Revelations from Patch 6.2: Buried Memories

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

Yeah, Leofard was an orphan, and was adopted by a "highborn Elezen and childless widow", ie Raimille Roulchardon, the Elezen woman in the portrait. The first lorebook has Leofard's profile (page 202), and if I recall correctly, this was also told to us at basically the end of the Shadows Of Mhach questline, either just after Dun Scaith or maybe a quest after that.

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To my memory it was when the inspiration for his airship / manacutter's name was revealed, which I believe was post-Weeping City of Mhach.

But you have the right of it.

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Originally Posted by sidurgu-12

looking at his bio he was adopted into the family by raimille.

edit: yian beat me to it lol.

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In fairness, I did have to look it up in the lorebook myself, because SannaR is right that is has been way too long since the Shadows Of Mhach questline. If you challenged me before this sidequest to name even one other member of Leofard's crew (apart from Cait Sith) within thirty seconds, I'd have failed that challenge. (Stacia the ship's purser and Utata the ship's engineer, incidentally.)

I had a moment of "Leofard is adopted, which is why... wait, was he adopted? When did we learn this? Could he be another mixed race like Hilda? But he doesn't have pointy Elezen ears... oh, right, the lorebook! That should have the information I need!"

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

In fairness, I did have to look it up in the lorebook myself, because SannaR is right that is has been way too long since the Shadows Of Mhach questline. If you challenged me before this sidequest to name even one other member of Leofard's crew (apart from Cait Sith) within thirty seconds, I'd have failed that challenge. (Stacia the ship's purser and Utata the ship's engineer, incidentally.)

I had a moment of "Leofard is adopted, which is why... wait, was he adopted? When did we learn this? Could he be another mixed race like Hilda? But he doesn't have pointy Elezen ears... oh, right, the lorebook! That should have the information I need!"

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i need to buy those lorebooks (but im afraid the moment i do im gonna start binge buying artbooks and random collectables lol)

Heh. I didn't have access to the 1st one when I was doing the quest and didn't think to look it up on line. So when I did it it hit me like Mikoto's future sight popping up in Bozja and making me feel as though I had missed something.

Somebody on Reddit posted an interesting idea on where the story may go with Golbez.

He may be trying to make the Moon itself drop onto the 13th in a "collision" that will force the light aspected aether of the Moon to fuse with the void itself, making a part of the 13th stabilize like Norvrandt, a small "safe zone" from the endless darkness. And with the scene of the Watcher and the Moon at the end of the story, it gives this idea some merit.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Somebody on Reddit posted an interesting idea on where the story may go with Golbez.

He may be trying to make the Moon itself drop onto the 13th in a "collision" that will force the light aspected aether of the Moon to fuse with the void itself, making a part of the 13th stabilize like Norvrandt, a small "safe zone" from the endless darkness. And with the scene of the Watcher and the Moon at the end of the story, it gives this idea some merit.

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Noodles and oodles and boodles of characters

I'm not 100% that, that was a Watcher. Robe appear white/light, so it could be, but the energy around him looked reminiscent of the Azem sigil magic. I like the theory you're sharing, but I think other options are just as likely. Though the ones I can think of aren't nearly as fun. (Maybe he confronted Elidibus when Elidibus came to retrieve Cylva/Unuk)

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Noodles and oodles and boodles of characters

I'm not 100% that, that was a Watcher. Robe appear white/light, so it could be, but the energy around him looked reminiscent of the Azem sigil magic. I like the theory you're sharing, but I think other options are just as likely. Though the ones I can think of aren't nearly as fun. (Maybe he confronted Elidibus when Elidibus came to retrieve Cylva/Unuk)

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There's a few lines also mentioned...

Golbez mentions his "Prison of Passivity", and looks up and reaches towards the sky, almost as if to the Moon. He had also mentioned that the "gates" were finally opened. Part of the reason why I'm pretty sure it was the Watcher, was because of the background of the scene. Similar enough to almost guarantee it.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...86/unknown.png

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...447a9a19ba.jpg

EDIT: Trying to fix pictures, give me a moment.
EDIT2: Fixed it!

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Somebody on Reddit posted an interesting idea on where the story may go with Golbez.

He may be trying to make the Moon itself drop onto the 13th in a "collision" that will force the light aspected aether of the Moon to fuse with the void itself, making a part of the 13th stabilize like Norvrandt, a small "safe zone" from the endless darkness. And with the scene of the Watcher and the Moon at the end of the story, it gives this idea some merit.

