The True Nature of The Echo

[Mjollnir]

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.

I respectfully disagree. This is an old theory of mine from 1.0 and I think it still holds weight in ARR, especially with the new Mothercrystal opening scene.

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."

Conversely, you get to choose the day and month of your arrival, but not the year (ie your age). If it supports anything, it's that you popped into existence at that moment rather than you were born.

Then on the carriage/ferry, one of the questions the merchant asks you is if that was your first time in that city.

That doesn't really impact either way. The merchant doesn't know you, so it's a reasonable question to ask.

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.

That is your assumption, and I do concur that it's an assumption which is heavily inferred by the start of many RPGs on and off computer since the genre's inception. However, S-E's lore and plot team are (or at least *were*) NEFARIOUS and it wouldn't be the first time a Final Fantasy has done exactly this with the protagonist's back-story (looking at you VII, VIII and X).

Having said that, you'd have to have popped into existence right there on that coach for ARR, and that would have seemed really weird to the other passengers! Oh wait, isn't that Alphinaud and Alisaie Leveilleur. And that old guy Maat? I mean er yeah him and his two brothers - just innocent merchants, right? That all happen to be there to congratulate us on our victory over Ultima.

[Enkidoh]

-snip-

Be it as it seems a little too coincidental that both the merchant and Alphinaud and Alisaie just happen to be on the same carriage/ferry as the player as they arrive in Eorzea, it's not proof that the player has just magically materialized by the will of the Crystal. This should be obvious, but wouldn't the merchant and the Leveilleur siblings have, I don't know, actually noticed that? Instead the merchant wakes you up and says you were sweating and moaning in your sleep - pretty much showing that they'd been there all along.

And as for when the merchant asks you about whether that was your first time in the city or not, it's up to the player to decide whatever choice you ask (because ultimately either lead to the same result - he basically describes the city-state you're heading to, saying "no', that you've been there before, he says "Okay, then let this journeyed itinerant fill you in on a few changes that have happened since your last visit."

Even the opening movie says at the end "Amidst this great change, an adventurer, arrives in Eorzea, one whose tale is yet unwritten." There is nothing that states "Oh, they didn't just arrive, they were literally born right this minute by the Mothercrystal." I'm going to apply Occam's Razor here and just think that because the narrative assumes that the player understands that the adventurer is a foreigner arriving on a carriage to begin life as an adventurer - if they've really born right that moment by the Mothercrystal, don't you think it's odd that they start life pretending to be a foreigner arriving on a carriage in the first place? Why not just make them appear in the outskirts of the city they start in, or something? It just doesn't seem that logical to me.

Simply put, we're not new creations of the Mothercrystal, we're just average men and women born and raised elsewhere on Hydaelyn who have come to Eorzea attracted by the life of adventuring, and whom while still on the road to our new homes, is then chosen by the Mothercrystal as a recipient of the Echo, to hopefully act as Her champion against the Ascians and the Primals. That's pretty much what the story tells us.

I guess I've just been reading Scott McCloud's excellent tome Understanding Comics too much to see what he refers to as 'closure', that is, the ability to perceive and understand an entire idea from purely fragmented information based on past experiences and expectations, and thus regard the player's character in the opening as nothing more than what it appears to be - a foreign born new adventurer arriving in Eorzea, and not an obtuse and abstract concept as trying to explain a purely gameplay mechanic that is character creation in narrative terms.

[Orophin]

stuff

I don't think anyone is contending that your character just suddenly materialized. Simply that your character is "awakened" by Hydaelyn in the opening cutscene, similarly to how your character is granted the Echo by the star shower in 1.0's opening cutscene.

[aisthesis]

This should be obvious, but wouldn't the merchant and the Leveilleur siblings have, I don't know, actually noticed that?

If memories of the existence of the Warriors of Light can be erased by whoever it was that erased them, couldn't the memories of the embarking and travel be just as easily be implanted on the Leveilleur siblings and the merchant? I think Mjollnir's theory is actually pretty strong, and what I understood from their post is that maybe the Leveilleurs actually knew a new being was going to be beamed at some place and were there with their helpers, the merchant and his brothers to meet this new being and see them to safety. The questions, the nebulous backstory was actually to make the new being more comfortable about their existence rather than hit them with a "hey, you were just born! here's what you need to know and your weapon, go kill iffy, m'kay!"