Who on the 13th?

Given that the 13th is without lifestream, whoever the warrior of light that is us on the source is there, is still there, somewhere.

They might be consumed and splintered, a little bit in everything still alive there... or it could be that it resides in somebody important enough to be named.

Anybody want to try a guess and make up a reason?

Common theory is that

the original Golbez

was the Azem fragment incarnation at the time of the Contramemoria. 5.4/5.5 gives a pretty clear picture of their fate.

6.5 MSQ spoilers

As I said in a previous thread, the fact that the original Golbez was a shard of Azem is all but confirmed. Not only did we see through his eyes in 6.4, with the non-textbox type of subtitles, but also in 6.5 Durante was certain that we were Golbez during the Memoria section of the dungeon. If you do that dungeon with duty support, the team even emphasizes how "He seems certain that you [the warrior of light] are Golbez".

Knowing how that dungeon ends, Durante kills Golbez (Azem) and traps his soul in the crystal. So, the 13th's Azem is currently trapped in a Memoria crystal. Whether we'll ever rejoin with it, I don't know.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

As I said in a previous thread, the fact that the original Golbez was a shard of Azem is all but confirmed. Not only did we see through his eyes in 6.4, with the non-textbox type of subtitles, but also in 6.5 Durante was certain that we were Golbez during the Memoria section of the dungeon. If you do that dungeon with duty support, the team even emphasizes how "He seems certain that you [the warrior of light] are Golbez".

Knowing how that dungeon ends, Durante kills Golbez (Azem) and traps his soul in the crystal. So, the 13th's Azem is currently trapped in a Memoria crystal. Whether we'll ever rejoin with it, I don't know.

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While all of that is true, there's reasonable doubt enough to conclude the contrary. This game's messaging and foreshadowing are rarely subtle, but we don't know how the Memoria crystals work exactly; it could be that anyone holding / viewing Golbez' memories could be interpreted therein by Durante as Golbez.

For the record I'm not saying I disagree, just that there's reason enough to do so.

6.5 MSQ spoilers

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Originally Posted by Cassar

in 6.5 Durante was certain that we were Golbez during the Memoria section of the dungeon.

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I agree that it seems likely that Golbez is an Azem shard, but I feel like I recall this same treatment being given to the Warrior of Light in other contexts as well. Didn't Ultima think that the WoL was Ramza? And Suzaku definitely thought the WoL was Tenzen. The commonality I notice is that the WoL tends to be mistaken for other Warriors of Light. Whether this is meant to imply that they are literally of the same soul seems up in the air to me.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

Durante kills Golbez (Azem) and traps his soul in the crystal.

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Perhaps a nitpick, but did he actually get killed? My interpretation of that scene was that Durante was saying that he couldn't bear to kill Golbez, so instead he sealed him in the Memoria.

Regardless, I think there's a high probability of the writers inventing a way to unseal Memoria, since at the end of 6.5 they explicitly mentioned giving the 2 Archfiend Memoria to newGolbez. I have a feeling that means we'll be seeing all those characters again at some point within the next decade.

I hope it's nobody. We got through the entire Thirteenth questline without that ever coming close to coming up, and I think we were better for it, because the resulting storyline was very deliberately narrow-focused. (Whether you liked that storyline is a different question, but I think its intention there is very clear.)

I don't think the 6.5 theory actually holds water, because all the 'evidence' just doesn't read as anywhere near conclusive to me; hell, some of it reads as counter.

Golbez isn't the only first-person flashback scene in the game, and I don't see anyone arguing that G'raha Tia is an Azem shard. I think the 6.4 memoria flashback being first-person was just a narrative and dramatic choice, that also subtly sets up for the 6.5 Siege of Baron segment, which is also first-person from Golbez's perspective, just through different ideas.

I've seen people pull out that they hide Golbez's face because of this; I think that's actually a resource management thing, because Golbez is a non-human model, so giving him a face would require sculpting a whole new one, which isn't worth the effort since sort of the whole point of Golbez was that he was more figure than man.

