8.0 speculation

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Originally Posted by Layte_Aeon

Incidentally, I love the image Halmarut gives us of the reflections, a bunch of worlds layered on top of each other, with distinct colour tinges.

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I love this as well! It's neat given that light is what split the star and held its reflections apart, because it's like a nod to a prism splitting white light into its separate wavelengths or colors.

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Originally Posted by Touken_Ranbu

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression it was explicitly stated to be a creation of Azem in Days Gone By, Days Yet to Come:

"Oh my, how careless of our Azem."

Thus spoke Hythlodaeus, having ambled into his office at the Bureau of the Architect to find a crystal sitting rather conspicuously on a chair reserved for guests. Slipped from a singularly adventurous pocket, no doubt. He marveled at the way the light played on its facets, like the surface of a tranquil lake, and recalled the first visitor he had received that morning.

In Japanese it's even more blatant with the line:

手のひら大の、澄んだ青色に輝くそれは、朝一番乗りでここを訪れた友人のものに違いない。中に収められているのは本人作の「旅を快適にする道具のイデア、第十四弾」とのことで、その構造について創造物管理局長の立場からアドバイスが欲しいとのことだった。
"In the palm of his hand shimmered with a blue light, a creation of his friend--the first to arrive [in the Bureau of the Architect] that morning. It was an item to make journeying more comfortable*, and they sought out [Hythlodaeus'] advice on the structure."
*Quite literally "the 14th iteration/item" though I'm not sure how to word it naturally in English. It was by no means something Azem perfected immediately, regardless.

(Very rushed translation, please take it with a grain of salt.)

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That's... basically definitionally not explicit. Azem made things to help with traveling, so yes this theoretically fits within their remit (except, as I've mentioned before, the reflections don't exist to be traveled to in their time), but nothing suggests this crystal--or any of them--were the key. Remember that crystals were just a regular storage mechanism back then, the fact that it was a crystal doesn't mean anything.

...especially because, as you yourself translated, the crystal in that story is blue which the key is clearly not. English's comparison to a 'tranquil lake' is more ambiguous, but also doesn't fit; the key's actually kind of a busy design.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

To be fair, I had forgotten about Robor and Alayla giving the key lol. Thanks, that ties things better in my mind ; Turaal knew about the gate and the key, sort of knew the key could open the gate, and guessed what's beyond the gate could be a source of great power. So Zoraal Ja's plan makes sense on his own (backed by Sereel Ja), and it ties with Preservation's ongoing plan, which ties with the Winterers' plan.

So now what we still dont know is :
- Who made Ethos
- What was Ethos originally made for
- How Ethos precisely works

Now my next brain-knot : Halmarut's knowledge about the Solstice. It would work with the theory that some people outside of Venat's plan knew about the Sundering, but also knew that one scenario would lead to the Solstice, thus the need of a way to travel between shards. Yet, why would the Solstice be different than the 13 rejoinings that the Ascians wanted ? How is she sure about it ?

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I find it particularly interesting that the English translation of the Ethos voice uses identical language to Halmarut. This could mean it is Halmarut or someone she is affiliated with. It could also mean the team randomly decided to start using identical phrases in scenes of close proximity.

I am referring to end of 7.4, when Halmarut clearly mentions holding fast and ever onward.

I would be curious to know if the other languages use identical phrasing as such.

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Originally Posted by Touken_Ranbu

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression it was explicitly stated to be a creation of Azem in Days Gone By, Days Yet to Come:

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+1 to Cleretic's note about the color of the crystal in JP, and also Hythlodaeus does in fact later mention:

"Azem left a concept crystal in my office."

Concept Crystals are specifically just those hexagonal crystals in the Watcher's Palace and the Anyders, the ones that look suspiciously like Memoria. While I certainly think this section of the story is designed to get us thinking about Azem leaving things behind for people, either intentionally or otherwise, this combined with the JP description of its colour and facets, as Cleretic pointed out Ethos' busier design, makes it a little more obvious that Ethos is not this specific crystal.

Ethos is all but confirmed to be Azem's short of the 8.0 Narrator showing up in Evercold or 7.56 and physically turning to the camera and saying "Ethos was made by Azem", so yes, that's not really in doubt. But the evidence for it is a little more substantial than just any old mention of a crystal belonging to Azem. Especially because we know all the Ancients were skilled with some form of creation magic and Azem wouldn't really be any exception to that, obviously they would have SOME Concept Crystals.