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About this scene

I am still not sure if that was the watcher. The robe of that person appeared to be white and he looked quite small.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

About this scene

I am still not sure if that was the watcher. The robe of that person appeared to be white and he looked quite small.

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I don't think there's enough detail to make a definitive identification.

The person looks pretty small but even if he's a voidsent in this universe, Golbez is a really big dude. Like, the Garlean royals' armor appears to have taken a lot of inspiration from his own, especially Varis, and he was friggin' giant compared to normal people. Though we don't have a fr... no, we do, with the scenes where he's talking to pre-empowered Scarmiglione and Barbariccia. He's still hueg.

Using the moon to rebalance the Void is... an interesting idea. Gotta wonder if the Zodiark bit that should still be sealed up there is, though... might end up backfiring.

Character Limits ahoy

I believe Yoshi P has confirmed all the bits of Zodiark are gone, so that should be a hollow moon now.

I have my suspicions about this part appearing quite how it seems, but in a way that opens possibilities rather than closing them.

I feel like, if Golbez was genuinely threatening Zodiark (possibly by breaking the moon, possibly by itself absorbing the fragment of Zodiark like I've seen theorized), the Ascians would've been on higher alert than their general outlook on the Thirteenth of 'eh, we'll fix it later, almost definitely with Zodiark'. While it's theoretically possible that Golbez took out the Watcher's fragment in that period after when we killed Emet and Elidibus, that seems like a fairly short window since it seems he and the Fiends have been active for a while. I'm not saying it couldn't have happened in that window but I find it very unlikely.

Which leads to another question: if he didn't gain from eating Zodiark's fist there, what the hell did he gain?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I have my suspicions about this part appearing quite how it seems, but in a way that opens possibilities rather than closing them.

I feel like, if Golbez was genuinely threatening Zodiark (possibly by breaking the moon, possibly by itself absorbing the fragment of Zodiark like I've seen theorized), the Ascians would've been on higher alert than their general outlook on the Thirteenth of 'eh, we'll fix it later, almost definitely with Zodiark'. While it's theoretically possible that Golbez took out the Watcher's fragment in that period after when we killed Emet and Elidibus, that seems like a fairly short window since it seems he and the Fiends have been active for a while. I'm not saying it couldn't have happened in that window but I find it very unlikely.

Which leads to another question: if he didn't gain from eating Zodiark's fist there, what the hell did he gain?

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10 characters etc.

Assuming the theory holds true, then there’s three distinct possibilities . Either there’s something on the moon that he wants that we should know about, there something extra on the moons of the shards, or the moon itself is the target. I lean toward the latter two, as if the moons are exactly the same then I can’t imagine anything too valuable to Golbez could be found there.

Raid (+ letters)

Why are Hegemone and Agdistis named that way?
Hegemone was a Greek goddess of plants, specifically making them bloom and bear fruit.
Agdistis was an androgynous demigod, who was feared by the gods, so Dionysus tricked them into tearing off their... member, and becoming female... She could drive mortals mad and cause them to mutilate themselves.
It seems like these names are the wrong way around.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Raid (+ letters)

Why are Hegemone and Agdistis named that way?
Hegemone was a Greek goddess of plants, specifically making them bloom and bear fruit.
Agdistis was an androgynous demigod, who was feared by the gods, so Dionysus tricked them into tearing off their... member, and becoming female... She could drive mortals mad and cause them to mutilate themselves.
It seems like these names are the wrong way around.

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thats a good question

my guess for agdistis is because of the seed mechanic where she rips a few off throws it at us.

Another small detail: After completing the role quests of Shadowbringers and the 5.2 msq, certain npc at Crystarium have new dialogue... :3

I hope the "must be on said job doing the MSQ to get small tidbits" thing won't continue. I know I can just go to an inn room to replay those CSes but I miss it when the game would give you those tidbits so long as you had the job unlocked or did X content. One thing I do like is the post Vault CS change. At least it takes out the sting that if you play as a healer or have one leveled up the game won't completely ignore that fact until Zenos spanks everyone at Rhalgr's Reach and Krile yells at you to snap to it.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I hope the "must be on said job doing the MSQ to get small tidbits" thing won't continue. I know I can just go to an inn room to replay those CSes but I miss it when the game would give you those tidbits so long as you had the job unlocked or did X content. One thing I do like is the post Vault CS change. At least it takes out the sting that if you play as a healer or have one leveled up the game won't completely ignore that fact until Zenos spanks everyone at Rhalgr's Reach and Krile yells at you to snap to it.

