The Nature of the WOL (Spoilers)

So the occurrences of the final cutscenes have been bugging me. Here are my thoughts. Can you guys discuss and correct me as needed?

- We learn from Emet Selch that all the people who lived on the source were sundered into parts during the sundering. He looks down on everyone as not being whole and hence justifies their murder.
- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?
- We learn from one of Emet Selch\\'s illusions that Ardbert is part of who the WOL was pre-sundering. I believe it is said that he is your other half.
- Emet Selch sees you differently after you combine with Ardbert. He sees you as a pre-sundering person, your true self, and is afraid. This is what I thought.
- Is this that Ardbert, your other half has recombined with you and now you are whole and can stand toe to toe with Emet Selch?
- Alternatively, I have heard people say that the reason Emet Selch was afraid and what he really saw was that you were a shard of the 14th member of his council. Presumably the dissenting member that initiated the summoning of Hydaelyn. He did not previously recognize you until you combined with Ardbert and became more whole. Which do you think it is?
- When fighting Hades you seem to use Ardbert\\'s axe as a means to attack Hades and unleash the stored up light aether from the light wardens.
- After the fight Ardbert\\'s axe disintegrates.
- After the fight Y\\'shtola sees your aether as it once was. I was rather disappointed by this. Does this mean your combination with Ardbert was temporary and he is gone now? I feel like the confrontation with Elidibus would be more impactful if he saw you as Emet Selch did.
- At the end you are referred to as both the warrior of light as dark. I\\'m unsure if that\\'s just because of your role in the first or if that implies that you are more whole now.

Would appreciate everyone\\'s thoughts and corrections to my interpretations.

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Originally Posted by Cirdan-Faust

So the occurrences of the final cutscenes have been bugging me. Here are my thoughts. Can you guys discuss and correct me as needed?

- We learn from Emet Selch that all the people who lived on the source were sundered into parts during the sundering. He looks down on everyone as not being whole and hence justifies their murder.

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Yep

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- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?

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Yeah, its the latter. The original surviving population was split into basically 14 lesser versions of their original selves

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- We learn from one of Emet Selch\\'s illusions that Ardbert is part of who the WOL was pre-sundering. I believe it is said that he is your other half.

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WoL and Ardbert make up 2/14 of the original being they were.

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- Emet Selch sees you differently after you combine with Ardbert. He sees you as a pre-sundering person, your true self, and is afraid. This is what I thought.

- Is this that Ardbert, your other half has recombined with you and now you are whole and can stand toe to toe with Emet Selch?

- Alternatively, I have heard people say that the reason Emet Selch was afraid and what he really saw was that you were a shard of the 14th member of his council. Presumably the dissenting member that initiated the summoning of Hydaelyn. He did not previously recognize you until you combined with Ardbert and became more whole. Which do you think it is?

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WoL is still no match for Emet Selch even after joining with Ardbert, that's why Exarch has to summon 7 other people with the echo to help you.
IIRC them originally being the 14th member is just speculation, but it sounds pretty plausible

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- When fighting Hades you seem to use Ardbert\\'s axe as a means to attack Hades and unleash the stored up light aether from the light wardens.
- After the fight Ardbert\\'s axe disintegrates.
- After the fight Y\\'shtola sees your aether as it once was. I was rather disappointed by this. Does this mean your combination with Ardbert was temporary and he is gone now? I feel like the confrontation with Elidibus would be more impactful if he saw you as Emet Selch did.
- At the end you are referred to as both the warrior of light as dark. I\\'m unsure if that\\'s just because of your role in the first or if that implies that you are more whole now.

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Ardbert is likely still a part of you. The light you spent was throughout the course of the fight and not just from forming the axe (I.E when hade chains you and everyone goes super saiyan, you flood the entire arena briefly in light - that's likely where most of it was used), and considering the WoL does similar things before (Usually when he kills Ascians, he just shoots a pure beam of light at them), I think the choice of it taking on the form of an axe was more symbolic than anything else

If you go back and talk to the old lady mol in the steppe she comments on the fact that your light no longer has the shadow growing in it and it's a bit brighter. I'm seeing that as implying that ardbert is still one with our WoL. Also Emet had an idea already as to who the WoL was due to the color of their soul. Emet being able to see the color of the soul was already shown when he saved Y'shtola from the Lifestream after she got stuck a second time from casting flow.

