Fan Fest Lore Revelations [Spoilers]

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Originally Posted by Alleo

Still wonder what actions we would have to do to stop a FLood of Light that is already happening. Also that would be quite another heavy packed expansion since we are kinda dealing with Garlemald and the Ascians too, throwing Dimension hopping on that pile would quite make this into stressfull storytelling imo.

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Well, dealing with the Ascians may precipitate and even require that and take priority over it.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I'm still of the belief that Hydaelyn cannot be trusted. At least not fully. If Hydaelyn and Zodiark are two sides of the same coin then it stands to reason that they're both at risk of tipping things too far in regards to their respective element.

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Exactly.

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Originally Posted by Rocl

Hi I’m here at Fanfest and noticed something in Lore Book II that I think might play into Shadowbringer’s teaser.

There’s a page for each dungeon and a blurb for the final bosses. For Kuribu it says the statue is modeled after a transcendental being from another plane.

There are a few more likey answers: cinema team not always being 100% accurate; representation of Light, etc; but it’s fun to think about seven months out

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This is exactly one of the reasons why I keep looking back at the Lore entries for Amdapor and Kuribu... the Fifth Astral era seems to hold some vital information.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I've made this point before, but many leap to the assumption that they're easily shoehorned in the good/evil dichotomy.

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While this is true we must remember that even tho SE is known for story, they also lean heavily on cliché. And while good the story is always very predictable and they are almost never ambiguous about alignments or anything particularly deep or thought provoking. So while there is little truly good or evil about divine beings when it comes to literary debate, this is also SE storytelling which while good, as I said, is also very lacking in any real depth. It is usually more like an angsty teen drama than anything.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I have to replay the WoD arc, but I'm not entirely convinced the "Warriors of Darkness" were really defined as such on a cosmic scale as such. Hydaelyn blessed them as Warriors of Light and they still bear Crystals of Light.

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Yes, Warrior of Darkness was just a nickname given by Elidibus. Same as how 1.0 heroes were Warriors of Light cause their face was not visible due to all the Light. But they weren't the chosen warriors of Hydaelin. It's like auracyte. A substance that means like three different things.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

While this is true we must remember that even tho SE is known for story, they also lean heavily on cliché. And while good the story is always very predictable and they are almost never ambiguous about alignments or anything particularly deep or thought provoking. So while there is little truly good or evil about divine beings when it comes to literary debate, this is also SE storytelling which while good, as I said, is also very lacking in any real depth. It is usually more like an angsty teen drama than anything.

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I hope that we're both proven wrong on this being the eventual (but not necessary) outcome. They have deviated from this formula in some of their games. I have a feeling we might see a reprisal of something like DQXI, without wanting to give too much away.

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Originally Posted by Rocl

Hi I’m here at Fanfest and noticed something in Lore Book II that I think might play into Shadowbringer’s teaser.

There’s a page for each dungeon and a blurb for the final bosses. For Kuribu it says the statue is modeled after a transcendental being from another plane.

There are a few more likey answers: cinema team not always being 100% accurate; representation of Light, etc; but it’s fun to think about seven months out

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That confirms a hunch I had, thanks!

Finally, on my computer, not my phone...

The first time the Warrior of Light is associated with Light is in the quest "Into the Beast's Maw". There, the WoL meets up with Lahabrea for the first time and he calls the WoL the Bringer of Light. Later in "Reclamation", Hydaelyn herself calls the WoL the Bringer of Light as well. In "The Ultimate Weapon", Lahabrea calls the WoL the Bringer of Light again and Hydaelyn calls us the Warrior of Light flat out. So the title Warrior of Light isn't just an arbitrary title the Alliance came up with. It seems to be our title and role on the larger cosmic scale as well. It's what the Ascians and Hydaelyn recognize us as.

The other thing that I forgot until I went back and looked at 2.0 was how often Hydaelyn talked to us before Lahabrea cast Ultima. She talks to us almost every time we run into the Ascians to say that they are of the Shadow, of the Dark and are evil. She basically talks to us for all of 2.0 and doesn't stop talking to us until after 2.0 ends. This lines up nicely with the casting of Ultima, which both Hydaelyn and the Ascians agree weakened her a lot. I can easily see the same thing happening with Ysayle and Aarbert and Co. One day, Hydaelyn's talking to them every time something truly evil that needs to be stopped comes up, the next day she never speaks again and she doesn't have enough energy to tell them why. Like us and Minfillia, they try communicating with her, but they get nothing back, so they just keep doing whatever it is they were doing. The probably happened on all the other Shards as well.

As for the Warriors of Darkness, they were definetly chosen by Hydaelyn. That's what being given a Crystal of Light means. If they were chosen of Zodiark they'd have had Crystals of Darkness. And given that it seems they got all their info when they got to the Source from Elidibus, who we know has omitted information before, I have a very hard time seeing what they initially did when they got to Eorzea being indicative of what they would have done if they had found out they could make the attempt to talk to Hydaelyn right from the get-go. If Urianger knows that's an option, then the odds of Elidibus knowing that is very, very high. But hey, Elidibus saw the opportunity to use the Warriors of Darkness to instigate a Calmity, so he took that option. And Elidibus has never said he does not want Calamities to happen, just that he wants Balance.

