Just A Heads-Up: Gamer Escape Interview with Koji Fox (Fan Festival 2018)

I try not to cross-post my own stuff, but there's information here that's been brought up on the forums, and it was especially formulated with you guys in mind, so...

Here

As always, if you have a question that you think has an interesting answer or story behind it and you don't think it's going to come up quite right any other way, comment there, comment here, annoy me on Discord or Twitter, whatever - I'll throw it on the list and it'll fall through, eventually.

"Please look forward to it"

nooooooooooooooooooooooo

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Originally Posted by AmemeAmeklin

"Please look forward to it"

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That just means it's coming via in-game content! That's (technically) better than interview content!

Please... uh... look forward to it...

two years ago at 2016 fanfest i asked koji why Faust Z has a spoon in his back. he said he was gonna ask Oda-san but then I never heard anything again.... you have any insight?

Great interview, thanks for the work. I like how you keep the 1.0 stuff nagging at them. I paid good money for that game, and I want answers!

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

two years ago at 2016 fanfest i asked koji why Faust Z has a spoon in his back. he said he was gonna ask Oda-san but then I never heard anything again.... you have any insight?

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As soon as you asked this, a little voice in my brain went, "That's an an old clockwork lever design for detaching the 'snap on' backpack he's wearing." and I have no idea where it came from or why I think that. I can't find - never mind a citation - that the idea itself has ever come up.

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Originally Posted by radhaz

Great interview, thanks for the work. I like how you keep the 1.0 stuff nagging at them. I paid good money for that game, and I want answers!

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Yeaaah! We'll get there, lol. There are a lot of old threads we can weave back into this tapestry if only people would want it. Amberscale Rock still sits unused. Morys still doesn't have closure. Hell, everyone's wondering what this game will even be about when the Ascians are gone and Yoshida assures us they'll keep thinking of stories. What in the Seventh Hell is the Presence of Silvertear Lake!? Break that concept art back out, let's go fight this thing.

Koji digging through notes from 1.0 gives me hope, hehe. Keep up the good work!
BTW, I was at the fan fest, I saw and recognized some notorious peeps, but I have no idea what the Annonymoose looks like. It's cool by me if you prefer annnonymoosenimity.

As always, thanks for the great interviews. I especially appreciate the questions that hearken back to 1.0, as there are a lot of things I'm still waiting for answers. The comment he had on Minfilia's conjecture on those who have reached the 'end' of the Path of Twelve is interesting, and I do hope that we can find out what was eventually planned for the end of that journey of the Walkers.

A question I'd like answered if there's ever a chance to talk down Koji is if we'll ever see Iroha again. I mean, since the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel event, she's apparently still been gallivanting around Hydaelyn,.
We haven't run into her like we have with, say, Alpha. What's she been up to?

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Originally Posted by radhaz

Great interview, thanks for the work. I like how you keep the 1.0 stuff nagging at them. I paid good money for that game, and I want answers!

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I can't help myself.

If you really want to see what moose looks like then go watch near the end of the Limit Break Radio's fan fest video where somehow a time distortion didn't happen when moose and eyths were at the table talking lore. As always keep up the good work you do moose.

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Again, hopefully, it’ll be the end for one piece…and we’ll finally find out what the one piece is… …(whispers) It’s friendship.

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My money's still on his hat, but I think what matters most is that it was with him all along.

Excuse me while once again go into a corner and yell "KOOOOOJIIIIII!!!"

Also, I made up that joke about Moose with the spreadsheets and it turns out it kind of DID go like that! :P

My big take-away from this:

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Originally Posted by MCKF interview with GE

I hate how games just give you 100% correct information all the time. That never happens in the real world. There’s always a little bit of misinformation in there. You hear it and believe it; then all these people are saying it’s this though, maybe this is wrong, and this is this

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That is one of my favorite things about this game as far as the lore goes. It's entirely possible for NPCs to be wrong, whether it's because they're mistaken or actually trying to mislead you. The only other game series I remember doing that a lot with it's lore is The Elder Scrolls.