Also during the part where he sees the original form it was not fear it was shock and denial. In the english version he calls it a trick of the light (from when we were about to be devoured by the nascent primordial light we absorbed combined with Ardbert fusing with us. He also in that same text bubble goes out of the way to call us a broken husk.

We're only called the Warrior of Darkness on the first and solely due to the fact that we brought night back to the world.

Its speculation at this point as to whom our WoL was back in the days of Amaurot. I myself am of the opinion that we are Hythlodaeus and that he/she was the 14th member of the conclave that walked out before Zodiark was originally summoned. However, it has not been out right said who our pc had been.

I, myself, have been wondering which way to take how our PC started to answer that kid at the end with the finger to the lips. I at first got a Xellos type of vibe but now I'm wondering if it was more like a shhhh I'll tell you but dont let anyone else know...

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Originally Posted by Cirdan-Faust

So the occurrences of the final cutscenes have been bugging me. Here are my thoughts. Can you guys discuss and correct me as needed?

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Okay let's do this point by point, but don't take this as 100% true, since my understanding may be different to others.

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- We learn from Emet Selch that all the who lived on the source were sundered into parts during the sundering. He looks down on everyone as not being whole and hence justifies their murder.

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Yes, exactly right. He says this in the Ocular after saving Amh Araeng.

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- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?

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Hydaelyn struck a blow on Zodiark, and the star, and subsequently all life on it. When Emet visualises this on the model in the Ocular, it is a 7-fold strike, each blow in quick succession, on the original "whole" world, and thus it, and the souls on it, were split into 14.

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- We learn from one of Emet Selch's illusions that Ardbert is part of who the WOL was pre-sundering. I believe it is said that he is your other half.

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Rather than "other half", Hythlodaeus (the shade) says our souls were once one. Remember, it is likely that our soul at the time had 7 other shards rejoined onto it as well.

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- Emet Selch sees you differently after you combine with Ardbert. He sees you as a pre-sundering person, your true self, and is afraid. This is what I thought. Is this that Ardbert, your other half has recombined with you and now you are whole and can stand toe to toe with Emet Selch?
- Alternatively, I have heard people say that the reason Emet Selch was afraid and what he really saw was that you were a shard of the 14th member of his council. Presumably the dissenting member that initiated the summoning of Hydaelyn. He did not previously recognize you until you combined with Ardbert and became more whole. Which do you think it is?

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I do believe that image of us as an ancient was brought about by Ardbert rejoining us, but rather than Emet being afraid, it is better to say that he is shocked instead. Hythlodaeus implies that Emet knew our original and, depending on language, was quite close to them as well.
The theory that we are the 14th comes from the fact that the info is revealed around the same time we discover that we are the (now 9/14) shard of an Ancient that Emet, a member of that same group, once knew well.

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- When fighting Hades you seem to use Ardbert's axe as a means to attack Hades and unleash the stored up light aether from the light wardens.
- After the fight Ardbert's axe disintegrates.
- After the fight Y'shtola sees your aether as it once was. I was rather disappointed by this. Does this mean your combination with Ardbert was temporary and he is gone now? I feel like the confrontation with Elidibus would be more impactful if he saw you as Emet Selch did.
- At the end you are referred to as both the warrior of light as dark. I'm unsure if that's just because of your role in the first or if that implies that you are more whole now.

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In regards to Ardbert rejoining us being temporary, no I believe that is permanent, it's just that when you add blue and blue together, you end up with blue which is why Y'shtola said it was back to normal. At the same time I also believe "Ardbert" as a person is indeed gone.
As for the WoL/D thing, those are most definitely roles ascribed to us by other people, rather than it being any reference to our completeness.

