Loose threads

Hello friends,
with the release of Dawntrail approaching, I felt it would be appropriate to post some of the "loose threads" that I've personally struggled with throughout all the expansions in terms of story. Some of them might very well be nothing, others might be just something that I completely missed, and others still might genuinely be unexplained. I'll try to post them in the order they occurred. Needless to say, there will be spoilers for the entirety of the story here.

1. The Dark Crystal
This one has been talked about very often so I'll be brief. At the end of 2.0, we see a dark crystal that looks exactly like Hydaelyn, except it's completely dark/purple. Looking at it now, we can assume that was just the representation of Zodiark, the opposing force to Hydaelyn. Still, the crystal itself was never seen or mentioned again, so there's room for theories there.

2. Hydaelyn telling Minfilia to stay behind
This one is a little strange to me. In the end of 2.55, when the WoL and Minfilia are both escaping, Hydaelyn talks to Minfilia and tells her she must stay behind. In 3.2 we find out that the reason was for Minfilia to get caught by the Flow spell used by Y'shtola and therefore got cast into the lifestream. The question, however, is why would Hydaelyn do that? Minfilia could very well have escaped safely with us. You could say that Hydaelyn needed a voice because she was weak and needed a way to communicate with us, but if that's the case did Hydaelyn kill Minfilia on purpose?

3. Zenos' source of power
Simple question. Why is Zenos so strong? Even before he had the artificial echo and took control of Shinryu, he still beat the WoL in a fight - something that had never happened before. We know he's a descendant of Emet, who's an Ascian, but he uses no magic in battle, except for the elemental crystals he uses to enhance his swords. There is a side story exclusive to the book that explains that Zenos went through intense training and he has always been very intelligent, so is that it? Seems like a very weak explanation to me. I had the theory that he had experiments ran on him, but I'm not sure if that's accurate. I'd also like to throw in an honorable mention to Ran'jit - another character who seems extremely powerful for no apparent reason, even less so than Zenos I'd argue.

4. Emmerololth
This one seems to be the hot topic now that we know to "remember the names of the convocation members". I'll be brief: Emmerololth "died" when the Isle of Val was cast into the aetherial sea, yet we see them in that one cutscene in ARR which happened after the events of Eureka. Was it a mess up by the writers? Will they fix it in Dawntrail knowing that Galuf will be involved?

5. Elidibus' words
This one is super weird and it is 100% nothing but for some reason it really bothers me (in fact it's the whole motivation for me to write this thread, believe it or not). When Elidibus gets absorbed by the tower in the end of 5.3, he says the words "Reconciliation. Elidibus. I was needed". Why did he say his own name? I know it's not actually his name but his title, but still, why say it? Is he implying that "Elidibus" is the title given to the one who will lead the Ancients when they need for guidance? Or does the name Elidibus have another meaning for them, something that connects with "Reconciliation", perhaps?. Like I said, it's a nitpick, but there it is.

6. Future Sight
I've posted this in a thread before, but I'll briefly mention it again. In the Ivalice questline we're introduced to someone who has the ability to see the future using the Echo. As far as I know Mikoto is the only character who naturally has this ability, of course she was captured and now this ability was imbued into other Bozjan personel. Regardless, I think that being able to accurately predict the near future is an incredible skill that is never mentioned outside of that questline, and I personally think it should.

7. XIth Legion and Nagxia
The XIth legion is one of the few who has almost never been talked about. In fact, as far as I know, it is only very briefly mentioned in one of Bozja's field notes, pointing out that they brutally slaughtered an entire village in the Nagxia region. The only reason why I'm mentioning this one is because I think this plot line was supposed to be further explored in 6.0 back when it was still planned to be an Ilsabard expansion (I'm not even sure if Nagxia counts as Ilsabard or Othard, but still) and also Corvos, of course.

8. Zenos' dream
Ahhhh, this one makes me lose sleep at night. Zenos had dreams of the Final days. Dreams that were mentioned ever since patch 5.2, and were mentioned in 6.0 as well. What bothers me is Fandaniel's comment when Zenos explains to him his dream: "Could Emet-Selch have found a way...? Precious few possess memories of the Final Days." Could he have found a way to what? PLEASE tell me. I think Yoshida later said that it was due to Zenos being a descendant of Emet's and getting some of his memories because of it, but that seems like they just abandoned this plot line, because Fandaniel implies differently. Maybe this was scrapped when they changed 6.0 to not be the Ilsabard expansion?

9. The Heart of Sabik
I know, I know. Wouldn't be a list without mention of Heart of Sabik, eh? I know everyone is sick and tired of this one, but even though we got an explanation as to where it came from, we were left with more questions than answers. It has been around since the unsudered days, and was found by Athena? What higher power exists out there and why did it leave the auracite in Etheyris. Was it Ultima? I mean, the real Ultima, not the one we defeated in Ivalice questline? Because if so, then that peaks my interest a lot - Who really is Ultima?

