Fan Fest Lore Revelations [Spoilers]

[Cilia]

I guess it comes back to that problem of "what does taking the side of darkness actually look like?" - without compromising our morals or actions as a character.

It all depends on what you, personally, have been fighting for and to whom you owe your allegiance. Personally, I don't have a problem with taking up the side of darkness as long as it's to save people. "Warrior of Light" is just a title, and my allegiance is ultimately to my own sense of right and wrong, not Hydaelyn.

Narrative wise? The only thing I could think of is that something happens that tips the balance too far to Light, causing a Flood of Light like on the first Shard and necessitating taking up the power of Darkness. How we could use the power of Darkness and still oppose the Ascians... well, that much I couldn't guess at beyond noting that the Ascians are more aligned with chaos, while we could be taking a more moderate path and seek freedom from the tyranny Light can impose at its extreme.

Seeing Thancred makes me wonder if the other Scions were taken out purposely to save them from this battle. Almost like the Avengers plot. The voice knows they are needed and if they weren't taken out early then they would die on the battlefield. This may be the reason why we couldn't find a solid connection between the Scions that were treated.

Without further details (who the voice belonged to and why it was able to rip the Scions' souls from their bodies) anything's game, really.

[Fenral]

Without further details (who the voice belonged to and why it was able to rip the Scions' souls from their bodies) anything's game, really.

I've been remiss on reporting on the Japanese version. First things first: it is indeed the same disembodied voice from Prelude in Violet. That might be true in English, too, but it's far too late to trust casting consistency on that end. I rewatched the post-credits stinger from 3.0 just to be sure, and while the voices are close, it's not a match for Elidibus, and not even in the ballpark of Zenos (possessed or otherwise). My current casting ear-guess is Yuuki Kaji, which would mean the voice belongs to an entirely new character and we can safely rule out things like "older Alphinaud" etc. I can also rule out Unukalhai based entirely on pronoun ("watashi" vs Unukalhai's "boku"), just for giggles.

[zuzu-bq]

You can't trust english voices for consistency. The JP voice is the same. And they all sounded like Alphie but post puberty haha.
On top of that, 4.4 cutscene voice in english had more distortion effects on top of it making it harder to hear.

[Cilia]

I've been remiss on reporting on the Japanese version. First things first: it is indeed the same disembodied voice from Prelude in Violet. That might be true in English, too, but it's far too late to trust casting consistency on that end. I rewatched the post-credits stinger from 3.0 just to be sure, and while the voices are close, it's not a match for Elidibus, and not even in the ballpark of Zenos (possessed or otherwise). My current casting ear-guess is Yuuki Kaji, which would mean the voice belongs to an entirely new character and we can safely rule out things like "older Alphinaud" etc. I can also rule out Unukalhai based entirely on pronoun ("watashi" vs Unukalhai's "boku"), just for giggles.

I trust the EN casting now; after they switched 99% of it from 2.x - 3.0 it's been consistent.

That said the nuances of the JP language are duly noted, but the possibility of fake outs remains. While the JP voices have been consistent throughout, they might be using a different seiyuu and pronouns in a deliberate attempt to mislead. Such things do happen.

That said I'm not inclined to believe it's a fake out, but it's a possibility I can't rule out. I still have a hunch it's Zodiark Himself, but that's just a hunch.

Apropos of nothing, I had to finally get a new phone and have been playing F/GO since I can actually run it and FEH is on a bit of a story break at the moment. With the Thanksgiving banner coming up, I would ask whether you recommend whaling for Gilgamesh or Scathatch if necessary.

[Guiballad]

Ok so let's say that what we are gonna face is actually the beginning of a Flood of Light. Let's say that our actions have actually caused this to happen. The question we will need answered is how. Did we put to much good into the world? Are Light and Dark just good and evil?

See this is the part a lot of people are making what i believe to be a mistake in their logic. It's not the good deeds we did that done that. It's also not any “bad” deeds many people would like to pin down on us. I believe our mistake was pointed out very clearly in the OG Warriors of Darkness arc: Primals and Ascians are somehow fundamental in maintaining an equilibrium and the way we have been dealing with them is what is gonna gives us troubles.