• It isn't specified how many parts everything was divided into when Hydaelyn sundered the planet; presumably they were all split into 14 like the planet itself, but given three Ascians were somehow able to escape it's not unfeasible that not everything was divided so evenly. However, unless we are told otherwise it is best to assume that yes, other than the three Source Ascians (Lahabrea, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch) everything was diluted to 1/14th of its original aetheric volume (including the PC's soul).
• If the PC's soul was evenly split into fourteen, Ardbert rejoining with them would not make them compleat again.
• This act serves mostly to repair the PC's soul, which was in danger of collapsing due to the primordial Light they'd absorbed from the Lightwardens throughout Shadowbringers. There may have been something of a power boost, but it would not be enough to fully close the gap between you and Emet-Selch / Hades.
• The rejoining was likely permanent, and was almost certainly the entire reason Minfilia denied letting Ardbert help halt the Flood of Light.
• Emet-Selch seeing the PC as an Ancient is probably meant to bring to mind that, to him, they are beginning to echo the power of eld (at 8/14 soul fragments, they are likely the most compleat individual the Ascians have seen in eons outside their own group).
• The PC being a reincarnation of the fourteenth member of Amaurot's governing Conclave hasn't been confirmed, nor has that fourteenth member been confirmed as one of Hydaelyn's summoners. These are just popular theories.
• Referring to the PC as the Warrior of [Light / Darkness] is probably not particularly meaningful outside of denoting their particular role in that territory (the PC is the Warrior of Light on the Source because s/he needs to drive back the dark, while the First needs (or at least needed) someone to rise up against the Light).

Hey thanks for the responses guys. But as a follow up why are you all saying 8/14 or 9/14 of a complete soul? Are you saying that us plus our 7 buds for every fight are canonically shards of the WOL? Or are you saying that because of the rejoinings that have happened in thus far?

On that note, I hadn't considered that each rejoining would change everyone the way Ardbert changed us. After each rejoining everyone becomes more whole.

Now if that is true doesn't that throw into question Emet Selch's plan for restoring those ancients lost to summon Zodiark? He says once the rejoinings are complete he would sacrifice the lesser people of the source to Zodiark to restore the ancients consumed to summon him. But if we are taking about after the final rejoining wouldn't the denizens of the source be restored ancients? Even after all rejoinings he would still see them as lesser? Is that because the 13th was lost? Or just because he is a dick?

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Originally Posted by Cirdan-Faust

Hey thanks for the responses guys. But as a follow up why are you all saying 8/14 or 9/14 of a complete soul? Are you saying that us plus our 7 buds for every fight are canonically shards of the WOL? Or are you saying that because of the rejoinings that have happened in thus far?

On that note, I hadn't considered that each rejoining would change everyone the way Ardbert changed us. After each rejoining everyone becomes more whole.

Now if that is true doesn't that throw into question Emet Selch's plan for restoring those ancients lost to summon Zodiark? He says once the rejoinings are complete he would sacrifice the lesser people of the source to Zodiark to restore the ancients consumed to summon him. But if we are taking about after the final rejoining wouldn't the denizens of the source be restored ancients? Even after all rejoinings he would still see them as lesser? Is that because the 13th was lost? Or just because he is a dick?

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I myself am saying that because of the Rejoinings.

When we are waiting for the Ladder to be fixed in Kholusia, Emet claims that the Rejoinings benefit the peoples on the Source, by saying that the survivors of the last Rejoining would have souls and existences equal to himself.
As for the whole sacrifice the survivors plan... we are still unsure if the current races existed at the time of the sundering... and if by completing the rejoinings they'd automatically turn into ancients, but either way, tempering seems to be the likely explanation.

The 13th being a void is hopefully something the story team will address.

There have been 7 rejoining plus our portion then add in ardbert willingly fusing with us

Possible spicy opinion but I actually think Hythlodaeus is us, we were Hythlodaeus. Literally no one else can see Ardbert, except us, until Hythlodaeus confirms they can see him too, albeit faintly, commenting on how recognizable the hue of our soul is. Emet-Selch acts astonished to see an Ascian before him when we rejoin with Ardbert, briefly seeing us as our fully "restored" self.

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Originally Posted by Cirdan-Faust

- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?

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When he was demonstrating the basic concept of what Hydaelyn did, he 'split' Ryne in two - which is perhaps what you're thinking of. Making thirteen copies would just be messy.

