About the Emperor [Major Spoilers for 4.4]

[Anonymoose]

This is where the fun begins!

You're 100% sure that Solus zos Galvus the man and "Solus zos Galvus" the Ascian are separate entities? Solus zos Galvus was born a man, died a man, and was replaced by an Ascian of unknown identity who is continuing to go by his old, dead puppet's name, and is continuing to self-present with his old, dead puppet's body, for reasons unknown? Are we able to conclusively rule out all other possibilities at this time?

Everyone seems to understand exactly that the implication is but none of the lessons given when educating others about it seem to line up.

It's just proliferating and exacerbating that initial confusion, imo.

I'm going to take a moment to go back and re-read and see just how many walls we can feel out.

[Risvertasashi]

There is one question that bugs me.

Previously... as far as I've been able to tell, Ascians take on the appearance of the body they take over. Even as recently as Zenos-the-Ascian showing up this holds true.

Solus gets shot... and respawns just like that. Exactly as he was before. Without seemingly having a need to take over a body; or if he did, altering the appearance to look exactly as before.

Is this also a broken/new rule, or did I miss something somewhere along the line?

[Keever]

[...]

When Nabriales is ejected from his host body following the fight in the Chrysalis, his fleshless form appears above it, looking identical to the host body, sideburns and all. What happens with Solus is in line with that.

My hypothesis for now, if only because it seems to explain all these instances most neatly, is that we usually perceive Ascians' fleshless forms as looking identical to the last host they possessed. We know that Ascians' appearances are affected by expectations in some way thanks to Elidibus' spiel in patch 2.1 explaining why Tataru was unable to see him: "Knowledge dictates expectation, and expectation colors perception." (English localisation lead John Crow [A.K.A. Corvinoobus] explains in an interview here that this line was also written in this way to hand-wave away the differences between current Ascian depictions and the shadowless Ascians in 1.0.)