So Fandaniel, Fandango, Fancy Dan stated that he wants to kill everyone and everything. Especially people who ask such meaningless questions like what I'm speculating.
I'm a big fan of the Youtube channel, Pursuit of Wonder. It's a creative writing channel with animated visual aids. It's quite good. Anyway, they recently did this piece:
Why Living Forever Would (Probably) Be Awful
If you don't have time to watch it, basically it's about humans in the future who find a way to become immortal, and then their cybernetic progeny who then, thousands of years later, find a way to revert to being mortal at a whim. The end is inconclusive, pointing out that living beings are never satisfied even when they have complete control over life and death. (There's a very interesting segment that almost mirrors how I picture what happens when the Ancients did die or used to)
The big take away from the people who asserted that mortality's special because it ends... it made me think about Fandaniel.
When he shows up in the Royal Menagerie, he immediately has a minor fourth wall break. Through the rest of the dialogue, he shows a keen awareness of everything the plot's given to us throughout the course of SHB.
When he says that he wants everything to die, and that he has no creed about it we all wonder if that's true. I guess my speculation is that, though in the present era individuals are no longer immortal or nearly immortal, the overall society and legacy is.
No individuals are immortal, but a collective may be. It makes me wonder if Fandaniel views that the world cannot actually be special, because the world cannot end. It's another kind of 4th wall break, because the nature of MMOs doesn't allow them to end.
I believe this is the lens with which they will focus on Fandaniel for us. It's also hinted at in SHB in Phantom Amaurot, by a phantom who says, "But even inspiration has its limits. For all of the wonders we have wrought, I do wonder if there will come a time when we have fully explored the potential of our powers---when there is truly nothing left unmade, and only iteration and imitation and stagnation remain." This leads us into the debate questline which provides us with the Lousoix line vs. the DRK line, and an Amaurotine Firebrand who is upset that the Bureau of the Architect will only approve beneficial, the most beneficial, concepts for society's use.
Basically, I think the story is going to use Fandaniel as a pivot point to let us know that the dev team knows that a lot of the gameplay content is recycled and they are stagnating. I'm quite looking forward to November either way.
What do you think?
Also, won't it be funny if they use Sharlayan to 4th wall break and dunk on lore enthusiasts, playfully? Hehe.
Speculation on Fandaniel's Motive
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08-04-2021, 03:35 PMVyrerusSpeculation on Fandaniel's Motive
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08-04-2021, 08:28 PMKageTokage
I immediately felt like his line about preferring to be offed by "one who has it all, rather then an inferior" was a hint to his actual reason for wanting to destroy the world.
We already know Amaurot was a place inhabited by the elite of the unsundered world, as they seemingly wouldn't even allow you to become a citizen if you didn't possess some minimum level of creative potential and despite the Convocation's lofty position, they didn't seem too eager to aid the outside world, considering that only Azem wanted to bother averting a disaster entirely while the rest were content to simply arrange an evacuation plan for those affected.
Perhaps Fandaniel was a victim of their apathy and lost his home and/or people close to him, but opted to claw his way into their ranks as a part of a revenge scheme...or he might've already been part of the Convocation but they decided they didn't want to do anything. His memory crystal having an extremely garbled recording suggests that the unsundered may not have known much about him at all, and him being only a recent addition to their ranks could be a possible explanation for that. If he already had a jaded view of the world pre-Sundering, then he'd certainly find its present state even more appalling and he comes across to me as someone who's so broken that he just wants to drag everything down with him (Particularly during his little motive speech where he seemed to show very genuine contempt for everyone). -
08-06-2021, 12:15 AMAnonymoose
My money is on plain old "he specifically wants to get to Zodiark and thinks Zenos is a useful idiot."
As much as I love (and expect) new and exciting ideas, by the final chapter I think most of the cards are on the table. However, I also think that blinds me sometimes. I focus so much on what we've seen that my mind hesitates to make leaps to the unprecedented.
Based on precedent I see two major paths:
1. Fandaniel has a very twisted take on his tempering. Why would a true acolyte of Zodiark want to return the world to the state it was before He existed? If I truly believed Zodiark was the one true god (and didn't share the Originals' vision of what the world that was supposed to be saved was), I would want to sacrifice the rest of existence to Him so he could remake the world in His image, faithful I would have a high place in His kingdom. I'd loathe the Originals for treating me like expendable fodder while insulting Him like that.