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I agree. My main is Dancer now, but I played through 6.2 as Reaper just because I did not want to miss any nods. Another reason it sucks is that unless I am wrong, the mention in quest comes from one of those scene which I think is not viewable from the inn.

So can we talk about how our actions in the Raid story may have...

Altered the timeline so that Pandaemonium survived past the Sundering.

If WoL never went back in time and changed the events where pandaemonium got blown up into pandaemonium is saved and all watchers are not killed then the upcoming Raid part 3 that will take place in present day will never have happened.

At the sametime we may have also changed the fate of Lahabrea as well due to the influence WoL had on him in Pandaemonium along with making Pandaemonium a bombshelter that may have prevented anyone or anything inside Pandaemonium from being sundered.

It will be interesting to see what Ancients may have survived the sundering in Pandaemonium as well along with seeing if the guess that Erichthonios is actually the Lahabrea we knew due to becoming his father's successor or Lahabrea was still Erichthonios's father.

Not to mention how they dealt with the sundering and years being alive.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

So can we talk about how our actions in the Raid story may have...

Altered the timeline so that Pandaemonium survived past the Sundering.

If WoL never went back in time and changed the events where pandaemonium got blown up into pandaemonium is saved and all watchers are not killed then the upcoming Raid part 3 that will take place in present day will never have happened.

At the sametime we may have also changed the fate of Lahabrea as well due to the influence WoL had on him in Pandaemonium along with making Pandaemonium a bombshelter that may have prevented anyone or anything inside Pandaemonium from being sundered.

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I think you're reading into it wrong.

Think of how "infected" Lahabrea acted due to Athena. It was a lot like the Lahabrea we know, right? I don't think Pandaemonium survived the Sundering, but I DO think that infected Lahabrea had done something with it to throw it in the Lifestream. Why there? Because Athena is in the Lifestream, and throwing Pandaemonium there gives Athena access to it and her research again. With Claudien likely being Eric's reincarnation, and it being told to us that Athena needed his soul for some reason, all the pieces have gathered into one area. We didn't change the past at all, we just moved all the pieces on the board in place inadvertently...for Athena. she has played the long game, and now she has everything she needs to complete her evil plans, at least until we stop her.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I hope the "must be on said job doing the MSQ to get small tidbits" thing won't continue. I know I can just go to an inn room to replay those CSes but I miss it when the game would give you those tidbits so long as you had the job unlocked or did X content. One thing I do like is the post Vault CS change. At least it takes out the sting that if you play as a healer or have one leveled up the game won't completely ignore that fact until Zenos spanks everyone at Rhalgr's Reach and Krile yells at you to snap to it.

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Honestly, I think the problem is that they're not doing it enough. Small nods if you're playing Reaper around the voidsent stories to show that they actually are paying attention to that are great ideas both in terms of rewarding the player and patching up tiny little plot holes. But to avoid the hurdle of 'you must be playing this one specific job', they should be spreading it out a bit more and having other jobs get some spins. Reward the people who go in with one of the multiple jobs that reasonably speaking already have a foot in the water here.

For a Void-focused storyline, yeah, Reaper's the elephant in the room. But off the top of my head, the other jobs that have had to deal with voidsent are the three War of the Magi jobs (Black Mage, White Mage, Scholar) and Red Mage, so give all of them some extra lines too, and toss in Dark Knight as well for the darkness angle to make sure the tanks don't get left out. This is a community game, there's nothing wrong with communicating to get the full picture, but only allowing one job to get the full picture doesn't facilitate that, it just facilitates 'play this one job'.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

I hope the "must be on said job doing the MSQ to get small tidbits" thing won't continue. I know I can just go to an inn room to replay those CSes but I miss it when the game would give you those tidbits so long as you had the job unlocked or did X content. One thing I do like is the post Vault CS change. At least it takes out the sting that if you play as a healer or have one leveled up the game won't completely ignore that fact until Zenos spanks everyone at Rhalgr's Reach and Krile yells at you to snap to it.