Instead, look to the Sphene Trial and the blatant Ancient Voice that does not match anyone else's, and its reactions to the Azem Constellation Crystal and Calyx remarking on the Constellation Crystal during Zelenia Recollection, the density of it matching Amaurot's, the design matching Amaurot's, the way it moves Aether across the Rift, the name of the expansion being "Golden Legacy", all of which are far more explicit.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Moving into actual discussion, what we can say at this point is that the Ascians had some level of fingers in the pie of Alexandria.

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I mean... maybe. Halmarut knowing about Ethos doesn't mean the Ascians (as a whole) were necessarily aware of it; Emet-Selch's Ultima Thule monologue suggests he was, but even if that's the case it doesn't mean the Ascians as a group were backing Preservation. As essentially an extension of the Winterers, it's in a very weird place because Robor and Alayla delivered Krile and Ethos to the Source 20 years ago. It seems to be a pet project of Halmarut's or something she decided to look into in the event the "will of the star" position was vacated, which is weird when the Ascians had no reason to believe their plan to fully rejoin Etheirys would fail.

Alexandria does follow the Ascians' MO for rejoining (introduce new, powerful tool people fight over, creating an elemental imbalance) so them having a hand in the Storm Surge makes sense, but Preservation was active before (or at least while) the Storm Surge ruined the Ninth, and it wouldn't make sense for that to be so if they're just a subsidiary of the Winterers (which they seem to be by present accounts) who are apparently acting in accordance with Halmarut's Solstice thesis (which wouldn't be worth worrying about unless the complete rejoining was already kiboshed). It's starting to look a little fuzzy, logically.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Lmao, I did mix this up. However, I'd still level the same criticism.

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Your criticism was that Thancred and Urianger were bad judges of character for putting their weight behind Zoraal Ja; they did not, and considering the man they did support (Koana) is a perfectly capable leader and shrewd politician, I really can't agree doing so was an exercise in bad judgment. Was he a bit hasty to try pushing new technology on Tural? Maybe. But despite limited screentime he ultimately turned out to be humble enough to grasp his shortcomings and held down the fort while we went traipsing around Heritage Found, so.

I'm not saying Dawntrail's writing was perfect, just that this exact point has no merit. I agree the writing around the Scions was clunky, but that seems to have been a problem with everyone not named Wuk Lamat (and to a lesser extent Sphene in her triplicate forms).

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Your criticism was that Thancred and Urianger were bad judges of character for putting their weight behind Zoraal Ja; they did not, and considering the man they did support (Koana) is a perfectly capable leader and shrewd politician, I really can't agree doing so was an exercise in bad judgment. Was he a bit hasty to try pushing new technology on Tural? Maybe. But despite limited screentime he ultimately turned out to be humble enough to grasp his shortcomings and held down the fort while we went traipsing around Heritage Found, so.
I'm not saying Dawntrail's writing was perfect, just that this exact point has no merit. I agree the writing around the Scions was clunky, but that seems to have been a problem with everyone not named Wuk Lamat (and to a lesser extent Sphene in her triplicate forms).

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I directly mentioned believability while also noting that they would not partner with Zoraal Ja. My presupposition could be true since they did not, in fact, choose him. As for Koana its not insane, its just still unbelievable. I remember them getting the letter and listening to their interactions and I didn't buy it. Yes, their relationship to Koana is innocuous, tepid, unoffensive, whatever you want to call it. But its so much of those things that its like, anyone could have been his allies and the result would be mostly the same.

Like when Urianger hangs out with Lopporits or, to use DT, when Y'Shtola teams up with Shale, that's quintessentially their characters. There wasn't enough inherent relevance or enough dialogue to show me this team up was necessary or even uniquely useful to either party.

For example, maybe this resonates with Thancred because he had a tough dad with high expectations. Let them share anything other than being good natured and wanting to help others. That's like. Almost everyone in this game.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I directly mentioned believability while also noting that they would not partner with Zoraal Ja. My presupposition could be true since they did not, in fact, choose him. As for Koana its not insane, its just still unbelievable. I remember them getting the letter and listening to their interactions and I didn't buy it. Yes, their relationship to Koana is innocuous, tepid, unoffensive, whatever you want to call it. But its so much of those things that its like, anyone could have been his allies and the result would be mostly the same.

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Koana actually makes complete sense for Thancred and Urianger to support, not just because he very directly called for Sharlayan help, but because he is, at the outset of the rite of succession, the best option. He's educated, he's got a shrewd political mind, he's allied with a known nation that mostly don't hate, and he's got a plan for his home country; when the other options are two different flavors of budding dictators and a woman that nobody yet takes seriously, he's a great pick not just for the future of Tural as a nation, but for avoiding the massive war that Zoraal Ja was explicitly going to start, and that Bakool Ja Ja was probably gonna do eventually too.