Sooo, I just read the interview and wanted the express my thanks for this very intresting and delightining read!

And the question about the Mi'qote reminded me of some discussion we had a while back that was originally about naming-conventions after a marriage, but evolved into something more intresting for me.
The question that has been on my mind basically is: Are the Seekers of the Sun on constant breach of extinction?

To give a bit of context here:
We know that there are 26 Seeker-tribes and that there are probably any number between 10 and 200 Mi'qote in each tribe (which 200 being a rather large tribe with several Nuhns - something that would be uncommon). If we assume an average of 100 Mi'qote per tribe, that puts them at 2.600 individuals - a number that would land them on the endangered list in the real world! And keep in my mind that Kojis answer of "We're not showing you all people that are there" doesnt fit, because this isnt limited by enginge or "we dont want to many boring NPCs" but by the very lore itself!
My personal "explantion" has always been that there are more than 26 tribes, with several tribes sharing their letter - branch-tribes, so to speak. But I have absolutly no evidence or proof or even real reason to believe that except that it made the most sense to me.

So... I'm curious now: Are the Sun-Cats really that small in number? Is my theory "correct"? What happens when a tribe gets wiped out (it should be something that can easly happen with small tribes - all thats needed is a flu that they cant recover from) - or is that something that never happend?

Also, in addition to that: The post about Mi'qote-lore mentions how a Tia can become a Nunh by forming his own tribe and even though it also mentions how difficult that is (because apparently catboys are only attractive to catgirls if they have a harem...), what would the tribe-letter be? Is this my evidence for branch-tribes or would a new letter be made up - or just no letter at all?

Hmm. How many would you need to make up a harem? As the only non tribe one that I can think of is the bandit catboy "king" in South Shroud.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Also, in addition to that: The post about Mi'qote-lore mentions how a Tia can become a Nunh by forming his own tribe and even though it also mentions how difficult that is (because apparently catboys are only attractive to catgirls if they have a harem...), what would the tribe-letter be? Is this my evidence for branch-tribes or would a new letter be made up - or just no letter at all?

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I can't speak to the actual numbers of miqo'te or their tribes, but this bit I do know about. There's an old Koji-Fox post on it from 2013:

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Originally Posted by Fernehawles

When the Seekers of the Sun came to Eorzea from their homelands, there were only 26 tribes. Since that time, there have been some males who, instead of defeating their tribe's nunh and becoming a breeding male by normal means, opt to leave the tribe and form their own. However, it is rare for female Seekers of the Sun to follow these males, so these newly formed tribes almost always die out.

This does not mean that it doesn't happen.
If a male leaves to form his own tribe, he will replace the letter from his original tribe (for example, the "Y" in Y'shtola) with a new one. Since the 26 letters of the Eorzean alphabet are already taken, the new tribal prefix will be often be two letters (Ma -> Ma'shtola) which are of the tribe-forming male's choosing (and all people in his tribe will use that same prefix).

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Originally Posted by SannaR

Hmm. How many would you need to make up a harem? As the only non tribe one that I can think of is the bandit catboy "king" in South Shroud.

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I think anime sets the low bar for a "harem" at three female-units, and one of them can be your actual sister.



The Coeurl King is a mooncat, though, and a terrible pervert for trying to emulate those terrible pervert suncats.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

I think anime sets the low bar for a "harem" at three female-units, and one of them can be your actual sister.



The Coeurl King is a mooncat, though, and a terrible pervert for trying to emulate those terrible pervert suncats.

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He also is an abuser at least emotionally as at least with the postmoogle quest that deals with him highly hints at it. So, do all Tias that want their own tribe have to go to Costa and ask a certain pervy but also very rich Lalafell how does he do it? XD Sorry.

I am glad that we'll be getting some big questions answered soonish. Now the big question is will the answers we get make anyone happy?

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Yoshida-san has said in some interviews where you get this question, “Is the lore set first and then you build quests off that?” While we have the core lore, Yoshida’s thing is that writers should be able to do whatever the [heck] they want and not have to worry about the lore. Then they take that to the lore team and it’s the lore team’s job to make it fit with the rules we have.

