Anyone going to take a crack at why/how Lightning is in Eorzea?

[Keriaku]

I'm gonna start with some framing for how I understand the Final Fantasy series. We know that crystals, or more generally 'magic', is an important basis for any single reality. To me, every Final Fantasy corresponds to a reality amidst the Void that has coalesced into a unique world, each with a unique form of how magic manifests and how reality holds together.

FF1-5 are generally simple, with physically manifest crystals being the lynch pins that hold reality together. Retrospectively, it could be said that Cosmos/Chaos are the gods that conceptually connect with the balance between these 'old' crystals and the Void. FF6 and 8 are more explicitly 'god created' worlds, though the gods are dormant (Goddess Statues, Hyde) and leave reality to be manipulated by its denizens (espers, sorceresses). FF7, 10 and 14 seem to have more general freeform basis to reality that work as a cohesive flow (Lifestream, Pyreflies, Aether).

Fabula Nova Crystallis (Tale of the New Crystal) is an evolution of past realities; the 'new' crystals. These realities have a more complex picture. There are gods manifesting across multiple realities, and each reality is an complex system relating dimensions, magic and denizens (Seen/Unseen world, Chaos/Spirit, and Fal'Cie/L'Cie). In these worlds, every person has 'chaos' inside them, which gives them the potential to use magic. This potential is actualized when a person becomes a L'Cie and I take the Crystariums to be each person's 'personal crystal'. It's stated that given enough chaos inside a person, anyone has the potential to 'see beyond reality', such as how the Farseers can view the timeline. I feel like a similar power is at work with Noctis and Stella in XV. Anyways, on to Lightning in Eorzea.....

Spoilers for XIII/XIII-2...


I believe that Lightning gains access to Eorzea due to her time being crystallized. This is what she is referring to when she says she was 'sleeping'. It hasn't yet been clearly detailed what happens when people are crystallized, only the vague 'given eternal life', but I think the implications are pretty important if crystals form the basis of each reality.

As shown in a couple places, being crystallized seems to allows the consciousness of the person to go beyond their body, such as when Vanille and Fang are 'watching' and thinking about the other characters in Episode i after the ending of XIII. It also seems that a crystallized person can gain access to places 'beyond reality', atleast for a limited time, as when Fang and Vanille show up in the Void Beyond to save Serah from her dream in XIII-2.

I believe Lightning in particular is a special case, since not only is she crystallized, but she is crystallized in Valhalla, which is the closest known space to the 'Unseen World' and the Void. Whereas people crystallized in the regular world of Pulse may gain metaphysical access to that specifical reality (Pulse, The Void Beyond), perhaps being crystallized somewhere closer to the Void itself allows the person (Lightning) metaphysical access to other realities. Just as Etro called Lightning to Vahalla in the first place, perhaps Hydaelyn called Lightning to Eorzea from her eternal crystal sleep.

This also accounts for Lightning's comment on her endless battle. Just prior to being crystallized, Lightning had been fighting Caius in Valhalla for an indefinite, endless amount of time. After what feels like both a moment and an eternity, Lightning would appear in Eorzea and feel as if she never really stopped fighting.

It seems pretty clear to me that Lightning's appearance in Eorzea precedes her time in Lightning Returns. I wonder what she'll learn in her time here...

[Enkidoh]

That doesn't make sense why she's wearing her original FFXIII Guardian Corps uniform though in her FFXIV appearance, instead of the fancy suit of Valkyrie armour Etro gave her in XIII-2 (which she was wearing when she crystallized herself at the end of XIII-2). In any event it would explain how she can appear and then quickly vanish into a mass of feathers once the FATE is over.

But I still think chronologically her XIV appearance has a connection to Dissidia (although knowing my luck with things like this, I'm probably wrong. :P).

[Rannie]

I honestly couldn't see her when I did the fates... too many people... but i could offer one small idea on why she's wearing her clothes... she could still be asleep and somehow her spirit is being called here and it's why she's in the old clothes...or we're really in the matrix one of the two.

[NintenPyjak64]

I did hear at one point Eorzea would be a part of LR:XIII. Perhaps That should shed light on a few things (also the next 3 quests could as well)

This could also be the typical JRPG "I hit my head on something traveling somewhere and have gotten amnesia but only remember my own name"

[adventthragg]

It seems pretty clear to me that Lightning's appearance in Eorzea precedes her time in Lightning Returns. I wonder what she'll learn in her time here...

This is kinda what I was thinking, coming to the same conclusion. Hopefully though, other Final Fantasy's will make an appearance as well.

[VisRalis]

Well Chapter 3's Lightning explains why.
Looks like she is still 'Sleeping' as in her Crystal Stasis.
She states that somebody (*cough* explained in Lightning Returns) must be waking her up as a test to see how much fight she's got left in her.

Lightning: "I'm beginning to understand the reason I was sent to this place: I'm being tested."
Lightning: "Someone woke me up to see how much fight I had left..."

Right right...

[Pinworms]

Several of the FF games share their universe - it's not just disidea. When it comes to teleporting though sometimes you end up in alt Demesions or universes so no it does not confirm 13 is in 14s universe.

[Inquisitor]

A wizard did it.

[Talamasca]

I assumed it was Etro's creator/father Bhunivelze, whom Lightning is working for in LR, maybe he was testing her to see if she would be ready to do the work he wants her to.

[Anonymoose]

I assumed it was Etro's creator/father Bhunivelze, whom Lightning is working for in LR, maybe he was testing her to see if she would be ready to do the work he wants her to.

That's where I took the explanation, as well. Of course, that fails to address the major question a lot of us have: If the world of Fabula Nova Crystalis is, as it seems to be, restricted to the Mortal World and the Unseen World, with the Void Beyond being a mere shadow of the latter... through what mechanism did Bhunivelze influence Eorzea? For that matter, through what mechanism did Bhunivelze even know of Eorzea? Wasn't his mother the author of creation and thus the isolated universe of that canon?