Is the warrior of light a revenant?

In the "final" fight with Zenos if you lose, he says some rival type words and you rise from the dead. I mean that's kinda how one becomes a revenant just someone with a strong enough will decides" No I'm not done yet." and gets back up.

No, you come back from not-actually-dead in that fight because you're in a space where emotion is stronger than anything thanks to dynamis, and you literally just want to win more than him.

The WoL isn't undead, they're just stubborn.

And WoL wasn't dead. They got warped back to the Ragnarok and had three skilled healers pouring everything they have into healing them the whole ride home.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

No, you come back from not-actually-dead in that fight because you're in a space where emotion is stronger than anything thanks to dynamis, and you literally just want to win more than him.

The WoL isn't undead, they're just stubborn.

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They were there physically it was kinda like the warp from 40K not saying they are the same just alike. So when the HP bar hit zero and the physical body died the spirit said no?

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Originally Posted by innis31

They were there physically it was kinda like the warp from 40K not saying they are the same just alike. So when the HP bar hit zero and the physical body died the spirit said no?

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No.

Depleted HP doesn't = death within the confines of this game's combat to begin with. It just means incapacitation.

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

No.

Depleted HP doesn't = death within the confines of this game's combat to begin with. It just means incapacitation.

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It's kinda frusrating how this has literally been the rule for the entire series, and yet for basically the entire series run we see people either ignore or not know it. There's a reason we didn't just give Aerith a Phoenix Down.

Granted, it's not really an explicitly stated rule, you just have to be willing to trust the games when they do things like 'call the on-rez effect Brink of Death, therefore implying that you in fact have not died', or recognize 'White Mages hate necromancy and so logically aren't practicing it themselves'.

In all the final fantasy games I've played none have really stated how it worked. I always liked the theory that Aeirth wasn't as dead as it seemed and was really just paralyzed and died from drowning. But really, they need to change that lore because I would like it not to sound like we lost a Pokémon battle and have to go see nurse joy.

I interpret HP not as the full measure from "100% health" to "dead" but effectively a shield of personal aether reserves that can go into instantly healing any damage you receive. When you hit zero (which the average townsperson is going to do much quicker than a trained fighter) that's when you shift from intangible HP loss to physical injury and the possibility of death.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I interpret HP not as the full measure from "100% health" to "dead" but effectively a shield of personal aether reserves that can go into instantly healing any damage you receive. When you hit zero (which the average townsperson is going to do much quicker than a trained fighter) that's when you shift from intangible HP loss to physical injury and the possibility of death.

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That would make phoenix downs more than fancy smelling salts.

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Originally Posted by innis31

In all the final fantasy games I've played none have really stated how it worked. I always liked the theory that Aeirth wasn't as dead as it seemed and was really just paralyzed and died from drowning. But really, they need to change that lore because I would like it not to sound like we lost a Pokémon battle and have to go see nurse joy.

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So your feeling is that Aerith shouldn't have died from being stabbed, she should have died either because she fell into water as the immediate next thing, or because Cloud put her in water as an impromptu funeral after she got stabbed, depending on when you think she should be drowning? That's an absolutely horrible 'rewrite'.

They don't 'need to change this lore', it has worked fine and worked for functional and compelling stories for over thirty years, in large part because even if people do miss the lore as you did, most people have enough suspension of disbelief to recognize that in a lot of games, 'hit 0 HP' dead is different from dead dead. People usually don't question beyond that, but if they do, they usually find the game's a step ahead of them!

Making it 'actual dead-ness' would also make every single FF party member a necromancer. And just in FFXIV itself, necromancy in multiple forms is a constant narrative subject, and one that's universally treated in the same way: as a bad idea that you shouldn't do, because the dead are dead and you have to move on. It's very much one of the core thematic concerns of the game, and there's a big, clear reason why we don't do it.

You want to throw that away completely, because you don't personally believe in someone getting beaten up so hard they pass out? Because that's what's happening, with a few fudged details for gameplay's sake: healers are field medics, they're peeling you off the ground and patching you up before you bleed out. The fight against Zenos is your character getting up of their own volition despite all that and going 'I didn't hear no bell'.

If we really want to take a look at Aerith's death she was ran through from behind and from what most in the medical field say a gut wound is nasty business. A lot of vital organs. Now those who could have tried to save her were instantly thrown into a fight against another version of Jenova. So she was you know bleeding out while her friends who are so emotionally charged that they get instant limit break access at the start of the fight and the regular boss music doesn't play during it that she probably only had enough strength left for final words type stuff. This is before the impromptu water burial.

I also go by the if it doesn't happen in a CS or of an older game where those could also happen in the fight screen as I want to say General Leo's death happens in the battle screen and not outside of it vs when the Emperor gets backstabbed on the floating island that it doesn't count. That is if the game doesn't also go "no really they're dead. Stop wondering if they're coming back. Yes it happened off screen." of beating you over the head with that a character is truly dead and not mostly dead where a chocolate covered pill made by some semi crazed alchemist who might have gone by the nomenclature of miracle (enter name here) at some point in the past is their only hope of recovery.

