Story Elements that need to be added or improved:

I do not intend this to be a complete list of all things I found to be an issue in the overall story or setting, and I'm hoping others will add their observations to the thread to help build up the list. By the way, THIS THREAD CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE STORY! DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU DON'T WANT KEY STORY ELEMENTS REVEALED TO YOU! So, to start...

1) Baelsar teaming up with an Ascian: There is a difference between being "blinded by ambition" and being plain stupid. The story has depicted making deals with ascians as a surefire way to get screwed over. It would have made more sense if the ascian lord possessing Thancred posed as a traitor to the Seventh Dawn that was willing to give the Empire the means to conquer Eorzea under the pretense of solving the primals issue. This story issue could be solved, but Baelsar must of had some pretense to believe his dealings with an Ascian lord would not backfire and destroy his ambitions. As of right now, there is none.

2) Relationship between adventurer and Alphinaud not properly depicted: There simply isn't any events in the main story that would justify the trust our main character begins to show towards Alphinaud. One second he is a stranger, and the next we are buddy-buddy with him for apparently no reason. Not much can be done to resolve this, since it would mean including new cutscenes or dialogue along the main story arc which is considered finished.

3) Relationship between Alphinaud and Cid: Somewhat connected to number two is the relationship between Cid and Alphinaud. I'm supposed to accept that they're close enough to one another that Cid would be comfortable with Alphinaud touching him physically when the story doesn't even show any of this development? Because none of the development in their relationship is shown, nor any past experiences they've had together, the moment Alphinaud touches Cid's hand in a show of comfort/friendship (I guess?) just feels awkward. This could at least be explained away with some additional cutscenes in future patches involving the two characters.

4) The Thousand Maws of Totorak: A dungeon containing mutant plants and giant spiders is just a short walk from a nearby settlement, and the entrance to the dungeon is guarded by just one wood wailer? Not only that, but the wood wailer was not competent enough to spot a sylph entering a dungeon when the entrance behind him is the only way into or out of the place. First, why would anyone live near such a place, and if the place were not always this dangerous, why haven't the residents called in for aid from Gridania, if not for an entire army of adventurers to clean house? If that giant spider decided to burst through the doors of Totorak to attack the town for food, does anyone honestly think a single wood wailer is going to be able to protect the town? The best solution I could think of would be to have the seed seer place a garrison outside the place at the very least.

5) Why did the moogles accept a strange gift from a masked man that looks nothing like a wood wailer and projects a dark, menacing aura to summon their king, Moggle Mog? I never imagined the moogles to be this stupid, and I kind of expected they'd be able to tell the difference between a common wood wailer and a complete stranger, given they have lived in the woods for ages.

6) Why do the beastmen tribes trust the ascians enough to accept strange gifts from them? They inhabit human bodies, which gives them the appearance of their mortal enemy, and they give off a dark and menacing aura. From what I know about ascians, the beastmen should be killing them on sight.

7-8) Beastmen and Primals non-sense: Ok, so the Amal'jaa believe that all of Thanalan is their property by divine right. They summon ifrit in the hopes of conquering Thanalan. However, the primals temper all their worshippers, and when you are tempered, your previous objectives go out the window in favor of fueling your primal's power by getting him more worshippers. So summoning a primal does not actually complete their objective of claiming Thanalan for the Amal'jaa. Instead, it becomes about claiming all of civilization for Ifrit. They also have no control over Ifrit, so Ifrit isn't even a good weapon. He is a weapon that takes control of his users to achieve his own objectives. By the way, he eats the life force of his followers, so the Amal'jaa should expect a shorter life expectancy as well. The Ixali have a similar issue, where their objective is to gain wings again to fly, yet once tempered, they will only ever serve Garuda. Why aren't the beast tribes more visibly in a state of civil unrest with themselves? What happened to all the non-tempered beastmen who can see the obvious fact that these incarnations of their deities are no good? Yes, I know about the Amal'jaa warrior tribe in 2.1 and the good sylph. The problem is that there really should be a lot more of them, considering you have to be in the presence of the primal to be tempered, and there is no way opposing beastmen are going to just sit there waiting to be tempered. I guess I just expected to see more communication between the beastmen and the city states than what is present in this game. The current situation feels rather forced and unrealistic.

