Fan Fest Lore Revelations [Spoilers]

[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.