Yoshida-san wants to give complete freedom to his writers to be able to create anything they want and not be restricted. They won’t want to think, “I want to do this but there’s this weird rule about aether…” It’s the lore team’s job to make that fit with the rules that we have.

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That just sounds like a bizarre and backwards way of creating a consistent story-world. I would cringe as a writer having to do that. Knowing the 'rules' of the world and coming up with interesting ways to work within them (or occasionally around them) seems like a far better way of developing the story.

I very much appreciate this, since as a hermit it would have otherwise gone unnoticed by me. All of it is interesting, but personal highlights:

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GE: When did Zenos gain resonance? Even when he att—

Koji: I can’t say anything about Zenos…

GE: N—

Koji: I can’t say anything about Zenos!

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Damn it!

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GE: Speaking of stuff we talked about before that may have fallen through the cracks… Do you have any updates on the so-called mysterious primal? There was the idea that right after Gaius took Ala Mhigo, he was going to keep going, but a primal halted his advance. It could have happened in ’57; could have happened in ’62.

Koji: That was related to the whole, “What lies deep beneath Silvertear!?” Yes, something stopped his advance. And then there was the trailer beam, tons of primals shooting out. And then there was the seal. What is it sealing? What was going on in there? A lot of this is where the 1.0 story was supposed to go, and there’s a lore reason for that.

When the Calamity happened, it caused a lot of changes to Hydaelyn. Whether that was enough to seal off something that was already sealed, but the seal was getting weak, or… That I don’t know. There could be something like that. The hint was that Gaius was stopped for a reason, and that it was a powerful force. There’s a presence. It wasn’t just Midgardsormr there, it was more of a force, and I can’t say anything more, for now.

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Can we take this to mean it wasn't a primal? Knowing whether or not it was one, specifically, would be a crucial bit of information.

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When it comes down to it, there are tens of thousands of people in this world and most don’t know about Mothercrystals, just like most people don’t know that the planet is called Hydaelyn.

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Can we take this to mean that my hypothesis - that every planet has a crystal, like IX, that serves as a sort of terminal for souls on a given planet (or perhaps celestial body)? It would be crucial to understanding the cosmology...

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GE: In the game, they’ve gone over a few times how a calamity works. There are a bunch of disturbances, it blows out a barrier. Is that how it works or is it one interpretation of how it works? Some fans are even putting forward the theory that Hydaelyn is eating the shard worlds and leaving it out of Her side of the story!

Koji: (shocked laugh) Oh, man! The official answer, at least for now, which is believed by most of the people in Eorzea experiencing and studying what’s happened, is that it’s about the disturbances. Too much aether is drawn out from the planet, something breaks while that’s happening, and while it’s broken, it allows shit to happen, and things go crazy. Then you get this period afterwards where the planet is healing itself to prevent that from happening again.

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So to the best of our knowledge Hydaelyn is not eating shards to survive, and Calamities are mostly about drawing as much aether out of Her as possible to break the dimensional barriers. Umbral Eras, then, are when aether is not plentiful because She needs it to heal Herself. This is useful information!

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I hate how games just give you 100% correct information all the time. That never happens in the real world. There’s always a little bit of misinformation in there. You hear it and believe it; then all these people are saying it’s this though, maybe this is wrong, and this is this.

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Misinformation is deliberate... there's a difference between being intentionally misleading and details being lost to historical drift / word of mouth...

Of course, the given example (the Void) is completely understandable in-universe. But if we can't get clear, concrete information out-of-universe, how are we supposed to understand how things work? (Oh, wait, the writing team just does what it wants and it's up to the world-builders to make the world fit the story, not vice versa.)

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[W]e have auspices all over the place!

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And now we have a good reason to exterminate all the squirrels in the Shroud; left alive they could become very dangerous auspices! Squirrel auspices, who look like Squirrel Girl in their aramitama forms! I kid, I kid.