I also don't think that the memoria crystal was responding to us to make the Siege of Baron segment happen; if it was, it would've done that when we found the thing, and probably not brought everyone else. I actually think Golbez's crystal was responding to Durante; it wasn't speaking to us, it was Golbez trying to help his friend. Remember that the express purpose of the Lunar Subterrane dungeon was to get in our way and stop us from getting to Zeromus, but that most of the dungeon is actually the memoria memory.Durante did a terrible job keeping us out, it was Original Golbez that stepped up.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I also don't think that the memoria crystal was responding to us to make the Siege of Baron segment happen; if it was, it would've done that when we found the thing, and probably not brought everyone else. I actually think Golbez's crystal was responding to Durante; it wasn't speaking to us, it was Golbez trying to help his friend. Remember that the express purpose of the Lunar Subterrane dungeon was to get in our way and stop us from getting to Zeromus, but that most of the dungeon is actually the memoria memory.Durante did a terrible job keeping us out, it was Original Golbez that stepped up.

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But

by Durante's accounts, True Golbez wasn't the kind of person who would condone Durante's mass murder plot. I don't believe True Golbez would try to delay WoL&co from saving the world. If it was somehow True Golbez's desire for WoL&co to spend time in the Siege of Baron memory, it would have been for something less nefarious, like helping WoL&co understand what part of Durante they needed to appeal to to get him to reverse course.

Personally I'm in the camp of "the implications that [spoiler] is [spoiler] were heavy enough that the intent was clear". Regardless of whether it's true, it's what the writers currently want us to believe.

Lets assume that what they want us to belive is true....

Crushing the memoria and consuming it... probably STILL a bad idea, right?

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

Lets assume that what they want us to belive is true....

Crushing the memoria and consuming it... probably STILL a bad idea, right?

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Well, it got dropped into Zeromus' cloud back in 5.4, which is presumably why we got pulled into Golbez' memories during the Lunar Subterrane. We never find it later, either, so the most likely case is that it got subsumed into Zeromus and is now irrecoverable so long as Zeromus remains sealed in its giant Memoria crystal. Which, as per the MSQ, is likely to be planted somewhere out in the Empty to help restore the land, unleashing Zeromus would be a bad idea Azdaja or no, and we don't know any way to filter Golbez out from Zeromus anyway.

Plus... it's probably still really Dark-aspected... which would be bad...

So yeah, probably not going to happen based on what we know.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

Lets assume that what they want us to belive is true....

Crushing the memoria and consuming it... probably STILL a bad idea, right?

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It’ll be right, use the zodiark stuff memoria to induce a localised calamity in the wol then shove the golbez one down their throat. They must be being stored in the same place for chekov’s reason.

Ps. Is Durant meant to be implied as the zenos counterpart? I’m not sure if he’s eligible for soul shards or if his grandfather blocks that.

Does it require text outside the hbhb

Indeed, I believe there is a chance this could be a Tenzen/Ramza situation, but isn't the ongoing theory (maybe even confirmed) that those were also past reincarnations of us - Azem? Suzaku in specific even mentions our soul as being familiar.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

While all of that is true, there's reasonable doubt enough to conclude the contrary. This game's messaging and foreshadowing are rarely subtle, but we don't know how the Memoria crystals work exactly; it could be that anyone holding / viewing Golbez' memories could be interpreted therein by Durante as Golbez.

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That's true, it definitely could be just a fake out or I could be misinterpreting it. Keep in mind the game never did (or if it did, it was very subtle/brief) confirm that Ardbert was a shard of Azem, they just made it painfully obvious to the point where there was almost no room for doubt.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Golbez isn't the only first-person flashback scene in the game, and I don't see anyone arguing that G'raha Tia is an Azem shard.

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To be fair, in this case they didn't show Graha's face because they couldn't, as it was still a secret who the Exarch was at the time. I see what you mean for sure, but also I have a feeling you might be slightly biased given that you hope he's nobody in particular.

Also I just realized, the cutscene in which we see through Golbez's eyes is voiced!! And yet Golbez still had no voice, only subtitles. Has this ever even happened before? I know it sometimes happens when the character in question is thinking and not speaking. But has it ever happened when they're actually asking questions in subtitles and have them answered voiced? I don't think so! The only time this happens is when we, the WoL have to choose an option.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

Indeed, I believe there is a chance this could be a Tenzen/Ramza situation, but isn't the ongoing theory (maybe even confirmed) that those were also past reincarnations of us - Azem? Suzaku in specific even mentions our soul as being familiar.

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It's all but stated that Tenzen was a previous incarnation of Azem.

Ramza appears as a spirit during the Ultima fight in the Orbonne Monastery, so he was probably not an incarnation of Azem - "just" a Warrior of Light.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

That's true, it definitely could be just a fake out or I could be misinterpreting it. Keep in mind the game never did (or if it did, it was very subtle/brief) confirm that Ardbert was a shard of Azem, they just made it painfully obvious to the point where there was almost no room for doubt.