I know many of you wouldn't really question the Ascians existences being fundamental to this equilibrium somehow since they seem to be our direct counterparts. But why would Primals of all things be part of this? Because, being fully honest, i can't think of single plot element aside from the Ascians that goes so deep down the lore rabbit hole. And also in both accounts we have of a Flood happening the Ascians AND the Primals are very essential to it: in the Thirteenth shard their WoLs became so drunk in Primal power that they became corrupted into the voidsent and their world became a aether-starved dark void. Igeyorhm seemed to be to blame for the whole thing; while in the First they fought so relentlessly against both Ascian and Primal that eventually their word was being taken over by sheer radiance erasing all life in its path.

While we learnt a lot more about Primals over the years there's still a lot we don't know. Why was the seal over Silvertear Falls necessary? Why do we have Primals like Ravana that seem very single minded but we also have beings like Ramuh that seem to share some conection to the Mother Crystall herself? Killing Primals became a mindless task we just do and that's it. Hell the Flames have a dedicated Primal-killing squadron and it seemed to be one of the few things we and the Empire agreed on. I don't think we are gonna get “the Primals we're harmless/good all along” or something for a twist but rather our methods might be called into question. Maybe even the Ascians might not fully grasp how important this cycle of Primals might be and just used them because they're a useful tool, just like everybody else they ever used.

All in all that’s where i’m betting my horse for the big twist.

Also about what exactly triggers this flood: i wholeheartedly agree that we might end up killing Elidibus in the new dungeon and that just hecks everything up. Between us and others like not-Gaius killing Ascians and Primals by the buckets the death of an Emissary might be just the thing to start a Flood of Light.

If that's pronounced as "gimlet", a gimlet is one of a few things. In this case, I'd imagine the tool used for boring holes may be of most relevance. Typically used for wood, though, so may not be literal.

Alternatively, it's cocktail hour.

Betting away the fate of the realm on a driking competition? Sign me up

[Dualblade]

Note that the Primals that we could actually reason with (Ramuh and Alexander) WANTED to be defeated and dispersed back into aether, or in Alexander's case sealed away in such a way that it could never be summoned again. Primals are not good at all for the planet, they drain aether as much as they can and areas where they have been (like where Odin was initially sealed) have much less aether compared to the rest of the world. Alexander MOVING ITS BODY drained dangerous amounts of aether and it could cause a Calamity on its own even if it tried to use its abilities to help others.

The Flood of Light is probably still talking about the 1st Shard.

[Theodric]

There's a number of other factors to consider as well. If aether is not easily replenished, then harvesting crystals and making use of ceruleum no doubt contributes to the decay. Perhaps not to the same degree as Primal and Eikon summoning but it'd go a long way towards explaining why the Ascians are so keen on war and why a war is potentially catastrophic for Hydaelyn. After all, you need an immense amount of resources to fight a full on war and desperation leads to escalation.

[YianKutku]

I'm curious as to what the dungeon's name is in Japanese, as it has a multitude of kanji before the "Ghimlyt Dark" part which definitely doesn't just stand for "the".

Screenshot of the slide for reference:

境界戦線 "kyoukai sensen", which works out to be something like "border frontline" or "border warfront". "Kyoukai" means boundary or border, and "sensen" is "front" as in warfront.

So it's the frontlines of a war, where the area happens to be on the border of some nation (probably Garlemald, but Garlemald is a big place with many borders and many wars), and it's called "The Ghimlyt Dark".

[Fenral]

That said I'm not inclined to believe it's a fake out, but it's a possibility I can't rule out. I still have a hunch it's Zodiark Himself, but that's just a hunch.

I can't help but imagine Zodiark as having an older voice on the level of Hydaelyn, but then I remember that Lahabrea sounded old but Elidibus is voiced by Japan's favorite ageless pretty-boy. It'd make for an interesting contrast, for sure.


I'm inclined to think otherwise because the JP directly references waiting for a "bearer of a crystal of light", which is not so uncommon that Zodiark would have had to wait 10,000 years for one. (Unless he's referring to the upgrade Middy gave us.)

Apropos of nothing, I had to finally get a new phone and have been playing F/GO since I can actually run it and FEH is on a bit of a story break at the moment. With the Thanksgiving banner coming up, I would ask whether you recommend whaling for Gilgamesh or Scathatch if necessary.

