The Final Endwalker Grill with Jesse Cox! | The Grinding Gear Podcast 

GG Guys: *some insane theory* Jesse: 👁👄👁 The poker face is still on point

In soviet gearbox Jesse interviews you

Eden was god awful. 😮😮

Jesse's poker face is S Tier.

Just to be super clear, the Crystal Tower is specifically and only on the Source and the First and not in any other reflection (at least in the current time to our knowledge). The First's Crystal Tower is identical to the one on the Source (apart from modifications to allow for time/space travel) because it was completely ripped out of the alternate timeline Source that Crystal Exarch G'raha was from to be placed into the First Just so that you don't have any confusion about the way it exists! 👍🏼

I was a Venat loyalist long before it was cool. Way back in Heavensward when speaking with "The word of the mother", her last lines before she faded away was "Look for the truth of the world yourself." Easily a line said to find the truth outside her influence.

It's nice to see the Cox return just before the end.

I think the moment where Forchenaut comes up in the Endwalker trailer, is very good sublte story telling. You see his hand gently caressing the map of the world, and then draw back and ball up, before he tells Y'Shtola that they Sharlayan won't fight. It made me feel like he loves the planet and dearly wants to safe all the people who are dying, but just can't, becuase his duty is more important. And he banished his children, either to protect them. Or because he was afraid that if he worked closely with them, it might undermine his determination to see this duty through to the end, so he distances them to make sure his duty will be done, for the greater good. "What is the happiness of a father and his two children, compared to this important duty?" kind of thing. And considering how we later learn that this duty is to prevent the extinction of all the races on Ethyris, by evacuating them, yeah, I can definitely see why he'd believe his actions to be justified. Also with the protective spell, he literally couldn't explain his reasoning, making civil discussions near impossible. The way I see it, only Ethyris was sundered, and the reflections still occupy the same location in space, but either phase shifted, or off in their own pocket dimension or somesuch. Which also explains why Midgardsormr came to the Source, rather than any reflection. It also explains why the evacuation ship/moon is in the Source, since it's the only place from which you can just lauch yourself into the stars without running into a barrier or somesuch. Considering how Zodiark was imprisoned inside the moon, I would assume that each shard also has it's own moon, where their respective piece of Zodiark is sealed up, but unfortunately I don't think they ever mentioned whether the First had a moon.

The amount of times one of the guys has said something and I've gone back and rewinded to see Jesse's reaction only for him to be completely stone-faced

"Nier Doesn't Matter." In before Solution 9 is populated by Gestalts.

Calling Venat mommy is only acceptable to me because she was referred to as "the Mothercrystal" (also creating the Lopporits and maybe the world in general) The planet and maybe the moon were the only things sundered, she didn't have the power to sunder the universe.

I absolutely do recommend the role quests- I really loved the stories there. but they're not necessary to understanding the context of the MSQ like the Shadowbringers ones were. Also- doing one was required in Shb, they're not required in EW.

It's insane how entertaining it was to watch Jesse NOT react to so many things. 😂

"I think people just don't like civics, economics and politics all that much in FFXIV" that perfectly nailed it. People also don't like if things don't go how they imagined it should go. BTW role quest in ShB was mandatory while in EW it's optional so that's one reason people don't harp about it.

I think a lot of suspicion surrounding Venat can be attributed to a character of the same name... Venat from Final Fantasy 12 which to this day I question the morality of the latter. tbh, probably intentional.

@24:20 lies, i was a hydaelyn loyalist

Seeing Jesse work his jaw so he doesnt actually react soooo many times. Lol. Keep up the good work Lil JC

My head canon is that Emet wrote the Amarot theme, so I'm thinking jazz/instrumental instead of rap for him.

The "location" of the shards is I think easily explained by the same magic that explains how Ktisis Hyperboreia is "bigger on the inside". Etheirys is the only "star" that was sundered, and cosmologically all of shards are in the same location.

jesse's game face is great...always enjoy seeing him not react

SLEEP TOKEN!❤ All their albums but especially Sundowning has huge, huge, HUGE Shadowbringers vibes. I’d swear Vessel plays XIV but sadly I don’t think the timeline works out. 😂

Just wanted to mention, while you were 100% correct in the podcast that the Void was the failed rejoining...there was _also_ a successful darkness aspected rejoining. The 7th calamity (Bahamut) was darkness aspected, and the 7th shard was rejoined into the source at that time.