#SprigganAuspice2019

Oh geeze thanks for the mental image now I'm afraid of sheep auspice who went crazy from seeing all the slaughter of their kind just because we needed that new pair of wool boots or whatnot. ; ;

It depends on the writer. Some like having all the world-building rules figured out before hand. Others feel like their creativity is stiffled by world-building rules. It is worth noticing that Yoshida didn't say that the writers couldn't look at the developed lore and then write with it in mind. He just said that they didn't have to have to deal with the burden of having to make their stories fit the established lore.

I have seen how some writers deal with both world-building and writting. The two are rarely seperate. While there is some basic overall world-building that happens before the writing happens, a lot of it happens on the fly while the story is being written. Even more world-building happens in the editing process after the story is written and the writer is going back and making sure everything fits together. What Yoshida is describing sounds very similar to this, only it's happening within a team of people.

I will be a very, very happy man if we get the ability to conjure a ceruleum tiger just like Regula did if a Gunblade based job is ever added. I could see it being similar to the Ninja ability that conjures a frog - brief but very satisfying to behold.

Cats are awesome, after all!

Koji curses a lot for such a good writer

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Koji curses a lot for such a good writer

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This is interestingly not uncommon of writers, lol.

Even if you know all of the words and spend your days professionally presenting yourself with them, sometimes you want to just slip on your linguistic PJs and use the comfy ones.

The stuff at the beginning seems to indicate that Koji agrees with my personal belief that the Thirteen Reflections is a localized phenomenon (but that he'll have to ask Oda to be sure). So, there aren't thirteen Dragonstars and thirteen Omega homeworlds to go along with our thirteen Reflections. Presumably, this also means that the only world visited by Midgardsormr and Omega is the Source. (Again, unless Oda says otherwise.) I'd also go so far as to postulate that Hydaelyn's and Zodiark's influence as "gods of creation" is ALSO local. They may have created the planet we live on, but they did not create the universe, or the heavens, or the other stars.

I felt a bit bad for the lore team when I read that the writers have totally free rein to write whatever they want, and then the lore team has to hammer these round story pegs into the square lore holes. That's gotta be aggravating at times!

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Originally Posted by Cilia

So to the best of our knowledge Hydaelyn is not eating shards to survive, and Calamities are mostly about drawing as much aether out of Her as possible to break the dimensional barriers. Umbral Eras, then, are when aether is not plentiful because She needs it to heal Herself. This is useful information!

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Unfortunately, the answer given does NOT allow us to discard the possibility that the big H is chowing down. People in Eorzea don't seem to think she is, and those that know about her seem to hold her in high regard, but it also notes that they don't know WHAT is happening, exactly - just that "something" breaks, then "things" go crazy, then healing "happens". That's a whole lotta vagueness, and that last bit is disturbingly unclear as to just HOW healing happens. It leaves plenty of room for a planet-munching scenario! Especially so, given that later in the same article it's noted that what the people believe may not be what's actually going on; they think Hydaelyn is great now, but maybe they don't know the whole story...

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

So, there aren't thirteen Dragonstars and thirteen Omega homeworlds to go along with our thirteen Reflections. <...> (Again, unless Oda says otherwise.) I'd also go so far as to postulate that Hydaelyn's and Zodiark's influence as "gods of creation" is ALSO local.

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Holy mixed feelings, Batman. I'm in the same boat regarding the former point, I think. It's going to get messy if there are fourteen (total) copies of everything. I like the idea of zooming out to find our "broken mirror" is actually just a small, cracked section of a larger, intact mirror. Though the idea of Hydaelyn and Zodiark being small potatoes compared to the rest of the universe would have to be done with grace in mind. It would fit some past Final Fantasies for there to be many world crystals out there in the universe, but I'd hate to cheapen what we've already done or keep the Warrior of Light ascending towards relative godhood. Especially with the idea of the natural order and balance between Light and Dark as a whole being supposedly at stake, what is the rest of the cosmos? If Hydaelyn created life as we know it, what is that life out there? What a balancing act. A fulfilling one if you can pull it off, but still...

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I felt a bit bad for the lore team when I read that the writers have totally free rein to write whatever they want, and then the lore team has to hammer these round story pegs into the square lore holes. That's gotta be aggravating at times!

