Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[EdwinLi]

So......................

Can we just give First Minfilia a hug because she really needs it. Her entire life was basically determined the day she was born simply because she was born to be the doppelganger of Source Minfilia.

She never got a chance to choose what life she wanted nor even the moment to enjoy life. Her first time of experiencing her own life was when Thancred saved her but even then she still felt that she was just being compared to Source Minfilia and act as a reminder to what Thancred had lost.

The past doppelgangers of Minfilia all suffered the same fate even if some choose to embrace it and some choose to run from it but in the end they all died young with most dying while still children under the age of 14 or less fighting the Sin Eaters.

First Minfilia deserves a happy ending because she has sacrificed her life since her birth to be the Oracle of Light and was neither given a chance to actually live nor to become her own person.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Dancer questline thoughts

Anyone else think its odd that the Arabian-inspired Thavnair has dances and shadow monsters with German names?

I was hoping for more actual Thavnair lore from this and honestly came out disappointed, but Ranaa is a sweet girl I enjoyed being with. Actually that is something it showed us, I suppose: Hannish Miqo'te don't have to be Seekers, they can be Keepers too.

[Seraph522]

Regarding the First's Warriors of Light/Warriors of Darkness and the role quests:

First, it looks like we've got some name retcons going on, or alternatively their names on the First were different: Arbert is now Ardbert, Blaenherz is now Branden, Lamimi is now Lamitt, J'rhoomale is now Renda-Rae (the biggest change, as far as I can tell), and Naillebert is now Nyalbert (I think - didn't write that one down in time, and the journal doesn't record his original name in the first quest, which is all I have access to right now).

Relatedly, their Sin Eater names are Greek: Blaenherz/Branden's name is Dikaiosyne, meaning 'righteousness' or 'justice'; Naillebert/Nyalbert is Phronesis, 'wisdom' or 'intelligence' in the sense of practical knowledge/intelligence (as opposed to 'sophia' which is wisdom in the more abstract sense of knowing the good); Lamimi/Lamitt is Sophrosyne, 'temperance' or 'self-control'; and J'rhoomale/Renda-Rae is Andreia, literally 'masculine spirit' but generally translated as 'courage' or 'valor.' They're all playing off of the title of the Four Cardinal Virtues that they're collectively bestowed, which originally derives from Plato but is often referred to in Christian theology and ethics, tying back to the vaguely Judeo-Christian theming of the Sin Eaters as a whole.

Looks like my Greek skills are finally coming in handy, though it makes it difficult to figure out how they want us to pronounce the ones ending with -syne, since English often pronounces those as 'sign' while the original Greek pronounces it as 'sue-neigh'.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Amh Araeng

KOBOLD FACES ARE SCARY

[Wyssahtyn]

The explanation in one of the MSQ confuses me

The one in the Lightwardens quest about the Calamities? Yeah, uh, that last one they showed looked decidedly like some kind of a Darkness Calamity which is passing strange considering that the Flood of Darkness on the Thirteenth was supposed to have made the shard useless for a Rejoining in so far as I am aware. And the same thing goes for the ongoing Flood of Light no? Unless that was simply theorizing.

[Yuyuka3]

Got something interesting from a level 78 quest, something that goes along the line of Thordan's question when he is defeated...

What, exactly, is our character? Emet-Selch drops hints that our story is far longer than what we think. He tells us we are the "product of 7 Calamities", implying that we have been there back then. Also, while the elevator in Kholusia is getting repaired, Emet-Selch talks to us again and tells us it's a shame that we cannot remember how the world was before the split, implying we might have been around back then. I feel this is really important and it once again questions what, exactly, we are.

[Starkbeaumont]

Got something interesting from a level 78 quest, something that goes along the line of Thordan's question when he is defeated...

