About the Warrior of Darkness.. theories? (spoiler-ish??)

[Alberel]

According to this - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post898626 - they're both proxy's for our own characters (for trailer and advertising purposes it would seem) as well as characters that exist in Eorzea on their own. Since they are confirmed to exist, and this party of five is identical across the board...unless we learn later that they are a twisted version based on them but with a different origin, it's the same set of characters.

That quote from Koji has always been very problematic though. He's speaking in the sense that Derplander is a real character in the same way that everyone else's WoLs are real characters even when perceived by another player; they're just not THE WoL in your version of the story. The easiest way to think of his statement is that Derplander is Koji's character. He exists in the world, but if he's not being played by you personally then he just another adventurer.

We saw Derplander go to Ishgard with Tataru and Alphinaud and become a dragoon in the trailers. If the WoD was the same Derplander then Alphinaud would have recognised him when we met them would he not? Of course as soon as we take control of our characters none of the stuff in those trailers ever actually happened to Derplander; it happened to OUR characters instead. This is why Koji's statement about Derplander being a real character can't be taken as literally as people would like: it's simply impossible for him to be real in that sense as soon as we players interact with the game as we replace Derplander in the story.

[Berethos]

We saw Derplander go to Ishgard with Tataru and Alphinaud and become a dragoon in the trailers. If the WoD was the same Derplander then Alphinaud would have recognised him when we met them would he not? Of course as soon as we take control of our characters none of the stuff in those trailers ever actually happened to Derplander; it happened to OUR characters instead. This is why Koji's statement about Derplander being a real character can't be taken as literally as people would like: it's simply impossible for him to be real in that sense as soon as we players interact with the game as we replace Derplander in the story.

We can still take it literally - when Koji talks about him being a proxy, he's talking about the times we see him in scenes and doing things that our own characters do in-game. When he's talking about him as a real and separate character, he's talking about the one we see in the CGI cinematic trailers. Even with the Heavensward trailer, what the Derplander (and crew, for the 1.0 and End of an Era) is involved in doesn't quite match up with what we do - he's fleeing alone at a different time from when we split off, he heads into Ishgard alone, etc.

Basically some of the representations of Derplander are proxy, some are him as a character - it's not fully one or the other, and now we've actually met the character version (from what we know at present).

[Alberel]

We can still take it literally - when Koji talks about him being a proxy, he's talking about the times we see him in scenes and doing things that our own characters do in-game. When he's talking about him as a real and separate character, he's talking about the one we see in the CGI cinematic trailers. Even with the Heavensward trailer, what the Derplander (and crew, for the 1.0 and End of an Era) is involved in doesn't quite match up with what we do - he's fleeing alone at a different time from when we split off, he heads into Ishgard alone, etc.

Basically some of the representations of Derplander are proxy, some are him as a character - it's not fully one or the other, and now we've actually met the character version (from what we know at present).

This is sort of verging on a parallel universe theory though. It's possible, I admit. I just personally think Derplander is more of a vague concept of a character than a fleshed out character involved in the story. I suppose we'll find out when we get more of his group's backstory.