9) Binding Coil of Bahamut and the Echo: So we are plumbing the depths of an ancient Allagan structure rich in history, and our echo power doesn't even go off once. Besides raising an eyebrow as to how the echo works, it is also a genuine let down in the story telling department. As the player descends further and further into the bowls of the earth to whatever lies at the heart of the structure, wouldn't it be interesting if we actually got some lore on the Allagan empire itself and its reasons for disappearing? But it never happens, even though I positively love everything about the dungeon. I really would have liked going deeper into the structure to be like a journey back through time as the player's echo continues to show him more of the past behind the Binding Coil of Bahamut.

The part about the beastmen and primals, the 7-8 one, is actually quite sensible
They did not know at all what the primals would do with them, they were fooled. They summoned their primal with one intent, and then their primal takes them over. And then ones tempered go and temper others, which in turn temper even more of them, creating a huge snowball. The Beastman daily quests are, more or less, looking into the split between the few non-tempered ones versus the army of tempered beastmen.
You also probably don't know but in 1.x is where communication between city-states and beastmen fell apart. Trying to forestall the garlean invasion the city-states broke all relationship with the beastmen, at least the ones who summon, because the garleans made it clear they hated primals above everything, they thought that'd might make the garleans warm up to them as allies rather than lands to be conquered.
Didn't quite work, and left deep scars.

Its clear you've put a lot of thought into all of this!

In regard point 4, if I remember right the giant diremite you described is just a little tiny mite until the ascians somehow gives it super powers, so its a non-existant threat so far as anyone outside is concerned. The dungeon is always locked down with very sturdy looking doors to keep whatever dangers may be inside (mostly pretty average monsters really). It seems as reasonable a threat to live by as those that exist in all other areas of Eorzea. Also Slyphs can fly (and without making much noise doing it!), giving them an advantage in sneaking past guards :P

I was actually pretty disappointed with Gaius van Baelsar's story. In 1.0 he was a very smart, very proud, plotting man. He was always behind the scenes and pretty much knew what Van Darnus was doing but wanted to see how he and we Adventurer's responded. He was more than content to sit in Ala Mhigo (his arm atleast, ignoring his own personal sojourns into the realm) and wait things out. After all his duty was to conquer the whole of Eorzea, sit back and watch as Van Darnus' madness consumes himself, his soldiers, and Eorzea and then Van Baelsar could mop things up afterwards. After all Van Darnus' 7th Legion was made up entirely of brainwashed Ala Mhigans, not real Garlean soldiers so if they were killed it was just the Eorzean Alliance killing a bunch of Ala Mhigans. Now in the time of 2.0 Van Baelsar is ready to bring in the big dog to stop both the Eorzean Alliance and the Primals. The Adventurers were after all missing for 5 years, the ones who stopped Van Darnus' madness but not in time to stop Dalamud's descent (probably had more to do with gravity of the planet pulling it than the Lunar Transmitter itself which did indeed pull it, but we blew it up so in a way we failed that too). No one was left in Eorzea with power...Gais van Baelsar just spent his time making more Garlean strongholds but not really attacking the Eorzean people, sure a huge 'castle' like structure is intimidating but c'mon. In 1.0 airships flew above the zones of Eorzea, now that felt ominous, like any moment they could start firing or dropping troops..no fear of the Eorzean Alliance. Anyways I'm mostly rambling and ranting.

Van Baelsar just didn't come off as threatening to me as Van Darnus did. Van Darnus felt like a true villain, someone who does indeed wish death and destruction on Eorzea so the Garleans could take over. Van Baelsar felt more like "ok c'mon guys I have an Ultima Weapon, just kneel to us." Ultima Weapon gained power through the Primals and was able to FLY, we're on an airship and he didn't even wish to attack us or the cities. It became a "alright see you guys later in my dungeon." Which it became. No real threat at all, I'd have been fine if Nero wanted to gauge the new power of Ultima through tests at the Praetorium..but just flying off. It wasn't really thrilling to me, felt like a 50's horror. We were able to just fly away on the airship as Van Baelsar had finally unleashed his weapon, just to return it to base where it awaits us in a dungeon. Nice way of conquering Eorzea there. Yes I know people may say he simply wanted Eorzea to bend the knee and not wish too much bloodshed, after all what's the point of ruling someone if everyone is dead, but to me Nero was WAY more fascinating than Van Baelsar. Livia was more of a threat, Rihtahtyn was really a non-factor who should have been way more involved. A Roegadyn Tribuni to me just screamed for an in depth story. Van Baelsar just didn't come off as the main guy, sure the storyline had evolved from the Garlean threat into the Ascian...but Van Baelsar was a proud Garlean. He killed 13 men who sought to kill/steal power from Emperor Solus and I just still don't see him taking help from the Ascians' Lahabrea to use Ultima Weapon, maybe I could see Nero using the Ascians' to try and bump his reputation above Cid's and garner recognition for Ultima Weapon. Comes off as a bit rushed to me, merging the Ascian threat into the Garlean was bound to happen but the way it did just makes me "meh."