It's worth noting that the big truth Arbert wants to tell the Warrior of Light right before Hydaelyn takes the Warriors of Darkness back home is not that Hydaelyn was wrong or is evil. It's that Light and Dark don't matter in and of themselves. What Arbert says does matter is how the Warrior of Light chooses use both Light and Dark.

Her calling us by an already established label that would later take on a different significance is what I am getting at.

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It's worth noting that the big truth Arbert wants to tell the Warrior of Light right before Hydaelyn takes the Warriors of Darkness back home is not that Hydaelyn was wrong or is evil. It's that Light and Dark don't matter in and of themselves. What Arbert says does matter is how the Warrior of Light chooses use both Light and Dark.

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Yes, i.e. they're not intrinsically good or evil. He was originally chosen by her. He later changed paths.

Hydaelyn presents a certain image in pursuit of an agenda we cannot fully fathom yet. So does Elidibus.

Note this post is a little rambly.

With the talk of Hydaelyn, Zodiark, and balance, time to bring up another theory of mine on the whole balance thing.

SO, if we all remember (in paticular if I remember right), back in 3.2 we learn a little bit of the history between Hydaelyn and Zodiark. Namely that they used to live in balance, until Zodiark began to covet power and was banished by Hydaelyn. Now a couple things here point towards possibilities.

1.) Zodiark broke the balance first, and while Hydaelyn managed to stop him it caused the split that made the Source and Shards. It may have been that she had no other way to stop him, or atleast believed there was no other way, but the creation of the Shards is probably what makes the current balance more shaky for Light.

2.) The first shard to fall to something other then a Calamity/Ardor was the 13th, which became the Void (of Darkness). This Shard was also most likely the closest to Zodiark, thus making it easier to fall. The same could be said of the 1st Shard and Light, and even then it wasn't until after the 7th Calamity that a Flood of Light started to happen...coincidently, as Obsidian pointed out, Hydaelyn also weakened enough that she couldn't talk to her Champions, with even Minfillia who was most sensitive to her voice barley being able to hear her.

3.) Even before she was unable to talk to her WoL and Minfillia, she has been shown to not be able to just control those with the Echo. Ascian manipulation of Ysayle started before her strength was drained by Ultima after all. Given that each Calamity weakens her it also wouldn't be surprising if she was saving her strength for the WoL and those more sensitive to her Voice.

4.) Both our WoL and the WoD from the 1st Shard were killing Ascians after the 7th Calamity. If the assumption is that Darkness has been steadily growing stronger over the ages without suffering big losses, its possible the sudden loss of multiple powerful dark users suddenly tipped the scales towards Light...which affected the 1st Shard much more greatly than the Source. Thus the start of a Flood of Light.

5.) So now, where does this leave us here as becoming WoD? There are two possiblities in my mind.

A.) Zodiark, during his time removed from Hydaelyn, has had a change of heart but been unable to really act on it until recently. Even with the Darkness having gotten stronger and Hydaelyn much weaker he still isn't able to reach out to others without...consequences. Though it could also be that the whole "Scions souls leaving the body" is because they are being pulled into the 1st Shard to help combat the Flood of Light.

B.) Elidibus is going to manipulate us to stop the Flood of Light, which we can agree with because it isn't a good thing, its a mutual goal...but by doing it on his terms we end up helping further his goals much more than our own, which ends up causing us to lose. The voice is Arbert who is trying to help guide us into stopping both the Flood of Light and the Calamity that Elidibus is trying to bring about, though the way he has to contact us is not the most pleasent. Or by design, again forcing the Scions into helping stop the Flood of Light (assuming that the "written" history is that the WoL alone goes into the 1st to try and stop the Flood.)

On a personal note, I don't think Hydaelyn is evil. At worst she is a light(er) shade of gray in comparison to Zodiark and the Ascians. So far the story doesn't really present her as being malicious towards the living beings on the planet.

I guess Elidibus is probably going to be the final boss for SB if the 4.5 dungeon is anything to go by.

I'm wondering just how badly things are going to go south in the aftermath, though. I guess it remains to be seen whether it was the initial counterstrike from Garleans or something later that ended up being the catalyst for the next calamity.

I don't think "winning too hard" is what causes a Flood of Light, but killing the Ascians (cutting out the Dark). You need both for stability, but with Zodiark dead / sleeping His agents are the only beings that bring that... and killing them removes it. Important to remember that while Light is Hydaelyn's domain, She doesn't seem to have much power over it, and cutting out the Dark will cause Light to do what it does whether She wills it or not.

I'm wary of trusting Hydaelyn after what happened to Minfilia (Bloodborne will teach you to be skeptical of deities), but don't forget that She cast out Zodiark to preserve the balance... unless She's lying. There is likely more to the story than we yet know, but I don't believe Hydaelyn is lying or has a secret agenda.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I guess Elidibus is probably going to be the final boss for SB if the 4.5 dungeon is anything to go by..

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What is it?

The dungeon looks to be the war-torn battlefield where the allied nations presumably intercept the Garlean counterstrike and is the same place where the WoL was fighting Elidibus in the trailer.

It seems like we're walking in on the conflict well after it's already started.

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Originally Posted by Mieck

From the trailer, I'm not sure it's possible to see it in terms of "this part happens in present day, this is the past" etc.

