8.0 and World

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cleretic

So your answer is that, because this is the only thing you could possibly imagine them doing with the Azem storyline, this must be what happens, even though nobody can put forward why it would be anything but a terrible idea on both a moral and narrative level.

I'm sorry, no. It would literally be more interesting to abandon the Azem story entirely than to do this.

---

Frankly yes. I would rather see the warrior of light, through whatever means, benign or morally questionable, be fully rejoined, than not and in turn the story suffers in wasted potential and wasting peoples time and energy on it.

And by using such a plot thread, the missing fragments of the self, craft rich and textured stories that the audience would find engaging.

After all, the story has at this point all but abandoned the pretense of just sticking to the source at this point, what with the thirteenth, the first, azem's key, solution nine, living memory, the loporrits ship that lets them travel to other shards. And if we stick to the source, the loporrits are working on spaceships to travel out into deep reaches of space and we already had a taste of that with ultima thule through the ragnarok. As I personally get the feeling the writers are not very interested in Hydaelyn (the planet).

As Meracydia really only has two options in my opinion based on their track record, either its a Heavensward expansion where we explore it, or its a Stormblood expansion where we partially explore it but our attention is also divided on some other locale.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chasingstars

Frankly yes. I would rather see the warrior of light, through whatever means, benign or morally questionable, be fully rejoined, than not and in turn the story suffers in wasted potential and wasting peoples time and energy on it.

---

Why? Legitimate question.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chasingstars

And that is the point, explore the subject matter, where maybe there is a person who doesn't want to be rejoined to have their autonomy taken. That is a goldmine for storytelling. Not engaging with that content, by contrast, is just leaving a plot thread dangling for no other reason and could be considered wasted potential in writing. After all, if goes unexplored, then why was it even brought up in the storyline? Sure it tells us we are an incomplete version of Azem, but if we do nothing with that storyline, then I could snip it out of the story and no harm comes to the story. See what I mean?

---

I'm sure that other Azem shards will appear in the future and that there is a reason why they were introduced to the story. But there's a lot that can happen with these characters apart from rejoining with us. They aren't objects to be picked up and used, like the crystals of light we collected in ARR.
As long as the story hasn't established that we need to absorb other Azem shards, there is no need to do it, not to mention that the WoL would never agree to it without good reason.

Just because something would be interesting in a story doesn't mean it should happen, especially if it doesn't make sense for it to happen.
I could see a villainous Azem-shard trying it though.

I believe the WOL becoming fully rejoined in order to fight the last evil of the game is a valid endpoint that I wouldn’t be surprised if the game is working towards and is one I’m not opposed to but it has to be one that is handled appropriately because as with ardbert he was the one who chose to rejoin with us not the other way around

We know that the game specifically doesn’t condone the ancients but their power wasn’t really the problem, it was their societal philosophy which we know they don’t all share (besides Azem and venat oschon is another very strong example of an ancient who holds the more modern viewpoints of the WOL)

I can also see the WOL rejoining and then deciding to somehow forcibly split themselves back into their shards to return each of their agency to them.

So yeah I do think ultimate rejoining is on the table but it depends on how they handle it

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I believe the WOL becoming fully rejoined in order to fight the last evil of the game is a valid endpoint that I wouldn’t be surprised if the game is working towards and is one I’m not opposed to but it has to be one that is handled appropriately because as with ardbert he was the one who chose to rejoin with us not the other way around

We know that the game specifically doesn’t condone the ancients but their power wasn’t really the problem, it was their societal philosophy which we know they don’t all share (besides Azem and venat oschon is another very strong example of an ancient who holds the more modern viewpoints of the WOL)

I can also see the WOL rejoining and then deciding to somehow forcibly split themselves back into their shards to return each of their agency to them.

So yeah I do think ultimate rejoining is on the table but it depends on how they handle it

---

To be honest, I hope it isn't. I'd prefer the story to focus on 'us' and who we are rather than shifting narrative to focus on our ancient identity. As Emet-Selch said, "The future you seek is not the past we loved. That is why we fought. And why I lost."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

To be honest, I hope it isn't. I'd prefer the story to focus on 'us' and who we are rather than shifting narrative to focus on our ancient identity. As Emet-Selch said, "The future you seek is not the past we loved. That is why we fought. And why I lost."

---

I never said we were aiming to become Azem again (as in the person sundered who was Azem and not us dubiously being pseudo Azem) I was more referring to us gaining strength via soul density

The ancients were more powerful, it’s hard to deny that, their flaw came in their world view

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

To be honest, I hope it isn't. I'd prefer the story to focus on 'us' and who we are rather than shifting narrative to focus on our ancient identity. As Emet-Selch said, "The future you seek is not the past we loved. That is why we fought. And why I lost."

---

At the very least it seems like we are dealing with artifacts that have been left behind by Azem, which could give us insight into what Azem was doing before he met his end. That doesn't have to mean that they will roll up the entire history of the Ancients again though.

But like why? How does rejoining with individuals who share soul shards with Azem make us a better Warrior of Light other than just raw power? We are the Warrior of light, not the Warrior of power. The previous arc had us become hope against despair, light against darkness. I think the next story arc will require us to be the light against a different kind of darkness. And I think what will be interesting is that we will have to find what it means to be the Warrior of Light ourselves as we no longer to have Hydaelyn to guide us.

Because it also creates interesting dynamics with the other shards of Azem, like the dynamic of the WOL and ardbert was one of the single best things about ShB’s storytelling and even in the state he is in ardbert choosing to give up the last of his consciousness to save the WOL was a fantastic piece of storytelling

I’m not one for directly retreading plot points but the dynamic of the WOL with the remaining 4 (5 if OG golbez isn’t Azem which can be debated either way) shards of Azem is one of the points about the other shards I’m actually interested in

And for all the fact that we are the WOL not the warrior of power the WOL still holds immense physical and magical power. Calling them the strongest known human isn’t a stretch. That dynamic of what the WOL would or wouldn’t do with the power offered (or not depending on the shard) of the other shards is something interesting to me. That’s why I’d support it. What the WOL chooses to do and how they draw inspiration from their other shards sounds good to me especially if they aren’t as equally altruistic as ~~YUYA/YUTO/YUGO~~

And like what DQ11 is doing with its most recent arc I quite like a game that’s willing to endlessly make the protagonist stronger even if it gets a bit funny towards the end. I would actively hate another midgardsommor situation

The first saga had the Ascians, Hydaelyn and Zodirak as an overarching plot element, so I wonder what the overarching plot element for the new saga will be. I think 7.3-7.55 would be a good place to establish it.
All I can think of so far is that we check out the remaining shards to make sure that nothing is wrong.