The nature of the Sundering has been spelled out in a Nier Reincarnation side story.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Well, that sounds like a personal assumption as to what a rejoining is like. Given the emphasis of memories being etched onto the aether of the soul I could equally assume rejoinings couldn't be that bad or everyone on the Source would have severe PTSD from the trauma inflicted to their multiple soul fragments.

The world of FFXIV being the way it is with tangible souls and reincarnation prevent me from drawing any real world comparisons. The Ascians weren't killing people for the sake of it and the narrative addresses Emet's struggles with his duty. Conversely, Hermes and Venat knowingly chose violence for the express purpose of ending their world as they knew it. Intent makes a difference to me.

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...the comparisons I made weren't to the Rejoinings. Yeah, we don't know what the people on the Eighth felt like, and to be honest, I don't really care enough to probe the notion. I meant the Bozja Incident, I mean the Garlean and Allagan racial suppression, I mean Black Rose.

Emet-Selch being the instigator of the Garlean Empire deliberately to cause these events puts all of that blood on his hands (and Lahabrea doesn't exactly get off scot-free either). If I had to point to my specific most hated moment in the entire story, it is exactly the point where Emet took credit for the Garleans and claimed all that was his plan, which in one swoop killed two villainous forces for me. Emet in exactly that way--orchestrating that empire completely eradicating any hope for the sympathy they'd later try to wring out of him, while also nearly-completely destroying the human element of the Garlean Empire; a big part of the tragedy behind similar regimes in history is that they are entirely made by humans doing human things to humans; adding that 'orchestrated by the Ascians' element to the Garleans nearly completely ripped out that heart of them, and just made them empty pawns. Honestly, it's a good thing Matsuno decided that human element of war would be his angle for his Shadowbringers contribution, and that their too-brief spotlight in Endwalker worked so well, or that link in to the Ascians would've compeltely ruined the Garlean Empire as a feature of the setting for me.

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Originally Posted by Rulakir

Well, that sounds like a personal assumption as to what a rejoining is like. Given the emphasis of memories being etched onto the aether of the soul I could equally assume rejoinings couldn't be that bad or everyone on the Source would have severe PTSD from the trauma inflicted to their multiple soul fragments.

The world of FFXIV being the way it is with tangible souls and reincarnation prevent me from drawing any real world comparisons. The Ascians weren't killing people for the sake of it and the narrative addresses Emet's struggles with his duty. Conversely, Hermes and Venat knowingly chose violence for the express purpose of ending their world as they knew it. Intent makes a difference to me.

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Just because you’re reincarnated or your soul is recycled doesn’t mean you’re the exact same person. We are not a one-for-one to Azem. Emet’s best friend is never coming back like he wanted. Considering what we know needs to happen for a Calamity to trigger, it is not some touchy feely thing where people’s souls are simply stitched together on another world and they live through them. Their lives, cultures, and everything generations of people strived for and were passionate about are never coming back. The lead up to the Calamity also requires a lot of pain, death, and destruction on both the Shard and the Source in order to work and the two failed attempts created hell worlds.

And I don’t believe the Ascians were a pure people who were only killing because they had to. The very first quest arc in the game in Gridania for involves an Ascian sending a golem after you just because he likes killing adventurers. Emet-Selch possess some random guy on the First and twists his body to look like Solus just because he’s more comfortable like that. Before that, he gloats about the Garlean Civil War he designed being more catastrophic than he planned despite the fact that it was not necessary at all for a future Calamity and even hindered it since it gave Eorzea and Doma breathing room to get their shit together and fight back. If Emet-Selch had simply named Varis as a successor, Garlemald wouldn’t have recalled the legions and Ala Mhigo and Doma would still be under Garlean control.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I'd say it's a safe bet that it can be taken seriously as canon given that the Nier universe is already directly connected to the Final Fantasy XIV universe via the Nier raid storyline. Ishikawa also had a direct hand in crafting it which suggests a desire to acknowledge and maintain a sense of canon alignment.