In the new Famitsu interview, they say there is a deliberate presentation shift away from direct story telling to a more themeatic display.


https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._interview_of/

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Q: I think the trailer switch from the Hollywood style, to a more theme-oriented European movie style.
Y: Absolutely. Our target is to make our audience to not entirely understand what's happening, but still can enjoy a sense of epicness.

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With that in mind, as others have pointed out, the Amdapor bosses may just be a representative of light, and how the WoL - throwing themselves at it again and again - is constantly rebuffed. Only the switch to Darkness / Dark Knight overcomes this "foe".
Another thing, I wondered about the visions the WoL is having. Premonition or flashback? It's not clear, naturally. He is, however, initially shown as his 1.0 archer, in a land reminiscent of Mor Dhona. There are crystal formations that can be seen at the start. Themetically it is a good place (if indeed it is, and not just some random wasteland, also highly plausible), because it is where the WoL's story started (for 1.0 players, at least).

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I don't think "making the audience not entirely understand what's happening" is supposed to mean that the things we are seeing are purely symbolic. The 'not understanding' comes with the reason behind it happening. When is this? Where is it? How did [our character] get from where we are now to that desolate place, and who is speaking to him?


Interestingly I very nearly wrote in my previous post that the wasteland looked like Mor Dhona - I did notice the crystals - but on second thought I decided it was a lot less crystalline and more muddy. Could it be the aftermath of the battlefield?

Or... something that occurred to me the other day, but what would happen if someone summoned a primal in Mor Dhona?

Given the beast tribes' endless seeking of crystals to summon new iterations of their primals, why has nobody made use of the huge field of them sitting in place? Are we just fortunate that the tribes tend to stay in their own territories and not venture into other regions?

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Originally Posted by Cilia

What is it?

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It's called "The Ghimlyt Dark", although what that actually means is anyone's guess.

Screenshot of the concept art from the Live Letter stream:

https://i.imgur.com/IxYNZJI.jpg

"War-torn" is a good descriptor. It looks like the immediate aftermath of a serious and brutal bombing campaign.

Something that came to mind is Kingdom Hearts - twisting over the idea of "becoming Warrior of Darkness", I remembered that this is essentially Riku's role in that story (as 'second protagonist' vs Sora remaining linked to Light - at least in the main games, though I never got around to playing all the side stories).

Funnily enough, the shot in the trailer that cuts from WoL to Thancred running up the stairs immediately put me in mind of a shot from KH2's opening cinematic (here, section starting around 2:42) of the characters running up a staircase - this is meant to represent the sidestory "Chain of Memories" which had two separate story paths for Sora and Riku.

And I just rewatched the ending for Riku's story. I'd forgotten just how much of a "dark knight" he is. Using the power of darkness, fighting an 'inner self', still ultimately allied with the Light...

And wow, some of that dialogue seems appropriate right now.

From around 17:00:

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MICKEY

Your darkness belongs to you. Just the same way your light does.

Up till now, I thought darkness was something that should never exist. Then I spent time with you and changed my mind.

The road you chose - I didn't know. Light and dark, back to back.

With you, I think they might meet in a way nobody's seen before.

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And around 18:30:

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RIKU
What are you making me choose now?

DiZ
Between the road to light - and the road to darkness.

RIKU
Neither suits me. I'm taking the middle road.

DiZ
Do you mean the twilight road to nightfall?

RIKU
No. It's the road to dawn.

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The road to dawn. The road that lies balanced between light and darkness.

I hope that's our road too.

So big battle, we kill Zenos-Elidibus, and that makes everything go pear-shaped. Best guess.

While walking a middle road is a nice idea, eventually you reach one end or the other. In Kingdom Hearts' case of Riku, he reaches Light before the end of II, and only in CoM and II is Darkness presented as anything more than evil. The "road to dawn" is, in other words, the path of redemption.

The Warrior of Light has no such need to walk that path. Everything they've done has been selfless sacrifice; barring presently-unforeseen consequences of whatever goes down in 4.5, the need to walk the path of atonement or redemption is... not there at the moment. Without that the term "balance" remains nebulous as ever.

The dungeon could, potentially, be some sort of Echo vision or alternate timeline. If it's not, then my bet is that 'Zenos' seizes control of Garlemald. The patch preview shows him sitting down in artwork - on a throne, perhaps - and Solus looks particularly unhinged as he looks down at someone. I wouldn't be surprised if Varis is exiled, imprisoned or killed to force Garlemald's hand. So far he's been against playing into the hands of the Ascians - though his hands have been tied. If he does order a counterattack, then it almost certainly won't be consensual on his part.

I'm curious as to what the dungeon's name is in Japanese, as it has a multitude of kanji before the "Ghimlyt Dark" part which definitely doesn't just stand for "the".

Considering that the initial story synopsis for Shadowbringers mentions us encountering Elidibus-Zenos before the alliance has properly gone to war with Garlemald, I feel like the dungeon is going to be something occurring in the present/our own reality.

If I had to guess, the Garleans/Ascians decided to raze a town/settlement on the Gyr Abanian border with the intent of provoking retaliation from the alliance and the main reason we're called over is because of the "revived" Zenos.