2. Fandaniel is what Emet-Selch warned us about: You can raise someone to an office who wasn't its original keeper, but they're unreliable. Fandaniel's broken and using his Ascian powers for something unexpected.
But precedent is sometimes a poor predictive factor in fiction. -
08-07-2021, 08:43 PMVyrerus
I like both of your takes. I've been musing on them the past couple of days. It's hard to come up with a response, because it's just more rampant speculation, but uhh I seem to be into that.
The responses put together, particularly Moose's second precedent option and Kagetokage's whole jam.
I'm kind of wondering if perhaps some of the Overlords tried setting up a different kind of society than an empire. With 13 minds at their disposal, not all of them originals, surely not all of them figured that Garlemald or Allag were the only way forward with puppet civilizations?
Perhaps we will find that one of them, say Fandaniel himself even(kind of unlikely, given his propensities though), came from Amaurot's sister city in the past. They got themselves onto the Convocation to keep an eye on them/get that revenge ploy. Being unable to stop ]them, they've set about on the next best thing. Recreate the sister city or at least create a civilization that will honor its legacy. Perhaps, this is Sharlayan. Perhaps when Fourchenault said, "If it were truly the Final Days, we would know."
I'm wondering if perhaps they may even know a friendly Ascian of those that remain from the Convocation. Mayhaps said friendly warned them of each Calamity's coming. Was Sharlayan being groomed to be the civilization that remained once all Rejoinings concluded? -
08-07-2021, 08:51 PMVeloran
In my opinion, Fandaniel's desires are a reflection of the Sound and what it represents. Bear with me.
Firstly, we're told in Amaurot that the Sound is "a force inimical to life", which grew to fester and spread, warping everything it came into contact with and even choking the Lifestream itself. Given the Ancients were forced to restart the cycle of life with their sacrifices, it can be assumed that the cyclical rebirth of souls through the aetherial sea had effectively been halted or destroyed by the Sound.
Now, it's my belief that the Sound is something that was born in the aetherial sea as a byproduct of eons of the Ancient's creation magics, a sort of subconscious will they had been suppressing by trying to eliminate individual disparity. I would characterize this as something like a subconscious will towards destruction and death, an antithesis of life's overt desire for prosperity and propagation. Of course, this matches Fandaniel's stated goals of wishing for everything to die and to restart the Final Days, and furthermore it provides an avenue for how he's doing it - Through the summonings of twisted "dark primals" which are born through a combination of stunted creation magic and the tortured souls of their summoners, the byproduct of these magics, the will of death, is again taking shape within the Lifestream. Of course this also connects to his association with Zenos, who is himself all about inflicting death on others with his obsession with "the hunt", which might be said to be a proxy for the innate necessity of life to consume other life.
To touch on why he believes as he does and wishes for death, let's just look at his nature as a sundered Ascian. He was raised up and entered into his station and given the memories of his past life as Fandaniel, but attendant to this would naturally be the recognition that he's lived countless other lives, to him most likely all meaningless. So in addition to his Ascian status having forcibly bound him to an ancient crusade and faded memories, he, like everyone else, is subject to a cycle of life, death, and rebirth, repeating everything endlessly for thousands of years. As we see he's ecstatic to be free of his given mission in 5.3, so too does he want to be free of the cycle of life which is imposed upon everyone.
To tie this all together with some musical cues, the weariness of the soul's endless wandering is something that's been present as a theme in the story at least as far back as Answers. If the question is "Why were we given life just to die?", then Fandaniel's answer would be that there is no reason and that everything should just return to oblivion. And on that note, there is a particular shared intonation during Fandaniel's segment of the Endwalker trailer. Firstly, this rendition peaks with the line "Now we go for freedom!" as Fandaniel ascends the tower, and as I've already laid out I think he is very closely associated with the concept of freedom, and as a character believes that true death equals freedom. However, the second part of this comes at the end of his segment, in which a very specific sound is heard.
https://youtu.be/XJ-51r-sG4k?t=162
Does that screeching tone before the cut sound familiar to anybody? Well it should, considering it is precisely the same tone present in the Scions & Sinners rendition of Return to Oblivion, after the very line, "The soul yearns for oblivion, oblivion!".
https://youtu.be/ZTEPqYwvAzw?t=68
I ask you, what are the chances this is a pure coincidence? The exact same piercing sound present in two different songs, both of which are associated with the concept of a neverending doomed fate and the repeating rebirth of the soul?