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Endwalker had this as well, so it’s not like they haven’t done it in a while either.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Honestly, I think the problem is that they're not doing it enough. Small nods if you're playing Reaper around the voidsent stories to show that they actually are paying attention to that are great ideas both in terms of rewarding the player and patching up tiny little plot holes. But to avoid the hurdle of 'you must be playing this one specific job', they should be spreading it out a bit more and having other jobs get some spins. Reward the people who go in with one of the multiple jobs that reasonably speaking already have a foot in the water here.

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They had one set up and ready with the statue on the Thirteenth too. As a PLD main I’d of loved to see our character go “huh they have that armor here as well” or something.

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Originally Posted by EaraGrace

Endwalker had this as well, so it’s not like they haven’t done it in a while either.



They had one set up and ready with the statue on the Thirteenth too. As a PLD main I’d of loved to see our character go “huh they have that armor here as well” or something.

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Oh I know they gave nods to if you were playing as a certain job. Like if you were a healer going into Zot you can ask them if they made a mistake with you also being a healer and G'Raha tells you no we want our best in the Vanguard. Yet back during Heavensward you could be on any other job when meeting Estinien in the MSQ for the first time. But if you had done the lv 50 DRG quest he'd make a comment about you being one. 6.1 and 6.2 on the other hand make you go huh I wonder if there's any extra stuff but don't get anything even though you have all the boxes checked. Except the doing the story as X Job. And yeah I'm surprised PLD didn't get to say something like that looks like Passage of Arms.

I noticed something a little curious in one of the Pandaemonium cutscenes, namely that in the cutscene before P5 and before you turn in the quest "An Unwelcome Visitor", you're asked

whether or not Lahabrea would be capable of causing all the chaos, but there's a third option that does not appear for all players, suggesting there's some manner of optional quest/content that makes it show up.

However, the quest is not marked as having variables based on quest progression because said cutscene isn't in the Unending Journey.

I didn't pick said option so I'm at a loss as to what causes it to show up.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I noticed something a little curious in one of the Pandaemonium cutscenes, namely that in the cutscene before P5 and before you turn in the quest "An Unwelcome Visitor", you're asked

whether or not Lahabrea would be capable of causing all the chaos, but there's a third option that does not appear for all players, suggesting there's some manner of optional quest/content that makes it show up.

However, the quest is not marked as having variables based on quest progression because said cutscene isn't in the Unending Journey.

I didn't pick said option so I'm at a loss as to what causes it to show up.

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...since people have apparently noticed, do we have any word of what this line supposedly is? I'm fairly sure I had it, just because I don't remember any two-option choices in that whole storyline, but I don't remember any standing out as connected to a sidestory.

MSQ THOUGHTS

Zero *could* be our shard from the Thirteenth, but that doesn't mean the story needs to end with us merging. I'd consider it a positive twist for it to not happen, and just be happy knowing we have a connection.

Even better, we're not shards and we just develop a genuine friendship for not-magically-ordained reasons.

Talking of friends though, I found it frustrating how apparently our character is just going "no, Zenos wasn't our friend" and then nobody in the group makes any effort to explain further when Zero is confused by it.



The logic of the voidsent being able to absorb each other but also having negative consequences for doing so is an interesting way to explain why there still is a population of voidsent and they haven't all just eaten each other until there's one big fat one left.

I feel like they needed to explain slightly earlier that Zero wasn't willing to absorb aether from other voidsent, because it seemed really odd during the solo fight that we didn't even suggest that she could fight for us and receive her payment of aether by absorbing the enemies to deal with them. At that moment it seemed like two solutions in one and yet nobody was suggesting it on either side of the bargain.



Also it kind of bugs me that we're still using the term "voidsent" while we're in the void itself. The whole point of the term is that the creatures have emerged from the void into the living world, so it doesn't make sense for them to be using the term to describe themselves.



I loved the random moment with the mindflayer being the one mentioned in that journal in the Gubal Library.



I am excited about Cylva and Unukalhai getting new dialogue out of this, and I hope it's pointing towards a big sidequest merger later down the track. It already seemed like merging the role quests and Eden would be ideal, and I think Cylva was already talking about meeting up with Ryne and Gaia before this? I'll have to check on my alt who has finished the role quests but not gotten further yet.

Anyway, so we already had the role quests becoming "Void quests" which lasted all of one instalment and seemed to leave things unresolved, and that seemed to be primed to connect to Eden, and now we're in another relevant plot.