I'm also really curious as to how the real Zenos is going to play into this mess, though. I'm half-hoping he decides he wants to fight his own body after seeing that its new owner is a match for us.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

While walking a middle road is a nice idea, eventually you reach one end or the other. In Kingdom Hearts' case of Riku, he reaches Light before the end of II, and only in CoM and II is Darkness presented as anything more than evil. The "road to dawn" is, in other words, the path of redemption.

The Warrior of Light has no such need to walk that path. Everything they've done has been selfless sacrifice; barring presently-unforeseen consequences of whatever goes down in 4.5, the need to walk the path of atonement or redemption is... not there at the moment. Without that the term "balance" remains nebulous as ever.

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That's true, but the "middle path" doesn't need to be a road to redemption - rather in FFXIV's case it could be the path that we need to walk so redemption isn't necessary. Or this is the downfall and the middle path to redemption comes later.

(And it also seems appropriate, given the apparent association of story colour-schemes and times of day - we are now at nightfall, and we do need to walk the road to dawn. Possibly as in the "eighth dawn" after the coming eighth Calamity...)

I guess it comes back to that problem of "what does taking the side of darkness actually look like?" - without compromising our morals or actions as a character.

It's going to be a long and agonising wait to see what this actually means.

Posted this on another thread and was wondering what thoughts are on this.

Seeing Thancred makes me wonder if the other Scions were taken out purposely to save them from this battle. Almost like the Avengers plot. The voice knows they are needed and if they weren't taken out early then they would die on the battlefield. This may be the reason why we couldn't find a solid connection between the Scions that were treated.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm curious as to what the dungeon's name is in Japanese, as it has a multitude of kanji before the "Ghimlyt Dark" part which definitely doesn't just stand for "the".

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If that's pronounced as "gimlet", a gimlet is one of a few things. In this case, I'd imagine the tool used for boring holes may be of most relevance. Typically used for wood, though, so may not be literal.

Alternatively, it's cocktail hour.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I guess it comes back to that problem of "what does taking the side of darkness actually look like?" - without compromising our morals or actions as a character.

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It all depends on what you, personally, have been fighting for and to whom you owe your allegiance. Personally, I don't have a problem with taking up the side of darkness as long as it's to save people. "Warrior of Light" is just a title, and my allegiance is ultimately to my own sense of right and wrong, not Hydaelyn.

Narrative wise? The only thing I could think of is that something happens that tips the balance too far to Light, causing a Flood of Light like on the first Shard and necessitating taking up the power of Darkness. How we could use the power of Darkness and still oppose the Ascians... well, that much I couldn't guess at beyond noting that the Ascians are more aligned with chaos, while we could be taking a more moderate path and seek freedom from the tyranny Light can impose at its extreme.

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Originally Posted by RukiaFae

Seeing Thancred makes me wonder if the other Scions were taken out purposely to save them from this battle. Almost like the Avengers plot. The voice knows they are needed and if they weren't taken out early then they would die on the battlefield. This may be the reason why we couldn't find a solid connection between the Scions that were treated.

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Without further details (who the voice belonged to and why it was able to rip the Scions' souls from their bodies) anything's game, really.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Without further details (who the voice belonged to and why it was able to rip the Scions' souls from their bodies) anything's game, really.

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I've been remiss on reporting on the Japanese version. First things first: it is indeed the same disembodied voice from Prelude in Violet. That might be true in English, too, but it's far too late to trust casting consistency on that end. I rewatched the post-credits stinger from 3.0 just to be sure, and while the voices are close, it's not a match for Elidibus, and not even in the ballpark of Zenos (possessed or otherwise). My current casting ear-guess is Yuuki Kaji, which would mean the voice belongs to an entirely new character and we can safely rule out things like "older Alphinaud" etc. I can also rule out Unukalhai based entirely on pronoun ("watashi" vs Unukalhai's "boku"), just for giggles.

You can't trust english voices for consistency. The JP voice is the same. And they all sounded like Alphie but post puberty haha.
On top of that, 4.4 cutscene voice in english had more distortion effects on top of it making it harder to hear.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

I've been remiss on reporting on the Japanese version. First things first: it is indeed the same disembodied voice from Prelude in Violet. That might be true in English, too, but it's far too late to trust casting consistency on that end. I rewatched the post-credits stinger from 3.0 just to be sure, and while the voices are close, it's not a match for Elidibus, and not even in the ballpark of Zenos (possessed or otherwise). My current casting ear-guess is Yuuki Kaji, which would mean the voice belongs to an entirely new character and we can safely rule out things like "older Alphinaud" etc. I can also rule out Unukalhai based entirely on pronoun ("watashi" vs Unukalhai's "boku"), just for giggles.

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I trust the EN casting now; after they switched 99% of it from 2.x - 3.0 it's been consistent.

That said the nuances of the JP language are duly noted, but the possibility of fake outs remains. While the JP voices have been consistent throughout, they might be using a different seiyuu and pronouns in a deliberate attempt to mislead. Such things do happen.

That said I'm not inclined to believe it's a fake out, but it's a possibility I can't rule out. I still have a hunch it's Zodiark Himself, but that's just a hunch.

Apropos of nothing, I had to finally get a new phone and have been playing F/GO since I can actually run it and FEH is on a bit of a story break at the moment. With the Thanksgiving banner coming up, I would ask whether you recommend whaling for Gilgamesh or Scathatch if necessary.

