What's the deal with the Shadowkeeper, exactly?

I've been doing Cyella's quests and, I don't know if it's because I was tired or what, but I struggled to follow her whole thing about being the Shadowkeeper - how she betrayed Ardbert and co. and contributed to the Flood happening. Also, she was one of the Thirteenth's chosen alongside Unukalhai? Can someone give me the bite-sized version of what all this was about?

My understanding was that Ardbert's team was supposed to strike her down, bringing the balance of light/dark far enough to light to do a rejoining but not enough to do a flood, but because they showed mercy it tipped things toward light a little too much and started the flood? I forget.

But yeah she was from the 13th and recruited by the Ascians for their plans on the first.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

My understanding was that Ardbert's team was supposed to strike her down, bringing the balance of light/dark far enough to light to do a rejoining but not enough to do a flood, but because they showed mercy it tipped things toward light a little too much and started the flood? I forget.

But yeah she was from the 13th and recruited by the Ascians for their plans on the first.

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They were supposed to kill her but instead went after the ascian behind it all. This pushed things too far into light, causing the flood

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

My understanding was that Ardbert's team was supposed to strike her down, bringing the balance of light/dark far enough to light to do a rejoining but not enough to do a flood, but because they showed mercy it tipped things toward light a little too much and started the flood? I forget.

But yeah she was from the 13th and recruited by the Ascians for their plans on the first.

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How does killing someone is supposed to push the balance of Light & Dark of an entire world?

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

They were supposed to kill her but instead went after the ascian behind it all. This pushed things too far into light, causing the flood

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Ah okay, guess I remembered the detail wrong there.

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

How does killing someone is supposed to push the balance of Light & Dark of an entire world?

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The actual mechanics behind the balance and floods are kind of intentionally vague because Light and Darkness are themselves largely abstract concepts but we *have* been given some basic knowledge of potentially relevant Aetherology over the years, with the Astral and Umbral polarities and how aether interacts with the world being probably the most relevant here. Per the first volume of the lore book the running theory is that the world (and presumably all associated reflections, the First may have different interpretations of certain aetherological concepts but they seem to have reached the same conclusions about the overall structure of the world) consists of the Corporeal Realm and Aetherial Realm (the currents within which are what's coloquially known as the Lifestream) which are seperate but overlaping aspects of reality. Life energy from the Aetherial Realm passes into the Corporeal realm in the form of Aether, creating new life, and when things die in the Corporeal Realm the energy returns to the Aetherial. There are other ways in which the two interact (teleportation for example) but the broadly relevant thing here is that the two realms can affect one another.

As for Aether polarities Shadowbringers brought attention to scholars on the Source essentially having their polarities switched with the First's classifications of Astral alignment trending towards passivity while the Umbral trends towards activity, which between Urianger and observations of the effects of floods of both types definitely seems to be the case.

So this might well provide our mechanism for certain entities to affect the balance of a realm. Individuals who are sufficiently polarized to the Astral or Umbral other might have a warping influence on the interplay between the Aetherial and Corporial realms, in this way the presence or absence of those individuals might alter the state of the world as a whole. Similarly existing on a world which is itself trending towards one pole or the other might influence the state of the individual. So Cylva, a denizen of the Thirteenth at the time when it was already on a course to becoming the Void might be a more Umbrally charged soul than someone on the First or the Source. So by then being dumped onto the First she adds 5 Arbitrary Umbral Points to the overall state of that world.

So lets say when Ardbert and co start out the world is at like, 50 Arbitary Umbral Points and 50 Arbitrary Astral Points. The ascians have been doing their thing, setting the world on course for a rejoining and they need to tip that balance to 70 AAP to 30 AUP. Ardbert and the gang go on their quest, acquire their crystals of light and generally make the world a better place through miscellaneous heroism. The world is now at 65 AAP to 35 AUP, time for them to kill off the Shadowkeeper and get those last 5 points. Oops they killed the Ascians and it turns out those folks were so suffused with darkness that they were worth 10 AUP and that's too many points, the First's Aetherial Realm is now tilted dangerously towards the Astral and that's a lot of stagnant Aether entering the Corporeal Realm; we've got a flood of the stuff on our hands.

This is mostly theorycrafting around what information we've had about aetherology over the years and I could be completely off base (I have been awake far too many hours and might have just forgotten something that renders this all nonsense but what the hey) but that's my personal take on how the presence (or death) of one person might be able to impact the balance of a whole world.

I think this might be a good time for one of my old favorite games: Read all 4 translations at once. Cyella tells this story twice. Here are both versions, combined, with contextual clues from all four clients preserved in more simplified language.

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Originally Posted by Cylva/Cyella

The Shadowkeeper was the most feared villain of her day - the mysterious architect of countless tragedies across Norvrandt. She was defeated in the end by the Warriors of Light, the event which triggered the Flood...or so it's said, these days, anyway.