I'll admit I have since jumped from F/GO to GBF, since the content release timing got waaaay slow on the JP servers. Gilgamesh is "objectively" better than Scatahch because of Enuma Elish, but the latter gets more use from me because single target Quick is BS if you play it right, and good for farming gears. They both get powercreeped pretty bad by later Servants, so you probably shouldn't go ham. Scathach even manages to powercreep herself.



(PM system where?)

[LineageRazor]

So there is this uncomfortable implication that if our actions are responsible for the possibility of this hypothetical Flood of Light, that means we have been helping people too much. Which in turn means we should have stood by in some cases and let horrible things happen in the name of "balance", which is kind of, well, "kill your abusive mother and then yourself" Sophia-level.

(Not quite at "as all things must be" level, though.)

The other way I can see the writers spinning this is that if we've helped people in this specific way instead of the way we did, then we could have avoided the Flood of Light, but that just makes it based on unfairly arbitrary rules that we could not have known.

You've struck at the heart of what has always annoyed me about the "Balance of Light and Darkness" thing. Balance implies a certain amount of "dark actions" are both allowable and necessary. If "dark actions" involve harming people then the whole idea of balance is appalling - basically, human sacrifices are necessary to stave off a Flood of Light. If "dark actions" do not necessarily involve harming people, then what exactly are they? Basically, they're whatever the authors decide, and as players we have no way of knowing until they tell us. (Not that we're given any choice in the matter regardless - we go where the story line railroads us, even if we know the things we're doing are bad in the long run.)

Is there a transcript of the lore Q&A anyway? That's what I came here looking for, before I got caught up in discussing the trailer.

To be honest, I was expecting to see discussion of that in this thread, as well! I don't know of any transcript, but I do recall three of them. (Two because they were the two questions I posted, and the third, because it was, er, memorable.) The following is the gist:

Q. Why were the two guards in the Zenos/Varis/Solus cutscene trusted with witnessing all the free talk about the Ascian origins of the Empire?

A. They were vetted.

Q. After possessing a mortal, can an Ascian leave that mortal voluntarily? Or must they be forced out through death (or alternative methods like the Blade of Light).

A. Yes, they can leave voluntarily, and this and a bunch of other Ascian revelations will be prominent in the next expansion. (Also, dev answer was "Why not both?" leading me to believe they didn't really understand the question.)

As tickled as I was to see my questions make the cut, I was a bit disappointed by the first answer! I guess there's really nothing special about the guards. The second was interesting. It does imply that Solus really did settle in for the long haul by choice, not necessity.

As for the other question I remember:

Q. Is Aphinaud actually half Lalafell? (Included: a half dozen pictures comparing Alphinaud to Lalafell and young and grown Elezen.)

A. HAHAHAHAHAHA! (It was noted, they did not say, "no".)

The dungeon looks to be the war-torn battlefield where the allied nations presumably intercept the Garlean counterstrike and is the same place where the WoL was fighting Elidibus in the trailer.

It seems like we're walking in on the conflict well after it's already started.

It's my personal prediction that this dungeon is in THE FUTURE. In the next patch, the voice that's been stealing away the Scions' consciousnesses will succeed in doing the same for the WoL, and will take us to the Bad Future represented by the Gimlet Dark. We'll then run the dungeon, and be returned to our body in the past, having witnessed first-hand the horrors we need to prevent.

That's just a guess, however!

See this is the part a lot of people are making what i believe to be a mistake in their logic. It's not the good deeds we did that done that. It's also not any “bad” deeds many people would like to pin down on us. I believe our mistake was pointed out very clearly in the OG Warriors of Darkness arc: Primals and Ascians are somehow fundamental in maintaining an equilibrium and the way we have been dealing with them is what is gonna gives us troubles.

It's worth pointing out that the way we've been dealing with Primals is something that has the Ascian Stamp of Approval. In early cutscenes, the Ascians make it clear that the WoL's actions in dispatching Primals are All According to The Plan, and when Elidibus brings the Warriors of Darkness in, he sets them to work doing exactly the same thing. So, if the Ascians are after Balance, and they APPROVE of the way we put down Primals, then putting down Primals the way we do is probably not contrary to Balance.