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Hythlodaeus('s facsimile) tells you the first time you meet him in phantom Amaurot that you and Ardbert were a singular soul prior to the Sundering. His further dialogue when giving you the Azem memory stone, and Emet-Selch's own when you first use it, all but say verbatim the PC is Azem's reincarnation. Ergo...

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Originally Posted by Cassar

Also I just realized, the cutscene in which we see through Golbez's eyes is voiced!! And yet Golbez still had no voice, only subtitles. Has this ever even happened before? I know it sometimes happens when the character in question is thinking and not speaking. But has it ever happened when they're actually asking questions in subtitles and have them answered voiced? I don't think so! The only time this happens is when we, the WoL have to choose an option.

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To my knowledge this was the first such scene, and was a big part of what led to rampant speculation about Golbez being an incarnation of Azem back during 6.4. 6.5 adds a lot of fuel to the fire, but it was speculated on a long while ago.

From what I can tell, it's pretty clear to me that it's an Azem shard, however, if it rejoined us or not, it was made ambiguous on purpose. That memoria vision would be the first of its kind, like the crystal wasn't broken or anything and it activated just like that when we got there. If memorias can do this just like that, then.. what's the point of sealing them in the first place? They aren't sealed!

That way, in the future, you can handwave it through a flashback (it was at this time you two rejoined..!!) , or make it an important plot point for later (so durante found the crystal that disappeared.. omg it's shining!)

The fact that Real Golbez was not voiced is a clear giveaway, imo.

I'm still getting the idea it was written this way on purpose, though.

MSQ 6.5 spoilers

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Originally Posted by Cassar

Also I just realized, the cutscene in which we see through Golbez's eyes is voiced!! And yet Golbez still had no voice, only subtitles. Has this ever even happened before? I know it sometimes happens when the character in question is thinking and not speaking. But has it ever happened when they're actually asking questions in subtitles and have them answered voiced? I don't think so! The only time this happens is when we, the WoL have to choose an option.

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I think they had to do it this way because if they had voiced Golbez it would have been obvious that the past one wasn't the same as the present one, since they are two different people and thus would have differing voices. (Even though it was already obvious to anyone paying attention, but up until 6.5 it was treated as a secret and in 6.5 it was treated as a surprising reveal).

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

MSQ 6.5 spoilers

I think they had to do it this way because if they had voiced Golbez it would have been obvious that the past one wasn't the same as the present one, since they are two different people and thus would have differing voices. (Even though it was already obvious to anyone paying attention, but up until 6.5 it was treated as a secret and in 6.5 it was treated as a surprising reveal).

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Two birds one stone if you ask me! At least that would be genius imo. If that alone was the explanation it'd be pretty mid.

The fun part is, they KNEW people would notice the non talking POV in the cutscene, and listed it as a bug in known glitches the patch it was released.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

The fun part is, they KNEW people would notice the non talking POV in the cutscene, and listed it as a bug in known glitches the patch it was released.

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Are you sure it was about that and not the server data that they mention in 6.45's notes? Cause I looked and didn't see anything about the voiced part in any 6.4 patch notes.

I like to believe he isn't in the 13th if you have a RPR job. He's with you as your Avatar in the Source or First

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Originally Posted by Cassar

6.5 MSQ spoilers

As I said in a previous thread, the fact that the original Golbez was a shard of Azem is all but confirmed. Not only did we see through his eyes in 6.4, with the non-textbox type of subtitles, but also in 6.5 Durante was certain that we were Golbez during the Memoria section of the dungeon. If you do that dungeon with duty support, the team even emphasizes how "He seems certain that you [the warrior of light] are Golbez".

Knowing how that dungeon ends, Durante kills Golbez (Azem) and traps his soul in the crystal. So, the 13th's Azem is currently trapped in a Memoria crystal. Whether we'll ever rejoin with it, I don't know.

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I'm not really convinced. We aren't Hermes either when Emmett was talking to me thinking I was Hermes in an echo. And Y'shtola is among the duty support as well and she didn't remark Golbez has the same aether as you. And everyone didn't comment about Gobez's face reveal because he wasn't Azem and is just some guy they never seen

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Originally Posted by JepMZ

And everyone didn't comment about Gobez's face reveal because he wasn't Azem and is just some guy they never seen

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Appearance means nothing. See: Ardbert.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

Appearance means nothing. See: Ardbert.