Ok so let's say that what we are gonna face is actually the beginning of a Flood of Light. Let's say that our actions have actually caused this to happen. The question we will need answered is how. Did we put to much good into the world? Are Light and Dark just good and evil?

See this is the part a lot of people are making what i believe to be a mistake in their logic. It's not the good deeds we did that done that. It's also not any “bad” deeds many people would like to pin down on us. I believe our mistake was pointed out very clearly in the OG Warriors of Darkness arc: Primals and Ascians are somehow fundamental in maintaining an equilibrium and the way we have been dealing with them is what is gonna gives us troubles.

I know many of you wouldn't really question the Ascians existences being fundamental to this equilibrium somehow since they seem to be our direct counterparts. But why would Primals of all things be part of this? Because, being fully honest, i can't think of single plot element aside from the Ascians that goes so deep down the lore rabbit hole. And also in both accounts we have of a Flood happening the Ascians AND the Primals are very essential to it: in the Thirteenth shard their WoLs became so drunk in Primal power that they became corrupted into the voidsent and their world became a aether-starved dark void. Igeyorhm seemed to be to blame for the whole thing; while in the First they fought so relentlessly against both Ascian and Primal that eventually their word was being taken over by sheer radiance erasing all life in its path.

While we learnt a lot more about Primals over the years there's still a lot we don't know. Why was the seal over Silvertear Falls necessary? Why do we have Primals like Ravana that seem very single minded but we also have beings like Ramuh that seem to share some conection to the Mother Crystall herself? Killing Primals became a mindless task we just do and that's it. Hell the Flames have a dedicated Primal-killing squadron and it seemed to be one of the few things we and the Empire agreed on. I don't think we are gonna get “the Primals we're harmless/good all along” or something for a twist but rather our methods might be called into question. Maybe even the Ascians might not fully grasp how important this cycle of Primals might be and just used them because they're a useful tool, just like everybody else they ever used.

All in all that’s where i’m betting my horse for the big twist.

Also about what exactly triggers this flood: i wholeheartedly agree that we might end up killing Elidibus in the new dungeon and that just hecks everything up. Between us and others like not-Gaius killing Ascians and Primals by the buckets the death of an Emissary might be just the thing to start a Flood of Light.

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Originally Posted by Ceridwenae

If that's pronounced as "gimlet", a gimlet is one of a few things. In this case, I'd imagine the tool used for boring holes may be of most relevance. Typically used for wood, though, so may not be literal.

Alternatively, it's cocktail hour.

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Betting away the fate of the realm on a driking competition? Sign me up

Note that the Primals that we could actually reason with (Ramuh and Alexander) WANTED to be defeated and dispersed back into aether, or in Alexander's case sealed away in such a way that it could never be summoned again. Primals are not good at all for the planet, they drain aether as much as they can and areas where they have been (like where Odin was initially sealed) have much less aether compared to the rest of the world. Alexander MOVING ITS BODY drained dangerous amounts of aether and it could cause a Calamity on its own even if it tried to use its abilities to help others.

The Flood of Light is probably still talking about the 1st Shard.

There's a number of other factors to consider as well. If aether is not easily replenished, then harvesting crystals and making use of ceruleum no doubt contributes to the decay. Perhaps not to the same degree as Primal and Eikon summoning but it'd go a long way towards explaining why the Ascians are so keen on war and why a war is potentially catastrophic for Hydaelyn. After all, you need an immense amount of resources to fight a full on war and desperation leads to escalation.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm curious as to what the dungeon's name is in Japanese, as it has a multitude of kanji before the "Ghimlyt Dark" part which definitely doesn't just stand for "the".

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Screenshot of the slide for reference:

https://i.imgur.com/znJNTLp.png

境界戦線 "kyoukai sensen", which works out to be something like "border frontline" or "border warfront". "Kyoukai" means boundary or border, and "sensen" is "front" as in warfront.

So it's the frontlines of a war, where the area happens to be on the border of some nation (probably Garlemald, but Garlemald is a big place with many borders and many wars), and it's called "The Ghimlyt Dark".

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Originally Posted by Cilia

That said I'm not inclined to believe it's a fake out, but it's a possibility I can't rule out. I still have a hunch it's Zodiark Himself, but that's just a hunch.

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I can't help but imagine Zodiark as having an older voice on the level of Hydaelyn, but then I remember that Lahabrea sounded old but Elidibus is voiced by Japan's favorite ageless pretty-boy. It'd make for an interesting contrast, for sure.


I'm inclined to think otherwise because the JP directly references waiting for a "bearer of a crystal of light", which is not so uncommon that Zodiark would have had to wait 10,000 years for one. (Unless he's referring to the upgrade Middy gave us.)

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Apropos of nothing, I had to finally get a new phone and have been playing F/GO since I can actually run it and FEH is on a bit of a story break at the moment. With the Thanksgiving banner coming up, I would ask whether you recommend whaling for Gilgamesh or Scathatch if necessary.

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I'll admit I have since jumped from F/GO to GBF, since the content release timing got waaaay slow on the JP servers. Gilgamesh is "objectively" better than Scatahch because of Enuma Elish, but the latter gets more use from me because single target Quick is BS if you play it right, and good for farming gears. They both get powercreeped pretty bad by later Servants, so you probably shouldn't go ham. Scathach even manages to powercreep herself.