10. Thordan's vision
I'm adding this one after my initial post because I completely forgot about it. But at the every end of 3.0, after we defeat Thordan, he looks at us and says "Who... What are you?" while making the player character look dark and creepy and with an omnious sound effect in the background. When I first saw this, it made me feel like there was some other truth behind the true identity of the WoL that we didn't know about, and that it would be expanded further in the next expansion, but it was not. Of course, we later know about Azem, but I don't think that was it. What did Thordan see when he looked at us?

If you made it this far, thank you very much for your time. I would love to hear what you think on any of these topics! See you in Dawntrail!

I can't answer all of these, but...

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Originally Posted by Cassar

1. The Dark Crystal

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Almost certainly just a representation of Zodiark. Can't imagine they had the Endwalker model ready to go that far in the past.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

2. Hydaelyn telling Minfilia to stay behind

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It was stated that Minfilia was one of Hydaelyn's most devout followers, and was thought to have been chosen for that reason.

I don't think Hydaelyn intended to kill Minfilia when she turned her into the Word, nor do I think it was wholly Hydaelyn's will when she sacrificed herself to save the First. Either way, if she didn't sacrifice herself, the First almost certainly would have been rejoined, which may or may not have weakened Hydaelyn to the point where she would either die, or be vulnerable to the machinations of the Ascians.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

3. Zenos' source of power

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I believe the power he had came from the swords he had at the time. At the very least, Ame-no-Habakiri was said to have been "crafted ... by Susano himself and was bathed in the blood of an arcane fiend." Definitely powerful.

I think Zenos beat us the first time because some people can just do that. If you want to bring in systems logic, the game itself put forward the simplest evidence: He's level 70 all the way through Stormblood. He was literally just stronger than us.

The only other one here I have any particular feelings on is Emmerololth, and for that, I'd put forward the simple fact that 'Emmerololth died because Galuf and company dunked an entire island into the Lifestream' is by far dramatic enough to supercede 'Emmerololth was seen alive in an earlier cutscene that was probably later chronologically'. That means that whatever answer we get will be much more likely to keep Emmerololth dead. However, I don't expect it (or honestly, most of these questions) to ever get an answer larger in scale than an off-hand clarification in a somewhat relevant cutscene.

Hell, given how all but maybe three of these are about dead characters, I don't even think that's likely, and the best we'll probably get is 'dev Q&A at a con that you'll REALLY struggle to look up specifics about when you need it'.

I think most of that simply boils down to the fact that much of the story (particularly concerning Zodiark, Hydaelyn and the Ascians) hadn't actually been developed in ARR beyond Hydaelyn being the 'good goddess of the planet" and the Ascians being generic doomsday villans in opposition to her that wanted to restore Zodiark for some nefarious purpose. But I'll try to answer what I can:

1. See above. It's possible SE were setting up Zodiark as being an opposite to Hydaelyn as far as the Mothercrystal was concerned back in ARR, but SE just never took it further (apparently a so-called 'Fathercrystal' exists underneath the battlefield for Zodiark in the Dark Inside on the Moon during EW, but I suspect that's just embellishment and not meant to be mean anything more).

2.That's pretty easy - Hydaelyn was calling out to her so that Hydaelyn could use her as a medium later on to speak to the WoL. Again this doesn't really fit EW's revelations about Venat however, so again it's an early story thing that never really was taken further (it should be noted also that Minfilia was desperate to learn about the secrets of the Echo and the Blessing of Light - she stated this in no uncertain terms way back in 1.0 - and was apparently particularly attuned to hear Hydaelyn's voice more clearly than pretty much anyone else, so therefore she was fully willing to give herself to Hydaelyn for that reason, even if it meant having to sacrifice herself in the process.

3. Put it down to the Garleans' 'might makes right' mentality (and something that Emet-as-Solus drummed into every Garlean). One of the stories on the Lodestone shows Emet basically browbeating Zenos as a young boy for his "weak body" (as part of Emet's loathing of Sundered life), so this would have undoutably had an affect on Zenos, making him strive for physical perfection even among the physically impressive Garleans.

And as others have mentioned, Zenos was drawing on the power of the katana he was wielding (it was speculated that rotating drum he kept his blades in was some kind of magitek device that infused them with aether that he could then draw on), giving him an edge against magic-using Othardian and Eorzean rabble he fought, and even allowing him to subdue the WoL, the 'champion' of the 'savages'.

There was that cutscene also showing Zenos having a nightmare of the Final Days of Amaurot, and his remarks was that he had been having that same dream since childhood, leading to some... interesting questions (was he actually a reincarnated Ancient like the WoL, as in possessed an Ancient's soul, or was it for some other reason?). Either way, it seems this plot point ended up being discarded or ignored and it was never taken further... A shame, as it might have given some further insight into what really made him tick.

4. I'm pretty sure that's just an oversight on the writers' part - Annoymoose had a thread where that was examined closely so I'll just point you to it for further information.