On to my last point, and this will be getting into further speculative territory, but I think we may be able to pin down the ultimate end of Fandaniel's story here. A surprising amount has been made within the narrative about somehow talking with Fandaniel and resolving things peacefully. People are pretty bewildered at this considering that we didn't reach any such ending with any of the previous, far more sympathetic Ascians up to this point, but with Fandaniel such a thing would, in fact, have far more impact. If it is indeed the case that the nature of the Sound is as I've postulated above, simply killing Fandaniel or destroying it would be, thematically, completely backwards. If the idea is accepting the cycle of life and death, as indeed the entirety of the conflict with the Ascians has been about given how deeply their motivations are fueled by grief and loss, inflicting death to end the conflict is a self-defeating resolution. And if I was to touch on Ishikawa's prior writing, WoL simply being the "Weapon of Light" and smiting the evil seems rather out of character, no? Rather, it would be that an acceptance of those subconscious impulses and the nature of death and rebirth, rather than repression, destruction, or rejection of it, is what's necessary for actualization into a healthier and more balanced world. -
08-10-2021, 03:46 AMTensaihimeThat’s why I always thought living forever would become boring, because you’d eventually run out of stuff to do. I imagine Danny Boy is bored too -and you don’t need a creed to be bored!Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
Maybe he’ll find a cool hobby after we yeet him into the Lifestream and he comes back as someone less omnicidal. -
08-10-2021, 03:54 AMTensaihimeThe trailer shows monsters and destruction, so Fandaniel and/or Zenos will definitely start to make their goals reality. If we don’t destroy the Sound, how do we stop it and save everyone and everything from being turned into meat sauce and smoking rubble?Quote:
Originally Posted by Veloran
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08-10-2021, 05:36 AMthegreatonemal
His current incarnation simply doesn't care about the world is what I'm going with. Sure this fragment might have his second hand memories of what the world was but he simply doesn't care. He says it himself that he saw the other three were obsessed and he, as a sovereign individual doesn't really care. Elidbus simply had him on a leash and he's dead so he can do what he wants now.
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08-10-2021, 06:12 AMRyuDragnier
I have a feeling that somebody Fandaniel knows is the reason he's so nihilistic. If I were to take a guess...the worst life can do to you probably happened to them, possibly also a "fate worse than death", with the individual being somebody Fandaniel cares about more than anybody else. If the world can be so cruel to do that to them, why should the world be allowed to exist? Why shouldn't he end it all and free them so they can be together in death?
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08-10-2021, 10:33 AMCilia
"The time has come to fulfill your heart's desire! My desire! To relieve those wretched creatures of their meaningless existence!"
I believe the secret to Fandaniel's motivation lies in figuring out who exactly who he's talking about. Though he may be going completely off the rails set by Elidibus, there's no reason to believe he isn't trying to resurrect / free Zodiark, and as we all know when released from imprisonment primals tend to be... furious, outraged, and sick with anger.
Why he would want to do this can only be similar to why the unsundered wanted the same - he sees contemporary mortals as "wretched" and "meaningless," and (possibly due to being raised from a normal person instead of a Convocation reincarnate) doesn't want to resurrect the Ancients either. -
08-10-2021, 10:44 AMKageTokageYoshi P did mention that one of his favorite characters in Endwalker was "Fandaniel's *redacted*", so there's evidently someone with an important relation to him.Quote:
Originally Posted by RyuDragnier
I'm leaning towards that someone being Venat, though I couldn't guess how they're related. -
08-11-2021, 02:56 PMVyrerusWasn't that Ishikawa's one liner on the fanfest page?Quote:
Originally Posted by KageTokage
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08-12-2021, 09:00 AMLauront
My own take on it is that he is rebelling against the very concept of life/existence itself. I don't think it's just the near immortality of the ancients that set him off, because that "problem" is now "solved" following the Sundering. He could very easily just face a permanent death (as permanent as they can be in this setting, anyhow) and have no memory of his former life at all, but that doesn't seem enough for him. Taken at face value, he wants to destroy all existence utterly. To some degree, he does seem to regard the world as a broken husk, but given how he reviles the way the ancients clung to life as well, it seems to be a more universal rejection of the very concept of existence.