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It's my knee-jerk reaction to dislike this, too, but I know it's just because we're so invested in this idea of lore as law. However, let's be honest, it's probably the right call, lol. A game needs a MSQ and it can't be hamstrung by world setting minutiae if it's going to live and grow and impress for successive years. So long as there's communication and compromise, we - the players - shouldn't have to deal with the fallout too often, and if we keep a catalogue of unnoticed problems, the world lore team is usually eager to solve the puzzles. Trust the system; squash the bugs.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

they think Hydaelyn is great now, but maybe they don't know the whole story...

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I'm sticking with the Flawed Mother Hypothesis for now. What has Zodiark done for me lately, aside from send his lawyer to lie to me?

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Koji curses a lot for such a good writer

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One of the first things we learn in Creative Writing is that you can not be afraid of words, even "bad" words (how "curse words" are called by the more sanctimonious in Spanish). Sometimes curse words can be useful for a character's mental state, personality, and spoken out loud they help relieve stress. You'd be surprised how many "serious" writers swear like sailors in and out of their books. :D

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Unfortunately, the answer given does NOT allow us to discard the possibility that the big H is chowing down. People in Eorzea don't seem to think she is, and those that know about her seem to hold her in high regard, but it also notes that they don't know WHAT is happening, exactly - just that "something" breaks, then "things" go crazy, then healing "happens". That's a whole lotta vagueness, and that last bit is disturbingly unclear as to just HOW healing happens. It leaves plenty of room for a planet-munching scenario! Especially so, given that later in the same article it's noted that what the people believe may not be what's actually going on; they think Hydaelyn is great now, but maybe they don't know the whole story...

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One of the things FFXIV has been fairly good at so far is foreshadowing things before they happen. It is very, very rare that we don't get a heads-up that something fishy is going on with a situation before our characters find out about it. In fact, it's been confirmed by Youshida that he likes more foreshadowing of what is going to happen, rather then less.

Hydaelyn being being evil or lying to us is something that has basically no foreshadowing. At least, creditable foreshadowing. We don't seen any of the scholars on our side putting forth theories that are based on us not knowing enough about Hydaelyn. We don't even have neutral parties suggesting that. Heck, not even Elidibus has suggesting Hydaelyn isn't what she seems. The only people suggesting Hydaelyn isn't telling the truth about something are our enemies. Who are trying really hard to create more chaos then we can fix. There's yet to be anything to suggest they aren't just trying to confuse us.

I'd feel a lot differently about the possibility of Hydaelyn being anything other then benevolent if it was something we'd been getting hints about for a long time. Only we haven't. In fact, the biggest evidence for Hydaelyn not being benevolent is that we're in the middle of the story and we haven't had everything about her explained to us.

The calamities+hydaelyn needing to heal the wound is verrry reiminiscent of "The Calamity from the Skies" and the Northern Crater in FF7. Jenova fell to the planet in Meteor, causing a huge scar on the planet. The planet recruited a huge amount of energy via the lifestream to heal the damage, which Sephiroth wanted to repeat, except he would be in the epicenter to absorb all the energy and be reborn as a god. In FFXIV's case, calamities are occuring every couple hundred years and Hydaleyn eats a shard to rebalance the source's aether.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

I'd feel a lot differently about the possibility of Hydaelyn being anything other then benevolent if it was something we'd been getting hints about for a long time. Only we haven't. In fact, the biggest evidence for Hydaelyn not being benevolent is that we're in the middle of the story and we haven't had everything about her explained to us.

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It's a common trope in JRPGS to make the holy/mainstream religious faction seemingly benevolent but then flip the switch later on and reveal either the holy faction is deeply corrupt and actually evil, or that there is no good or evil despite what the holy faction made people believe, and there's only humanity and shades of grey of morality. Hellsing, Castlevania, Xenogears, Xenosaga, Final Fantasy X, FFXIV Final Fantasy XIII, Heavensward, etc...