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There was nothing canon in Nier raids no matter what they said (not even the only time where dev words did not match with things in game). As for validity of info in an unrelated mobile game, who knows /shrug.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

Since the release of Shadowbringers, and especially over the past several months since the release of Endwalker, there's been some controversy over what exactly happened to people during the Sundering - physically, to their identities, and whether or not this could constitute death. Other than the line from Emet after the Qitana Ravel about people barely remembering the Unsundered World, the game itself is relatively vague.

However, you may remember that there's an ongoing crossover event between Nier Reincarnation and FFXIV. A couple days ago, a new event series focusing on Emet-Selch was released written by Natsuko Ishikawa. In this, the immediate aftermath of the Sundering is directly described. I'll present it here without comment.

https://i.imgur.com/0gSaqmC.png

If you like, the whole thing can be viewed here. There's some other interesting stuff in there, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVZh6oZziwQ

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Good to see that they finally got around to it after wasting an enormous amount of time and resources on slice of life scenes while failing to effectively address the circumstances of the Sundering.

Well I think it's safe to say that Emet felt absolutely no guilt or remorse about anything he did, if this story is anything to go by. He is straight up repulsed by the sundered!

I took "My ideals are inviolate, invincible" as a fancy way of saying "I regret nothing".

I think he ultimately recognized that we had the potential of being worthy heritors of the star, but still didn't think we were actually better then the Ancients.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I took "My ideals are inviolate, invincible" as a fancy way of saying "I regret nothing".

I think he ultimately recognized that we had the potential of being worthy heritors of the star, but still didn't think we were actually better then the Ancients.

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I mean, that was obviously what it was. But it's good we can finally put any lingering doubt about Emet's feeling towards the sundered and his killing spree behind us, granted this side story is '' canon. ''

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Originally Posted by Rongway

No, Nier is part of FFXIV in the same way that FFXII and FF Tactics are part of FFXIV: it is not. Characters and events in FFXIV that resemble characters and events from Nier are not the characters and events from Nier. They are characters and events that resemble characters and events from Neir. In the same way, it's safe to say that characters and events in Nier that resemble characters and events from FFXIV are not the characters and events from FFXIV.

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This is incorrect.
When Nier was released (or maybe even announced) it was stated that it would be canon to Nier. The events in 14 directly follow on from one of the many endings of Nier Automata, in much the same way that all of the Nier games are direct continuities from one of the alternate endings of a previous game.
YorHa: Dark Apocalypse is canon to the Nier universe.
It stands to reason that any mention of FF14 content in Nier content directly related to YorHa: Dark Apocalypse is also bilaterally canon, especially if it's written by the same writer.

This is markedly different to the Ivalice questline, which IS stated to merely be a reflection of those events and characters.

I think it's more accurate to say that Nier in FFXIV is inconsequential. Yeah the events are canon, but they're so disconnected from everything else that it doesn't really matter.

I'd say the same is true in reverse too. No main story beats change as a result of this, it just adds some neat extra fluff around events we already know about, cool stuff for those invested in the lore but of no real consequence to most people.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

I think it's more accurate to say that Nier in FFXIV is inconsequential. Yeah the events are canon, but they're so disconnected from everything else that it doesn't really matter.

I'd say the same is true in reverse too. No main story beats change as a result of this, it just adds some neat extra fluff around events we already know about, cool stuff for those invested in the lore but of no real consequence to most people.

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Yeah, this is broadly how I read it too. Being connected doesn't mean they're actually important to each other, it just means they share a space and one day bumped into each other. 2B and the WoL have their own lives and deal with their own problems, the fact they met one day didn't really impact on either of them. It's like Gilgamesh; The fact that he's the same guy from FFV (who was also the same guy in VIII, XII, XIII-2, Dissidia 012...) is at the same time unarguably true, and in no way important.