I understand getting stabbed where she did is a pretty quick death I just liked the theory. I also looked more into it and retract my revenant theory. I still say pheonix down is fancy smelling salts.

What about getting K.O'd somewhere with no other people like the Northern crater in ff7?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

It's kinda frusrating how this has literally been the rule for the entire series, and yet for basically the entire series run we see people either ignore or not know it. There's a reason we didn't just give Aerith a Phoenix Down.

Granted, it's not really an explicitly stated rule, you just have to be willing to trust the games when they do things like 'call the on-rez effect Brink of Death, therefore implying that you in fact have not died', or recognize 'White Mages hate necromancy and so logically aren't practicing it themselves'.

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There's a very dramatic scene in Final Fantasy V where you play a character who hits 0 HP and keep on fighting. Hitting 0 HP in Final Fantasy XV very famously also doesn't kill you, just leaves you staggering until using a tuft of phoenix down or some kinda healing potion.

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Originally Posted by innis31

I understand getting stabbed where she did is a pretty quick death I just liked the theory. I also looked more into it and retract my revenant theory. I still say pheonix down is fancy smelling salts.

What about getting K.O'd somewhere with no other people like the Northern crater in ff7?

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Normally if you get KO'd somewhere alone those tend to be game over scenarios, which, well, aren't "canon" as it were. They're fail states. And yeah, tufts of phoenix down and pinion generally are described as healing someone from being "incapacitated" rather than from death. They're just feathers with some modicum of power of a phoenix, rather than an actual "cure" for death.

I remember dying in 15 unless you're playing on easy and have the carbunkle revive you if you wipe witch I did.

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

There's a very dramatic scene in Final Fantasy V where you play a character who hits 0 HP and keep on fighting. Hitting 0 HP in Final Fantasy XV very famously also doesn't kill you, just leaves you staggering until using a tuft of phoenix down or some kinda healing potion.

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That V scene is one of my favorites, it's great. And it actually covers this; once the fight's over and he collapses and dies, the party immediately cracks out every healing item and spell they've got. ...and it doesn't work, because 'dead' is not 'KO'd'.

What about Zenos we saw him "die" in a cutscene at the Royal gardens and that looked pretty permanent.

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Originally Posted by innis31

What about Zenos we saw him "die" in a cutscene at the Royal gardens and that looked pretty permanent.

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There are two different parts of the explanation for this, and both of them are explicitly outlined in the story, because Zenos' body and soul come back through separate series of events.

Zenos' body comes back because Elidibus possesses it, and the Ascians can reanimate and repair dead bodies; the same thing happened in Endwalker with Fandaniel and Asahi's body. Zenos' body was clinically dead... but the Ascians can fix it, because unlike your resident White Mage the Ascians actually are necromancers of a stripe. This was a story thread in the Stormblood patches, if you remember.

Zenos' soul comes back because his Resonance kicked in. Just like he possessed Shinryu before, he possessed a random Ala Mhigan soldier, and went on a warpath to get his body back from the guy who took it. You might remember this as an ongoing sideplot in Shadowbringers.

The status for losing all HP is KO, not death. During the fight with Zenos you have the Spark of Hope buff, which is Dynamis fueling you to stay alive.

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Originally Posted by innis31

I remember dying in 15 unless you're playing on easy and have the carbunkle revive you if you wipe witch I did.

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I found it hard to die in Final Fantasy XV, as reaching 0 HP put you in a Danger state, which lets you still move around and use healing items, depleting max HP. I never really had a wipe as far as I remember, the game was fairly generous. Still, the point remains, reaching 0 HP is not exactly death.

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Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

I found it hard to die in Final Fantasy XV, as reaching 0 HP put you in a Danger state, which lets you still move around and use healing items, depleting max HP. I never really had a wipe as far as I remember, the game was fairly generous. Still, the point remains, reaching 0 HP is not exactly death.

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Yea I went into an optional dungeon 15-20 levels to soon.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

There are two different parts of the explanation for this, and both of them are explicitly outlined in the story, because Zenos' body and soul come back through separate series of events.

Zenos' body comes back because Elidibus possesses it, and the Ascians can reanimate and repair dead bodies; the same thing happened in Endwalker with Fandaniel and Asahi's body. Zenos' body was clinically dead... but the Ascians can fix it, because unlike your resident White Mage the Ascians actually are necromancers of a stripe. This was a story thread in the Stormblood patches, if you remember.

Zenos' soul comes back because his Resonance kicked in. Just like he possessed Shinryu before, he possessed a random Ala Mhigan soldier, and went on a warpath to get his body back from the guy who took it. You might remember this as an ongoing sideplot in Shadowbringers.

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Yea it's been awhile since both Stormblood and Shadowbringers for me, but thanks for clearing up that Zenos thing it's been bugging me.