The Thousand Maws of Totorak had already been invaded by Garleans during 1.0, they had set up magitek devices for aetherial readings..the devices are still there lol. I believe they had 4 Wood Wailers standing outside it..but yeah most dungeons now just have 1. Doesn't really feel like anyone is guarding, more so just a NPC for people to talk to spawn the blue-glowy-enter-the-dungeon-thingy.

As for the Moogles and Beastmen accepting the "gift" of Primal summoning from the Ascians...well they weren't Ascians in 1.0. The Paragons were the ones who taught them (which we now know the Paragons ARE Ascians) but the Ascians we did see in 1.0 were Grim Reaper like and scared the Sylphs and Beast tribes greatly. Now the Ascians we know have hyur/human appearances. Maybe the Paragons simply were hooded men, the Beast Tribes were known to trade with merchants mostly with crystals, so a hooded hyur/human-esque person would not have appeared menacing to them compared to the GrimReaper like Ascian.

As for the Beast Tribes and worshiping the Primals, we do know that the Ixali worshiped Garuda LONG before they were able to summon her. It's religion, it makes people do crazy things. If the Amalj'aa and Kobold have similar histories with their Primals (a.k.a. worshiping them long before being able to summon) then I'd say it's just passed down through the generations and that you have ones who believe it 110% and you have those (The Ash Amalj'aa for example) who go against it, not wanting to rely on a deity they may or may not believe in (even though Ifrit clearly exists). It's not about wanting to control the Primal, it's their god, it controls them. The Amlj'aa first summoned Ifrit at Mythril Pit T-3 for the first time, many Ul'dahns were killed. We'll learn more about the Beast Tribes when we're finally able to access their home lands (Paglathan for Amlj'aa, Xelphatol for Ixali, and MT O'Ghomoro for Kobolds).

As for the Echo and the Binding Coil of Bahamut, we need someone with memories to be able to use the Echo and see said memories. Sure the structure itself seems active but if there's no memories we cannot Echo jump. It may also have something to do with the aether (memories and aether being a theory of mine as to why we were forgotten, Louisoix's spell altering the aether which affect everyone's memories of us, then we come back and people start remembering).

Just to touch on Point #4, Sylphs can make themselves invisible so that's how it would be able to sneak past the guard. This isn't common knowledge though; something only 1.0 players would probably know.

I agree with a couple of your other points though.

Gaius's story and his supporting cast (sans Nero) had pretty weak character development.

The relationship between the player's character and Alphinaud, and Cid and Alphinaud felt pretty rushed.

Noloe summarized most of your later points up fairly well I think.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

5) Why did the moogles accept a strange gift from a masked man that looks nothing like a wood wailer and projects a dark, menacing aura to summon their king, Moggle Mog? I never imagined the moogles to be this stupid, and I kind of expected they'd be able to tell the difference between a common wood wailer and a complete stranger, given they have lived in the woods for ages.

6) Why do the beastmen tribes trust the ascians enough to accept strange gifts from them? They inhabit human bodies, which gives them the appearance of their mortal enemy, and they give off a dark and menacing aura. From what I know about ascians, the beastmen should be killing them on sight

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Adding to what Noloe already mentioned, 1.0 clearly stated that the beastmen have a myth about the Paragons (told to the player by the sylphs), that in times of trouble the Paragons would appear and 'lead them to the wisdom of the Primals'. It's not too hard of a stretch therefore to see that the Ascians calling on the beastmen would have been taken by most of the beast tribes as their saviours, with obvious results.

Much of the Path of the Twelve storyline involved the player and their Path Companion going on an (ultimately unresolved) investigation into the Paragons because of this - they figured if they could find a Paragon there was a possibility that they could convince them to influence the beast tribes into laying down their arms. Of course in hindsight this seems somewhat naive, but as Noloe mentioned, the Paragon/Ascian connection wasn't actually known at that stage.

