6.0 Story Speculations

what will be the early expansion zone split? in HW, it's Sea of Clouds and CWH. In Stormblood, it's Fringes and Peaks. In Shadowbringers, it's Kholusia and Amh Araeng.
Labyrinthos has to be one of them because it looks like we're going to Old Sharlayan immediately. The other one is a mystery. Thavnair is a level 81 zone but it's kinda far from Old Sharlayan (but we could take the new scion airship). Another possibility...maybe the mystery sky island zone. Maybe the Sharlayans prepare 2 contingency for calamities: underground Labyrinthos and sky island zones but if it's an early expansion zone, why is it such a mystery.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

This logic is inconsistent. It requires that we believe Emet-Selch wasn't paying attention when creating Hythlodaeus and accidentally gave him true sapience, yet also gave him an incredible power to a degree that he himself did not possess. It assumes that we can trust Hythlodaeus when he posits his own idea of how he was created, while simultaneously ignoring his belief that Emet must have also recognized WoL's soul was Azem. And of course, it insists that we not presume Emet knew in advance and did not himself plan for the situation with the Azem stone, simply mistakenly recreating Hythlodaeus who was truly responsible, despite him letting slip that he knew exactly what Hythlodaeus would have told WoL about the sacrifices to Zodiark when he himself references that exact thing while arguing with the Scions.

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In hindsight I think the problem lays in the fact we're probably overthinking things with the scene with Hythlodaeus seeing Ardbert's spirit beside the WoL where apparently Emet couldn't. Maybe that was simply because Ardbert wasn't there at the time - after all, early on he tells the WoL in their room at the Crystarium that he is often not around them because "he wants to give them privacy" (which, is just as well, especially if you're playing a female WoL), and seems to come and go like the wind, so the times Emet sees the WoL Ardbert simply isn't there, and so he therefore doesn't make the distinction.

And we only see Ardbert in the climatic scene in Amaurot after the WoL has already started succumbing to the Light corruption when they collapse and black out - he wasn't shown following alongside the WoL at all, and they certainly would have noticed at least. Emet couldn't see Ardbert simply due to there being too much Light there at the time that obscures him (hence why he sees the WoL rejoined with Ardbert as their Ancient self -which he then dismisses as a "trick of the light").

Or I could be completely wrong, so take that with a grain of salt.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

In hindsight I think the problem lays in the fact we're probably overthinking things with the scene with Hythlodaeus seeing Ardbert's spirit beside the WoL where apparently Emet couldn't. Maybe that was simply because Ardbert wasn't there at the time - after all, early on he tells the WoL in their room at the Crystarium that he is often not around them because "he wants to give them privacy" (which, is just as well, especially if you're playing a female WoL), and seems to come and go like the wind, so the times Emet sees the WoL Ardbert simply isn't there, and so he therefore doesn't make the distinction.

And we only see Ardbert in the climatic scene in Amaurot after the WoL has already started succumbing to the Light corruption when they collapse and black out - he wasn't shown following alongside the WoL at all, and they certainly would have noticed at least. Emet couldn't see Ardbert simply due to there being too much Light there at the time that obscures him (hence why he sees the WoL rejoined with Ardbert as their Ancient self -which he then dismisses as a "trick of the light").

Or I could be completely wrong, so take that with a grain of salt.

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Well Ardbert is close enough when Emet-Selch is talking to us at the Ladder that he knows what the conversation was and makes comments about it.

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Originally Posted by Yuella

what will be the early expansion zone split? in HW, it's Sea of Clouds and CWH. In Stormblood, it's Fringes and Peaks. In Shadowbringers, it's Kholusia and Amh Araeng.
Labyrinthos has to be one of them because it looks like we're going to Old Sharlayan immediately. The other one is a mystery. Thavnair is a level 81 zone but it's kinda far from Old Sharlayan (but we could take the new scion airship). Another possibility...maybe the mystery sky island zone. Maybe the Sharlayans prepare 2 contingency for calamities: underground Labyrinthos and sky island zones but if it's an early expansion zone, why is it such a mystery.

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Thavnair was already more or less confirmed as the other starting area given details from the first dungeon.

*media tour spoilers*

We know that someone we meet there ends up getting abducted by the Telophoroi and the Scions are able to enter the tower to mount a rescue effort courtesy of an anti-tempering talisman we presumably also obtain there. Considering that Arksodara are the founders of alchemy I think their knowledge paired with Sharlayan know-how is responsible for that.

There's a variety of reasons for why we might end up going there specifically to investigate the tower situation, between it seemingly having ties to Sharlayan with aetherytes of their style present and also being the home of Vritra and her brood.

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Originally Posted by JeanneOrnitier

Emet is very visibly and audibly shocked when he sees Azem after you fuse with Ardbert. He didn't know before that scene.

Hythlodaeus had better soul-aura-vision than Emet did, that was established in one of the Tales from the Shadows stories.

