Revelations from Patch 3.4

[PArcher]

Ugh...different narrators in different languages?

Do wonder if Honoroit and Em will be traveling with us in 4.0 now (and now I don't know if it's Papalymo or him narrating in English. Gonna have to cutscene dive after work)

[Ametrine]

It was Papalymo in English, as well.

[CyrilLucifer]

After some thought, I'm pulling out the crackpot.

So balance is good. We need both Light and Dark to exist for a healthy star. That means we can't rid the multiverse of Zodiark entirely.
That means we need, in some way, to appease Zodiark and make him play nice.

So - if Hydaelyn is split into fragments and Zodiark wants them to return to one, why not let them? Fix the mirror that is broken by putting the shards back together again.

Not in the Rejoining sense, which seems to absorb/eliminate them, but in the "worlds merge" sense.

[dalta]

After some thought, I'm pulling out the crackpot.

So balance is good. We need both Light and Dark to exist for a healthy star. That means we can't rid the multiverse of Zodiark entirely.
That means we need, in some way, to appease Zodiark and make him play nice.

So - if Hydaelyn is split into fragments and Zodiark wants them to return to one, why not let them? Fix the mirror that is broken by putting the shards back together again.

Not in the Rejoining sense, which seems to absorb/eliminate them, but in the "worlds merge" sense.

becuse if thay did that then we couldent drag this silly plot out for another 4 expansions :P.

[CyrilLucifer]

Hmm, I think theorizing on the Zodiark/Hydaelyn meta is the most interesting thing in the lore right now.
I'm sorry.

I'm also quite bitter about how XI "solved" its unbalance problem in WotG (it didn't, not really), so I'm hoping XIV comes up with a better solution.

Actually, thinking about it,

Minfilia going over to the other world to restore an unbalance caused by the Goddess really is quite parallel to Lilisette.

[Belhi]

One fundamental problem is that the rejoining literally kills everything on the shard world that is being rejoined and that seems to be the Ascians' method of choice. I sense Elidibus's argument is an 'ours is the only way to restore balance' and I suspect we will have a 'we will find another way' moment eventually. I also don't think the Ascians necessarily want a true balance in the way we want one. One thing I have been considering is the possibility Zodiark desired to effectively take over everything. Their was that old prophecy they gave us a while back which said 'in fear of the moon she cast her children to the seas'. This makes me wonder if mortals are an obstacle Zodiark has to remove to take over or if Zodiark's plan threatens mortals. It also raises the question what exactly Zodiark's 'Doom' is.

Regardless I think the meta will be overall about trying to resolve that conflict that started this whole mess in the first place and I don't think we have even close to enough puzzle pieces to be able to guess fairly at that yet.

[Nalien]

Well, finally got the MSQ done...

The Thirteenth shard lost to Darkness and is the Void, you say? This particular revelation has me giddy all over... The implications! Wonder if the Mhach story will touch on this at all... Heck, way back when, I speculated that the Rejoining has something to do with the Void, given how rampant Voidsent got around the Calamity, and it does! The Void is just another world to be Rejoined! Albeit one that's kinda gone wrong... But no, I don't care about that, I care about my favorite subject! Well...One of my favorite subjects... Ivalice Espers! So long has it bothered me that Belias was a Primal, and Cúchulainn is a Voidsent... Belias-Egi being a nice shade of purple always had me going "Void?!", and now that possibility seems somewhat more likely... If the Void is just another world, where the Darkness won, it stands to reason that world had Primals, right? Cúchulainn and Belias can be related! I don't have to bash my skull in at that irksome inconsistency! Far from confirmation, but you'll damn well let me have this for now!

As for my other favorite subject... One line in particular might have some interesting implications; "Light, Dark, it doesn't matter. What matters is how you choose to use them.", long have people told me "Why would we want to do that? It's bad!", can I now slap ya'll in the face with a Flood of Light shaped bass? One suspects we'll have to start balancing out our wins eventually...

Titans fight was disappointing, and unintentionally funny... Changing what he says in the old hard mode fight is artistic? If you say so Yoshida... Felt for certain that Gu Ba had become Titan in some way... Instead he just summoned a version with his emotions... A shame, didn't 1.0s cut Titan cutscene involve him sacrificing himself to resurrect some fallen Kobold? Could have actually had a happy ending there, but thank god we didn't... Too many of those recently...

Given that ending, I really hope Estinien ends up joining the Scions at some point in the future... Nidhoggs Eyes are still out there, there is still work to be done! Oh, and Nero?! NERO AND OMEGA!? Hmm... Should I be happy about more Nero, or mad that his character development from Crystal Tower has apparently never happened? Whatever... Go for it Nero... Reactivating old Allagan Weapons worked so well for you last time... Really hoping we have a sort of reverse situation to Ysayle with the Griffin... I saw some speculation that he might be Gaius, but... No, unless surviving Praetorium gave him brain damage, why would he get involved with the Amalj'aa or Ascians? It's still Ilberd... Even if it's not, don't have us team up with him... I do wonder what he'll do with the Eyes though... Hopefully Nidhogg is gone for good, but... Do I even need to say it? Really? OK fine... #LahabreaLives!

Oh, and we got Tupsimati back... Do we even need it though? Alisaie seemed capable of summoning her own Blade of Light, granted we needed to charge it up... Get her teaching that to all the Scions and we can just start smiting Ascians left and right though, although we probably don't want to after Derplanders little tale... Perhaps it was just a hint towards Red Mage... If so, they missed a chance with that bland sword design and lack of new animations... Make that a rapier (like the one on the cover of the first art book that you cruelly tease me with...) and I'd have completely lost my sh*t... On Tupsimati, I can't tell if Papalymo is smart or not... Why is he best suited to keeping Tupsimati safe? I mean, we're only ever one drink away from being easily knocked out by complete throw-away characters, but still...

Totally not related to lore, but we seriously need the option to redo these solo instances... Heavensward has really improved them IMO, I've enjoyed all of them so far, it's such a shame that we can't easily go back to them...

[Fenral]

Ugh...different narrators in different languages?

Not necessarily.

As I said, it could have just sounded like Honoroit in Japanese because Eri Kitamura may have been doublecast (like how Mariya Ise is both Tataru and Nanamo). There aren't official credits for 3.X yet, so that's the most likely scenario if the other languages are saying it's clearly Papalymo.

[Frederick22]

snip

And to have the option to watch the cutscenes with the dialog changed on the Unbending Journey book!

[Alleo]

@CyrilLucifer About the worlds

Even if we need balance I wont trust the Ascians. Maybe Elidibus, if he finally opens his mouth and tells us his story..but all the other Ascians we have seen, were all about destroying Hydaelyn. I mean they already managed to make her weak enough, to not be able to talk with us. Thats not really balanced in my eyes.

Maybe we could find balance by merging the worlds but we learned that this will mean the death off all the people of the other world. Not something I would want to do if there is maybe another way to do that. I am also not quite sure if we need Zodiark for it. The WoD said that it was him that started to become stronger and stronger thus forcing Hydaelyn to banish him. I am not sure how we can make him accept balance.

I am also not sure if we truly need the Dark side to hold the balance. Hydaelyn was able to send Minfilia to the other world to take back the Light thus creating balance, so its seems that we may just need to make her stronger. (She is the one loosing right now) Or maybe we will be the ones that will create balance with our power (We have Light and Dark in us as human beings) Anyways I just hope that its more than "Welp the Ascian are mass murders but you need to help them now because balance"