(PM system where?)

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

So there is this uncomfortable implication that if our actions are responsible for the possibility of this hypothetical Flood of Light, that means we have been helping people too much. Which in turn means we should have stood by in some cases and let horrible things happen in the name of "balance", which is kind of, well, "kill your abusive mother and then yourself" Sophia-level.

(Not quite at "as all things must be" level, though.)

The other way I can see the writers spinning this is that if we've helped people in this specific way instead of the way we did, then we could have avoided the Flood of Light, but that just makes it based on unfairly arbitrary rules that we could not have known.

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You've struck at the heart of what has always annoyed me about the "Balance of Light and Darkness" thing. Balance implies a certain amount of "dark actions" are both allowable and necessary. If "dark actions" involve harming people then the whole idea of balance is appalling - basically, human sacrifices are necessary to stave off a Flood of Light. If "dark actions" do not necessarily involve harming people, then what exactly are they? Basically, they're whatever the authors decide, and as players we have no way of knowing until they tell us. (Not that we're given any choice in the matter regardless - we go where the story line railroads us, even if we know the things we're doing are bad in the long run.)

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Is there a transcript of the lore Q&A anyway? That's what I came here looking for, before I got caught up in discussing the trailer.

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To be honest, I was expecting to see discussion of that in this thread, as well! I don't know of any transcript, but I do recall three of them. (Two because they were the two questions I posted, and the third, because it was, er, memorable.) The following is the gist:

Q. Why were the two guards in the Zenos/Varis/Solus cutscene trusted with witnessing all the free talk about the Ascian origins of the Empire?

A. They were vetted.

Q. After possessing a mortal, can an Ascian leave that mortal voluntarily? Or must they be forced out through death (or alternative methods like the Blade of Light).

A. Yes, they can leave voluntarily, and this and a bunch of other Ascian revelations will be prominent in the next expansion. (Also, dev answer was "Why not both?" leading me to believe they didn't really understand the question.)

As tickled as I was to see my questions make the cut, I was a bit disappointed by the first answer! I guess there's really nothing special about the guards. The second was interesting. It does imply that Solus really did settle in for the long haul by choice, not necessity.

As for the other question I remember:

Q. Is Aphinaud actually half Lalafell? (Included: a half dozen pictures comparing Alphinaud to Lalafell and young and grown Elezen.)

A. HAHAHAHAHAHA! (It was noted, they did not say, "no".)

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The dungeon looks to be the war-torn battlefield where the allied nations presumably intercept the Garlean counterstrike and is the same place where the WoL was fighting Elidibus in the trailer.

It seems like we're walking in on the conflict well after it's already started.

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It's my personal prediction that this dungeon is in THE FUTURE. In the next patch, the voice that's been stealing away the Scions' consciousnesses will succeed in doing the same for the WoL, and will take us to the Bad Future represented by the Gimlet Dark. We'll then run the dungeon, and be returned to our body in the past, having witnessed first-hand the horrors we need to prevent.

That's just a guess, however!

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Originally Posted by Guiballad

See this is the part a lot of people are making what i believe to be a mistake in their logic. It's not the good deeds we did that done that. It's also not any “bad” deeds many people would like to pin down on us. I believe our mistake was pointed out very clearly in the OG Warriors of Darkness arc: Primals and Ascians are somehow fundamental in maintaining an equilibrium and the way we have been dealing with them is what is gonna gives us troubles.

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It's worth pointing out that the way we've been dealing with Primals is something that has the Ascian Stamp of Approval. In early cutscenes, the Ascians make it clear that the WoL's actions in dispatching Primals are All According to The Plan, and when Elidibus brings the Warriors of Darkness in, he sets them to work doing exactly the same thing. So, if the Ascians are after Balance, and they APPROVE of the way we put down Primals, then putting down Primals the way we do is probably not contrary to Balance.

I kind of saw the whole 'Become the Warrior of Darkness' coming for quite awhile. Though, I don't think it was really that hard to guess given what we've been told previously during past events. Personally, I image the likely scenario is that solution is likely do with mastering both of the powers or Light and Darkness in order to find a solution. Of course the course question is "What does it mean to be a Warrior of Darkness?" Primarily the status of Warrior of Light seems to come down to the fact that we wield the six crystals of light which represents each of the primary elements in the games lore. Is it a situation like in Final Fantasy 4 where there are equivalent crystals of Darkness or is it something else entirely? Is it a situation that requires a change of mindset or approach? Do we abandon the Crystals of Light that we already have or does something else happen to them? There are definitely far more questions then their are answers.

if we become dank warriors does this mean we will lose our blessing of light?

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

The part with Thancred played on me. As it was the "old" Thancred and not the current one. And in this patch the mystery voice kept talking about going to the past. So what if Thancred along with the other scions are from previous timelines? Thancred could be from the time when Amdapor fell, for instance. They could use the old "his memories were wiped" cliché. The little girl could be Min, but those of us who played v1 already know Min existed in Eorzea as a child and we see her father and such. I almost want to say the child is Hydaelyn and they have been keeping her safe from the Ascians, through time. Her current crystalline state could also be a protective cage of sorts. So many things to speculate on...

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Yeah, that child being Hydaelyn is one of my theories, too. Maybe she incarnated into the world for... reasons?