It's also stated repeatedly in ARR that the Ascians are experts at manipulation, that they prey on the weak minded and vulnerable, promising power and knowledge to those who feel put upon or powerless - the SMN Job quest line actually features this as a major plotline in particular.

...but you forgot the TRULY important unanswered question.

What about Aldis and Mylla? Where's the rest of *their* story? What happens after Highbridge?

Aldis just went off on his voyage of discovery again, and Mylla went back to running the Colosseum like she was before. I thought that was pretty obvious and didn't need any further plot explanation in the game.

From the responses given by other players, it seems that the problems in the story of FFXIV: A Realm Reborn can be divided into two categories:

1) Information which is obvious to those who played through FFXIV 1.0, but was never conveyed properly to the new audience in the FFXIV: A Realm Reborn story.

2) Genuinely missing or not well thought out story/plot elements.

Through the eyes of a person primarily playing FFXIV: A Realm Reborn and who never had the opportunity (or patience) to play through the original, a lot of the issues they are going to point out really have to do with the former rather than the later, but are misconstrued to be the later problem. I hope that in future patches and expansions they do more to fill in the blanks with their story telling and not assume players have previous knowledge of the 1.0 arc. If an attentive reader must do internet searches to find the missing plot information, then the story has a clear and serious deficiency.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Adding to what Noloe already mentioned, 1.0 clearly stated that the beastmen have a myth about the Paragons (told to the player by the sylphs), that in times of trouble the Paragons would appear and 'lead them to the wisdom of the Primals'. It's not too hard of a stretch therefore to see that the Ascians calling on the beastmen would have been taken by most of the beast tribes as their saviours, with obvious results.

Much of the Path of the Twelve storyline involved the player and their Path Companion going on an (ultimately unresolved) investigation into the Paragons because of this - they figured if they could find a Paragon there was a possibility that they could convince them to influence the beast tribes into laying down their arms. Of course in hindsight this seems somewhat naive, but as Noloe mentioned, the Paragon/Ascian connection wasn't actually known at that stage.

It's also stated repeatedly in ARR that the Ascians are experts at manipulation, that they prey on the weak minded and vulnerable, promising power and knowledge to those who feel put upon or powerless - the SMN Job quest line actually features this as a major plotline in particular.

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I understand that they want to portray the Ascians as clever manipulators, but the story portrays the evil practices of the Ascians to be common knowledge. If everyone knows that making a deal with an Ascian is a surefire way to get totally ruined for the rest of their life, even the most desperate of individuals would be wary of making any deal with an Ascian. Every Ascian we meet wears their signature dark robes, makes no attempt to hide the fact he is an Ascian, and tries to kill or lead to ruin anyone who makes a deal with him/her/it without fail. I have yet to hear of a single living soul who has made a deal with an Ascian that has lead to greater prominence, power, or happiness for that individual, because according to the story that just doesn't happen. The moogles might be scared of what is happening with the primals and the empire, but they aren't so insane or desperate enough to make deals that would inevitably lead to their own ruin.

Either the writers accidentally portrayed knowledge of ascians as more commonplace than they intended, or they failed to show the kind of acts we need to see in order to portray them as the proficient tricksters they actually intend them to be. When was the last time you saw an ascian masquerading as someone he is not?

*We* see the Ascians for the obvious villains that we are because we are adventurers and we have the Echo. To your average person, I am under the impression that the Ascians aren't so obviously evil and so can smooth talk people into believing what they want.

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Originally Posted by RickiFake02

*We* see the Ascians for the obvious villains that we are because we are adventurers and we have the Echo. To your average person, I am under the impression that the Ascians aren't so obviously evil and so can smooth talk people into believing what they want.

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I agree with this.

After all, there is one pretty important Echo involving a certain Ascian explaining this pretty well...

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Aldis just went off on his voyage of discovery again, and Mylla went back to running the Colosseum like she was before. I thought that was pretty obvious and didn't need any further plot explanation in the game.

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Have you no romance in your soul? That's extremely unsatisfying, a violation of Narrative Causality!

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Originally Posted by Wadoka

Have you no romance in your soul? That's extremely unsatisfying, a violation of Narrative Causality!