5. The 'Elidibus' that caused so much trouble throughout the game and was absorbed by the Crystal Tower in ShB (and sacrifices himself to open the gateway to the past in EW), isn't actually the real Elidibus at all - the real Elidibus was a youth named Themis (you meet him during Pandaemonium), who sacrificed himself as part of the summoning of Zodiark, with a construct in his form taken from his memories becoming Zodiark's 'heart'. The Ascian Elidibus that you see throughout the game is essentially a glorified primal made from fragments of the real Elidibus's soul and memories. His remarks are basically his Primal form suffering cognitive dissonance as his form breaks down following his defeat and G'raha deploying the sealing spell that sucks him into the tower's machinery, and his tattered memories begin to unravel (the words seem to refer to the seat of Elidibus being the Emmisary of the Convocation, in other words, a diplomat that mediates between disagreeing parties), so he was probably just reciting those words as more memories came to light.

6. Plot hole basically - although the Echo kind of ended up being a 'power that can be tweaked for a given situation or character', so that was probably just more of the same. Also the Ivalice raids were written/overseen by Yasumi Matsuno (producer of FF Tactics and FFXII) as I understand it so that might have played a part (an outside developer writing something that they don't fully understand about - kind of like how Gaia wielded a giant hammer during the Eden raids in ShB despite Tetsuya Nomura who wrote the raid story being unware that there was no 'hammer class' in the game and Yoshi just left it in for 'coolness'). Basically don't think about it too much.

7. Just a way of lore padding, fleshing out more of Othard as well as further underlining how awful the Garlean Empire was during SB. It's possible SE had planned to include Nag'xia in SB but anything that was written probably got thrown out long ago. Either way, if the XIth Legion still exists they've undoutably gone rogue since the Empire's collapse, and would probably just become glorified bandits in that area, cut off from Garlemald's supplies after all (not that the Garlean capital is in any state now to send supplies even if they wanted to).

8. Again, see my response for question 3.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

1. The Dark Crystal
This one has been talked about very often so I'll be brief. At the end of 2.0, we see a dark crystal that looks exactly like Hydaelyn, except it's completely dark/purple. Looking at it now, we can assume that was just the representation of Zodiark, the opposing force to Hydaelyn. Still, the crystal itself was never seen or mentioned again, so there's room for theories there.

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There is a crystal formation beneath the platform in the Dark Inside that appears to be this "father crystal". It is, presumably, an equivalent to the mother crystal formed out of Zodiark's aether.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

2. Hydaelyn telling Minfilia to stay behind
This one is a little strange to me. In the end of 2.55, when the WoL and Minfilia are both escaping, Hydaelyn talks to Minfilia and tells her she must stay behind. In 3.2 we find out that the reason was for Minfilia to get caught by the Flow spell used by Y'shtola and therefore got cast into the lifestream. The question, however, is why would Hydaelyn do that? Minfilia could very well have escaped safely with us. You could say that Hydaelyn needed a voice because she was weak and needed a way to communicate with us, but if that's the case did Hydaelyn kill Minfilia on purpose?

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The entirety of the events leading up to the Word of the Mother thing always felt contrived and they've never really explained well what happens there.\

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Originally Posted by Cassar

3. Zenos' source of power
Simple question. Why is Zenos so strong? Even before he had the artificial echo and took control of Shinryu, he still beat the WoL in a fight - something that had never happened before. We know he's a descendant of Emet, who's an Ascian, but he uses no magic in battle, except for the elemental crystals he uses to enhance his swords. There is a side story exclusive to the book that explains that Zenos went through intense training and he has always been very intelligent, so is that it? Seems like a very weak explanation to me. I had the theory that he had experiments ran on him, but I'm not sure if that's accurate. I'd also like to throw in an honorable mention to Ran'jit - another character who seems extremely powerful for no apparent reason, even less so than Zenos I'd argue.

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Zenos is just that strong, as is Ran'jit. You have to keep in mind, the Warrior of Light is not all powerful. They are strong, martially and mystically, but not unmatched. They often have to have friends along them to be able to defeat their biggest threats, or be empowered in some way. Zenos was explicitly stronger than the Warrior, literally 10 levels stronger than them in gameplay terms. Note how Concentrativity initially acts as a fight ender but eventually "becomes" a raidwide AoE. Similarly, the Warrior never actually loses to Ran'jit, the fights either get interrupted or the Warrior gets stunned. Ran'jit has been fighting against sin eaters for nearly their entire existence, and was trained by his father in now lost eastern martial arts. Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young and all that.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

4. Emmerololth
This one seems to be the hot topic now that we know to "remember the names of the convocation members". I'll be brief: Emmerololth "died" when the Isle of Val was cast into the aetherial sea, yet we see them in that one cutscene in ARR which happened after the events of Eureka. Was it a mess up by the writers? Will they fix it in Dawntrail knowing that Galuf will be involved?

