Thread: The Road to 5.0

Coming back to this thread now that Shadowbringers is indeed a thing.

The teaser honestly upended my expectations and shattered my plot trajectory (how much of it can be salvaged, we'll work on that later), which is scary and exciting and boy do I hope it goes well. I'm still struggling to put all the pieces back together from scratch into an even vaguely coherent form, but let's start small: Ghimlyt Dark. One neat thought from the Fan Fest thread...

Originally Posted by Ghoulheart

'Ghim' being the roegadyn word for 'Modest' as shown in the roegadyn dictionary on these forums and I am going to make an assumption based on my own exposure to roegadyn terms that 'lyt' just means 'lit'.

Perhaps - assuming it's not a coincidental syllable - it does mean dimly lit or midlight or something of the sort. Though, a not mutually-exclusive suggestion, what if it's (linguistically) related to Rothlyt? Is it the border march on the Ala Mhigan land bridge? Zenos!Elidibus did just attempt to convince Varis to allow him to "destroy Ala Mhigo and slay the Warrior of Light"...

Originally Posted by Iscah

I replayed 3.4

Same! And nice catch on the running whatever it takes. What caught my attention was that Arbert's line could be taken a number of ways.

Originally Posted by Arbert

We were blind to the truth once. So I tell you this, as one fool to another. Light, Dark, it doesn't matter. What matters is how you choose to use them.

I took it as a "reins of history in the hands of man" kind of line at the time; Hydaelyn may have mortals' backs and Zodiark may hate them (allegedly), but the distinction between them is where we were born, and perhaps we cannot exist in a world without that distinction. Meanwhile, I was focused on how many people took it more or less as, "Hydaelyn's just as bad u juyz."

But ... clever ambiguity ... "Go ahead and take up Darkness if it suits your needs." Light doesn't mean good, and good doesn't mean infallible. Darkness can be a weapon wielded against evil, even if the will of Darkness does turn out to be evil (from our perspective). Whether it's the restoration of balance and Zodiark isn't so bad or we just need to fight the Light to prevent a flood while we prevent Zodiark's victory, it suits our needs.

"Whatever it takes." *shivers* Even if the ethically correct path is to allow 49.99% of the world we're trying to save perish in order to save the remaining 50.01% majority, that's usually the point at which killing God becomes a more attractive alternative. I also find myself thinking of that one time Vengeance Princess Ashe decided against taking the nuclear option against Archades, even though it was commanded, and wonder if we're simply hitting a point where painting things black and white isn't doing much good for anybody.


The thing keeping me awake all night about Shadowbringers is that we still don't actually know what constitutes Light or Darkness in the big picture. Let's look at the case of poor, sweet Tsuyu:

1) Light is absolute morality, i.e. "Good people don't do bad things." Yotsuyu may have started out as just a girl like any other, but her rise to power and acts of capital-E Evil prove that it was simply her true nature all along. Killing her was a victory of Light over Darkness.

2) Light is hope. Yotsuyu was undoubtedly a war criminal, but even so, the evil within her was nurture, not nature, and she deserved a chance to atone properly. Though the defeat of Tusukuyomi was a necessity, Yotsuyu's resultant death was nonetheless a failure for the Light, if not a defeat.

3) Light is life. As a war criminal responsible for countless deaths, Yotsuyu was an agent of death/Darkness. However, killing her for any reason is also an act of death/Darkness, thus her death was a defeat for the Light.


Of these, #3 is most in tune with the franchise as a whole (see FF6, FF9), but we already know that there's nothing in a world that has been flooded by Light. It also seems antithetical to trigger a Flood of this kind of Light with warfare.

Option #2 is honestly not something I can see destroying the world, like, at all. Pretty much any negative consequence would have to be indirect (i.e. the result of not killing someone who then finds a way to cause more destruction. Shame on them, I say.)

Which is why, from what we know at the moment, option #1 seems the most likely to me. A Flood of this kind of Light would involve eliminating anything and everything that could result in conflict, ultimately destroying individuality itself, resulting in a bleached world with nothing in it.


But that all depends on if the takeaway from Under the Moonlight was already meant to be an acknowledgement of relative morality, or if it was simply meant as a plant to start us questioning our own absolutes. I know how I felt (from before, really), but the journal seems to indicate the latter.


(Anyone else annoyed by the extra line-breaks that get added every time you hit "Preview Post"?)

Originally Posted by Fenral

(Anyone else annoyed by the extra line-breaks that get added every time you hit "Preview Post"?)

I've been wondering how pervasive this issue is. All of my enters count for two unless I hold shift.

Originally Posted by Fenral

we still don't actually know what constitutes Light or Darkness in the big picture

I've been operating under the assumption that it's the direct power of Hydaelyn/Zodiark inherent to that dimension from the split plus or minus the effects of empowered agents. Each dimension would thus have a natural equilibrium to it; not in the 50/50 sense, but in the "it's holding at the same radio" sense ... until agents mess with it. Zodiark's agents try to wound each dimension seriously enough to merge them with the Source (which would also need to be wounded) without tipping either over the edge, Hydaelyn's agents would try (and fail) to prevent this, but any swift and radical shift in the balance would cause a Flood of either type. Eventually, enough aether - and likely Dark power - would be consolidated to resurrect Zodiark.

I'm guessing whatever Thancred's plan was leads to a swift and radical shift in the balance Elidibus has been maintaining (while trying to set up Calamities) since he got here.