Keeping the archfiends' crystals might mean we (or Zero, or even Golbez) have some need to draw on them later. Or perhaps we can use them to restore the aether they have drained from Azdaja.

Or maybe it turns out the crystallisation process isn't quite as permanent as we thought, and they all break out and fight us at once.

I also recall that the basic explanation for what went wrong in the Thirteenth to begin with was that auracite *leaks* the power of the monster contained within it.

PANDAEMONIUM

Something I need to check - did Lahabrea definitely kill Athena? He's accused of it and doesn't deny it, but I don't think he ever outright states that he did.

Did he actually mean to kill her, or was it really an accident in terms of intent, and (once the "blanket denial" path is no longer an option) simply easier to take the blame for that specific mis-accusation than to tell the full truth of what happened?

Is Hephaistos all of Athena and half of Lahabrea? Did she "die" by being absorbed into him rather than being killed, as such?

Did Athena already split off some part of her soul, and Hephaistos is the rest of it plus half of Lahabrea?

How much *does* Lahabrea remember of the incident? It would have be enough that he doesn't want to go poking around and re-awakening the knowledge and desire to do whatever he tried to stop himself from doing.

Or does he still have the knowledge while only having removed the desire to carry it out?

I still need to do the post-MSQ sidequest and Tataru's quest. (Actually, I didn't do the previous chapters of Tataru's quests either.)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Characters

I'm calling it, we're getting [Zero's] hat-tip emote someday, but it'll be either mogstation like /snap or limited-time reward like /determined.

I don't think we needed Adult Varshahn for Trusts. Not only does it lose the whole 'Vrtra is a kid by his species' standards' thing, but it doesn't even look that good. To borrow the Mulaney bit: he doesn't look older, he just looks worse. Get some rest, tall child!

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I don't think the emote is possible. At very least, it's only going to look right if you're wearing a hat of the exact right shape, and the hat needs to be moveable. I have no idea whether that's possible on our standard characters or if they're up to some kind of cutscene trickery with a hat that isn't actually equipped to the character model.

Also, adult Varshahn still looks young compared to even the youngest of the standard Au Ra face models, so I think that impression still works.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

Statues

statues too in The fell Court of Troia gets me wondering also. The ones on the stairs and the sides not where we fight bearice....

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I noticed those too. They remind me of the ones in Mt Gulg.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Estinien

Laughed pretty hard at Estinien's between CS dialogue just before entering the void. Saying he did them a favor, because they beefed up their new Alzadaal Ruins protectors, since he destroyed yet more of them last time.

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Even better,

he says they beefed up the new protectors using pieces of the old ones, so he's trying to claim it as helping them out by dismantling them in advance.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

So can we talk about how our actions in the Raid story may have...

Altered the timeline so that Pandaemonium survived past the Sundering.

If WoL never went back in time and changed the events where pandaemonium got blown up into pandaemonium is saved and all watchers are not killed then the upcoming Raid part 3 that will take place in present day will never have happened.

At the sametime we may have also changed the fate of Lahabrea as well due to the influence WoL had on him in Pandaemonium along with making Pandaemonium a bombshelter that may have prevented anyone or anything inside Pandaemonium from being sundered.

It will be interesting to see what Ancients may have survived the sundering in Pandaemonium as well along with seeing if the guess that Erichthonios is actually the Lahabrea we knew due to becoming his father's successor or Lahabrea was still Erichthonios's father.

Not to mention how they dealt with the sundering and years being alive.

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I don't think that's the case at all.

I think it's more likely that Pandaemonium has not been in the Aitiascope all along, but rather has been moved.

Perhaps it has been drawn by whatever happened with Claudien and the crystal he was chasing?

It could have been lurking in the depths all this time, and the first crystal we found was released from it. Time travel could also be involved.

Whatever the circumstances, there is no need to assume that we have changed events by interfering. It may have simply been destined all along that we would go there and these things would happen, and Pandaemonium would appear at this point.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I noticed something a little curious in one of the Pandaemonium cutscenes, namely that in the cutscene before P5 and before you turn in the quest "An Unwelcome Visitor", you're asked

whether or not Lahabrea would be capable of causing all the chaos, but there's a third option that does not appear for all players, suggesting there's some manner of optional quest/content that makes it show up.

However, the quest is not marked as having variables based on quest progression because said cutscene isn't in the Unending Journey.

I didn't pick said option so I'm at a loss as to what causes it to show up.