Love seeing Jesse on the podcast. Life time supporters of all 3 of you!

"dragon has to run for president" People are mad cause where is his birth certificate?

Wierdo here. 2.x patch content is when it FINALY started to get good for me :P I loved the political drama

Okay I'll agree with Jessie that many people thought that Venat was a bad guy/would have to be killed. And I KNOW he's playing it up a little. But legit I never doubted her. I don't feel like a better person or smarter then others. I'm just proud I stuck to my guns all these years.

at this point i think we should consider smiles in chats to be spoiler already. poker face is a way to go. or just say things like interesting, that sounds cool, etc. pretend to be oblivious.

I am just here for the cox pokerface

I could never do what Jesse does here. I'd be sitting there with a huge grin on my face when they said certain things...

its really funny seeing how much they like gaius, who we know just espoused varis flavored fascism for all of ARR

On the subject of the boys having sick jam sessions, I 100% profile Kyle as a keyboardist and Garrett gives me total lead guitarist vibes, with chill backup bassist, but begrudging rythm guitarist attitude lol. these two descriptions have unequal word length, but they are equally specific, trust me.

Never read the RU-vid comments

I enjoyed the cooking! Looking forward to a fabulous meal from you two (zenos is still hungry from eating the moon and waiting impatiently at the buffet table)!

Jesse's poker face is flawless

I mean, technically they brought up halone all the dang time in ishgard. but yeah, just her and rhalgr get love for the most part.

Is it me, or does it look like the more Jesse tries to maintain his poker face, the harder he frowns?

omg Garret with the Sleep Token lore, love their music

1:08:00 Wait, Jason goes to space and is made from Nanobots after being cryogenically frozen!? HOW!? WHY!? How do they keep on making these films!!!!

Lmao they skipped over This is Thrancred, Super Sad Subway, Wholesome Dinner Scene, Surprise Body Borrowing, Sad Baby Running, and Uri with Moon rabbits xD. The Cox pokerface is killing me LOL

I, too, want housing in Amaurot

If people hold it against you because it is designed to make you question hydaelyn in shadowbringers and you chose to distrust like many others then they are stupid. God forbid we get writters who want us to engage our brains and question the ambiguousness they sprinkle on their narrative to make it more interesting and create discussion.

I was a Hydaelyn supporter because I thought it'd be too plebeian if she was just an evil god. I had more faith in the writing team that they wouldn't take the "easy" story and instead have her be doing her best and generally a good entity. At most, her morality would be grey, but it still wouldn't be just "god in jrpg = evil." Also, I really enjoyed the 6.1-6.55 patch story. I was and still am surprised when so many people were vocal about hating it.

Why didn't Gaius go to Garlemald? He told you. He would be out in the line of Succession and he has absolutely no interest in taking the throne. He feared his presence would be more harmful than helpful. Honestly, it was a good call on his part. Urianger is staying on the Moon to help the Lopporits prepare for the Exodus if it comes to that. He's literally handling a contingency plan alone. Seems pretty important to me even if it isn't shown on screen. Guys I love you and this content, I'm glad you pay attention and review old cutscenes. That being said you should take notes or something. You are just so off on things you were already told. The cooking is better when you know the correct ingredients and aren't guessing at half of them. The absolutely absurd gaps in playing through the story don't help. I get why you do it and I support you, but this wasn't as enjoyable as it has been in the past. It wasn't so much cooking as it was misremembering the plot.

Personally? I'm in disagreement with Jesse that anyone and everyone who didn't doubt Hydaelyn after Shadowbringers was delusional... because I was one of them. Oh sure, the knowledge that Hydaelyn is a primal is a gamechanger, but you gotta keep in mind the source, who is telling you this and why. Emet-Selch is trying to win you over, and exposing Hydaelyn's nature, especially in the context of Shadowbringers is a great way to do so... as evidenced by the sheer amount of players he *did* win over by doing so. But when you pause to look at it objectively you realize Hydaelyn had nothing to do with the Flood, sure she commands the light but she isn't *there.* She never has been there, the Echo of her call can and does reach the Reflections but her primary and probably *only* concern is and always has been the Source. Hydaelyn not being present doesn't mean that The Light absent though, it like all elements is a Primordial force of nature, it was there before Hydaelyn, and it will still be there after she's gone, and as expected... *because* she isn't there to interfere the Ascians were able to set in motion the events that caused the Flood of Light.