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This is, to my view, most likely a mistake. We have like two extra Ascians in that bit, since Emet Selch is meant to be taking a nap too. Exposing an Ascian to the lifestream in that way seems like a surefire way to kill them.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

5. Elidibus' words
This one is super weird and it is 100% nothing but for some reason it really bothers me (in fact it's the whole motivation for me to write this thread, believe it or not). When Elidibus gets absorbed by the tower in the end of 5.3, he says the words "Reconciliation. Elidibus. I was needed". Why did he say his own name? I know it's not actually his name but his title, but still, why say it? Is he implying that "Elidibus" is the title given to the one who will lead the Ancients when they need for guidance? Or does the name Elidibus have another meaning for them, something that connects with "Reconciliation", perhaps?. Like I said, it's a nitpick, but there it is.

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This quote, I think, was him talking about why he even came out of Zodiark. There was a great divide among the ancients after the summoning of Zodiark, and Elidibus, as the envoy, was needed to reconcile both sides. This was Elidibus' (the title) role in the Convocation, and he tried to stop the conflict.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

6. Future Sight
I've posted this in a thread before, but I'll briefly mention it again. In the Ivalice questline we're introduced to someone who has the ability to see the future using the Echo. As far as I know Mikoto is the only character who naturally has this ability, of course she was captured and now this ability was imbued into other Bozjan personel. Regardless, I think that being able to accurately predict the near future is an incredible skill that is never mentioned outside of that questline, and I personally think it should.

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We see how Mikoto's future sight was limited and uncertain. She was sure that she would die in that airship but was saved because she didn't have the whole picture. Being able to see the future means nothing if you can't see all of the future.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

7. XIth Legion and Nagxia
The XIth legion is one of the few who has almost never been talked about. In fact, as far as I know, it is only very briefly mentioned in one of Bozja's field notes, pointing out that they brutally slaughtered an entire village in the Nagxia region. The only reason why I'm mentioning this one is because I think this plot line was supposed to be further explored in 6.0 back when it was still planned to be an Ilsabard expansion (I'm not even sure if Nagxia counts as Ilsabard or Othard, but still) and also Corvos, of course.

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They might come back to this eventually, but yeah, presumably they're out there.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

8. Zenos' dream
Ahhhh, this one makes me lose sleep at night. Zenos had dreams of the Final days. Dreams that were mentioned ever since patch 5.2, and were mentioned in 6.0 as well. What bothers me is Fandaniel's comment when Zenos explains to him his dream: "Could Emet-Selch have found a way...? Precious few possess memories of the Final Days." Could he have found a way to what? PLEASE tell me. I think Yoshida later said that it was due to Zenos being a descendant of Emet's and getting some of his memories because of it, but that seems like they just abandoned this plot line, because Fandaniel implies differently. Maybe this was scrapped when they changed 6.0 to not be the Ilsabard expansion?

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This one is definitely a case of them setting up something then plans changing. Still never really explained.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

9. The Heart of Sabik
I know, I know. Wouldn't be a list without mention of Heart of Sabik, eh? I know everyone is sick and tired of this one, but even though we got an explanation as to where it came from, we were left with more questions than answers. It has been around since the unsudered days, and was found by Athena? What higher power exists out there and why did it leave the auracite in Etheyris. Was it Ultima? I mean, the real Ultima, not the one we defeated in Ivalice questline? Because if so, then that peaks my interest a lot - Who really is Ultima?

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Ultima, the High Seraph, is an interdimensional being that creates auracite. Presumably it also created the Heart of Sabik, as implied by the questline. Ultima is explicitly said to not have a sense of self until it was worshiped by mortals, eventually gaining sentience in a manner like a primal. Basically, a primal summoned on an existing being, not dissimilar to Shiva summoned on Ysale or Alexander summoned on the remains of buildings. It's just that Ultima, the High Seraph was summoned on the interdimensional being known as Ultima. They might still expound on that but it's not that unclear, I think

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Originally Posted by Cassar

7. XIth Legion and Nagxia
The XIth legion is one of the few who has almost never been talked about. In fact, as far as I know, it is only very briefly mentioned in one of Bozja's field notes, pointing out that they brutally slaughtered an entire village in the Nagxia region. The only reason why I'm mentioning this one is because I think this plot line was supposed to be further explored in 6.0 back when it was still planned to be an Ilsabard expansion (I'm not even sure if Nagxia counts as Ilsabard or Othard, but still) and also Corvos, of course.

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IIRC the XIth legion was rotated out and likely dissolved following war crimes in Nagxia. Pretty sure it's supposed to be a parallel to the Vietnam War since Nagxia is itself fantasy Vietnam. The XIth Legion was not on the list of legions that the Xth legion were trying to wrangle together before they failed and turned to Eorzea to help, so that's the likely case here. Considering that the XIIth legion held two completely separate major fronts of the war at the same time, while the VIth legion just got sent to Azys Lla, all legions are not necessarily equal and the XIth could have been on the smaller side anyway if they were just deployed to Nagxia, which doesn't even have large cities the best that we can tell.