Honestly, that's how most crossovers used to work. I can think of so many TV show crossovers that are neat at the time, but ultimately don't impact beyond that; just because Magnum P.I. and Murder She Wrote had a crossover, doesn't mean that said crossover is a huge inflection point for either, but at the same time, the fact they aren't a huge inflection point doesn't mean they didn't happen.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Yeah, this is broadly how I read it too. Being connected doesn't mean they're actually important to each other, it just means they share a space and one day bumped into each other. 2B and the WoL have their own lives and deal with their own problems, the fact they met one day didn't really impact on either of them. It's like Gilgamesh; The fact that he's the same guy from FFV (who was also the same guy in VIII, XII, XIII-2, Dissidia 012...) is at the same time unarguably true, and in no way important.

Honestly, that's how most crossovers used to work. I can think of so many TV show crossovers that are neat at the time, but ultimately don't impact beyond that; just because Magnum P.I. and Murder She Wrote had a crossover, doesn't mean that said crossover is a huge inflection point for either, but at the same time, the fact they aren't a huge inflection point doesn't mean they didn't happen.

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crossover lost that meaning in more current era stories due to how big they are often made to be advertisement wise.

FF14 on the other hand is following more to that old style being canon but not important nor impactful to the over Main story as a whole. Just a small moment in time when two paths of different stories cross with each other and split off again on their own path once more. They may add more to the lore by expanding old lore we know but will not impact the grand scheme of things.

They did this back in Final Fantasy Mobius (RIP that FF game) as well where they made the FF game crossover canon to the other FF game stories. FF7 crossover event is when Cloud mind was still messed up in the wheel chair, FFXIII crossover event takes place after FFXIII Lightning returns right before she fully reincarnated to the new world (aka Earth), FF8 crossover event took place during the moment when Squall was lost in time and space while traveling to that spot he promised to meet Rinoa at the ending of FF8, and FF10 crossover event is even confirmed directly by the original writers of FF10 to be Tidus side of FFX-2 story (love how they brought back the laugh in HD and how they show Tidus being aware he is never called his real name during FFX).

Wow….this is kind of crazy lol. So instead of showing the event in game they just describe it in some random crossover? I guess they really didn’t want to show peoples souls getting torn apart otherwise it’d probably look even worse on Venat lol, i’ll take what i can get though. A bit horrifying to see how she basically reduced men to animals and they had to be raised from the ground up. Actually, that’s extremely tragic. A successful, brilliant race of people who took honor in keeping their star safe were eventually betrayed by two of their own and their entire civilization and the world itself was ripped apart because someone had lost hope…. utterly tragic.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Wow….this is kind of crazy lol. So instead of showing the event in game they just describe it in some random crossover? I guess they really didn’t want to show peoples souls getting torn apart otherwise it’d probably look even worse on Venat lol, i’ll take what i can get though. A bit horrifying to see how she basically reduced men to animals and they had to be raised from the ground up. Actually, that’s extremely tragic. A successful, brilliant race of people who took honor in keeping their star safe were eventually betrayed by two of their own and their entire civilization and the world itself was ripped apart because someone had lost hope…. utterly tragic.

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Well as I said before, this is not the first time SE writers made canon lore for a different game in a different game. It is still not that impactful as people are making it out to be since it won't impact the grand scheme of things for future events since the focus is more on expanding on current lore we know that won't affect future events.

Either way I am not surprised Emet's tale is used in Nier Reincarnation event as it fits the tone and theme of the game being the tales of the dead and Emet is very much dead in FF14 now.

Makes me wonder how SE may handle Emet if they ever considering introducing him into Dissidia Opera Omnia because lore wise (at the point this game is in story wise), Emet being introduced will have to be Post-Endwalker version of himself with him having all his memories up to the point he dies. However, people may probably enjoy Emet in Opera omnia more for his interactions with other FF characters over any new lore he may provide.

What I find very curious about this collab and some reactions from it is that most of it is information and events than we already knew, just rephrased. Nothing contradicts the game, we only get expanded knowledge on what happened to "humanity" right after the sundering.

I find highly suspicious that anyone would take issue with either a re-telling of the same events we already know, just in a grimmer light, and with the added info on the state of sundered humanity. Why exactly dispute that? What part of it is questionable with the game's established lore? I want you guys to tell me exactly what part of it is questionable.