Jesse has the *best* poker face.

I can't wait for the day when Kyle and Garrett is caught up in current content so they can experience what a day 1 Alliance Raid is like. Heck, maybe they can even managed to play with Jesse, Preach, Jordan etc. when that happens. Who knows? If that is possible then maybe an Extreme or Savage with those same people wouldn't be out of the question.

25:15 FFXIV, as summarized by 2 bros 🤣🤣🤣 1:22:13

Some people reaction to the post-patch are pretty much like with that motorcycle monster. "It just FF4" ignoring how it actually playout in the game.

46:00 using all the parts of the ffxiv buffalo

Sauron only gave rings to men and dwarves because the elves rejected them. Originally he only cared about getting the elves to serve him and the weaker races were a fall back.

I got a lot of shit from my FC back before Shadowbringers came out cause I didn't jump on the Hydaelyn hate bandwagon and even more after it came out cause I didn't take the words of guy responsible for the murder of millions at face value

No spoilers, but there is a sidequest chain in Elpis I like that has a fun tie to the lore of the Twelve. I wish I could go back and give a hug to a couple NPCs involved, but they're no longer there once the chain is over. Boys, you'll see why in due time, I think. =)

5 minutes in. Unity is what America needs most right now. VOTE GARLEAN!

me during the orange bird: i'll just lay here, don't worry about it

The WoL isn't tempered, the WoL is a primal. 😉

24:00 I mean, there might be a small part of you in the back of your head that felt suspicious. But there was still plenty of people, myself included, that recognized the only source we had on Hydaelyn's origin and motives was Emet-Selch. A man who would be INCREDIBLY biased in his interpretations of her, given she was his mortal enemy for 12,000 years. It did feel incredibly rewarding, to have faith in mom rewarded at Elpis though.

Jesse has such a stoneface. It's amazing

1:21:05 Wabbababbbbbooobhahudssdg

The Sin Eater and Voidsent is interesting because Sin Eaters lean closer to the Blasphemies. Voidsent are a soul without a body to sustain it which is why they come to the source and possess the dead but Sin eaters are a body without a soul at the wheel. I think the only difference is its implied killing the Sin Eater releases the soul from whatever stasis its kept in to return to the lifestream while the Blasphemy burns it up completely. I think the only time you get a sense of the comparison is Graha putting his exarch face on in Thavnair because he's had to deal with this sort of scenario before.

I just got to 75% of the podcast and I just heard Garrett say Stormblood is better than 75% of what he's seen in Endwalker. That is a completely wild take in my opinion. When Garrett says 'Stormblood is better than we think,' paraphrasing his words, I thought he was saying something along the lines of "Stormblood is a 7 to 7.5 out of 10, than the 4 out of 10 we make it out to be." Which I would agree with. But saying its better than a majority of what we've seen in Endwalker is wild. In my opinion the narrative beats for most of Endwalker outshine even Shadowbringers. Level 72-73 fae storyline does not hold a candle to level 82-83 Garlemald story. Level 75 Rak-tika Greatwoods does not compare to level 85 Thavnair part 2/Final Days begins. Level 77 Ahm Ahreng does not compare to level 87 Elpis. I won't discuss X.0 endings for obvious reasons. I will concede that what Shadowbringers has over most of Endwalker so far is character story. Ardbert, Thancred, Ryne, G'raha, and even Lyna have far more character moments and story payoffs compared to Endwalker. Shadowbringers also has the villain handily because it's Emet bloody Selch. What Endwalker has is the grander narrative in terms of scale, the story reveals, and the tension. And for those of you who wonder why I'm using Shadowbringers instead of Stormblood story beats for comparison, it's to highlight how highly I regard Endwalker. And that is by comparing Endwalker storybeats to what most consider to be the best expansion of FF14, Shadowbringers.