It was never meant to be followed up on, it is in Othard, not Ilsabard, and there was never a "planned" Ilsabard expansion from what I got from that one dev interview. They just said they had time to finish the story in one or two expansions, settled on one, and mentioned what it would've been like if there were two instead and most if not all of the story beats were covered in Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

You could say that Hydaelyn needed a voice because she was weak and needed a way to communicate with us, but if that's the case did Hydaelyn kill Minfilia on purpose?

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It's not so much "killed on purpose" as that the devout servant of the god gets to skip death entirely and is called directly to her god's side.

In most contexts that would be more of a joyous rapture sort of thing, but evidently rather less so when your particular god is low on battery.

Most of what you question is practicly simple to answer:
The writer simply had no plan.

I only heared it from second hand. But someone should had a interview, where the dev stated, that they had no idea, who the ascians was, until they had written SHB.
At the start was they only created to be the bad guys. And they had probably the idea of Zodiak as the counterpart of Hydaelin. But there whole background wasnt there. They simply set up threads and seed here and there, and looked, how the things evolved.
Similary thing will probably happen now in 7.0 and onward.

1) Dark crystal:
That was very likely Zodiak at that point. They simply had probably no designs for him and Hydaelin at that point.

2) Minfilia:
They probably maked her running back, to take her out of the picture. Because they had probably no plans for her at that point. And came than at the idea, to create her as a Oracle of light, to let Hydaelin speak with the others, when they came to her.
It is hard to tell, how much she had planed that in-universe. Because, she couldnt probably had knowed, that the others was coming (i forgot, why they came to her, i think, because of the Warrior of Darkness),

3) Zenos:
He was simply stronger as the WoL.
Until that point, had the WoL allways help.
He was in a group, when he fighted Ultima. Hydaelin protected him again Ultima spell and i think, after the rework, was Hydaelin helping him by the fight again Lahabreha directly.
Im not remembering, ih the WoL was alone again the Church leader. But the WoL had a power boost, when he fighted Nidhoog (in form of the dragon eye -as a Dragoon, do i want the exes of the other high dragons to^^).

Zenos was the first or second very powerfull enemie, the WoL had to fight completly alone (not sure, how much of trouble the underling from Gaius is now, after the rework of the coast fight). Again someone, who did nothing as to hunt powerfull enemie his whole life (Why did Zenos didnt became a Viper, the job description fit Zenos perfectly^^).
Its even more questionable, how the WoL was able to beat Zenos at the end (ok, he was again not alone). The WoL didnt had a power up, as much as i remember.

6) Future sight:
It was allready stated very early, that the power, that the WoL and others had, has differently effects.
Ours is the past vision. Future sights is logical, as a other power.
The reason, that isnt used more is probably, becvause the power is similary uncontrollable (the WoL was mostly of times not able to control his power, until Venat). Because of that is it very likely, that the people dont want to pet on that.
In addition have the writers probably not found a way, to use her more.

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Originally Posted by Keichi

I only heared it from second hand. But someone should had a interview, where the dev stated, that they had no idea, who the ascians was, until they had written SHB.
At the start was they only created to be the bad guys. And they had probably the idea of Zodiak as the counterpart of Hydaelin. But there whole background wasnt there. They simply set up threads and seed here and there, and looked, how the things evolved.

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It wasn't that bad, but you're broadly on the right track. The Ascians are the most extreme example of FFXIV's writing very rarely ending in the place it started, because the approach is usually to find the plot hooks to justify the story they want to tell. They were locked in on the Ascians being major villains, but they changed track on that story pretty hard; I don't think they had 'no idea who the Ascians were', but rather that the original plan of who they were got thrown out. I honestly very much doubt that the final idea only happened in Shadowbringers, though; it might be where they hit a generally solid state, but my personal estimation is that the 'present Ascians' first started coming into form in Heavensward's patches.

And anyone who thinks that's a negative, remember: every single Ascian fan loved them in Shadowbringers, most likely because of Shadowbringers, and we wouldn't have that without the devs' willingness to have and pursue better ideas.

So yeah, a number of these really old Ascian-related threads are just relics of a version of the Ascians that wasn't their final form. For the most part the developers are really good at repurposing those old pieces, to the point where the playerbase broadly sees those as 'unresolved mysteries' rather than parts of a rejected story (remember how long people banged on about 'what's under Silvertear Lake'), but with the Ascians having been a big part of the story even back in their early form, they just have a lot of bits lying around, and not all of them fit easily into the story we eventually got. After all, if the dark crystal was Zodiark, that would've been a really dull fight.

I'm probably going to repeat a lot of what others have said but copying the list and rambling is an easier way to organize my own thoughts.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

1. The Dark Crystal

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If I remember right the devs were cited as suggesting it was Zodiark's heart and Fandaniel crunched it. I speculate that early on the idea was for there to be a "Fathercrystal" ... but later they realized that they could lean on the Bahamut Prime approach to make for a much cooler trial boss. Amano demon > Big Ol' Crystal. (I wouldn't be surprised if there was a silent middle stage where the plan was for him to look more like his statue.)