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Most of the class quest lines are left quite open after their 'conclusion' at 30. I assumed this was deliberate so they could continue them later.

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Originally Posted by PArcher

I agree with this.

After all, there is one pretty important Echo involving a certain Ascian explaining this pretty well...

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Care to point it out? Telling me it is "important" doesn't tell me jack about what you are referring to. The thread is already spoiler territory. If you are referring to the new 2.1 cutscene where it is clear only minfilia can see Elidibus, that doesn't really suggest much of anything other than they can go invisible. They still present themselves in their robes and make no effort to hide that they are Ascian. Also, if I can't recall any cutscene justifying the Ascians as actually deceptive, that is not a good sign in terms of square's storytelling, which would bring me back to the point I made. It really doesn't have anything to do with any special power the adventurer has. If they don't show ascians being effective deceivers, I have no reason to believe they are. It's that part of storytelling called show, not tell.

Actually it was implied by Eli that the form we see them is due to the extent of our own understanding, and we yet to see their true form. This goes to explain how some can't see the Ascians, some see them in a different form and us who sees them as they are now.

Add to that, when they talked to beast men, most likely they were possessing some one who didn't look evil.

Well in 1.0, it was never really hinted at the Paragons being Ascians or really even being Evil at all. After all it seemed like it was just the Paragons teaching the Beast tribes to summon the Primals to protect them from the Garleans...sure we're here in the now and we can clearly see the negative effects they have both on aether and individuals. I just want SE to give us a clear story with the Paragon-Ascian connection and the Ascian-Travanchet connection in 1.0. For those not familiar with 1.0 here are "Ascians" in 1.0:

http://i.imgur.com/b2kJ8.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...psad66afd7.png

And here is Travanchet whom Anonymoose could talk more in-depth about. Funny thing is the picture with Travanchet brings up more questions about the Ascians. Ok we clearly know Lahabrea took over Thancred, so an Ascian took over Travanchet (or maybe the Ascian's name is Travanchet) but what did the Ascian want with the Horn? Also we were sent on a wild goose chase by Ferne with the "looking for characters in cutscenes who lacked shadows," as far as I know only Travanchet lacked a shadow, he also had his own theme music.

As far as the 'new' Ascian form. They are very similar to the GrimReaper form we saw. The robe-garb is essentially the same maybe a bit more fancy and instead of bone-claws they have Darklight-looking claws. But the most important factor is that the Beastmen were able to see the Ascian, not just people with the Echo. And the reaction of the Beastmen was that to be scared and flee, clearly they saw the same image we did after all GrimReaper images are shown throughout different cultures associating with darkness and death so why wouldn't it be the same in FFXIV. But this is why we have the Lore forum, to ask the questions.

They Key (horn) is still pretty mysterious to me, though Travanchet is definitely Ascian. His theme music is the Ascian theme. He was definitely a double agent, however. He masqueraded as a Serpent Reaver, which allowed him to walk openly among both the Sahagin and Lominsans unnoticed for what he was until he revealed himself to take possession of the horn. However, I've always wondered if he was a mere Reaver to the Sahagin or just presented himself as such to Emerick. We see him command two Sahagin/Reaver ships into battle against the Barracudas... but I've always wondered if perhaps he was the Paragon assigned to them as well.

The same theme was also played when the Reaper ascian was sighted in Thanalan, as well as a few of the times we meet Lahabrea in ARR. As for the Ascian / Paragon connection, we were getting pretty close to the reveal in Version 1.0. In the final released quest, we finished up a side-story arc about Ala Mhigan refugees attempting to strike back at the empire. This introduced Gaius, the Imperial presence in Mor Dhona, and their entire concept of indoctrinating children to fight the coming Calamity. Two further main scenario quests had been developed, but never released, that went back to the story of the Ascians and the reveal of Titan. Even in the 2009/2010 trailers you can see the Company of Heroes elezen marauder getting ready to cleave the Lord of Crags.

The translations of those quests that I found are rough and dirty, but seem to imply that the grim reaper Ascians only started to appear ten years ago and that they are the very entities that terrify the beast tribes so. The Sylphs refer to the Ascians of things of terrible evil but the Paragons as divine messengers, albeit of gods that darken hearts and poison minds. It may very well be that the reaper ascians were diversions... scare tactics meant to make the tribes latch on to the Paragons offers; the left hand scaring the mouse into the right hand's grasp.