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Originally Posted by Shofie

Possible spicy opinion but I actually think Hythlodaeus is us, we were Hythlodaeus. Literally no one else can see Ardbert, except us, until Hythlodaeus confirms they can see him too, albeit faintly, commenting on how recognizable the hue of our soul is. Emet-Selch acts astonished to see an Ascian before him when we rejoin with Ardbert, briefly seeing us as our fully "restored" self.

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I don't think he can be us. He makes a cryptic reference to Emet recognising "her/him" in us (depending on character gender) - and unless he's making a distinction between his* real self and this illusion of himself, then it doesn't make sense to refer to himself like that.

* I don't think we actually know their gender but everyone has assumed 'he'.


It's also suggested that Hythlodaeus is particularly perceptive anyway - which is why Emet thought he'd work out the truth of being a shade, and thus he did. Or perhaps that quirk of creation has left the shade even more likely to notice Ardbert's soul.

Well since he/she knows that they are a shade and said as much, it makes more sense in the fact that if Hythlodaeus the shade referred to their real self as him or her. But like I said everything is still up in the air on it. I still am of the mind that we were Hythlodaues but I also know I could be wrong...

Emet at one point says you're the product of 7 rejoining. So Ardbert + you is 8/14

Remember unukalai is from the 13th too.

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Originally Posted by Avarant

Emet at one point says you're the product of 7 rejoining. So Ardbert + you is 8/14

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Why do people keep forgetting the source as a shard?

Its: The Source + 7 rejoined shards = us at 8/14 at the beginning of ARR

Us + Ardbert = us at 9/14

EDIT: Sorry if this came out as brash, Ive corrected too many people about this part.

How I took it:

The Warrior of Light is still a unique soul who, like others, fractured into 14 pieces.

Of those 14 pieces the first shard, from the Source, was already there. There have been seven Calamities (Rejoinings) on the Source so the Warrior of Light had eight fragments going into Shadowbringers.

After Ardbert fused into the WoL, that was nine fragments and that was enough for Emet-Selch to briefly glimpse the WoL's Ascian form which is who they were before the sundering. Hythlodaeus implied that the WoL's soul was that of someone Emet-Selch once knew, but we don't who that individual was. Possibly someone responsible for summoning Hydaelyn.

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Originally Posted by MrThinker

When we are waiting for the Ladder to be fixed in Kholusia, Emet claims that the Rejoinings benefit the peoples on the Source, by saying that the survivors of the last Rejoining would have souls and existences equal to himself.
As for the whole sacrifice the survivors plan... we are still unsure if the current races existed at the time of the sundering... and if by completing the rejoinings they'd automatically turn into ancients, but either way, tempering seems to be the likely explanation.

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Varis' explanation is that there was but one race before the sundering.

https://i.imgur.com/V7AVXns.png

I got the impression that any soul that was fully rejoined would become an Ancient as in that time there only existed one race of "mankind". Although what complicates this theory is that it appears the original Ascians whom remain whole have renounced their flesh and appear as Hyurs. So I'm unsure whether or not if the WoL ever fully Rejoined, whether or not he/she would remain the same race or transform into an Ancient.

https://i.imgur.com/GG6LmvM.png

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Originally Posted by Edax

Varis' explanation is that there was but one race before the sundering.

I got the impression that any soul that was fully rejoined would become an Ancient as in that time there only existed one race of "mankind". Although what complicates this theory is that it appears the original Ascians whom remain whole have renounced their flesh and appear as Hyurs. So I'm unsure whether or not if the WoL ever fully Rejoined, whether or not he/she would remain the same race or transform into an Ancient.

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My impression was that the original race was Ascians, they were the "mankind" Varis spoke of.

I also never thought they renounced flesh, I thought they were aetheric beings to begin with and in the "shattered" worlds now need host bodies to be able to interact with mortal races. Either that or their mortal forms did die in the sundering but their souls survived intact.

Hence Lahabrea being a body hopper (spending most of ARR in a Thancred suit), Emet-Selch wanting to use a clone of his old vessel vs molding a new host into his own image and Elidibus is idk what. He wore a Zenos suit for a while.