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Originally Posted by Cassar

2. Hydaelyn telling Minfilia to stay behind

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I think fan discourse has muddied this one ever since the "chains / gears of fate" artwork really fed the early doubts in whether Hydaelyn could be trusted. Minfilia cherished her connection to Hydaelyn. I suspect this had something to do with losing her father at such a young age. Knowing the will of the star loves you and sees your worth probably counts for a lot. Hydaelyn reached out to Minfilia, confiding in her the consequences of Her intervention at the Praetorium, and Minfilia chose to stay behind. Minfilia consented to becoming the Word of the Mother, and imho she indicates as much during the 3.4 exploration of Urianger's trespasses. In that era of the story, many inclined to distrusting Hydaelyn chose to simply dismiss Minfilia's consent, believing that the Echo tempered you to Hydaelyn.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

3. Zenos' source of power

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Agreed with others that it's likely a mix of

• His cold upbringing in the Galvus family
• Garlean cultural values regarding might and right
• The formative experiences of feeling everything was effortless and purposeless until he experienced the rush of striving to overcome an opponent who could best him.
• The swords.
• The machine that gives Garleans magicks
• The machine that gives Garleans magicks being used to give him Resonance
• Possibly the abandoned plot point of whatever Emet-Selch did that was tied into his dreams of the Final Days.

There are also some indications that Zenos was meant to be a sort of "what if someone had a hero's potential but no desire to use it to benefit others at all" foil for the Warrior of Light (down to his original armor's color palette) from much earlier than I gave the notion credit for.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

4. Emmerololth

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This still appears to be an objective inconsistency in the game itself. We're all looking forward to how that gets cleaned up, whether it's a simple surgical reconstruction of the 2.0/2.3 cutscenes or some clever use of additive/transformative retcons.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

5. Elidibus' words

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(I really hope I'm not opening a can of worms, here, lol...)

Elidibus (or really we should say Themis at this point) was chosen for the Convocation at an age where most are just barely starting adult life. The 5.3 speech, where he's recounting how things went so wrong - in my humble opinion - sounds a lot like he's admitting to an idealistic naivete.

Note that Elidibus, imho, appears to acknowledge the plan was flawed from the start in 5.3. And more certainly Emet-Selch in 6.0 acknowledges their plans would never lead to the defeat of the Endsinger. (He has no regrets about giving his all for his world, mind you; he just understands why he lost.)

But put yourself in Themis's shoes. It's the Final Days, and he has a plan. He's going to save everyone. He's going to emerge victorious from Zodiark and everything will be okay. His friends will be there, smiling down at him, again. And then summoning Zodiark inadvertently tempers the Convocation and locks him into a rigid interpretation of salvation. Some of the populace follows them in a futile effort: to reclaim through the one true god that which can never be reclaimed. Some of the populace backs a plan to summon a counterbalance to shackle Zodiark. Some oppose the summoning of a second deity after the consequences of the first. Civil war erupts.

The role of the Elidibus is to chart the best path forward and unite his people on that path. The Convocation was divided, the populace was divided, and it was the duty entrusted to him to unite them on the right path. That's what I think "reconciliation" means here. That, from his perspective at the time, it greatly pained him to see his people in conflict - to see the plan for their salvation crumbling around him. Despite his age they put their faith in him. He had to make it right. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

i.e. I think he said the name of his office to highlight specifically how desperately he felt responsible for performing the role entrusted to him.

The tragedy of Elidibus is that he lost his ability to objectively chart that course. When Emet-Selch dies, "remember us" is as much a message to Elidibus as the Warrior of Light, but he refuses to hear it. He calls Emet-Selch unworthy of being called an Original and laments that he was not there to correct him. Imho, it's meant to be the moment that we realize that he is truly lost and our conflict is inevitable. For me, even the scene (in the short story Ere Our Curtain Falls) where he emerges from Zodiark has an ominous air to it.

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Fear...not... You will make...the right choice. And I will see it through.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

6. Future Sight

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This one actually drives me kinda batty, myself. What the Echo is and does has evolved a lot over time and I speculate that future-sight didn't really fit with the original concept for it. However, ask any roleplayer community that ever tried to invent new Echo powers: future-sight is very tempting. It's not hard to see why Matsuno-san might reach for it. The silver lining is that they were able to connect it to Mezaya Thousand-Eyes, the prophet who wrote the Divine Chronicles - the scripture Louisoux studied to predict the coming of the Seventh Umbral Era in the first place. That never really had an explanation, either, so entwining them gives an "intended all along" sort of vibe to it (assuming it was not, in fact, intended all along).

(I didn't count Fordola. She had Krile's Echo copied onto her and Krile is extremely sensitive to the thoughts of others and the flow of aether in general. The fact that it manifested for Fordola as having enough context to predict an enemy combatant's next move I don't think is technically, in a general sense "seeing the future".)

