The Final Chorus

Considering that Yoshida said sometime ago that the Dragonsong War would be concluded within the 3.0 series, a cliffhanger seems very unlikely. Regardless of that, I like SOME things to have a proper conclusion instead of nothing but a trail of breadcrumbs. Besides, you can have cliffhangers for other story elements like the Garleans.

I have to wonder if the scenes on the 'Heavensward' opening actually depict the final stage of the war?

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Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

I have to wonder if the scenes on the 'Heavensward' opening actually depict the final stage of the war?

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Some of the discrepancies from the Dragonsong opening could be attributed to taking place in Dark/Derplander's world to cover the Hraesvelgr/Nidhogg oversight when making the intro movie lol. I think it would be a nice little twist.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

The personal wrinkle lies in HOW to "kill Nidhogg".

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Easy, we already killed his body, now we need to destroy his eyes.

Midguardsormr makes the basis for this idea since, despite being killed decades ago, that his spirit remained and he has since constructed a new body.

Ratatoskr was bith slayn AND had her eyes destroyed (possibly litterally eaten too) so she's perma dead.

With his eyes removed Nidhogg's body was on the brink of death until Hrasvelgr loaned him one of his eyes.

This suggests that the eyes are the key to their existence and that as long as their eyes exist so does their spirit. Which could allow them to potentially form a new body (as Midguardsormr did) or possibly possess one like Nidhogg did.

I like how a dragon's eyes are literally the window to their soul.

Hard part with destroying Nidhogg's eyes is the fact that they're attached to a highly trained Dragoon. Not that it was any better when they were attached to a huge angry dragon though...

Hraesvelgr is a certainty in the final battle I think; Nidhogg has made clear that any who do not fight beside him will be treated as an enemy and this will force his brother to finally intervene. Tiamat, however, I think is unlikely to join the fray as she still wishes to serve penance for corrupting the memory of Bahamut and I think this will do nothing to change that.

As for the Eorzean Alliance I'm really not sure what to expect. All the story pertaining to Ishgard joining the alliance is, I think, actually just setting up for the four city states to declare war on Garlemald. I'm not sure if we'll see much from them until the Dragonsong War is actually over.

Honestly the real question at this point is how we'll kill Nidhogg. When we fought him in the Aery he was only at half power due to missing an eye AND he was being weakened by Estinien's eye. He was extremely weak compared to his true strength. We're likely not going to be able to just fight him head on this time... I'm hoping we get to use that airship at Cloudtop at last; it's been sitting there conspicuously for ages now and we know it was built for combat with the dragons.

A Steps of Faith-esque battle aboard the Protector/Protecteur would be kind of nice, but I shudder to think of what happened to poor Vishap post nerf. (Why the hell does the map labeling spell it -eur when all other ingame references it as -or?)

Then again, coming to terms with the idea that one day you'll be able to solo all the old content in this game is something I'm expecting to wrestle with for a while.

A fight where he switched between dragon and man forms would be nice too, but honestly I have no idea what to expect or what I'd want from an in-game trial/dungeon confrontation with Nidhogg. The Aery was already testing my limits of acceptability, lol.

What I am also wondering is how Dark Dorklander is going to fit with the rest of the story? We run into him in 3.1 and he sods off.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

What I am also wondering is how Dark Dorklander is going to fit with the rest of the story? We run into him in 3.1 and he sods off.

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Maybe they (The Warriors of Darkness) was meant to be like Ysayle, Aymeric and "The Mask" (the guy at Ala Mhigo, not Unukalhai)? Characters introduced a few patches early but remain in the background or as enigmas until the next expansion?

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

What I am also wondering is how Dark Dorklander is going to fit with the rest of the story? We run into him in 3.1 and he sods off.

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Keep in mind Elidibus was introduced in 2.1 and has only directly interacted with our character once, despite us having about 6 different scenes from his PoV. Like Elidibus, the WoDs are meant for the longer term, not the shorter term.

However, I believe we have a Nabriales thing here more than an Elidibus one; Nabriales was shown a few times on and off throughout 2.X, first being introduced in 2.0, then shown quite strongly in 2.1, then less so in 2.3 and 2.4 before finally taking an active role in 2.5. What Nabriales did was not kill Moenbryda in the overall plot, but open the plot to further developments regarding Ascian mortality and how active/passive Elidibus is.

The WoD will do is the same; they themselves may not be as relevant as we'd like to believe, they're probably not going to be game changers that destroy the world, but what they reveal and the side effect of their defeat/existence in general will be what changes things. It's that suspiciously unnamed Overlord, I swear.

I wouldn't put my money on Darklander until the end of 3.4 or 3.5 - if there is a 3.5.