The True Nature of The Echo

[Enkidoh]

I've had the same idea for a while, too. The vision intro really does make it feel like that moment you phase in to existence in the "dream", you're just coming into existence period.Also, the animation is the same as teleporting, which is odd for an event that is in theory taking place inside your head. Teleporting is movement through the lifestream, so maybe what we are seeing is our character being "born" by the Mother Crystal in that lifestream.

The same applies to 1.0 characters when they woke up on the ship/carriage way back when, even though we saw no cut scene then. In fact, the fact that instead of waking up, they port in to Eorzea reinforces even more that the "vision" in the start wasn't just in our heads, but an event that actually occurs in the lifestream. (Presumably that's where they were chilling the last 5 years.)

Personally, I love the theory. We can still headcanon that our character is from wherever b/c that's what the character thinks. If this theory is right, they won't actually have a past, but they would still *think* they do. Its kinda having our cake and eating it, too.

To bring it slightly more on topic: It would explain our special connection to the crystals of light if we were direct products of the lifestream. It can't be explained by the Echo alone since, if the Echo was all that was required, Minfilia or others could be Crystal Bearers, too. From what I understand, they aren't.

Nice theory, but it just doesn't hold weight I'm afraid - there are plenty of instances in the game, even at the start, that prove your character existed before you actually begin the game. For starters, during character creation you have to choose your character's birthday, which alone all but screams "your character was born, not just 'blinked' into existence by the Mothercrystal." Then on the carriage/ferry, one of the questions the merchant asks you is if that was your first time in that city.

And especially in Gridania, your character is frequently referred to as being a "foreigner", "newly come to Eorzea." The narrative doesn't go into detail about your character's origins because the development team wanted to leave that up to the player to come up with that, to write their own character's history and backstory (this is in contrast to RPGs by companies like Bioware where even though the player has freedom about how their character's appearance/race etc, their backstory is pre-made by the development team, making it very restrictive), which ironically is very much in keeping with role-playing's pen-and-paper roots. But I digress.