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I think you may be looking at the wrong quest and it's in the second quest which has a couple of player response opportunities.

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ERICHTHONIOS
...And so there can be but one conclusion─Lahabrea was the driving force behind this chaos from the start!

THEMIS
[...]
You have met him, yes? Do you think he is capable of this?

Q1
What will you say?
A1
Lahabrea is capable of far more than you know.
A2
It's still too early to say for certain.

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This seems to be the conversation you're describing but there is no third option listed here.

There are two more dialogue choices in the same quest: one when we first meet Lahabrea-actually-Hephaistos, and when Themis admits to concealing his identity as Elidibus, which seems the most likely to be a variable:

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THEMIS
As Lahabrea said, I am Elidibus, one of the Convocation and emissary of their will.
For reasons which do not involve you, it was necessary to hide my identity while investigating this place. Still, that hardly excuses my deception.

Q1
What will you say?
A1
I had a feeling.
A2
Whatever your name is, you're still Themis to me.
A3
I know a thing or two about deception myself.

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The third option definitely has a ring of being a nod back to something previously, but I'm not sure what it would be. If I had to guess I would suggest Hildibrand, but I'm pretty sure I had the response option and I haven't done those quests beyond the ARR section of the storyline.

Must be some really huge case of the mandela effect because others were claiming have noticed a third option there, too, though it most likely is just a case of getting cutscenes confused.

Could you be confusing it with the one where the 2nd answer and I'm paraphrasing it "Lahabreha once wore a friend's body" as an option? As there was three choices there.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

PANDAEMONIUM

Something I need to check - did Lahabrea definitely kill Athena? He's accused of it and doesn't deny it, but I don't think he ever outright states that he did.

Did he actually mean to kill her, or was it really an accident in terms of intent, and (once the "blanket denial" path is no longer an option) simply easier to take the blame for that specific mis-accusation than to tell the full truth of what happened?

Is Hephaistos all of Athena and half of Lahabrea? Did she "die" by being absorbed into him rather than being killed, as such?

Did Athena already split off some part of her soul, and Hephaistos is the rest of it plus half of Lahabrea?

How much *does* Lahabrea remember of the incident? It would have be enough that he doesn't want to go poking around and re-awakening the knowledge and desire to do whatever he tried to stop himself from doing.

Or does he still have the knowledge while only having removed the desire to carry it out?

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Now I understand why people write "ten characters" all the time, what a stupid rule! :D

Lahabrea definitely killed Athena and says so himself. There's nothing to suggest it was an accident either.

Hephaistos is part of Lahabrea (who's actual name is Hephaistos), he is not part of Athena. Lahabrea split off the part of him that after his merger with Athena would eventually come to fully understand and agree with his wife's ways and desires. It stands to reason that Hephaistos is the part of him that loved Athena as well.

Athena did not split her soul. After she and Lahabrea split again, she was 100% herself, as Lahabrea was 100% himself as well. And she died soon after.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I noticed something a little curious in one of the Pandaemonium cutscenes, namely that in the cutscene before P5 and before you turn in the quest "An Unwelcome Visitor", you're asked

whether or not Lahabrea would be capable of causing all the chaos, but there's a third option that does not appear for all players, suggesting there's some manner of optional quest/content that makes it show up.

However, the quest is not marked as having variables based on quest progression because said cutscene isn't in the Unending Journey.

I didn't pick said option so I'm at a loss as to what causes it to show up.

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Was it this one?

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

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Originally Posted by Iscah

PANDAEMONIUM

Something I need to check - did Lahabrea definitely kill Athena? He's accused of it and doesn't deny it, but I don't think he ever outright states that he did.

Did he actually mean to kill her, or was it really an accident in terms of intent, and (once the "blanket denial" path is no longer an option) simply easier to take the blame for that specific mis-accusation than to tell the full truth of what happened?

Is Hephaistos all of Athena and half of Lahabrea? Did she "die" by being absorbed into him rather than being killed, as such?

Did Athena already split off some part of her soul, and Hephaistos is the rest of it plus half of Lahabrea?

How much *does* Lahabrea remember of the incident? It would have be enough that he doesn't want to go poking around and re-awakening the knowledge and desire to do whatever he tried to stop himself from doing.

Or does he still have the knowledge while only having removed the desire to carry it out?

I still need to do the post-MSQ sidequest and Tataru's quest. (Actually, I didn't do the previous chapters of Tataru's quests either.)

