The Chosen One (misc minor spoilers)

[Alberel]

Don't forget about the soul stones themselves. They are crystals, and if anything in FF has taught us, is that crystals hold immense power. There are also multiple crystals for each job with the memories of the past holders.

I mentioned this in an old thread, but we're adventurers, not white mages, not bards, etc. We use the jobs as a means to an end, but they are exactly as their title explains: jobs. Vocations. Since our vocation is Adventurer, we don't have the time to invest into learning every ritual, every song, every technique. We just need something that works and that will keep us alive.

So we cheat. The soul stones give us the memories and powers of the <job>s of the past, not the Echo. If it did, we would have access to those powers all the time instead of just when we hold the soul stone. It's for this reason that there is always someone better at our job than us: they actually devoted their lives to their craft while we just...cheat.

EDIT: Sorry for the necrobump! hehe...

And how do we get those memories from the soulstones? One of the key aspects of the Echo is the ability to see the memories of others, so it is the Echo that allows us to 'cheat'.

The Echo is, at its heart, the ability to communicate between souls. That is how we can speak to Hydaelyn, the soul of the world, and how we can see the memories of others. The fact the job crystals are called 'soulstones' suggests to me that we are using the Echo to communicate with the soul within the crystal and essentially using their memories to imitate their abilities.

As much as some will hate for me to make the comparison it is very similar to Yuna using Lenne's soul within the songstress dressphere in FFX-2.

[Wolfandre]

But do we [earn it]?

That can be explained by just being good at our class. We took up conjury to adventure with and we got good at it. We are asked to go to Coerthas because of the courage we showed Ywain. Yes, we earned it, by completing the class quests and showing the guildmasters our mettle, who then referred us to the job trainers.

The Echo.

Nice counter-argument, even if it IS FFXIV's worst MacGuffin. *hat-tip*

A little of that can be countered via my above response; just being good at our class helps us resonate with the soul stone. The <job>s of the past see your mad skillz and nod in sagely approval, granting you their boon. This happens in the level 50 dragoon class quest, specifically, when the first Azure Dragoon grants you his plate mail.

Lots of current <job>s hold their stones, too. We're not often told of current <job>s who do not hold stones, and in most cases, you cannot be a member of that job without one. Perhaps everyone who holds a stone cheats. Perhaps the soul stones are just materia crafted from the very beings of the original <job>s and they allow everyone who holds them to cheat!....Yeah, I dunno...

I don't have much else. You're probably right. Somethingsomething The Echo somethingsomething.

*grumblegrumblestupidmacguffinexplainingeverythingawaygrumblegrumble*

[Alberel]

Nice counter-argument, even if it IS FFXIV's worst MacGuffin. *hat-tip*

A little of that can be countered via my above response; just being good at our class helps us resonate with the soul stone. The <job>s of the past see your mad skillz and nod in sagely approval, granting you their boon. This happens in the level 50 dragoon class quest, specifically, when the first Azure Dragoon grants you his plate mail.

Lots of current <job>s hold their stones, too. We're not often told of current <job>s who do not hold stones, and in most cases, you cannot be a member of that job without one. Perhaps everyone who holds a stone cheats. Perhaps the soul stones are just materia crafted from the very beings of the original <job>s and they allow everyone who holds them to cheat!....Yeah, I dunno...

I don't have much else. You're probably right. Somethingsomething The Echo somethingsomething.

*grumblegrumblestupidmacguffinexplainingeverythingawaygrumblegrumble*

Hehe, well we don't really know for sure either way. All we know for sure is that something about our character allows us to learn from the soulstones dramatically faster than ordinary people seem to be capable of. I think pretty much every job NPC comments on our rapid learning speed in some way? I know quite a few do...