I wouldn't be opposed to seeing some manifestations of that power that help fill in that gap and make it feel a little more natural that such a manifestation of the Echo might occur.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

7. XIth Legion and Nagxia

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<...> as far as I know, it is only very briefly mentioned in one of Bozja's field notes

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As far as I know, that is correct.

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<...> I think this plot line was supposed to be further explored in 6.0 back when it was still planned to be an Ilsabard expansion

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Could be! That or Matsuno-san just asked which legions they had the fewest plans for, lol.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

8. Zenos' dream

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Agreed that this feels like a hastily-abandoned plot thread.

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Originally Posted by Cassar

9. The Heart of Sabik

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Technically Athena found an auracite and through research made Sabik.

Pandaemonium seemed to be tying a few loose ends together (a skill the team has gotten quite adept at); namely that Ultima is an extradimensional force and the High Seraph from Ivalice was a primal manifestation of that destructive energy given will by moral awe. Athena found auracite. Ivalice found auracite. Hydaelyn bound the High Seraph. We destroyed it. That could have been the end of it.

But Pandaemonium - for reasons yet unknown - spent its last moments opening the door to Ultima and perhaps even Athena having more connections to history than we know.

Does that mean that ULTIMA PRIME is still out there? Are there even more dimensions than we know? Or is it even more abstract than that? Perhaps some force of destruction beyond even Darkness? True CHAOS from beyond the rift that we will one day need to face with the primordial forces of the COSMOS? Light and Darkness empowered by dynamis and wielded as one...!?!?!?!111!?

Who knows.

(Please look forward to it...?)

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Originally Posted by Cassar

10. Thordan's vision

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This one actually had an explanation at the time, it was just anticlimactic for anyone trying to read a lot into it. The intent at the time was that it was a really cool anime-looking scene where you saw yourself through the deluded eyes of a villain beholding the impossible vanquishing of his own righteousness.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I honestly very much doubt that the final idea only happened in Shadowbringers, though; it might be where they hit a generally solid state, but my personal estimation is that the 'present Ascians' first started coming into form in Heavensward's patches.

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If I remember correctly (I'll have to dig up the panel) it was that the original plan for the Ascians was "be in the background doing bad stuff until further notice" and there was a very rough treatment by Maehiro about where that was headed in the 2.0/3.0 era, which was "unlikely to be approved" and ultimately the story went in a very different direction after that.

I like to use the term "no exit strategy" because I don't think "who are the Ascians, what do they want, where do they come from" is a binary lightswitch that flicks from "no ideas" to "fleshed-out backstory". I speculate that they had a few nebulous ideas here and there, and some may have survived longer than others, but ultimately it was "be in the background doing bad stuff" and "something about the original world" until Stormblood.

I think the biggest hint is one of the lingering stand-out oddities: At the very end of Heavensward, when they were already working on the patch series and had Stormblood outlined, Elidibus didn't seem to care at all that Lahabrea was dead aside from the fact that Lahabrea was a useful tool and without him Elidibus would have to do more work himself. It feels like excuses were made for that later (as opposed to that they designed that scene with the eventual reveal of those explanations in mind).

There's also the shifting of how many overlords there were - in 2.3 we were still seeing the full 14 + Elidibus, and as of 2.5 Nabriales was still talking as if only Lahabrea and Elidibus were "of this world" and one overlord was responsible for each shard.

But I agree that it's not inherently bad to have no exit strategy for things that aren't due to come up yet. I joke that there are "George R. R. Martin Problems" (a plan loose enough for its own characters to wander away from) and then there are "Patrick Rothfuss Problems" (a plan detailed enough that - given the inevitable edits and changes to the story as you release it - you have a ton of work to do to make later stuff match earlier stuff, again).

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

But I agree that it's not inherently bad to have no exit strategy for things that aren't due to come up yet. I joke that there are "George R. R. Martin Problems" (a plan loose enough for its own characters to wander away from) and then there are "Patrick Rothfuss Problems" (a plan detailed enough that - given the inevitable edits and changes to the story as you release it - you have a ton of work to do to make later stuff match earlier stuff, again).

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The comparison I always give is to comic books. You've got multiple creatives drifting in and out, all trying to tell what at first appears to be the same contiguous story, but is really every individual writer and artist finding their own ways to contribute and tell the stories that they want to tell, while trying to make it feel like the same characters and the same world.

Long-running TV shows might be a closer comparison, though. I've loved Doctor Who since the revival series, but it's absolutely just a whole cavalcade of different creatives trying to explain why THIS Cyberman episode is completely different from all the OTHER Cyberman episodes, while also linking back to them to a bunch of those episodes to make it clear that these are actually Cybermen and not just their own weirdass thing. And sometimes that's a whole lot of story to work with, and sometimes the fact that they were weak to gold gets simplified or forgotten!

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Elidibus (or really we should say Themis at this point) was chosen for the Convocation at an age where most are just barely starting adult life. The 5.3 speech, where he's recounting how things went so wrong - in my humble opinion - sounds a lot like he's admitting to an idealistic naivete.