The truth is that there's a side to the story that no one knows... I was the one called the Shadowkeeper, and the plan I executed was of Ascian design. Long ago, they destroyed my world, the Thirteenth. They had intended to rejoin it as part of their greater ambition, but inadvertently triggered a Flood of Darkness, instead. My world was rendered a soulless void.

The Ascians claimed the cosmos is always in motion towards equilibrium - that the fall of the Thirteenth to Darkness ensured the First would fall to a Flood of Light. I had failed to save my world, and I felt that I had damned this one, too. I wanted so badly to be a hero - to deliver the First from oblivion and void. And thus did I labor to bring about their Rejoining, and my supposed redemption, by taking this world's Darkness into my own hands.

The part I was to play in this plan was two-fold. First, I was to accompany Ardbert and his friends and ensure that they become Warriors of Light. As the Darkness pooled predictable and controlled around me, so too would the unchecked Light gather around them. At first I would be their companion, but later their shadowy adversary. These would-be heroes needed enemies to encourage them to grow stronger, so as the Shadowkeeper I spread discord and strife across all of Norvrandt - hatred, conflict, and chaos.

With the first goal accomplished, I would move to the second: As wielder of Darkness, I would slay Ardbert and his companions at the fated moment. The Light would cease its ascendance - the elemental energies of this world in the precarious imbalance required for the Rejoining, but without triggering a Flood of Light. The Ascians would spark the fuse on the Source, ushering in the Calamity and bringing about the Rejoining of the First. I sapped my enemies' strength and bolstered my own... but Ardbert... he wouldn't play along... and I failed.

I misjudged him. We all played our parts, and had grown stronger for it. We all made sacrifices to become what we must. For the greater good Nyelbert forsook his mourning for strength of wisdom. Renda-Rae her free spirit for the strength of friendship. Branden his kindness and warmth for the strength of justice. And Lamitt her traditions for the strength of prudence. But poor Ardbert... he would not foresake the hope in his heart. He stood ready to deliver the final blow to the one who had taken so much from him, who had earned his trust and shattered it, yet he refused to abandon that I could be saved. He held fast to the love and mercy he bore his comrade, and set his hatred and vengeance aside... for Mitron and Loghrif. He granted them what he refused me. He accomplished what he believed was his mission. He rid this world of Darkness. And then the Flood came and washed it all away.

Ardbert... Lamitt... Branden... Renda-Rae... and Nyelbert. The greatest of heroes, beloved in all corners of the realm... until overnight they became the villains who caused the Flood and nearly destroyed this world... A lie, obviously. They were good souls who manipulated towards evil ends - as much victims of fate as any of us.

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Bite-Sized Version: She was one of the people chosen by Hydaelyn to save the Thirteenth. Unukalhai was one of her comrades. They failed. The Ascians saved them back then to manipulate later. For Cylva, they played on her desire to be a hero by claiming the First wasn't just prone to imbalance towards Light because she failed to save the Thirteenth, it was damned to become a void. She felt responsible for Rejoining the world so the souls there could be reborn as opposed to being destroyed. They used Ardbert's party to keep the Light controlled and growing to imbalance the elements unnaturally umbral to prime the Eighth Umbral Calamity, but she failed to kill them at the appointed hour. Instead of Light ceasing its ascendance in time for the Ascians to trigger a Calamity, the scales tipped suddenly and dramatically even further towards the Light and ushered in the Flood.

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Originally Posted by Jzarah

I've been doing Cyella's quests and, I don't know if it's because I was tired or what, but I struggled to follow her whole thing about being the Shadowkeeper - how she betrayed Ardbert and co. and contributed to the Flood happening. Also, she was one of the Thirteenth's chosen alongside Unukalhai? Can someone give me the bite-sized version of what all this was about?

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Basically, Cylva was the Shadowkeeper, a being of Darkness. She was a pawn of Elidibus, helping to setup the Rejoining. They would have had to use Light to defeat her, which if they'd killed her, would have tipped all of her aether towards Light, tipping the aetherial consistency of the First to required amount for the Rejoining.

This inferred by what happens to a person's soul at their demise. There's a huge aetherial surge, and it shunts itself straight towards the Lifestream. Like a booster shot of Light right into the Shard's heart.

This also happened when they fought Loghrif and Mitron. They used the Blade of Light on the Ascian Prime fusion of the two ascians, and this killed Loghrif and mutated what was left of Mitron and the fused body. The result, as others have said, is that the First tipped towards Light by so much that the Flood of Light began.

One might wonder, why then, did Emet-selch's death not simply result in the resumption of the Flood? Well, it seems like the Light we had vs. the Darkness he had cancelled one another out, with Light winning by just enough that Emet was slain, but not by enough that the scales tipped at all. A "neutral" outcome.

Sorry this took so long, I saw an opportunity to weave in how the sacrifices of Nyelbert, Renda-Rae, Branden, and Lamitt tied to their identities as the Cardinal Virtues and I had to take it, lol.

