Making Sense of the Cardinal Virtues

I just finished the MSQ and was a little confused about a portion of the ending. If I understand correctly:

The WoDs somehow became the Cardinal Virtues after they sacrificed themselves to stall the Flood of Light.
It may be causal, or it may be something unrelated. Ardbert was left behind to aid the WoL.

Then, we put at least one of them to rest in the role quests. They all appear as normal at the end of the MSQ, leading me to believe that all of them were at peace.

But, if we go back and do the rest of the role quests, we still have to face the Cardinal Virtues
who remain a threat.

I still have some questions, though:

• Did the WoDs go back to being the Cardinal Virtues after the MSQ ends? How?
• How can they have a physical presence after, or even during the fact? I get that Ardbert can't, but it's hard to wrap my head around that for the others.

Maybe there's more information to be gleaned from completing all the role quests, but I lack the time to do so (and the thought of playing a healer scares me!). If anyone knows the answers, please let me know!

Don't think on it too hard. It's just treated as if you had cleared them all because by level and the gate, they all come first chronologically. Compare the 50 CUL quest to 2.55, or 50 DRG quest to Heavensward.

I'm surprised that that would be the case so soon after, though. Within the same expansion, or the same patch, even?

Consider it this way—I don’t think it would be plausible to write 2 different versions of each quest chain (one pre-ShB completion and one post-ShB completion) just to go along with players that did 1 role quest chain prior to completion of the main scenario, but the other 3 chains afterwards. Having a line of dialogue be slightly different to reflect past quest progression is one thing, but they would probably have to heavily change the role quests in their entirety to fit with player continuation. So, instead, I think they opted to time bubble them under the assumption you haven’t completed the MSQ. Or they think some players will do all 4 before they complete 5.0—or that others will only do the one because they just want to do one Chain.

As Cybylt said, consider it as if you’re in a relatively new player that started in 4.x leveling DRG for the first time but you’ve caught up to the main story—the ARR story for DRG will still reflect events and situations prior to HW and SB for the characters involved, since that was the time its happening canonically with regards to the game’s timeline—its independent of your own personal progression.

If you finish all the four cardinal virtue quest-lines, you get another quest. In that quest, a lot of background info on them is gone into.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

If you finish all the four cardinal virtue quest-lines, you get another quest. In that quest, a lot of background info on them is gone into.

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If anyone's able to relay that info to me, I'd love to know! Hopefully that answers my questions about how they were able to have a physical presence and why Ardbert didn't.

It's easy enough to consider the quests timeboxed and taking place in a certain (albeit very small) window, though.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

If you finish all the four cardinal virtue quest-lines, you get another quest. In that quest, a lot of background info on them is gone into.

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I figured this was going to happen but boy am I not looking forward to leveling three other jobs.

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Originally Posted by JeanneOrnitier

I figured this was going to happen but boy am I not looking forward to leveling three other jobs.

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Just level SMN/SCH to get 2 for one :D

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Originally Posted by ScootPatoot

If anyone's able to relay that info to me, I'd love to know! Hopefully that answers my questions about how they were able to have a physical presence and why Ardbert didn't.

It's easy enough to consider the quests timeboxed and taking place in a certain (albeit very small) window, though.

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here's a transcript of the quest text (spoilers for all four of the role quests, obviously)

it seems like vauthry exhumed the corpses of the warriors of light and reanimated them, presumably at the behest of an ascian, since i guess their souls were 'freed up' after they helped minfilia with stopping the flood of light

also if i'm not mistaken you need to complete at least one of the role quest series to finish the MSQ, so canonically they all happen at the same time before the end of the MSQ