When they appear, people might see a Hyur because they need to see something. They just see an approximation of what the Ascians actually look like, which would be why Ascians don't have a shadow.

I'm not saying I'm right about this, obviously, just offering my own interpretation.

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Originally Posted by Cirdan-Faust

Hey thanks for the responses guys. But as a follow up why are you all saying 8/14 or 9/14 of a complete soul? Are you saying that us plus our 7 buds for every fight are canonically shards of the WOL? Or are you saying that because of the rejoinings that have happened in thus far?

On that note, I hadn't considered that each rejoining would change everyone the way Ardbert changed us. After each rejoining everyone becomes more whole.

Now if that is true doesn't that throw into question Emet Selch's plan for restoring those ancients lost to summon Zodiark? He says once the rejoinings are complete he would sacrifice the lesser people of the source to Zodiark to restore the ancients consumed to summon him. But if we are taking about after the final rejoining wouldn't the denizens of the source be restored ancients? Even after all rejoinings he would still see them as lesser? Is that because the 13th was lost? Or just because he is a dick?

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Well even in the past when everything was still whole they were quite ready to sacrifice the new life to get the old life back (even if they gave their life willingly to give the new life a future). This of course could either be because they could not get over the loss and are stuck in the past or because they are tempered and Zodiark needed more power. This was the reason why some of the Ancient summoned Hydealyn because they wanted all this sacrifice to stop. So yeah he just sees those he knew and that sacrificed themselves to Zodiark as those who should live and the rest are always just meant to be lambs ready to be sacrificed.

We are at the beginning 8/14 souls because 1 source soul and then 7 rejoined souls. Thats why we are probably also able to take in that much light without it killing us. (Even with our gift there should have been a limit) One could even say that this should mean that everyone one the source should be 8/14 complete. With Ardbert who gave us his soulpart we are now 9/14. And with more of our soul complete we probably reminded Emet of the Ancient one.

And yes everyone probably becomes more whole but with the sacrifice of all those soul parts that rejoined with the source one. These cease to exist as a single living part and all those people also needed to die before that could even happen so for me at least the rejoining is quite bad.

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Originally Posted by Shofie

Possible spicy opinion but I actually think Hythlodaeus is us, we were Hythlodaeus. Literally no one else can see Ardbert, except us, until Hythlodaeus confirms they can see him too, albeit faintly, commenting on how recognizable the hue of our soul is. Emet-Selch acts astonished to see an Ascian before him when we rejoin with Ardbert, briefly seeing us as our fully "restored" self.

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The japanese version makes it more clear that he is talking about "our" Ancient self as a different person than him. Of course this could again just be a trick but I doubt they would do that and later also show our Ancient form too. I think Emet and our Ancient ones were just good friends with the shade and he recognized only the color, he could not really see Ardbert himself. I just think that this part was a hint that we were a special Ancient one which could lean towards the theory that we once were the 14th.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Varis' explanation is that there was but one race before the sundering.

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This brings up an interesting conundrum.

The timeline goes something like this:
1. Calamity approaches!
2. Council summons Zodiark
3. Sacrifice half of the Ancients to bring the Calamity under control.
4. Sacrifice half of what's left to bring life back to the world.
5. Propose to sacrifice most of THAT life to bring back the original sacrifices.
6. Dissenters summon Hydaelyn to protect that life.
7. Hydaelyn Sunders the world.

There are many things about this timeline that make it quite likely that the myriad Spoken races all existed PRIOR to the Sundering. Would the Dissenters have taken such a drastic step if the life they were preserving was nothing more than trees and deer? It's POSSIBLE that they were environmental extremists of that sort, but I find it far more likely that this new life included new intelligent races - basically, the races we know, such as Kobolds, Hyur, Roegadyn, Sahagin, and so on and so forth. All of these races, then, existed PRIOR to the Sundering, and this is how they all wound up existing across all Thirteen Shards. Now, it could certainly be the Ascians' perspective that there was only One Race (that mattered) prior to the Sundering, and so they weren't LYING, exactly, when they told Varis of this.