I've mentioned this before, but his invocation of a term like "Telophoroi" is to me suggestive of an ancient order or movement. It's not inconceivable that some ancients did wish to die for good, but even if the cycle of rebirth didn't have the churn it does now, it surely would've existed in some form, and so mere physical death would not suffice. As Veloran noted, the destruction wrought by the Final Days was so comprehensive, the world's aetherophysical laws ceased to function in their usual manner.
He also emphasises his status as a "sovereign individual"; I think he is railing against both the ancients' idea of collective duty, but also the weaker version of it that's survived that means there are those who would stand in the way of the world's termination.
I recently stumbled across this 1.0 WHM quest line video, which seems quite familiar in some ways. Specifically, the references to keening and the Wrath that gripped the elementals, plus the fact that in this process, they would manipulate the wills of men. Touching on something a bit different, during the fight with Suzako it's mentioned the Aramitama causes a disruption in the Lifestream - surely then a similar state in the elementals could do the same? Furthermore, as others have noted before, the mural version of Hydaelyn and Zodiark resembles the shape of the elementals quite a bit. How odd, then, are these claims from Oha-sok:
All interesting claims given recent story aspects, referencing nihility (=nothingness), the end of things and the duality of light and dark, which this being claims to ensure. Probably a lot of it for dramatic embellishment, but given that light and dark and their division play a key theme (plus they reiterated the desire for the Amano art for 6.0 to reflect no dark, no light, no good, no evil), perhaps there's a bit more to it. I suspect in the original it was referring to the wrath (darkness) and then calm (light) of the elementals. The thought that this could be some remnant of stray anxieties given form from ancient times occurred to me, but Oha-Sok is rather categorical that she spawns from the wrath of the elementals.
It raises the question of whether Ramuh's own claim about the origin of the divide of light and dark is going in the right direction, given that he attributes it to man's nature and the "darkness" that resides within him - bearing in mind, he is a primal and therefore, his knowledge not necessarily accurate.
https://i.imgur.com/JSZ3K2D.png
Either way, conjuring or unleashing something deeply threatening and unnatural into the Underworld may be sufficient. What intrigues me about Fandaniel is he is using the Telotowers to realise this new version of the Final Days. Who is to say something similar did not occur in ancient times, only that the methods used did not initially stand out to the ancients and seemed harmless? Of note to me in the benchmark is that the things he's conjuring up simply turn to dust on death.
This structure from the Walls of the Forgotten in particular stands out in the murals. Y'shtola believed it was part of Amaurot, but what if we're looking at a prototype Telotower? It looks even starker if you invert the colour scheme (this vid on the general theme of inversion of colour is pretty good.)
Anyway, I'm also tending towards the view that he has a relation to Venat, as per my earlier posts; this vid does a good job of capturing some potential associations.
Although of course this game has its own "Ultima" (albeit nothing but a presumably otherworldly entity that gained consciousness), with the XII one being a holy esper (description here), I can't help but note a similarity between her pose here, and Venat's... a minor point.
https://i.imgur.com/so1PqxR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/tx21TyL.png
Lastly, I'm not convinced that (quasi-)immortality would naturally/inherently tend towards such despondence (and I am perhaps a little biased here, as I see the drive of our own species to extend our own finite lifespans as something to strive towards, so such a dim perspective on the concept is one I am less receptive towards); after all, the concern expressed by the NPC was a worry about something that could eventually happen, and it's not like the remainder of the ancients, or other long-lived beings like the dragons, desire their own destruction. There is an entire universe to explore.