In this case, either Hydaelyn is corrupt or both the gods are bad for the planet. In fact FFXIV might end with us destroying both of the gods because all that matters is the crystal and aether/lifestream. We don't need a personified consciousness, or God, to regulate mortal affairs. So similarly to FFXI, I think we will fight both gods and either become a god ourselves, or destroy them both and let life do its own thing naturally and harmoniously.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

It's a common trope in JRPGS to make the holy/mainstream religious faction seemingly benevolent but then flip the switch later on and reveal either the holy faction is deeply corrupt and actually evil, or that there is no good or evil despite what the holy faction made people believe, and there's only humanity and shades of grey of morality. ... Final Fantasy XIII, Heavensward, etc...

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Trust me, I know how that kind of plot works. To the point that it's so predictable that it's boring. I'd love to see a JRPG do something different with the "benevolent deity/religion" trope other then it turning out to be evil all along.

As it is, in the case of FFXIII, we find out the government is lying after less then five minutes of playing the game. In Heavensward, we find out the Archbishop has been talking with the Ascians the first time we meet him and we know something weird is going on with the Heavensward itself even earlier. But that is how foreshadowing works. It's giving the player information so that when the "big reveal" comes, the player can then go "oh, so that's what all those inconsistencies were about".

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In this case, either Hydaelyn is corrupt or both the gods are bad for the planet. In fact FFXIV might end with us destroying both of the gods because all that matters is the crystal and aether/lifestream. We don't need a personified consciousness, or God, to regulate mortal affairs. So similarly to FFXI, I think we will fight both gods and either become a god ourselves, or destroy them both and let life do its own thing naturally and harmoniously.

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If Hydaelyn or Zodiark is destroyed, it's the end of life as we know it. Destroying them has always been presented as that. In fact, destroying how life currently works is one of the goals of the Ascians. The world of FFXIV is not a world where destroying the current pantheon is something that can be done to put history back into the hands of humanity. Although, I'm sure the Ascians would love the situation to be presented as such.

The thing is, I've yet to find an example in-game of the foreshadowing required for Hydaelyn to be lying to us. The Ascians are more then happy to take all the credit for her not being powerful enough to better fix the situation. When she can fix a situation, she's fixed it to the best of her ability and often at great cost to herself. The best evidence I can find that might indicate Hydaelyn is lying is that she hasn't told us everything yet. However, that applies to Zodiark and Elidibus and the rest of the Ascians as well. And even a lot of the other mundane characters.

The only thing that seems to indicate Hydaelyn could be lying is the common "benevolent deity was evil all along" trope in JRPGs. Only, none of the groundwork has been laid for that. And it's predictable and boring. Neither of which the FFXIV dev team likes to do. I could easily see them always having Hydaelyn being the "benevolent deity" just so that the plot isn't predictable.

[QUOTE]If Hydaelyn or Zodiark is destroyed, it's the end of life as we know it. Destroying them has always been presented as that. In fact, destroying how life currently works is one of the goals of the Ascians. The world of FFXIV is not a world where destroying the current pantheon is something that can be done to put history back into the hands of humanity. Although, I'm sure the Ascians would love the situation to be presented as such.[quote]

We don't know that. We know all planets with life/aether have their own lifestream and likely mothercrystal but we don't know if all planets with life have their own guardian dieties of light/dark. For all we know Zodiark/Hydaelyn could be unnecessary. In fact, what if they're just the "first" primals. Primals are born out of aether and prayers, perhaps they were born out of the prayers of the collective unconscious of the lifestream? The lifrstream is the collection of all aether/souls of a planet, the gods of Hydaelyn and Zodiark might be unnecessary to the aether. We don't know if the Dragonstar has their own Hydaelyn/Zodiark conflict, or Omega's homeworld. Do all worlds with life have twin gods that always fight? Or do some worlds simply just have aether/lifestreams that exist passively without any "gods" fighting over it? I'm of the mind that this may end like Xenosaga, where they sealed away Wilhelm (Lucifer) and Abel and stopped the whole universe from rebooting every several millenia and allowed mortals to have free-will without beings from higher dimensions interferring. We may end up destroying both the gods and coming to the realization that they were both superfluous to life. It seems to be a theme in FFXIV, that mortals pray for deliverance from strife through a god, but that the god is just false hope and is something to place your hope into, rather than putting hope into yourself and your friends to make your situation better. The theme of relying on supernatural to deliver you, when in reality, the world is a harsh place. IDK, I'm probably ranting now, but I can't see a situation where it ends with light beating dark or both existing and exchanging victories forever.