Additionally, I do not believe that all intelligent life forms contain a piece of an Ancient's soul. The population of Ancients was decimated (first by the Calamity, then by the horrendous sacrifices to Zodiark), so it seems unlikely that there were enough Ancients to provide a soul fragment to every living person - and even if there were, what happens when that limit is eventually reached, and another baby is born? No, it seems more likely to me that the majority of people are "new life" of the sort created by Zodiark and protected by Hydaelyn. Souls in this system do not persist intact, but are instead dispersed into the Lifestream upon death and become the source for new souls. The Sundered souls of the Ancients exist within this system, but remain intact, occasionally being reborn into new bodies with no recollection of their prior lives.

I also suspect Varis has been misled on the nature of the races' origins - perhaps given the information "there was one perfect race before the Sundering" and left to make the (incorrect) logical leap that it was therefore split into multiple imperfect races.

That doesn't seem consistent with the information that Hydaelyn apparently splits things into perfect copies of themselves, or the existence of the same races on every shard.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

My impression was that the original race was Ascians, they were the "mankind" Varis spoke of.

I also never thought they renounced flesh, I thought they were aetheric beings to begin with and in the "shattered" worlds now need host bodies to be able to interact with mortal races. Either that or their mortal forms did die in the sundering but their souls survived intact.

Hence Lahabrea being a body hopper (spending most of ARR in a Thancred suit), Emet-Selch wanting to use a clone of his old vessel vs molding a new host into his own image and Elidibus is idk what. He wore a Zenos suit for a while.

When they appear, people might see a Hyur because they need to see something. They just see an approximation of what the Ascians actually look like, which would be why Ascians don't have a shadow.

I'm not saying I'm right about this, obviously, just offering my own interpretation.

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Well, it was heavily implied in this scene that Ascian methods require the renunciation of the flesh. The price of immortality. Since supposedly Elidibus, Lahabrea and Emet-Selch were never sundered, it would explain why they do not appear as Ancients.

https://i.imgur.com/61VpySi.png

https://i.imgur.com/nrvErBq.png

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

This brings up an interesting conundrum.

The timeline goes something like this:
1. Calamity approaches!
2. Council summons Zodiark
3. Sacrifice half of the Ancients to bring the Calamity under control.
4. Sacrifice half of what's left to bring life back to the world.
5. Propose to sacrifice most of THAT life to bring back the original sacrifices.
6. Dissenters summon Hydaelyn to protect that life.
7. Hydaelyn Sunders the world.

There are many things about this timeline that make it quite likely that the myriad Spoken races all existed PRIOR to the Sundering. Would the Dissenters have taken such a drastic step if the life they were preserving was nothing more than trees and deer? It's POSSIBLE that they were environmental extremists of that sort, but I find it far more likely that this new life included new intelligent races - basically, the races we know, such as Kobolds, Hyur, Roegadyn, Sahagin, and so on and so forth. All of these races, then, existed PRIOR to the Sundering, and this is how they all wound up existing across all Thirteen Shards. Now, it could certainly be the Ascians' perspective that there was only One Race (that mattered) prior to the Sundering, and so they weren't LYING, exactly, when they told Varis of this.

Additionally, I do not believe that all intelligent life forms contain a piece of an Ancient's soul. The population of Ancients was decimated (first by the Calamity, then by the horrendous sacrifices to Zodiark), so it seems unlikely that there were enough Ancients to provide a soul fragment to every living person - and even if there were, what happens when that limit is eventually reached, and another baby is born? No, it seems more likely to me that the majority of people are "new life" of the sort created by Zodiark and protected by Hydaelyn. Souls in this system do not persist intact, but are instead dispersed into the Lifestream upon death and become the source for new souls. The Sundered souls of the Ancients exist within this system, but remain intact, occasionally being reborn into new bodies with no recollection of their prior lives.

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I wonder if those who souls were Ascian once are the ones with the Echo? I mean we are originally led to believe Hydaelyn gave special souls the Echo but ALL Ascians have Echo.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

There are many things about this timeline that make it quite likely that the myriad Spoken races all existed PRIOR to the Sundering. Would the Dissenters have taken such a drastic step if the life they were preserving was nothing more than trees and deer? It's POSSIBLE that they were environmental extremists of that sort, but I find it far more likely that this new life included new intelligent races - basically, the races we know, such as Kobolds, Hyur, Roegadyn, Sahagin, and so on and so forth. All of these races, then, existed PRIOR to the Sundering, and this is how they all wound up existing across all Thirteen Shards. Now, it could certainly be the Ascians' perspective that there was only One Race (that mattered) prior to the Sundering, and so they weren't LYING, exactly, when they told Varis of this.