...Or is it just because it happens to paint a certain character in a darker light? Because it makes the lives that were destroyed while she kept her complicit silence more humane and relatable? And not as the caricature of "self-destroying (one day in a very distant future) paradise" that "had to change" some seem to be fixated on? Because it depicts the brutality of the sundering in a different light, without Flow Answers sounding in the background and the perpetrator being the one telling us how she saw it?

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Originally Posted by Sicno

What I find very curious about this collab and some reactions from it is that most of it is information and events than we already knew, just rephrased. Nothing contradicts the game, we only get expanded knowledge on what happened to "humanity" right after the sundering.

I find highly suspicious that anyone would take issue with either a re-telling of the same events we already know, just in a grimmer light, and with the added info on the state of sundered humanity. Why exactly dispute that? What part of it is questionable with the game's established lore? I want you guys to tell me exactly what part of it is questionable.

...Or is it just because it happens to paint a certain character in a darker light? Because it makes the lives that were destroyed while she kept her complicit silence more humane and relatable? And not as the caricature of "self-destroying (one day in a very distant future) paradise" that "had to change" some seem to be fixated on? Because it depicts the brutality of the sundering in a different light, without Flow sounding in the background and the perpetuator being the one telling us how she saw it?

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It is just common reaction these days for any new lore, no matter how small it is, being introduced in another game rather than the Main Game.

This reaction happens very often these days. Nothing really complicated about it, it is just how some people react to not keeping everything considered important related, no matter the amount of lore it adds to something we already know, in the Main Game.

In this case it is the small lore added to Emet's view of events from the sundering to when he establish Garlemald. Nothing really changed what we know about Emet but it added a bit of understanding to what lead him to where he is in Shadowbringer though insight of his mindset and viewing of events.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

It is just common reaction these days for any new lore, no matter how small it is, being introduced in another game rather than the Main Game.

This reaction happens very often these days. Nothing really complicated about it, it is just how some people react to not keeping everything considered important related, no matter the amount of lore it adds to something we already know, in the Main Game.

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I totally understand getting mad at parts of missing lore being presented on a different game, even if it's small. The part I don't get is that questioning if/how that new lore fits in the original game is an analysis that has to be done case-by-case, and in this case... I don't see what part could be questioned.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

In this case it is the small lore added to Emet's view of events from his the sundering to when he establish Garlemald. Nothing really changed what we know about Emet but it added a bit of understanding to what lead him to where he is in Shadowbringer though insight of his mindset and viewing of events.

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Exactly, and I don't see why that should be questioned as "non-canon".

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Originally Posted by Sicno

I totally understand getting mad at parts of missing lore being presented on a different game, even if it's small. The part I don't get is that questioning if/how that new lore fits in the original game is an analysis that has to be done case-by-case, and in this case... I don't see what part could be questioned.




Exactly, and I don't see why that should be questioned as "non-canon".

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I can't speak for others why they do the whole case by case thing to justify it being non-canon when it is canon. I can only go by what I always assume is maybe their reason being they do this as a way to justify why it should be consider non-canon to themselves and others.

That is often what it comes down to, in my opinion, being people always need some kind of justification to convince themselves and others why something should be non-canon and canon to remove any doubt they may have themselves and with other people.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

I think it's more accurate to say that Nier in FFXIV is inconsequential. Yeah the events are canon, but they're so disconnected from everything else that it doesn't really matter.

I'd say the same is true in reverse too. No main story beats change as a result of this, it just adds some neat extra fluff around events we already know about, cool stuff for those invested in the lore but of no real consequence to most people.

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It's pretty consequential for Nier considering it shows how the machine lifeforms integrated real magic into their system and evolved into godlike beings out of a desire to become human, which would create a timeloop where they were responsible for their own creation and humanity's destruction. Not to mention the whole thing with the dwarves ties back into the themes of XIV.