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We can say he is taken aback by the soul fusion briefly flashing before him Azem's ancient form, and I'd assume he was unaware of the trails of Ardbert's lingering soul, but like Enkidoh said it could be for a number of reasons. However, regarding the soul identity, unfortunately the localised versions appear to have confused it up somewhat - see this for reference (he means Emet-Selch rather than Elidibus.) So I'm less convinced that it's the soul identity that threw him off, as opposed to the fusion he witnessed. It can also be pieced together from the context of this interview, where it mentions Hades's disappointment in the MC (i.e. he was comparing the sundered soul fragment against his memory of Azem, coming to the conclusion they didn't measure up.)

Question on who the Dreamer is that Zenos and Fandaniel refer to. Have we considered a connection to Lakshimi and the Ananta? I ran a thread search but didn't turn up any discussion of her. I just remember that her prominent theme/line in her theme was "you are a dreamer", presumably saying such to the person she was tempering.

(And, speaking of dreamers, just throwing this out there as speculation so I can say "I called it" later on the off chance it happens... I've had a (crazy?) theory since I started the game waaay back in 2013 that the WoL aren't "real"/are a construct/"dream of the fayth" type scenario. (Or at least ARR characters are that. Legacy might be different.) And the presence of Anima and the Magus Sisters has my FF10 senses tingling, so I'm reiterating. I figure, if that's ever going to be a thing, EW will be where it comes up.)

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Originally Posted by Yuella

what will be the early expansion zone split? in HW, it's Sea of Clouds and CWH. In Stormblood, it's Fringes and Peaks. In Shadowbringers, it's Kholusia and Amh Araeng.
Labyrinthos has to be one of them because it looks like we're going to Old Sharlayan immediately. The other one is a mystery. Thavnair is a level 81 zone but it's kinda far from Old Sharlayan (but we could take the new scion airship). Another possibility...maybe the mystery sky island zone. Maybe the Sharlayans prepare 2 contingency for calamities: underground Labyrinthos and sky island zones but if it's an early expansion zone, why is it such a mystery.

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Garlemald.
Benchmark fighting scenes always happen in a zone we will visit early in the game and then later on again.
Thavnair will be the zone with the first trial and Lv83 Dungeon ( I haven't watched the media tour so i'm hoping I'm right. )

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

Question on who the Dreamer is that Zenos and Fandaniel refer to. Have we considered a connection to Lakshimi and the Ananta? I ran a thread search but didn't turn up any discussion of her. I just remember that her prominent theme/line in her theme was "you are a dreamer", presumably saying such to the person she was tempering.

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I just took it as a nod to the fayths in FF X, since their dreams were part of what was keeping Spira locked in its cycle, and everything points towards Anima being the one responsible for the towers.

In this context it seems like it's projecting a dream onto those trapped in the towers to spur them into summoning primals and I feel like that was probably the reason Zenos took control of the thing as his vivid dreams of the Final Days would be the perfect thing with which to distress people into calling out to their gods.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The thing is though, we have already done that very thing once before way back at the climax of the 2.0 ARR story - after the WoL summons the Blade of Light and drives out Lahabrea from his host (Thancred), Lahabrea appears in front of Hydaelyn in her Mothercrystal form, and between them, the WoL... then... the friends and allies they met in the initial story (like the other Archons, even the nation leaders), all materialize beside them and then all rush the Ascian in Super-Sayian style and ultimately obliterate him, sending Lahabrea back to the border of the aetherial sea (and shattering the Crystal of Darkness around Thancred's neck, freeing Thancred from the Ascian's control for good).

I was always puzzled by the significance and mechanincs of that scene but now, it all makes perfect sense, the WoL back then inadervently drew on their 'wanderer' powers and summoned their closest allies to them without even knowing it to help them defeat Lahabrea (and it was probably also boosted by the WoL being right next to Hydaelyn herself at the time). And given EW will be the resolution to that story, it would make even more sense to see this very thing one more time as a call back and fitting coda to ARR's beginning (alas, 1.0 had nothing like that).

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Yeah, now that you mention it a lot of our foes have been disintegrated by us Kamehameha-style huh? Weird.

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Originally Posted by Wiz33

The distraction he talked about was probably Emet putting more detail in his recreation because he was reminded of their friendship.

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The Aether Current quests in Amaurot explain creation magics in further detail.
For talented ancients, all they had to do to create something was to imagine it and any stray thought during such a creation process could lead to some messed up results.

Hythlodaeus speculates that, while recreating his old friend, Emet-Selch had one such stray thought, "Ha, Hythlodaeus would probably realize that he was just a recreation", and that's why he ended up with self-awareness. So it was likely not intentional.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

So I'm less convinced that it's the soul identity that threw him off, as opposed to the fusion he witnessed.

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I don't remember which, but in one language, Emet-Selch's line is "What? How could you be here?".
So yeah, I doubt he's surprised that the WoL is Azem, he just didn't expect to actually see Azem again.