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Ardbert literally is the promotional stand-in for the Warrior of Light.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

Ardbert literally is the promotional stand-in for the Warrior of Light.

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That's the point? He looks nothing like me. So why should anyone else's appearance indicate whether they are a WoX fragment or not?

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Originally Posted by Rongway

That's the point? He looks nothing like me. So why should anyone else's appearance indicate whether they are a WoX fragment or not?

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The characters we play aren't the "canon" Warrior of Light. I mean, they are in the narrative sense, but cosmetically they're just a sort of stand-in. The WoL's actual, official appearance is that of the Derplander, I'm afraid.

Azem doesn't have to look like Ardbert in every reflection. Matoya's shard on the First is that of a Nu mou (Beq Lugg) and Cid's shard is Chai-Nuzz, a Miqo'te.

Golbez's physical appearance is irrelevant. His face probably wasn't shown just because of technical limitations, as they didn't want to spend resources on modeling a unique face there.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

The characters we play aren't the "canon" Warrior of Light. I mean, they are in the narrative sense, but cosmetically they're just a sort of stand-in.

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There is no reason to believe that. The NPCs have opportunities to remark on how much Ardbert physically looks like the player character, and they never do because it would be ridiculous for someone to do so if the player character is anything but a midlander male. It is more reasonable to conclude that Ardbert's appearance as a shard of the WoX has nothing to do with the WoX's appearance, and any characters whose shards resemble them do so by coincidence or narrative convenience, not as a general rule of shard characters.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

Azem doesn't have to look like Ardbert in every reflection. Matoya's shard on the First is that of a Nu mou (Beq Lugg) and Cid's shard is Chai-Nuzz, a Miqo'te.

Golbez's physical appearance is irrelevant. His face probably wasn't shown just because of technical limitations, as they didn't want to spend resources on modeling a unique face there.

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...is there actual evidence Beq Lugg is Matoya's fragment? This is the first I've heard someone pitch that, and I think the only evidence might actually be 'old magic-knowing person who both work with porxies'.

(Also, we'd be remiss not to point out Mowen and Grenoldt, but they run on Comedy Sidequest Logic where it's just funnier to see them act completely different to the people they're identical to.)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

...is there actual evidence Beq Lugg is Matoya's fragment? This is the first I've heard someone pitch that, and I think the only evidence might actually be 'old magic-knowing person who both work with porxies'.

(Also, we'd be remiss not to point out Mowen and Grenoldt, but they run on Comedy Sidequest Logic where it's just funnier to see them act completely different to the people they're identical to.)

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The dungeon full of working magicked brooms during that one boss fight doesn't do it for you? You know that one on the First where you first meet them? Take Y'shtola through it and see what she says...

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Originally Posted by Rongway

That's the point? He looks nothing like me. So why should anyone else's appearance indicate whether they are a WoX fragment or not?

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It's a meta bridge between your character and Ardbert. You could make the same argument about Azem, why would their appearance/gender indicate a connection to the WoL? Yet still they follow our gender.

I got into this frame of thought after arguing with Cleretic about the same thing. I argued there was no reason for Azem to share our gender in light of Ardbert or potential other shards unless they were literally us, she argued Ardbert was meta-connected to us via appearance, so Azem was meta-connected in a different way, because the writing is just pretty gut based and has to establish connections like that to not fly over our heads. I actually agree with that line of thought now, XIV's writing counts on the players being relatively simple-minded and not think about it too much. So the same would go for Golbez, their appearance would be a secret to allow us a better means of identification with or sense of agency over them by allowing us to imagine them however we like.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

...is there actual evidence Beq Lugg is Matoya's fragment?

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https://i.imgur.com/cNtpvf4.jpg

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

Given that the 13th is without lifestream, whoever the warrior of light that is us on the source is there, is still there, somewhere.

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I just realized that this isn't necessarily true, as there are numerous souls that have been ferried away from the 13th. Just to throw out two different flavors of examples: Unuklhai and Rubicante.

So there's no guarantee that an Azem shard is still in the 13th. It could be somewhere else. And we've also seen that there are ways to destroy souls, so there could be other reasons why it is entirely out of circulation. Narratively I would bet against any shards of Azem's soul being destroyed due to plot armor, but it's technically within the possibility space and thus worth considering.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

https://i.imgur.com/cNtpvf4.jpg

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It's the internet so I genuinely can't tell if this is a joke or not. If it is a joke, thank you for the laugh, it made me smile.