I mean… this doesn’t change Venat’s character at all, though? She outright says that her actions introduced suffering to a people who weren’t used to experiencing it.

And losing ancient music speech doesn’t make the people who went through the sundering “like animals”. It just means they forgot how to talk like they used to. Seems akin to the aftermath of the Tower of Babel bible story to me. Universal language lost, confused mumbling for a time, then new languages developed. It’s a detail we didn’t have before, but I guess it makes sense. And it in no way means they lost the means to think. People can have thoughts while being unable to communicate them.

And yeah they don’t clearly and consciously remember the ancient world. We knew that already, too, though? Otherwise we’d have stories passed down about the specifics of the age of Gods (ie the time of the ancients) and the final days and everything in between.

And saying they “die and die” when you have a character coming from a society where the term “die” was apparently something you didn’t hear death called much isn’t really an indicator that the dying happened in a way that we’d consider horrific. Any death that wasn’t voluntary suicide after fulfilling your life’s purpose would be horrific to Emet. We already knew people were now normally mortal after the sundering. That’s all he’s describing. This doesn’t change anything.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

it was stated

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Please link to the statement.

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Originally Posted by Sicno

What I find very curious about this collab and some reactions from it is that most of it is information and events than we already knew, just rephrased. Nothing contradicts the game, we only get expanded knowledge on what happened to "humanity" right after the sundering.

I find highly suspicious that anyone would take issue with either a re-telling of the same events we already know, just in a grimmer light, and with the added info on the state of sundered humanity. Why exactly dispute that? What part of it is questionable with the game's established lore? I want you guys to tell me exactly what part of it is questionable.

...Or is it just because it happens to paint a certain character in a darker light? Because it makes the lives that were destroyed while she kept her complicit silence more humane and relatable? And not as the caricature of "self-destroying (one day in a very distant future) paradise" that "had to change" some seem to be fixated on? Because it depicts the brutality of the sundering in a different light, without Flow Answers sounding in the background and the perpetrator being the one telling us how she saw it?

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Honestly, the funny part is that the collab does have new information, it's just not the stuff anyone is actually looking at or really cares about. There's weapon stories for the collab weapons, and that includes getting slightly expanded information on the original wielder of Thyrus.

It's not exactly earth-shattering news, but it is genuinely new information. But nobody cares, because the focus is instead on a very slightly different retelling of a story that we've already heard from exactly the same source before.

Thymus is not a familiar name to me. lol What weapon we talking about?

Thyrus is/was the ARR whm relic weapon. In its first few stages.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Honestly, the funny part is that the collab does have new information, it's just not the stuff anyone is actually looking at or really cares about. There's weapon stories for the collab weapons, and that includes getting slightly expanded information on the original wielder of Thyrus.

It's not exactly earth-shattering news, but it is genuinely new information. But nobody cares, because the focus is instead on a very slightly different retelling of a story that we've already heard from exactly the same source before.

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Nobody cares? Where do you get that conclusion from? Just because it's not the most talked about, doesn't mean people doesn't care. And frankly, as you said yourself, is not earth-shattering news. Especially the shadowbringers weapon.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

Thyrus is/was the ARR whm relic weapon. In its first few stages.

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It's also pretty much 'the' iconic FFXIV weapon in crossovers. This is largely because Y'shtola is the premiere XIV character to appear in those games, so naturally her weapons are White Mage ones and Thyrus is basically first off the ranks for that job. But between Record Keeper, Opera Omnia, Dissidia NT, now Nier Reincarnation, and even Puzzle and Dragons and PSO2, Thyrus has ended up as basically the weapon from FFXIV that non-FFXIV players would know.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Nobody cares? Where do you get that conclusion from? Just because it's not the most talked about, doesn't mean people doesn't care. And frankly, as you said yourself, is not earth-shattering news. Especially the shadowbringers weapon.

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And it's called 'exaggeration'. But you might've noticed that both of the lively threads here talking about the Nier collab are talking about the retelling of Emet's story, so yeah, the weapon stories are kinda being overshadowed super hard!