So, I've seen a number of posts on here stating that Ardberrt and co were supposed to kill the shadowkeeper, but it was my understanding that Cylva was supposed to kill them and failing to do so led to the flood.

I won't pretend to understand the details of the flood per say. I would just go along i with moose's explanation. Bottom line shadowkeeper manipulates the first 's heroes and obviously instead of killer her they kill the two ascians and it unleashes a flood of light. The ascians had thought by tippping the first to light it would cancel out their failure on the thirteeth.

Though it would eventually lead to a rejoining or maybe not. We were told by cat boy( sorry i can't remember his name) that the use of black rose and the first tilt towards light would create a rejoining. However the foil to this plan in this time and probably the other is zenos. Zenos wants nothing interfere with his duel between him and the wol so he destroys black rose in the current timeline and i don't see him sparing black rose in earlier timelines either. (Se wrote themselves into a corner with that one.)

Now i am sure there would be an 8th calamity but black rose would not be part of it and the first's tilt would just be an ascian failure.

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Originally Posted by Grimr

I won't pretend to understand the details of the flood per say. I would just go along i with moose's explanation. Bottom line shadowkeeper manipulates the first 's heroes and obviously instead of killer her they kill the two ascians and it unleashes a flood of light. The ascians had thought by tippping the first to light it would cancel out their failure on the thirteeth.

Though it would eventually lead to a rejoining or maybe not. We were told by cat boy( sorry i can't remember his name) that the use of black rose and the first tilt towards light would create a rejoining. However the foil to this plan in this time and probably the other is zenos. Zenos wants nothing interfere with his duel between him and the wol so he destroys black rose in the current timeline and i don't see him sparing black rose in earlier timelines either. (Se wrote themselves into a corner with that one.)

Now i am sure there would be an 8th calamity but black rose would not be part of it and the first's tilt would just be an ascian failure.

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I don't believe SE wrote themselves into a corner. Think about it, we had the upper hand against Elidibus-Zenos when we were fighting them, it was only when the Exarch interfered did we lose. It's possible we actually killed Zenos' body in that timeline, preventing him from actually being able to do anything against Black Rose. In fact, killing Zenos' body MAY have been the trigger that caused them to use Black Rose on the front lines.

I think it's important to note that the Eden questline provided a cause and effect chain in regards to how, exactly, the Flood of Light began. Specifically, it was not a natural occurrence as a result of the First's aetheric balance sliding too far towards Light, but rather a willful act carried out by the sin eater Eden. Eden was Mitron, of course, and so technically speaking, Ardbert's failed attempt to kill him led to the Flood of Light. But there are degrees of separation there, and it's no longer the case of "they were too good at being heroes".

I think this change in events came about for the same reason that the Astral/Umbral -> Dark/Light development ended up happening. This may sound a bit presumptuous on my part, but I think in hindsight that "Astral" and "Umbral" ended up having two separate definitions, one in which the terms were defined by "colors" with human perspective-based morality attached to them (Light and Dark) and one in which they were defined by elemental polarity (activity and passivity). And I think the writers wanted to move away from the first definition and lean heavier on the second.

On the other hand, the light sin eaters and light buff in Eden's Verse: Iconoclasm are listed as "astral" while the dark sin eaters (yes really) and dark buff are listed as "umbral". And when you talk to Cyella about Gaia, she notes that the girl has an "Umbral presence" or something to that effect. Even though Cyella is from the Thirteenth, not the Source...

Anyways, it also made for some decent rhyming in regards to Ryne's "I'll become Shiva!" bit—Ryne and Ardbert are responsible for Shiva and Eden's creation, and those being twisting their good intentions to cataclysmic ends. And so on.

And that's not to say Ardbert and friends' actions as Warriors of Light didn't tip the balance heavily in favor of Light to begin with. That was the Ascians' plan from the beginning, after all, and it's reasonable to assume that if Ardbert hadn't gone off script, the Rejoining would have gone off without a hitch well in advance of how it ended up happening in the Eighth Era timeline.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

Eden

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I don't know how it varies across localization, but in English, Mitron tells us that he and Loghrif were tasked with keeping the Light on The First in check to prevent a Flood. When Ardbert slew them, Loghrif died and Mitron remained, mutating into the first sineater. He describes himself as insensate, and his body's instincts were influenced by Ardbert's fervent desire to banish darkness, and so his body unleashed the Light that had poured into it when Ardbert and Co. mutated him with the Blade of Light.

When Minfilia stopped the Flood, Mitron regained his conscious self, but he was only able to whisper to Gaia.

While we can still say that the blame for causing the Flood rests with Ardbert & Company, his suicide and journey to the Source ultimately resulted in deliverance via Minfilia, which coincidentally put the First back on course for the Rejoining while sparing what was left. Which is also the only time that Ardbert & Co. were defeated.