The problems with Koana as a leader instead spring up across the rite, and are a great example of what a campaign for leadership (which the rite of succession basically is) actually does bring out; that Koana's vision for his country isn't actually what his country needs, he's just importing what's worked elsewhere without having done any work to check if it's functional or even wanted in Tural. Koana's journey is one of learning that his homeland isn't the primitive backwater that he thought it was, and that while some people are receptive, rampant modernization both isn't always welcome or what's needed. He's sort of a harmless (and fixable) version of Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja Ja: he's turning up assuming he already has the answer to every problem, but learns over time that you really need to hear what the question is before giving your answer.

Thancred and Urianger don't get journeys, because they're there to prop up and progress Koana's story, as well as to broadly legitimize him as a 'good guy'; if he didn't have the support of people we know to be allies, he would look like the most Seto Kaiba-ass secondary antagonist around. But Thancred and Urianger also don't need one; Thancred got Shadowbringers and Urianger got Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Not everyone needs an arc all the time, and trying to give everyone an arc is just a recipe for a bloated, aimless mess. (EDIT: And I'd argue does cause problems later on, with the overlapping expertises and arcs of Y'shtola and G'raha meaning neither of them get to do anything.)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Thancred and Urianger don't get journeys, because they're there to prop up and progress Koana's story, as well as to broadly legitimize him as a 'good guy'; if he didn't have the support of people we know to be allies, he would look like the most Seto Kaiba-ass secondary antagonist around. But Thancred and Urianger also don't need one; Thancred got Shadowbringers and Urianger got Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Not everyone needs an arc all the time, and trying to give everyone an arc is just a recipe for a bloated, aimless mess. (EDIT: And I'd argue does cause problems later on, with the overlapping expertises and arcs of Y'shtola and G'raha meaning neither of them get to do anything.)

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I agree with the idea that Scions can't all uniformly have a dramatic arc like say, Thancred and Ryne, every xpac. I would argue they don't. I disagree for example Thancred had a strong role in Endwalker, I felt he was mostly there for flavor. Lopporits also are more like a semi arc, a vibe check that makes "complete sense" for Urianger's character. Just making the qualifications "Are you Sharlayan adjacent", "Are you good natured" makes this association shallow at best and contrived at worst. I'm arguing they needed maybe two or three more campfire scenes and just other scenes in general. Like maybe instead of having Bakool Ja Ja setting Valigarmanda loose off screen, he somehow tricks their party into doing it. I want to see them deliberating over and experiencing the Alexandria attacks, more than I did. And so on and so forth. I think the fact this did not happen is not due to it being Koana's story or the necessary pace to tell DT's story, I think they just don't have any real strong reason for those Scions to be there, it just barely made sense and they wanted them for the advertising of the xpac.

Thus I would submit the advice that just as we do not need major arcs constantly, we also do not need every Scion in every xpac all the time. Maybe Koana should have partnered with one of the Pelu Pelu who is a friend of their family, or something, and they could have used that to give us a more personal insight into Tural. Or is it that there isn't enough "story" there to do that. And that's exactly my point, it comes across as very uninspired.

This is also, btw, how you solve the "Scions divided" problem, by having characters actually do stuff that creates stakes between them personally. What we got was "we are competitors simply by nature of it being a competition but I would be fine if I or the other one won" and vice versa which is a flat contest.

I dont see why we had any interest or stake in the succession of a foreign continent of baby sacrificing savages that cant even grow their own food.
Especially to the point of fighting each other over it after everything the scions have been through together. Im glad that proposed plot point of opposing scions ended up forgotten about.

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Originally Posted by Wildheaven182

I dont see why we had any interest or stake in the succession of a foreign continent of baby sacrificing savages that cant even grow their own food.
Especially to the point of fighting each other over it after everything the scions have been through together. Im glad that proposed plot point of opposing scions ended up forgotten about.

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Fully agree. In my view, it should have been framed as a friendly competition. The team was going for an anime beach episode but they forgot to maybe watch some anime beach episodes and understand how a low stakes story can still play on characters' established traits and personalities to make the tournament feel fun. The team was trying to have it all. Beach episode, anime tournament, tons of worldbuilding, family issues, all before we get to the other 50%. That's nearly impossible to do well. It was doomed from the start.