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I love this response! Brings to me a new point of view of Themis that I hadn't even thought about, and I already love Elidibus/Themis as is, so this is super interesting!

When it comes to Zenos, you guys have convinced me that he's just that strong, and/or that the WoL isn't as almighty as I pictured, which is a good way of seeing it, I think. I also liked your point of view of Minfilia, and her knowing full well what she was getting herself into but doing so willingly, this actually makes perfect sense to me, I honestly don't know why I didn't think of it. Overall, I think you really nailed all of my points!

I suppose the only things that will remain on the back of my head are the (potentially) discarded plot line with Zenos' dreams (I still hope one day they explain it :) ) and also just the future sight stuff, which by the way I'm glad to see someone else shares in my discomfort of them never touching on it again! And yeah, you're totally right, it would be perfect to tie up some ends!

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Originally Posted by Cassar

I suppose the only things that will remain on the back of my head are the (potentially) discarded plot line with Zenos' dreams (I still hope one day they explain it :) ) and also just the future sight stuff, which by the way I'm glad to see someone else shares in my discomfort of them never touching on it again! And yeah, you're totally right, it would be perfect to tie up some ends!

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Like you said before, Oda, Ishikawa, and Kate said in a Q&A that Zenos' dreams are due to his being an Ascian's great-grandson and that it "skipped a generation". I don't think we'll get any more than that especially now with him likely (hopefully) dead forever.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Like you said before, Oda, Ishikawa, and Kate said in a Q&A that Zenos' dreams are due to his being an Ascian's great-grandson and that it "skipped a generation". I don't think we'll get any more than that especially now with him likely (hopefully) dead forever.

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Maybe it says something about me that when I hear this, I don't think the interesting story potential is in Zenos getting magic psychic dreams, it's in Varis NOT getting them. I'm a tiny bit more sympathetic towards him knowing that he's the one guy in his family that's left out of the mysterious big picture, and is clearly looked down on for it! And honestly, it makes a lot of the story around him make a lot more sense!

Only a tiny bit more sympathetic, though. He's still an abject horrifying monster. But I think it puts him above the other Galvuses for me, I'm more interested in the inferiority complex that Varis clearly has than the superiority complex that his son and grandfather have.

Tangentially related I know, but does golbez also evoke zenos’s catchphrase in other languages? (In the lunar subterranean when looking through the serendipitously resonating memoria crystal, the use of “friend” in his voiced lines, as well as being a giant long haired blonde man seems a bit coincidental to me). If there are other shards of zenos about, then the whole dreaming thing could be emet selch awakening the past memories while bypassing the hydaelyn spam tell.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Maybe it says something about me that when I hear this, I don't think the interesting story potential is in Zenos getting magic psychic dreams, it's in Varis NOT getting them. I'm a tiny bit more sympathetic towards him knowing that he's the one guy in his family that's left out of the mysterious big picture, and is clearly looked down on for it! And honestly, it makes a lot of the story around him make a lot more sense!

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IIRC, they just gave a noncommittal answer of “sometimes things skip a generation”. I don’t know if that was them trying to avoid spoiling future story beats or just them handwaving it away but I’m more inclined to lean to the latter since the whole “subplot” if you can even call it that didn’t exactly have a lot of investment and all the entire royal family is dead now so there’s not really any point in picking it back up again.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

IIRC, they just gave a noncommittal answer of “sometimes things skip a generation”. I don’t know if that was them trying to avoid spoiling future story beats or just them handwaving it away but I’m more inclined to lean to the latter since the whole “subplot” if you can even call it that didn’t exactly have a lot of investment and all the entire royal family is dead now so there’s not really any point in picking it back up again.

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Oh, yeah, no angle of that's going to get explored in the story going forward, and frankly none of the relevant characters are people I want to look back to for an exploration. I'm more just ruminating on the notion that if you did dredge up that bit for a story, I think the best angle is in focusing on Varis.

His entire family is in varying ways part of a massive secret truth about an ancient world that they either came from or have visions of, and created, propagated and benefited from a 'rule of the strongest' worldview basically designed only to serve them... and by random draw of the genetic lottery, he wasn't invited to any of it while still being expected to uphold it. If we were to get more story about any of the Galvuses, I want that, not 'I only get joy through fighting but I'm too good a fighter to enjoy any of it, also I have weird dreams I ignore sometimes'.

Zenos has quite a bit of backstory in the lorebooks that's completely skipped in-game. I might be misremembering but I believe it was heavily suggested somewhere that he was either experimented on himself, or a result of an experiment.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

Zenos has quite a bit of backstory in the lorebooks that's completely skipped in-game. I might be misremembering but I believe it was heavily suggested somewhere that he was either experimented on himself, or a result of an experiment.

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He experimented on himself at least once by imbedding a piece of wind crystal into a palm. The only thing I'd want to explore more than the dream I ignore about Zenos is what in the hells happened to his siblings. Cause there are at least three times where it's hinted that he wasn't an only child. That and maybe about the women in the royal family.