'd have to read the lore book in between the cutscene and when you go back to the HELM. I enjoy reading the lore entries after i complete the game bits, so i was so confused when Ikora said savathun was alive again and had escaped
When i finished the week 7 quest there were two thing that annoyed me. As when Eris became a Hive God i had goosebumps all over my skin, but when she became the most powerful Hive God I just felt dissapointment that nothing happened. Also very dissapointed of how easy it seemed for Eris to give up the immense power she possessed. i would have liked to see a struggle. I would have believed she at least would consider to keep the power to have a bit more suspense in that moment. Otherwise a great season so far! Really enjoying it.
2:32 ok phew, I thought I was going nuts searching for the 3rd imbaru engine room like a mad man
I felt underwhelmed by it all and when all the characters started talking about what happened afterwards I was like wtf?! The story was really good and Eris's choice surprised me, I just wish I could have seen more.