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Originally Posted by Draginhikari

I kind of saw the whole 'Become the Warrior of Darkness' coming for quite awhile. Though, I don't think it was really that hard to guess given what we've been told previously during past events. Personally, I image the likely scenario is that solution is likely do with mastering both of the powers or Light and Darkness in order to find a solution. Of course the course question is "What does it mean to be a Warrior of Darkness?" Primarily the status of Warrior of Light seems to come down to the fact that we wield the six crystals of light which represents each of the primary elements in the games lore. Is it a situation like in Final Fantasy 4 where there are equivalent crystals of Darkness or is it something else entirely? Is it a situation that requires a change of mindset or approach? Do we abandon the Crystals of Light that we already have or does something else happen to them? There are definitely far more questions then their are answers.

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The WoL so far has been avoiding to use the Echo in a specific way. Namely the power to influence the soul (which allows for possession). This is a power that is attributed to the dark. Maybe becoming the WoD means we finally get to use this part of the Echo as well.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

It all depends on what you, personally, have been fighting for and to whom you owe your allegiance. Personally, I don't have a problem with taking up the side of darkness as long as it's to save people. "Warrior of Light" is just a title, and my allegiance is ultimately to my own sense of right and wrong, not Hydaelyn.

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That's the line of thinking that bothers me, though. It seems far too simple if keeping cosmic balance is a simple matter of saying "today there's too much light so I'm wearing my black spiky armour and wielding my dark powers instead of my light ones".

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Q. After possessing a mortal, can an Ascian leave that mortal voluntarily? Or must they be forced out through death (or alternative methods like the Blade of Light).

A. Yes, they can leave voluntarily, and this and a bunch of other Ascian revelations will be prominent in the next expansion. (Also, dev answer was "Why not both?" leading me to believe they didn't really understand the question.)

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I don't think "why not both?" was the dev answer, that's just Koji throwing in memes. (He even said something about the slides not making much sense to anyone who read them without actually listening to the presentation.)

He used the same meme when replying to my topic about the AST timeline.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Q. Is Aphinaud actually half Lalafell? (Included: a half dozen pictures comparing Alphinaud to Lalafell and young and grown Elezen.)

A. HAHAHAHAHAHA! (It was noted, they did not say, "no".)

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If we really are headed for The Future, maybe we're going to see adult Alphinaud then?

Also that slide really needed a whole lot of red string lines and post-it notes on top of the pictures.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

It's my personal prediction that this dungeon is in THE FUTURE. In the next patch, the voice that's been stealing away the Scions' consciousnesses will succeed in doing the same for the WoL, and will take us to the Bad Future represented by the Gimlet Dark. We'll then run the dungeon, and be returned to our body in the past, having witnessed first-hand the horrors we need to prevent.

That's just a guess, however!

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While I do think a timeskip is likely, I don't think the Ghimlyt Dark is part of it. Everything else suggests the "bad future" involves an excess of light, so the dark battlefield doesn't seem to fit with that.

It seems more likely to me that it's the tipping point at which the bad future happens.

Unless of course (why not both?) the Ghimlyt Dark is a vision of "Twin Doom A" and by preventing it we cause "Twin Doom B".

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Originally Posted by Vulcwen

The WoL so far has been avoiding to use the Echo in a specific way. Namely the power to influence the soul (which allows for possession). This is a power that is attributed to the dark. Maybe becoming the WoD means we finally get to use this part of the Echo as well.

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I'd question if our character would be willing to make use of that particular power or even if they could. So far, the Warrior of Light has absolutely no control over when the Echo seems to want to activate, it just kind of does. The only thing the Warrior of Light in game has been shown to do is basically creating a shield of block tempering attempts by Primals. Everything else about the Echo seems extremely passive or not able to be controlled like the Ascians can.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That's the line of thinking that bothers me, though. It seems far too simple if keeping cosmic balance is a simple matter of saying "today there's too much light so I'm wearing my black spiky armour and wielding my dark powers instead of my light ones".

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Isn't that what the Warriors of Darkness did, though? They still had their crystals and blessings of light. Light and Darkness in and of themselves have no will or command of the alignment and mental state of those who interact with them, they're more like the aetheric result of wide scale change.

Hydaelyn and Zodiark aren't so much the will of Light and Darkness as much as they are entities who happened to be aligned to those aetheric signals. Zodiark's problem wasn't Darkness but covetousness and consumption, and Ascians aren't spreaders of Darkness but Chaos to thin the veil between Reflections/Shards and cause Rejoining.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

I'm inclined to think otherwise because the JP directly references waiting for a "bearer of a crystal of light", which is not so uncommon that Zodiark would have had to wait 10,000 years for one. (Unless he's referring to the upgrade Middy gave us.)

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Well... I suppose the lack of antiquated linguistics is a decent tell that the voice might not be Zodiark; Hydaelyn only speaks using more modern language when using Minfilia as a sock puppet, so Zodiark speaking "normally" wouldn't make a whole lot of sense either.

So... we're basically back to square one, able to do little more than shrug.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

I'll admit I have since jumped from F/GO to GBF, since the content release timing got waaaay slow on the JP servers. Gilgamesh is "objectively" better than Scatahch because of Enuma Elish, but the latter gets more use from me because single target Quick is BS if you play it right, and good for farming gears. They both get powercreeped pretty bad by later Servants, so you probably shouldn't go ham. Scathach even manages to powercreep herself.