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Pandaemonium

While we're never shown Lahabrea actually doing the deed, the fact Athena was said to have met with an untimely death in the Asphodelos story and what we're shown here heavily implies that he did kill his wife. He intended to do so, as during / after their soul fusion he was so horrified by her sociopathy and lack of concern for the Star™ he split the part of himself that had been "infected" by her during the soul merge into Hephaistos.

Agdistis suggests he still knows everything that happened, and he's just so ashamed about it and trying so earnestly to protect Erichthonios from the truth about Athena (whom he loved dearly since her sociopathy wasn't clear to him) he's kept the memory to himself. Hephaistos is, for all intents and purposes, who he could have become had he not removed that merged part of his soul from himself. He still knows everything, he's just not moved to act on Athena's infectious (for want of a better term) desires.

'course, this is only the second tier, and the Lahabrea we knew was a lot closer to Hephaistos in personality than the austere man we met in Abyssos... and given the Mateus parallels I'll hardly be surprised if even "good" Lahabrea winds up being not so good in the end.

The Tataru stuff is nice, but it's really just fluff unless you're hankering to spend 20k gil on portraits of the Scions circa Endwalker. The post-MSQ stuff is cool though, it explains Scarmiglione and Barbariccia's backstories as both mortals and Voidsent. Nice way to include character detail without slowing down the pacing of the story.

My guess is that the Tataru stuff is going to lead to 'big but optional' things, even if right now it's fluff. I have a suspicion, but I'm not certain yet.

I think the story's going to end with them finally resolving a longstanding but rarely acknowledged loose thread: that Teledji Adeledji's Syndicate seat is still vacant. There was an interview around 2016 or so that confirmed this was basically because Nanamo and the Syndicate are in political deadlock on it; with no clear consensus over who should get it, and Nanamo still wanting to dissolve the Syndicate anyway, there's been no actual movement.

I think Tataru's story is going to end in her getting the seat. She's a rare gem among Ul'Dah money-havers; someone that Nanamo could appoint that would broadly be on her side when it counts, but is still exactly the sort of person that would support Monetarist interests on the day-to-day.

Plus, it'd piss off Rowena, who's wanted on the Syndicate since 1.0. And any plot development that makes Rowena mad is hardly a bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

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Your quote and spoiler tags are broken.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Pandaemonium

While we're never shown Lahabrea actually doing the deed, the fact Athena was said to have met with an untimely death in the Asphodelos story and what we're shown here heavily implies that he did kill his wife. He intended to do so, as during / after their soul fusion he was so horrified by her sociopathy and lack of concern for the Star™ he split the part of himself that had been "infected" by her during the soul merge into Hephaistos.

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My thinking – though I do need to go over the quest again to see what we were shown or not – is that

perhaps the sequence was that Lahabrea and Athena merge, he rejects her and tears away the infected part of his soul, and that along with Athena's soul is what coalesces into Hephaistos. (Lahabrea does describe him as the "dregs" of both him and Athena, not just his own soul.)

So if all of Athena (minus any hypothetical part stashed away elsewhere) ended up in Hephaistos, then she is simply "gone" and Lahabrea did not actively kill her, but has to explain why she is gone. His following actions would be on the level of covering up an accidental death that he caused, but not actual murder. And we still don't fully understand the details but taking the false blame for murder might be his preference over having to explain the truth.

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Originally Posted by PawPaw

Was it this one?

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

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Honestly, it might be dependent upon how you've responded in dialogue choices regarding the Ancients before. Though, I have no proof of this it's the only theory/possibility I can think of off the top of my head.

To be specific, in nearly any dialogue option involving the Ancients or Ascians there is at least one option that can be read as positive whether the Ancient in question be Emet-Selch, Fandaniel and beyond. I do rather suspect that this is what those who erroneously claim that Shadowbringers "forced them to be kind" to Emet-Selch are objecting to. That they were given the OPTION to be tolerant of him, and they'd prefer it wasn't a possibility.

People seem to believe that

Hephaistos is part Athena for some reason - he isn't. Probably an English translation quirk.

Just because he agrees with and pursues her goals as if he were her doesn't mean there's literally a part of her soul which entered him at some point or anything like that.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

People seem to believe that

Hephaistos is part Athena for some reason - he isn't. Probably an English translation quirk.