What, exactly, is our character? Emet-Selch drops hints that our story is far longer than what we think. He tells us we are the "product of 7 Calamities", implying that we have been there back then. Also, while the elevator in Kholusia is getting repaired, Emet-Selch talks to us again and tells us it's a shame that we cannot remember how the world was before the split, implying we might have been around back then. I feel this is really important and it once again questions what, exactly, we are.

i'm not at the end so this might be wrong but

could it mean we are actually hydaelyn or a part of her?

[EdwinLi]

i'm not at the end so this might be wrong but

could it mean we are actually hydaelyn or a part of her?

I have this hypothesis for a while now that...

WOL is actually a person from the World before the creation of Hydaelyn and Zodiark just like the Ascions. At some point WoL may have been taken to become the champion of Hydaelyn and through generations of being brought back to the world to be her Champion he/she only became stronger but his/her appearance never remained the same.

Only the Soul remained the same despite the body being different. We know that Ascions can see the soul of a being and that is most liekly why they recognize WoL as someone more ancient as his/her soul has been encountered before.

Don't forget here in this expansion we learn that the Soul of a person remains intact when returned to the Aether as we get to see it for the first time in this storyline despite being through Ascion's eyes. Who they are can be spotted by the "color" of their soul.

On another topic....

Thancred is really going full Father mode in this storyline. Though he does admit he does this because he want to be the father figure right this time with First Minfilia since when he was raising Source Minfilia he spent most of his time being a workaholic and flirting with girls which made Source Minfilia disappointed with him and kind of what lead to how she becomes the person we know in 2.0 to 2.X.

This time Thancred wants to raise First Minfilia right.

[Yuyuka3]

I have this hypothesis for a while now that...

WOL is actually a person from the World before the creation of Hydaelyn and Zodiark just like the Ascions. At some point WoL may have been taken to become the champion of Hydaelyn and through generations of being brought back to the world to be her Champion he/she only became stronger but his/her appearance never remained the same.

Only the Soul remained the same despite the body being different. We know that Ascions can see the soul of a being and that is most liekly why they recognize WoL as someone more ancient as his/her soul has been encountered before.

Don't forget here in this expansion we learn that the Soul of a person remains intact when returned to the Aether as we get to see it for the first time in this storyline despite being through Ascion's eyes. Who they are can be spotted by the "color" of their soul.

On another topic....

Thancred is really going full Father mode in this storyline. Though he does admit he does this because he want to be the father figure right this time with First Minfilia since when he was raising Source Minfilia he spent most of his time being a workaholic and flirting with girls which made Source Minfilia disappointed with him and kind of what lead to how she becomes the person we know in 2.0 to 2.X.

This time Thancred wants to raise First Minfilia right.

About the first part:

Yeah, I really get the feeling that this is the case, similar to how Minfilia got reincarnated into several different girls over the past 100 years in the source, and Emet-Selch saw that Ryne essentially had two souls inside her body because Minfilia refused to take her over. It doesn't explain, however, where the supposed other Warriors of Light went, since apparently in the past, there were several at a time. Maybe they got erased permanently by the Ascians until only we were left? Maybe they forsake Hydaelyn and she didn't reincarnate them in later times because of it?

Something completely new:

From the first Lightbringer we absorb, I was afraid that what happens now in the late story might happen. We cannot control the light inside us and are on the brink of becoming a Lightbringer ourselves. Also, the Exarch really is G'raha Tia! But he got abducted by Emet-Selch while he tried to save us... welp. Let's see what the last zone and level brings... but it actually looks really, really bad.

[JeanneOrnitier]

The explanation in one of the MSQ confuses me

The one in the Lightwardens quest about the Calamities? Yeah, uh, that last one they showed looked decidedly like some kind of a Darkness Calamity which is passing strange considering that the Flood of Darkness on the Thirteenth was supposed to have made the shard useless for a Rejoining in so far as I am aware. And the same thing goes for the ongoing Flood of Light no? Unless that was simply theorizing.

respondin'

The darkness-looking one should be non-elementally aspected, since it was the Seventh/Bahamut's. They didn't choose a great color for it though yeah.

The First can still be rejoined because it's not completely gone yet, unlike the Thirteenth.