Hell, in XI, the god of darkness and goddess of light preserve the universe forever by battling, which creates "winds of time" which "blow" the void away from the planet, but once they stop battling, and the winds of time halt, the void creeps in to consume the planet. Only when both light and dark are balanced and continue battling, with sometimes light winning, sometimes losing, can balance and harmony exist and life continue. If either side wins, there's a flood, and if both sides stop fighting/or annihilated, same fate.

Your argument is based on saying all the lore we know about Zodiark and Hydaelyn is false. We have seen nothing in-game that suggests that. We have seen plenty of things happen that suggests no one is lying about Zodiark and Hydaelyn, at least, no one who we can trust not to lie to us. Incomplete knowledge is never the same thing as false knowledge.

The entire 3.3-3.4 story that focuses on the Warriors of Darkness relies on what Urianger knows about Hydaelyn and the cosmology of FFXIV being correct. And on Elidibus not presenting the Warriors of Darkness with all the options that they actually have. As it turns out, Urianger knows exactly what he is talking about and his understanding of what Hydaelyn values (the life of everyone on the 1st Shard) is spot on. Elidibus is either unaware that the Warriors of Darkness could talk to Hydaelyn or he's more interested in bringing about another Calamity rather then really helping them out. Everything in that arc reinforces what we already knew about Hydaelyn, it doesn't contradict it.

As a general rule, it's impossible to have good lore discussions if we assume what we are told is false. If we assume that, then no meaningful discussion can take place. It also isn't good to automatically assume that FFXIV will follow all the tropes of the typical JRPG. Or the cosmologies of other Final Fantasy games for that matter. While FFXIV does use a lot of those tropes, it very often puts a twist on them so that we as players can't predict where the story will go next.

Koji in that interview is not saying that what we have been told in the game is false per say. He is saying it is incomplete. And that he most likely doesn't want to spoil what is coming next.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

One of the things FFXIV has been fairly good at so far is foreshadowing things before they happen. It is very, very rare that we don't get a heads-up that something fishy is going on with a situation before our characters find out about it. In fact, it's been confirmed by Youshida that he likes more foreshadowing of what is going to happen, rather then less.

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Just so we're clear, I'm not actually of the opinion that Hydaelyn is actually engaged in wrongdoing, or that this big twist is coming. All I did was discount the claim that the interview had done anything to dispel the theory. On the contrary, it was EXTREMELY neutral, and left room for all kinds of interpretations (including the "planet-eating Hydaelyn" scenario).

I have to say, though, it's a stretch to say that there's no foreshadowing. Even if it comes from an unreliable source (like Elidibus), foreshadowing is foreshadowing. The door is there, even if the plot never walks through it. It would hardly be the first time in fiction that the bad guys (while still being bad guys!) warn the good guys that their superiors are not kosher, only to smugly tell the heroes "I told you so!" later when they turn out to be correct. When that happens, no one considers it to be out-of-the-blue with no foreshadowing.

The "planet eater" scenario doesn't necessarily mean Hy is bad, either - just desperate. The Ascians are not leaving her a path where she can save everyone, and so she's saving as many as she can. The choice lies between ending a world full of lives, or allowing ALL the worlds full of lives to end, and she bitterly sacrifices the few for the many. If anything, that paints a more tragically heroic picture of her than a scenario where there's a clean way out, and the fact that she's not forthcoming about it could be for several reasons. Shame, for example. Or fear that her allies would turn against her if they knew. Or even an inhuman perspective; e.g., she simply doesn't understand why that might be important to us and so doesn't bother to bring it up - the important thing is to stop the Ascians so she doesn't HAVE to eat planets, and so she focuses on that!