Additionally, I do not believe that all intelligent life forms contain a piece of an Ancient's soul. The population of Ancients was decimated (first by the Calamity, then by the horrendous sacrifices to Zodiark), so it seems unlikely that there were enough Ancients to provide a soul fragment to every living person - and even if there were, what happens when that limit is eventually reached, and another baby is born? No, it seems more likely to me that the majority of people are "new life" of the sort created by Zodiark and protected by Hydaelyn. Souls in this system do not persist intact, but are instead dispersed into the Lifestream upon death and become the source for new souls. The Sundered souls of the Ancients exist within this system, but remain intact, occasionally being reborn into new bodies with no recollection of their prior lives.

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I agree (and I hope that we one day get an answer to that ingame) that either the other spoken races started to exist because Zodiark brought back new life (I doubt if they existed right next to the Ancient ones before that because Emet said that this was their perfect world) or maybe each Ancient one had their own form thus they could be the anchestors of each race. (Since they can imagine quite a bit of stuff, so maybe having to wear robes and masks was their way to also not be negative towards each others look?) So either they wanted to kill other sentient or even sapient life or maybe this would have included future Ancient ones too.

And I agree it also makes sense that not everyone would be an Ancient one if the other races existed at that time. But we should also not forget that death was not something that common to them (it still did happen but probably not that often and not of old age either) and yet they still had children. We simply dont know if there was some sort of lifestream before that, thus new souls getting born all the time, or if this was something which only happened afterwards.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

I wonder if those who souls were Ascian once are the ones with the Echo? I mean we are originally led to believe Hydaelyn gave special souls the Echo but ALL Ascians have Echo.

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I know its probably nitpicking but Ancients are not necessarily Ascians, while all Ascians are Ancient ones. The 14th for example was never an Ascian, because they left, thus only the 13 people of the council are Ascians, anyone else might be an Ancient one. But I also wonder if having the echo might mean that one could have been an Acient one. Maybe that is why Elidibus says that we would take their side if we knew the whole truth about the echo? That he believes that anyone that knows that the Ancient ones once existed would suddenly decide that mass genocide of whole worlds are fine?

But if those that possess the echo were all Ancient ones (and there are quite a few who have that) then it shows that the Ascians are really ready to kill even them to get their old ones back.

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Well, it was heavily implied in this scene that Ascian methods require the renunciation of the flesh. The price of immortality. Since supposedly Elidibus, Lahabrea and Emet-Selch were never sundered, it would explain why they do not appear as Ancients.

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Above image refers to the ability for these regular peeps to teleport from a shard to the source, not that the Ascian's themselves underwent that same (or similar) process. Ascian's can teleport in this manner without any help, whereas Ar(d)bert explicitly mentions "how we came to this world", that it required their death. Not saying it is wrong, but I do not regard it as heavily implied at all (at least in terms of the Ascian's themselves). It's merely an explanation as to how the WoD's got here in the first place. You even see them in Elidibus' moon-office before their arrival, not something you'd expect to see from living bodies.

Until it is fully explained, I simply regard the Ascians as adopting more suitable forms over the eons. There's no reason for them to project themselves as overly lanky giants with plague doctor masks. It wouldn't be comprehendible now that they know we mere peons have no memory of the way we supposedly were before, just how things are now in our present.

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Originally Posted by RopeDrink

Until it is fully explained, I simply regard the Ascians as adopting more suitable forms over the eons. There's no reason for them to project themselves as overly lanky giants with plague doctor masks. It wouldn't be comprehendible now that they know we mere peons have no memory of the way we supposedly were before, just how things are now in our present.

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But why appear as Hyurs then? If being an Ancient would somehow be unacceptable, then why appear to the beast tribes as a Hyur? Shouldn't they appear as one of the beast races when convincing a beast race to summon primals?