How much they get wrong about non-spoiler content they've already completed despite re-reviewing it regularly to do videos astounds me. I guess it happens with a lot of people, but just weird to me.

Yes, Garrett! Enjoy things! I liked The Last Jedi, too, and then the misery factory that is social media just kept yelling how wrong I was. Heck that. Be Like Butters. I'm gonna tell this to everyone.

I just can't agree with the "Hydaelyns the bad guy", I must be quite rare then If I was the only one (which I know I wasn't) that didn't think that at all During and after SHB, granted we never knew her goal or anything like that. The talk itself eludes me but I remember there being a "discussion" on why "modern primals" do tempering compared to, say Zodiark or Hydaelyn, or even Ramuh. While sure they might be able to temper they seem to not want to or don't do it. Possible Spoilers? The talk was something along the lines "we created a new version of summoning which we then taught the tribes to spread chaos, to make our work easier we added in a new element, tempering, which enslaves the summoners to the summon to where they (the summon) will become stronger the more "worshipers" they get and that is why the tempered will seek out more to temper, A endless feedback loop to create chaos." Now I may have misremembered this even existing though I find lore that supports the knowledge that this provides just not the source of it. Such as forced tempering upon the summoners and reason for doing it. But I can't find the details of the discussion itself. Though I feel it happend during SHB and it was Emet himself saying so, but again I can't for the life find it. Therefor most of it probably is speculation except for the stuff that can be found on the subject itself. I've also seen people use the Flood of Light as a argument of why she is evil, which makes no sense at all when put to the test. Sure we may be hazy on what she Wants but we do know that it's the ascians that wanna create as much death, destruction and chaos as possible to have the rejoinings to happen. Just because its light doesn't mean much, hell is the fire at fault when someone jumps into it?

The boys dont realise how much of the story is left....... they are only about halfway.

I love this part of the video, 1:52:37. By the time this video is posted, you both may have already arrived at the premise of Jesse's allusion to Elidibus and his comment of you on Elpis, which makes me giddy.

The weird bit about shoving Fourchenault, calling him a nerd, thinking he'd be some petulant child, and taking the moon for yourself is so bizarre. How can you want things like that in the plot and still consider yourself to be the hero or even a remotely good person? You don't like Fourchenault cause he's very curt and unfeeling while doing his job, he doesn't like the Scions because they drag his 16 year old kids into wars and decide everything like vigilantes. It's pretty personal to just the both of you, and his wife likes him cause she obviously knows him way better than you do. Do they just forget that the escape plan isn't something the Forum created? That it's something the old Forum 250 years ago were asked to do by Hydaelyn, who they both seem to be fine with. They're working with the Loporrits she created to have a place to keep as many people safe as possible should it come to that, and they've spent their whole lives on it. It's like the most selfless thing in the world and it's being treated like they're selfish, arrogant assholes. Why? Because they feel it's only them who can do this duty or something? You mean exactly like the Scions, who always decide to take the burden on themselves? Exactly like you would be if you stole their plan and used it to find Meteion because you "know better" and get to decide? Is it okay when you do it but not them? The Scions keep so many secrets about things they know and stuff they've done over the years. Who even is aware that G'raha is from the future or that we can time travel aside from us? We're more of a group of secretive assholes who choose the fate of the world on our own than the Forum is. None of what Sharlayan is planning is even remotely aligned to anything but trying to do the most possible good within their means as regular people with the limited information and task they've been given by Hydaelyn about what's coming.