Just because he agrees with and pursues her goals as if he were her doesn't mean there's literally a part of her soul which entered him at some point or anything like that.

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People "seem to believe it" because Lahabrea outright says it, without elaborating, to the one other person who knows the full story.

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LAHABREA
Athena cared naught for Erichthonios, beyond how he could serve her ends.
You claim to be acting in his interest, but 'tis plain you are no different.
As I ushered Athena to her end, I vowed that my sole mission in life would be to guide this star true.
In service to that vow, I silenced the whispers of my heart. I could not nurture a son whilst an entire world looked to me for guidance. For that choice, I bear the responsibility...
Yet he is still my son, and I'll not suffer you to seduce him with false hope. You, who are naught but the bitter dregs of Athena and I─the very worst of us!

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Having tracked down that quote, I also see he alludes to having killed Athena, but that's still light on detail.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

People "seem to believe it" because Lahabrea outright says it, without elaborating, to the one other person who knows the full story.

Having tracked down that quote, I also see he alludes to having killed Athena, but that's still light on detail.

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No he doesn't at all! You even posted the quote! Read it!

That's not proof for your point, that's a metaphor. Hephaistos held Athena's beliefs which grew in the part of Lahabrea's soul that was in agreement with her. Hephaistos was NOT (fully or in part) Athena's soul, he was Athena's emotions, memories, beliefs and experiences.

Now let me take your position for a second, I think I would interpret it like this:

After the merger, part of Athena's literal soul was still attached to Lahabrea and possibly vice versa as well. That's the part of Athena that he then rid himself of to create Hephaistos.

That's however mere conjecture based on what I consider to be a misinterpretation of metaphorical language.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

No he doesn't at all! You even posted the quote! Read it!

That's not proof for your point, that's a metaphor. Hephaistos held Athena's beliefs which grew in the part of Lahabrea's soul that was in agreement with her. Hephaistos was NOT (fully or in part) Athena's soul, he was Athena's emotions, memories, beliefs and experiences.

Now let me take your position for a second, I think I would interpret it like this:

After the merger, part of Athena's literal soul was still attached to Lahabrea and possibly vice versa as well. That's the part of Athena that he then rid himself of to create Hephaistos.

That's however mere conjecture based on what I consider to be a misinterpretation of metaphorical language.

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You, who are naught but the bitter dregs of Athena and I─the very worst of us!

Dregs (n) - the most worthless part or parts of something.

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Originally Posted by WellGramarye

You, who are naught but the bitter dregs of Athena and I─the very worst of us!

Dregs (n) - the most worthless part or parts of something.

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I think we are in agreement then. This has nothing to do with her literal soul. But in case we're not, let's make a bet about 6.4, you can set the rules.

They merge, then separate, then Lahabrea discards his memories and emotions. We never actually see Lahabrea kill Athena, and have no real reason to believe they stayed merged when he did this somehow, as they were already separate. It's possible he sealed her away in Pandamonium.

But if I had to guess, he removed his memories because Athena's motivation for her research was so dangerous that he had to discard it, or else he'd be driven to follow in her footsteps. Which it seems like he did in the future, given the Ascians had mastered the whole soul-merger, bodyswapping, endless life thing. But even after this in the modern day he still seemed to be up to something very different from the other Ascians, ignoring the Rejoining plan to instead prolong the Umbral Era. So right now the plot is still hanging.

Still though, I'd be pretty disappointing if we were just done in the past at this point. WoL kind of just left abruptly with no big closure with Themis, Eric, or Lahabrea.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

They merge, then separate, then Lahabrea discards his memories and emotions. We never actually see Lahabrea kill Athena, and have no real reason to believe they stayed merged when he did this somehow, as they were already separate. It's possible he sealed her away in Pandamonium.

But if I had to guess, he removed his memories because Athena's motivation for her research was so dangerous that he had to discard it, or else he'd be driven to follow in her footsteps. Which it seems like he did in the future, given the Ascians had mastered the whole soul-merger, bodyswapping, endless life thing. But even after this in the modern day he still seemed to be up to something very different from the other Ascians, ignoring the Rejoining plan to instead prolong the Umbral Era. So right now the plot is still hanging.

Still though, I'd be pretty disappointing if we were just done in the past at this point. WoL kind of just left abruptly with no big closure with Themis, Eric, or Lahabrea.

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im guessing present pandaemonium somehow has their past selves on it.