(PM system where?)

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I know all 'bout 'dat mobage power creep; of the starting lineup in FEH only one unit (Hector) is still good, and he's upstaged by his limited-availability Valentines' and Legendary variants. I mean, any unit can be good given the proper build, but cf. vanilla Hector to the soon-to-be released Surtr... even with Distant Counter there's no contest.

Ahem. I will take your advice to heart and save my SQ for a good Rider (Drake or Ozymandias?) or Musashi (to replace the good but not stellar Mordred), since I already have a decent Archer (Tristan) and a good budget Lancer (Leonidas). I'm currently stuck in Rome, steamrolling everything because I ground a bunch of levels... not sure how far the NA server is right now, so I'll just sit tight.

I really shouldn't be starting mobage conversations on a board intended for the lore...

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That's the line of thinking that bothers me, though. It seems far too simple if keeping cosmic balance is a simple matter of saying "today there's too much light so I'm wearing my black spiky armour and wielding my dark powers instead of my light ones".

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Well, a big problem I have with the whole "balance" shtick is that we still haven't seen any indication that it's tipping too far one way or the other (on the Source, our own world). Yes the Burn is a good illustration of what an aether-bleached (Light-flooded) world will end up like and yes we've been told time and again that primals drain the land's aether... but other than the unresolved aether readings from before Wilred was killed and the deaspected crystals Y'shtola found mirroring those from before the Calamity, we have no evidence anything strange is going on.

There are simply too many unknowns to figure out much at the moment (which was the intent).

The wording in the Shadowbringers synopsis implies to me that the WoL vs. Elidibus fight is just the start of the events that led to a calamity in another history (Presumably that of the first shard's), so I don't think things actually went bad until well into the campaign against the Garleans or after it was over. The dungeon being called "Borderlands: Gimlyt Dark" in Japanese makes it sound like it's where the Garleans are choosing to make an informal declaration of war by razing a Gyr Abanian settlement at the edge of their territory.

We do know that eliminating all of the Ascians is not in our best interests, which makes me wonder how they can be stopped without actually causing an imbalance since I doubt they'll just throw their hands in the air and give up once the empire falls.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

To be honest, I was expecting to see discussion of that in this thread, as well! I don't know of any transcript, but I do recall three of them. (Two because they were the two questions I posted, and the third, because it was, er, memorable.) The following is the gist:

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Yeah, I didn't take screenshots of most of the slides of the Lore Panel Q&A, because as Matt Hilton pointed out, anyone just looking at joke-y answers on the slides will be very confused.

Based on my half-asleep summaries on Discord (2:30am Keynote, then 6:30am Lore Panel) though:

• Garlean third eyes are hard like keratin.
• There will be more lore-focused side stuff like Tales Of/From The X on the Lodestone and the Postmoogle questline. At least, that's the plan.
• Raen lore is basically Hingashi lore. As in, the two are effectively equivalent. (In other words, no Raen-specific lore that isn't part of Hingan lore.)
• The two guards at the end of 4.4 are merely very high-ranking and thoroughly vetted for their trustworthiness and discretion, despite Koji Fox's attempts to create an overwrought backstory for them.
• Aetherially conductive inks in magical tattoos is totally a thing, and is used all the time. This is in the Lorebook 2, as part of the MNK gear examples.
• The last queen of Ala Mhigo (ie Theodoric's queen) is probably from somewhere in the Black Shroud, given that the critters in the Royal Gardens are variants of ones found in the Black Shroud. Koji Fox goes "more information soon", and implies that there's a pretty interesting story there.
• Aulus mal Asina is "dead", but nobody believes the lore team about character deaths anyway, so that can probably be amended to be "dead today".
• There are plans in the future to introduce more subraces of the playable races to NPCs, although players will probably just be stuck with the two per race we now have. (The "joke" answer on the slide was that a six foot tall Lalafell is now a possibility.)
• Koji Fox went into the history of the Padjals, but nothing we didn't already know, and I think the implication is that for now the Padjals we see are the ones that exist currently, and the total number that ever existed is "less than you can count on three Simpsons hands" (whatever that means). I could be mistaken.
• Alphinaud may or may not be half Lalafell.
• The known crew of the Galadion have Elezen names because there was a ship of Elezen adventurers that was in trouble, when the Galadion (itself fleeing Aerslant) happened by and picked them up. The Elezen were so grateful that they offered to join the crew and be navigators, and that's why while the story of Limsa Lominsa's founding involves Roegadyn on the Galadion, there were also Elezen there.
• Regula's real face (ie under his helmet) was never actually decided, dev-wise. Koji Fox jokes that it could be time for a new fan contest to fix that.
• Ascian hosts don't have to die for the Ascian to leave (although it's implied that it will take some convincing to accomplish this), and more information will be coming in Shadowbringers.
• Vampire myths exist in Eorzea in the same way vampire myths exist here in RL; there may not have been actual bloodsucking vampires, but the myth is widespread enough that that the concept gets applied to names like vampire plants and vampire bats.

Then they went into creating The Vegetarian.

https://i.imgur.com/vp8IvYA.jpg