The Aetherophysics of Soul Shenanigans (4.4 SPOILERS)

[SynthielLyrin]

In order!

one has to wonder if we could, at some point, reason with an Ascian.

Would they want to? To reason with them should imply some degree of them being less cryptic and more truthful, as well as being willing to accept that maybe Hydaelyn is right. To the Warrior of Light, She certainly is. Of course, we’d have to be able to accept the flip side too, so… would –we- want to? Would we take the word and reasoning of world-enders and deceivers, with the blood of our allies and many others on their hands? Even without taking into account that then working together would be a crapshoot and a half, considering we got the various leaders on board with ‘they are a threat and should go’.
You can fire back with us actually doing it the one time with Unukalhai (not counting the Warriors of Darkness since that was double agents all the way down), but even then… that was burning up the ‘best shot’ they had at convincing us, in a way. We wouldn’t draw the weapons immediately on the kid based on presumed innocence, and the WoL is a sentimental sucker. Considering that ‘Solus’ has a hard time getting Varis to act in a manner that benefits him, even after giving him the information off our screen, and Solus was both a familiar figure and a celebrated figure in the Empire, it’s a long shot to see another ascian try that again, but with us.

and they didn't avoid this by having Shadowhunters kills go unnamed

Are we certain they are kills? The time we actually see a red masked ascian leave a corpse, he stands up anyways; ‘Solus’ gets shot, and then he reappears none the worse for wear at another location with his corpse within line of sight, sighing. So taking the mask as trophy guarantees absolutely nothing unless it was a black mask.
That, and if Shadowhunter is who we all are certain he is… that still leaves the matter of how he managed to inflict the Aetherial Sea on his kills. He is no primal that can drain the aether of a stricken foe (Leviathan, Thordan) that has to regroup, reform and then act; neither is he capable of manipulating the ruinous amounts of aether that a Blade of Light takes, unless this whole time garleans being unable to magic was a lie. So there is something missing there, I think. Or more than one something: manipulators likely do not visit a barren wasteland, and if it is who we’re certain he is, then he scored all those kills en route from Eorzea to the Burn, and found Alphinaud there. I do not trust him, and I am flagrantly biased here, but things don’t add up. How did he get there, and how did he score those kills?
Not that managing to force a retreat from those fiends is nothing. It’s a p cool feat, and it is a good way to force even the Emissary’s hands or the Voice’s, if now the mortals are 1) more on to their bullshit (and hell, even the Blessing of Light won’t help with that, unless Ysayle didn’t get her summoning techniques way back when not from an ascian) and 2) more capable of thrashing them enough to flee.

But is there any cause to suspect this is not also true for those with the Echo? I'm not sure. It's always been a concern, of course. Mythology paints Echo-gifted souls as "reborn on the cusp of each Calamity", but are they mis-interpreating Hydaeyn choosing new people each cycle? Or does She keep their souls intact, wipe their memories, birth them back into the world, and activate them with the grand starshower gesture as necessary? So far there's been very little cause to suspect so. Even Bahamut - all the pieces of his old soul remanifested - wasn't Bahamut. Then again, the Warrior of Light is absolutely something else, something special; they have a "true nature" we don't yet understand, we just don't know what it is. What if we are someone special reincarnated, reactivated?
And if one could ride out the Lifestream until rebirth, would merely being eaten by Leviathan be enough to destroy Wuur? Would merely being hit by Ascalon be enough to kill Lahabrea? We're meant to assume this "brought the chaos of the Lifestream" to them in another form, much like shearing an Ascian soul apart with pure aether while bound in white auracite, but is any of this true? Is any of it not? (And does this blender have different settings? How turbulent is a river compared to the sea?)

Man oh man.
If the dotharli beliefs have a high truth value, then hell you don’t even need the Echo or the Blessing of Light so long as your soul burns impossibly bright in death. … by being a complete hellion in battle. But that does not mean you get reborn, as much as maybe your soul finds its way reasonably well back to the tribe and you get to grow up to your glory again. Even if they do not, then Zenos somehow found himself a body, also short a Blessing, so it might be more on strengthening the soul so it can actually pull off those tricks and the Echo is a flag that means it is possible.
We do not know how Hydaelyn works. We know She chooses souls to be Her champions and grants them power but no directives beyond ‘do good’, maybe. And that She can yoink a soul back to her and name it Her Voice, once, and that as far as we saw with one group of stray children, even working with Zodiark once does not mean She cannot take them back. But at that point, neither can She guarantee that they will live, or be reborn ‘as themselves’ in any manner.
(I want them back dammit!)
The WoL is something absolutely special though, being as we have 6 damn crystals on us, and Hydaelyn herself has come to bat for us once or twice. Us being locked into life until further notice could well be part of being a divine champion. The big trick is that we have managed to deny that same privilege to others in the same category.