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Originally Posted by Alleo

I agree (and I hope that we one day get an answer to that ingame) that either the other spoken races started to exist because Zodiark brought

I know its probably nitpicking but Ancients are not necessarily Ascians, while all Ascians are Ancient ones. The 14th for example was never an Ascian, because they left, thus only the 13 people of the council are Ascians, anyone else might be an Ancient one. But I also wonder if having the echo might mean that one could have been an Acient one. Maybe that is why Elidibus says that we would take their side if we knew the whole truth about the echo? That he believes that anyone that knows that the Ancient ones once existed would suddenly decide that mass genocide of whole worlds are fine?

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Umm no? I believe Emet refers to his race as Ascian at least in direct dialog with the WoL, Emet was actually referring to his people that they all didn't think alike.

Looking for more but https://youtu.be/EBfCrns8-9I

Keep in mind at least for me, I do refer to them as "Ancients" to distinguish between the leftover Ascians and the fact that Amaurot is a place, not the name of the race which covered the whole planet.

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But why appear as Hyurs then? If being an Ancient would somehow be unacceptable, then why appear to the beast tribes as a Hyur? Shouldn't they appear as one of the beast races when convincing a beast race to summon primals?

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Not so much unacceptable, just not practical for master manipulators. Considering there are various beastmen already communicating with other races (sometimes even integrating into their societies), I don't see much reason for them to waste energy to morph into beastmen to spread their summoning info when they have the means to instil fear through power and/or just hand them what they need to bring about their ambitions of faith. There is also the possibility that SE just didn't think this far ahead at the time, showing the Ascian's do it in their standard forms. Either way, I don't see it as being far fetched. The vast majority of their dealings would be with the humanoid races, with Hyur's being arguably the most common of them. The majority of summoning's have also been done by fanatical or desperate groups who would have taken promises of power no matter what shape was offering it, more-so if said-shape was an all-powerful Ascian that could just squash them.

There's also the fact that almost all Ascian's we directly fight always mention how they're being stifled by their human form, so flitting between Hyur to Beastman for such a simple purpose is equally less appealing.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

Umm no? I believe Emet refers to his race as Ascian at least in direct dialog with the WoL, Emet was actually referring to his people that they all didn't think alike.

Looking for more but https://youtu.be/EBfCrns8-9I

Keep in mind at least for me, I do refer to them as "Ancients" to distinguish between the leftover Ascians and the fact that Amaurot is a place, not the name of the race which covered the whole planet.

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I cant make much with the video because I sadly dont speak japanese but I watched the scene in Kholusia in english and he calls them ancient ones there. And Hythlo calls them humanity in his japanese dialogue. (And I am quite sure that something similiar is also in the german version)

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Originally Posted by Rannie

Well since he/she knows that they are a shade and said as much, it makes more sense in the fact that if Hythlodaeus the shade referred to their real self as him or her. But like I said everything is still up in the air on it. I still am of the mind that we were Hythlodaues but I also know I could be wrong...

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I read on reddit that they confirmed on Gamescom Q&A that WoL is not Hythlodeaus.

I hope someone is making a summary of Q&A...

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Originally Posted by Erendis

I read on reddit that they confirmed on Gamescom Q&A that WoL is not Hythlodeaus.

I hope someone is making a summary of Q&A...

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Can confirm. The context was asking whether the Amaurotines we saw actually looked like that, or if Emet-Selch was exaggerating. The answer was that they did look like that, and then Oda went on a tangent about how Hythlodaeus's model and the "rejoined WoL" model were different.

Also hoping for a summary or transcript, because the sound system they used for the panel had way too much noise, and I missed a lot of the answers.

I'm hoping for a summary as well. I missed the first few questions.

Well Yoshi P has been known to misdirect things but as it stands moose is posting on another thread that I've already read that q and a

Basically I'll let the hythlodaeus thing lie.

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Originally Posted by shinkin

WoL is still no match for Emet Selch even after joining with Ardbert, that's why Exarch has to summon 7 other people with the echo to help you.

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Those weren't just people with the echo. They're implied to be the Warrior of Light's other fragments from the various surviving shards.