I've never cared for Nanamo either, Garrett. I found her too clingy in Stormblood. Generally speaking, she was too dependent on other people even in A Realm Reborn, and it got annoying when she used us as her personal attendant to go around places for like 2 or 3 quests. On the subject of Stormblood, I've always loved it. It's not my favorite expansion because I already loved A Realm Reborn so much long before Shadowbringers and Endwalker and they are my top 2, but Stormblood for me has always been much much better than Heavensward, the latter of which I always found far too tropish and I was frankly given no real reason to care about 95% of the Ishgardians. The few exceptions didn't make the rule, Ishgard was a dark, gloomy city that felt as if everyone there was wound up far too tight, and the fact that it's in always-snowy Coerthas didn't help as I hate winter. Stormblood by comparison had a good human story that was far more relatable and the Ala Mhigans as a whole were a great deal more sympathetic than the Ishgardians. Lyse's growth as a character was also amazing to watch, she really came into her own by the end. For most people who hate Stormblood it's generally just Lyse hate, and completely misplaced hate based on falsehoods at that. For one thing, they expected Lyse to become a completely different character just for having removed her mask as Yda. The other argument I commonly see is that Lyse somehow stole the WoL's thunder, which couldn't be further from the truth because not only are we still the one who defeats Zenos, but Lyse also lavishes praise on us in addition to expressing her gratefulness for having helped her many times. By the end, she's grown into a figure who can be a leader for her people but not *the* leader, which is an important distinction that a lot of haters forget. And if you ignore patches 4.2 and 4.3 and all the Yotsuyu nonsense happening there, all of the other patches generally are pretty great too. Arenvald really shone as a character and it was also great to get into the specifics of a Rejoining/Calamity, and the earliest signs of their effects on the land. You mention that most people hate on patch content in every expansion, but for me patches have definitely had good content. In fact, while I mostly hated the base 3.0 MSQ, I loved every patch except 3.3 thanks to the Warriors of Light of the First. As for 2.0, the patches were fun and did a good job of expanding upon the theme of the Scions getting to better understand the nature of both Primals and the Echo. The fact that the Ascians played a major role also added to my enjoyment as I've loved them since 2.0 (and their lackluster presence in 3.0, not to mention their involvement with old man religious fanatic Thordan was part of the reason why I disliked 3.0 so much). In Stormblood they were less present but the story of the Ala Mhigans really carried the base expansion. For Shadowbringers, of course 5.3 was the best one thanks to Elidibus, but meeting the fascinating Beq Lugg in 5.1 and then watching Chai-Nuzz grow into a true leader in 5.2 made for some of the strongest and most enjoyable patch content to date. And of course, Fandaniel was odd but enjoyable in the last two(three) patches. Most people definitely wanted to learn as much as possible of all the Ascians as soon as we knew we were traveling to the past, so your feelings there are understandable. And I believe it was Garrett who said that Elpis was the one area where he would want to do all of the sidequests? I think you'll enjoy them, the lore you get from them on various topics is pretty great. About the Crystal Tower, don't you guys remember Emet-Selch's words after he'd shot the Exarch on Mt. Gulg? People who have the Royal Eye are Allagan royalty only, and those don't exist anywhere but on the Source, therefore the Crystal Tower is a creation unique to Allag and exists only on the Source under normal circumstances, and exists on the First only as a result of being brought there by the Exarch in an alternate timeline.

Kyle specifically wanting to meet an unsubdered lahabrea and elidibus… lol Jesse’s poker Face is unmatched

Some of y’all need to chill…Smdh…😂😂😂

I am still puzzled with Garrett's love for Stormblood

Voidsent, Sineaters and Blasphemy's are all literally the same thing just different aspects Dark, Light, Emotion. Voidsent cant talk and reason i suspect is because they have had MUCH longer to gather the scraps of aether that remain. But yeah they are all Dynamis monstrosity's. As for Void Ark. After some point (I dont remember when) you are supposed to find Proto Ultima fly in the distance of zones too ending in the Fate in Azys La (Then it goes to the Sky Pirates raid i forget the name of atm), Is beaten then collected and repurposed as the G-Warrior along with the Ultima Warrior from Fractual Continuim hard.

58:00 I really dont think the Wol told Venat absolutly everything. Because that puts Venat on a very bad light unintencionaly. Your telling me that Venat let 7 calamitis happen? Why? That goes against her plans and its hipocrit if she needs 9/14 wol. Second whats the whole point of her needing warriouirs of light arround time on all the eras? Why if you only need just one single WoL on an specific timeline? No, Venat knew only the end result, not whatever happened on between, she knew one day a WoL wike the one she saw would appear, yet she kept creating them regarldess cause she needed them. She still needed to stop the calamities cause thats bad. How do you explain GrahaTia's timeline then? Again, there is no way Venat knew everything