If it isn't a joke: the argument that Matoya and Lu Beqq share a soul because at the ripe age of X00 Matoya's posture has degraded such that it matches that of every Nu Mou...seems equally as strong as suggesting the Arenvald shares the soul of one of those voidsent that sit on an orb because they're both always sitting. It simply lacks substance.

I hope it's a joke but I've seen so very much on the internet that I've lost the ability to be certain about such things...

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

It's the internet so I genuinely can't tell if this is a joke or not. If it is a joke, thank you for the laugh, it made me smile.

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I'm glad about that :D it was meant as a joke.

The newest book, Encyclopaedia Eorzea III, brings up the Avatar and you as a reaper as "both souls once have been part of the same whole,". To be fair it says it's an unconfirmed theory. Like how they mentioned Yda has a sister in just one sentence in the entire previous book

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

I just realized that this isn't necessarily true, as there are numerous souls that have been ferried away from the 13th. Just to throw out two different flavors of examples: Unuklhai and Rubicante.

So there's no guarantee that an Azem shard is still in the 13th. It could be somewhere else. And we've also seen that there are ways to destroy souls, so there could be other reasons why it is entirely out of circulation. Narratively I would bet against any shards of Azem's soul being destroyed due to plot armor, but it's technically within the possibility space and thus worth considering.

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This is something I'm really interested in to learn about. There have been multiple voidsent who have been 100% summoned with soul and body to The Source and then died there. Does that mean that their Source counterpart could get rejoined in the Aetherial Sea?? Do they just become a "separate" person??

Please Squeenix, I need answers.

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Originally Posted by RavLandslide

This is something I'm really interested in to learn about. There have been multiple voidsent who have been 100% summoned with soul and body to The Source and then died there. Does that mean that their Source counterpart could get rejoined in the Aetherial Sea?? Do they just become a "separate" person??

Please Squeenix, I need answers.

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I would reason that it's probably the latter, because the former sounds kind of overly complicated; like, if that's how it works why would dying even factor in, and if dying matters wouldn't it require both souls to be roughly the same level of dead at the same time. But I would also argue--and I know that people are probably sick of it from me--that it probably doesn't matter enough to be worth answering.

More soul doesn't equal more better; we were getting our butts kicked just as hard by stuff in the First as we were in the Source. (Debatably moreso, I could make a case for Ran'jit being the most powerful 'just a regular dude' person we've ever fought.) In fact, we now know that what your soul was only really matters in death, when you go through that process of memory realization and then cleansing. So if someone merged with their Thirteenth shard on death, they wouldn't be meaningfully different... and if that Thirteenth shard was resurrected as a regular person, then both that ex-Thirteenth soul and that Source soul wouldn't be meaningfully different.

The only actual difference comes if that 'unverified and unverifiable' theory about Reaper Avatars being the Reaper's Thirteenth shard is true. If it is, and your Thirteenth shard was, say, Cagnazzo who died over on the Source, then you wouldn't be able to be a Reaper. ...but given how Reapers are like, I get the feeling that they'd probably call you lucky for that.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I would reason that it's probably the latter, because the former sounds kind of overly complicated; like, if that's how it works why would dying even factor in, and if dying matters wouldn't it require both souls to be roughly the same level of dead at the same time. But I would also argue--and I know that people are probably sick of it from me--that it probably doesn't matter enough to be worth answering.

More soul doesn't equal more better; we were getting our butts kicked just as hard by stuff in the First as we were in the Source. (Debatably moreso, I could make a case for Ran'jit being the most powerful 'just a regular dude' person we've ever fought.) In fact, we now know that what your soul was only really matters in death, when you go through that process of memory realization and then cleansing. So if someone merged with their Thirteenth shard on death, they wouldn't be meaningfully different... and if that Thirteenth shard was resurrected as a regular person, then both that ex-Thirteenth soul and that Source soul wouldn't be meaningfully different.

The only actual difference comes if that 'unverified and unverifiable' theory about Reaper Avatars being the Reaper's Thirteenth shard is true. If it is, and your Thirteenth shard was, say, Cagnazzo who died over on the Source, then you wouldn't be able to be a Reaper. ...but given how Reapers are like, I get the feeling that they'd probably call you lucky for that.

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This is enough of a satisfying answer for me, thank you.