What I could see is it as a stance the odd immortal could take, and then you have someone like Fandaniel, regarding both the cycle of rebirth post-sundering and the nigh-immortality of the ancients as equally futile, because both entail the shackles that attend existing and being alive in his mindset
I got a similar vibe from the whole Elidibus and his loss of memory and identity, and becoming Mr Final Fantasy, as a reference to the game itself being a theme park of FFs and at times having to find and assert its own identity. :p Definitely an interesting way to look at it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
That's a very good observation. Given the nature of these Primals' summoners, a death wish would fuel them. I suspect they're going to have to be careful with how they draw on Zodiark's power, because he is a primal geared towards salvation and thus, preservation. Also, unfathomably mighty and very angry. So perhaps the idea is to funnel that power into another primal that Zenos can more easily control.Quote:
Originally Posted by Veloran
Agreed, I get a similar sense.Quote:
To touch on why he believes as he does and wishes for death, let's just look at his nature as a sundered Ascian. He was raised up and entered into his station and given the memories of his past life as Fandaniel, but attendant to this would naturally be the recognition that he's lived countless other lives, to him most likely all meaningless. So in addition to his Ascian status having forcibly bound him to an ancient crusade and faded memories, he, like everyone else, is subject to a cycle of life, death, and rebirth, repeating everything endlessly for thousands of years. As we see he's ecstatic to be free of his given mission in 5.3, so too does he want to be free of the cycle of life which is imposed upon everyone.
I think you're onto something with the song references, in the sense that in death, there is total freedom.Quote:
To tie this all together with some musical cues, the weariness of the soul's endless wandering is something that's been present as a theme in the story at least as far back as Answers. If the question is "Why were we given life just to die?", then Fandaniel's answer would be that there is no reason and that everything should just return to oblivion. And on that note, there is a particular shared intonation during Fandaniel's segment of the Endwalker trailer. Firstly, this rendition peaks with the line "Now we go for freedom!" as Fandaniel ascends the tower, and as I've already laid out I think he is very closely associated with the concept of freedom, and as a character believes that true death equals freedom. However, the second part of this comes at the end of his segment, in which a very specific sound is heard.
https://youtu.be/XJ-51r-sG4k?t=162
Does that screeching tone before the cut sound familiar to anybody? Well it should, considering it is precisely the same tone present in the Scions & Sinners rendition of Return to Oblivion, after the very line, "The soul yearns for oblivion, oblivion!".
https://youtu.be/ZTEPqYwvAzw?t=68
I ask you, what are the chances this is a pure coincidence? The exact same piercing sound present in two different songs, both of which are associated with the concept of a neverending doomed fate and the repeating rebirth of the soul?
And it's not just Return to Oblivion which has such themes; even the original version of it has some rather strangely familiar concepts:
Certainly a very dim, fatalistic viewpoint, and I guess it's no accident that Return to Oblivion echoed some of them given that Ryne was taking on Shiva's form - Ysayle in turn being a bearer of a crystal of Light.Quote:
Fragile creatures, we are taught to fear the Reaper
Ever running, we are dead before we meet Her
These voices telling me let it go (let it all go)
I try and try but I can't say no (try and say no)
This endless nightmare has just begun (nowhere to run)
My heart is dragging me down into oblivion
The endless lies, I've cast aside, locked them in ice
Steeled is my soul, my blood grown cold, I've gained control
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her
The speculation on the origins of the sound, as emerging from collective angst owing to their egalitarian beliefs (possibly also vengeful trapped spirits due to some malfunction in the Underworld, as per Emet's short story), and that it may have given rise to the sound, is certainly plausible. However, given that this is a civilisation that was capable of enduring many thousands of years, and numbered many who could directly observe the currents of aether in the world, my own story preferences, and desire to see something like Lavos/Jenova behind it all, mean I'm hoping for it to be something released/summoned into the Underworld with the intention of devouring it from the inside out, setting the Underworld and whatever inhabited it, awry. Sort of like a virus inducing a cytokine storm in the planet's "immune" system. Nonetheless, I agree about what it might mean for his potential fate.Quote:
On to my last point, and this will be getting into further speculative territory, but I think we may be able to pin down the ultimate end of Fandaniel's story here. A surprising amount has been made within the narrative about somehow talking with Fandaniel and resolving things peacefully. People are pretty bewildered at this considering that we didn't reach any such ending with any of the previous, far more sympathetic Ascians up to this point, but with Fandaniel such a thing would, in fact, have far more impact. If it is indeed the case that the nature of the Sound is as I've postulated above, simply killing Fandaniel or destroying it would be, thematically, completely backwards. If the idea is accepting the cycle of life and death, as indeed the entirety of the conflict with the Ascians has been about given how deeply their motivations are fueled by grief and loss, inflicting death to end the conflict is a self-defeating resolution. And if I was to touch on Ishikawa's prior writing, WoL simply being the "Weapon of Light" and smiting the evil seems rather out of character, no? Rather, it would be that an acceptance of those subconscious impulses and the nature of death and rebirth, rather than repression, destruction, or rejection of it, is what's necessary for actualization into a healthier and more balanced world.