As I see it Hydaelyn and Zodiark co-existed just fine until Zodiark became greedy for whatever reason and to protect herself from what became a harmful relationship she shoved him as far as she could. Meanwhile parts of her broke off and formed mirrored worlds which she was fine with as they kept him from doing her harm. Also I think the mother crystal is Hydaelyn as a lot of the time we talk to her it's in the background. Just like the one time we've ever seen what could be assumed to be Zodiark is a huge black/purpleish crystal. To me she heals herself the only way she is either able to or knows how to which is absorbing/eating a shard while also probably loathe to do so as it brings Zodiark closer to her.

The Lore book (page 14) says Hydaelyn isn't the mother crystal, but rather one of two Wills that existed within it before the (Hydaelyn-initiated) split. Whatever Her intentions, she ended up with a monopoly on the mothercrystal by banishing Zodiark, unless the crystal itself was also split/mirrored, in which case I suppose we'd have a mothercystal and a fathercrystal.

We don't really know enough on this, but IF the Ardor is only "necessary" in order to circumvent whatever defenses Hydaelyn has up, our third option might be convincing Hydaelyn to allow Zodiark to return to the mothercrystal. Obviously (well, for now) compressing all the dimensions back together is bad for all life involved, but if that's merely the Ascian's chosen means and not the inevitable end result of reunifying the mothercrystal... Maybe we have a shot?


All that said, I still have no idea what there even is to be greedy over when the sum of all existence is two equal-but-opposite beings. Greed is born of disparity, so when the whole of existence is parity itself, it should be fundamentally impossible to covet. Even if we assume She's not lying to us, there's still something missing from the story.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

unless the crystal itself was also split/mirrored, in which case I suppose we'd have a mothercystal and a fathercrystal.

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https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...028/latest.jpg
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...936/latest.png

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Originally Posted by Fenral

if that's merely the Ascian's chosen means and not the inevitable end result of reunifying the mothercrystal... Maybe we have a shot?

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I'd still stress that we (mortals) have it in writing ahead of time that the removal of the distinction between Light and Darkness will not create a cosmic status quo whereby we cannot exist. Before the arrival of man, existence was allegedly defined by whimsical creation and destruction at the hands of capricious gods. What if that was - not the Twelve - but the natural state of Light and Dark, Genesis and Entropy - as one? What if we, living beings with continuity and contiguity, cannot exist in such an ephemeral and chaotic world? We didn't fight for the world we know and love - for millennia of the world of man, for all its flaws - to throw it all away for this. This is Final Fantasy! Anything that stands between man and control of his own destiny and we will smote its ruin upon mountainside with the power of friendship and /gpose.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

Greed is born disparity

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From a human perspective. Perhaps when a distinction was made between Light and Darkness, a division between forces of genesis (order, separation) and entropy (disorder, consolidation), it was merely the Dark's inherent nature to covet and consume. Hydaelyn and Zodiark might be, from an eastern cosmology point of view, the scorpion and the frog.

And then you quoted a typo I didn't catch just to throw me off guard. Clever bastard... (lol I kid)

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

I'd still stress that we (mortals) have it in writing ahead of time that the removal of the distinction between Light and Darkness will not create a cosmic status quo whereby we cannot exist.

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So, we have it in writing that it is fine as long as the gods play nice? Well, that's exactly what I was saying, then... :p

That aside, sometimes you word stuff like you're getting ready to fight me because I'm some kind of avatar of nihilism or something trying to lead people down the wrong path. I swear I'm not an Ascian in disguise. Just trying to point out that, whatever the rules in place, our best outcome is probably to get mom and dad to stop fighting? Or at the very least, get them to take it outside?

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

it was merely the Dark's inherent nature to covet and consume

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I mean, I have also brought that up in the past. If Light and Dark are in balanced conflict for however long, what could suddenly tip the scales if both are simply acting according to their nature? (And don't you dare give me any of that Urobutcher "Darkness is just stronger than Light because lol heat death of the universe" bullcrap. Ahem. That wasn't at you, Moose.)