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Originally Posted by Anad

Actually it was implied by Eli that the form we see them is due to the extent of our own understanding, and we yet to see their true form. This goes to explain how some can't see the Ascians, some see them in a different form and us who sees them as they are now.

Add to that, when they talked to beast men, most likely they were possessing some one who didn't look evil.

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I guess it just comes back to the story in 2.0 not really making a clear demonstration of this ( not that I don't believe you... I am speaking in terms of the story's depiction of Ascians via cutscenes). For Haukke Manor, I believe it is said a mysterious stranger gave the lady of the manor the ritual to restore her beauty, and the presence of the Ascians at the manor suggests that it was indeed an Ascian. However, no one strictly states what the visitor looked like. This poses a similar problem with the moogles, where they say a masked individual gave them the ritual to summon their king. In addition, Baelsar doesn't really make any mention of what Lahabrea looks like to him, so I just assume that he sees the same thing I'm seeing. So from a storytelling perspective, I think they really fail to communicate the illusory abilities of the Ascians properly.

But that's the point - the Ascians can change their appearance to suit their needs and hence how we perceive them is their actual form (or at least, whatever host they happen to be occupying). Every time they're shown on screen, they're all shown to be the same black clad figure with hyur features (which contradicts Travanchet in 1,0 ;)). No further explanation needs to be given really about them - it's a common trope in fiction after all (Azeyma above, I really need to stop going on that site ;)).

Moose also brought up an interesting idea about them in regards to the 'bestial' one in 1.0 which I admit I had never even considered - the whole thing being an Ascian false-flag operation actually makes perfect sense, as it fits in well with the Ascians' demonstrated talent for patient manipulation and exploitation. What better way to bend the weak to your will by using the oldest tool of power (fear)?. ;)

After all, ARR clearly shows time and again the Ascians no longer limiting themselves to exploiting just the beast tribes, but actually manipulating the five races as well (Gaius and the XIVth Legion, some Ala Mhigan refugees,

the 'dark SMN' Tristan in the SMN Job quest line

), so using a tactic like a wraith-like entity to scare superstitious Eorzeans into a state of hysteria where they can easily be manipulated just suits their MO, especially as their very reason for existence is stated clearly as spreading chaos and enmity (as part of Zodiark's return).

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Originally Posted by Wadoka

Have you no romance in your soul? That's extremely unsatisfying, a violation of Narrative Causality!

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Sure they had tons of unresolved sexual tension, but personally I thought that was one battle that had long been lost and had no hope. I much prefer to follow romances that have clear resolutions hehe. ;)

To note, Fendred.
It's shown that the only Scion without the power of the Echo (not counting our Sharlayan friends), their lalafell secretary, could not in fact even see Elidibus despite the fact she almost damn well ran into him.

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Originally Posted by Skies

To note, Fendred.
It's shown that the only Scion without the power of the Echo (not counting our Sharlayan friends), their lalafell secretary, could not in fact even see Elidibus despite the fact she almost damn well ran into him.

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"Knowledge dictates expectation, and expectation colors perception. Thus did she perceive naught."

from what elidibus says, it seems that ascians that aren't posessing people look EXACTLY like you'd expect them to look like, if you've never seen an ascian before, you'd see nothing, if you were told that ascians look like barney the purple dinosaur, you'd have a VERY strange main scenario.

we first see lahabrea in our dream at the start of the game, and that image is reinforced by what he looks like when we first meet him posessing someone (for marauders and arcanists at least, he's working with the serpent reavers, so we can assume he has a body in those scenes)


every time we see lahabrea or another ascian without a body, we see them as we expect to see them: masked figures with black robes.

when we see elidibus, notice that we are NOT the first person who sees him, we see him by proxy through minfillia's memory. and remember that minfillia tells us that she has a different "type" of echo compared to ours, it's possible that that allowed her to see elidibus at all, and why we didn't notice him when we left to see urianger (after all, we didn't know emissaries existed at that point, so we didn't expect to see him).

when we looked at minfillia's memories, we saw elidibus as she did, and so we expected him to look like that, so when we saw him a few minutes later, we saw him as he appeaerd to minfillia, and now that we're aware that emissaries exist, they'll all look like elidibus until our echo gets stronger and we see the true form of the ascians instead of "the crude approximation you see"