I suspect there is something to that explanation. The weakness of the memory crystal is suggestive of the fact that this is perhaps not the "original" Fandaniel, but an unrelated shard. As you say, we're relying on precedent here, but in my estimation, his loyalty to Zodiark probably isn't too great. We know from his own account he was free to disagree with Elidibus, who tried to correct him through argument. Zodiark is dormant. Furthermore, we know from Tiamat the primal's nature affects the manner of tempering it inflicts, and over and above that, there appears to be degrees to which Primals even inflict mind-control in the first place. Unless something corrupted Zodiark, of course, but then you could question why this didn't affect the rest of them. It seems likely he is acting on his own agenda. While he does seem to have internalised the perspective of the unsundered on sundered life forms, he seems to have an equally glib view of the ancients' commitment desire to live - his affinity to Zenos may come down both to Zenos's own power, as well as Zenos embracing destruction for the sake of hedonism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anonymoose
Just so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyrerus
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08-12-2021, 04:07 PMVyrerusThat was a humdinger of a post, very enjoyable. Also quite enjoyed the Soldier 1st Class video.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lauront
Particularly the part about the Blue Stone node at the base of Amaurot being a Telotower or at least the ancestor design for one. Y'shtola refers to it as a tower that she cannot surmise the purpose of when you look it over before heading on to Phantom Amaurot, and it does share some striking characteristics of the modern towers. Namely it shares the converging segmented "legs" and it is located only on the periphery of the city, well outside the city limit. Of course, the central tower spire is actually absent, and it definitely looks to be more stonework than "metal spine."
You'd think though, if the modern people are capable of noticing these horrible towers that the populace of Amaurot would have mentioned them as part of the cause... then again apparently prior to the Final Days, there were other calamities that the Amaurotines, "Trusted in The Scholars" to avert.
Of course, given Hades's ruler style, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that he omitted historical details concerning people that he did not respect. When we stand against him in the cutscene between Amaurot and The Dying Gasp, he says that the first thing he will do once he has defeated us is, "Expunge your stain from history's weave." Of course, this statement is tied to his animosity harbored towards heroes, but who's to say that a similar hand wouldn't have been dealt to a doomsday cult or any sort of organization that ran counter to Amaurot's rigid beliefs and policies regarding Creation Magick?
If there is creation, then there is also destruction. Perhaps the outlawing of Destruction Magicks spurred an entire movement against a world where certain desires went completely unfulfilled. Another thing Fandaniel says to us in the Royal Menagerie is that Zenos awaits us at the heart of the chaos. He seems to care about us playing our part and fulfilling Zenos's desire, for an unexplained reason. Perhaps one of the, if not the only, tenet that the Telophoroi have is the idea that no idea should be restricted or forbidden. Perhaps the idea that all life should end is one such idea, and it is this singular principle that drives Fandaniel. -
08-12-2021, 07:22 PMLauront
I agree, it's likely that they would've noticed if they stood out in any way, however I think one dimension of it that may differ is that Fandaniel sees little need for subtlety, and that's probably because hostile engagement plays into his plans in some manner. The towers stand out like a sore thumb now, but my supposition is any similar towers back then may have been built both to look subtler (if not plainer than Amaurotine architecture) and behave innocuously ("oh look, a weather station"... something like that). Without knowing how they function, part of the genius behind them may well be that their operations are too subtle to notice until it's too late. The rate at which Garlemald has been transformed into a dystopian hellscape and the biological nature of the structures we've seen showcased in the previews makes me think they can be fairly rapidly constructed (in whatever sense) and deployed.