Did Matoya just possess Y'shtola's body?

[Iscah]

What if Matoya has had to somehow to sacrifice herself so that her protégé can live?

That's another thought that occurred to me. If Y'shtola is consuming her life-aether an unusual rate, is it possible for Matoya to sacrifice herself and gift her own remaining aether to Y'shtola? And if so, what happens to her soul?

From the finale of the Four Lords quest (and I suppose also Nidhogg's possession of Estinien), we've seen that two souls can occupy a body at once, and either can take control of the body's actions. It's possible that person in the trailer is both Y'shtola and Matoya at once!

probably she use the name matoya as alias while acting like a warrior of darkness

That's assuming all the Scions are becoming Warriors of Darkness - but they're not all Warriors of Light to begin with. Only the player-character is.

[Ardox]

That's assuming all the Scions are becoming Warriors of Darkness - but they're not all Warriors of Light to begin with. Only the player-character is.

They don't have to be warriors of darkness per say: just helping the Shadowbringer can be a reason to change/hide their names

[KageTokage]

That's another thought that occurred to me. If Y'shtola is consuming her life-aether an unusual rate, is it possible for Matoya to sacrifice herself and gift her own remaining aether to Y'shtola? And if so, what happens to her soul?

From the finale of the Four Lords quest (and I suppose also Nidhogg's possession of Estinien), we've seen that two souls can occupy a body at once, and either can take control of the body's actions. It's possible that person in the trailer is both Y'shtola and Matoya at once!

There's also the SB BLM quests where Lalai ends up sharing her body with Shatoto, the original BLM who used some manner of fancy spell to preserve her soul until she could help avert a predicted crisis.

Soul shenanigans are by no means limited to Echo bearers, it would seem.

[Cilia]

I don't think there's any lore supporting this at all, which actually does make me a little annoyed, because I'm seeing this claim everywhere (Reddit, Tumblr, Discord), taken as gospel truth.

It's as bad as "FFXIV is the same world as FFXII".

I've mentioned it before, but I don't use social media. I'm not saying it's truth, it's just what makes the most sense to me with the least amount of shenanigans. While possession isn't outside the realm of possibility (even without the Echo), it seems far less likely than the simpler "Master Matoya is just a title."

Again, not arguing it's a hard truth.

Matoya is a recurring name just like Cid, Biggs and Wedge so I really don't know why that theory got so much traction. Let's say Matoya is the old witch's title. What is her real name? Why Y'shtola (or even the porogos/broomsticks servants) never allude to the fact it's a title? Why they don't hint to her real name? Why introduce that new fact in the MSQ after 2 expansions? I'm positive Matoya is the character's name and not a title.

Before XIV, Matoya was only an actual character in I. There are vague allusions to her elsewhere, but that's not the same as being a character. (Cf. Doga and Unei, who have allusions to them elsewhere but are only actual characters in III and XIV.)

Everyone might just refer to her as Matoya because they don't know her real name.

If we're going to go crazy with the possession theories, though... who's to say Urianger isn't being possessed (by, say, Unukalhai) as well?

When we go with the possession bits thing spiral into insanity... which is why I don't want to use it.

[Fenral]

Possibly a question that may have come up, and the phrasing may be different enough in the Japanese version to make this question moot, but do Matoya and Y'stola use the same personal pronoun in Japanese? I don't know Japanese, just the stuff relevant to anime tropes, but if they don't, it might help. 'Course, as master and student, and being of similar personality, it's probable that they both use Watashi, but as a hail mary...

Actually, there's no pronouns used at all in that scene, as spoken Japanese tends to omit the subject clause when it is implied by context. However, Urianger doesn't use an honorific suffix when referring to Matoya, which can either imply a high degree of familiarity (which is unlikely if it's the Matoya), or that "Matoya" is already a title of sorts that carries sufficient weight on its own. (I'm too busy with RE:2 to deal with investigating that much honorific usage right now.)

My current guess is that Y'shtola is now going by the name Matoya, perhaps in the same way that Lyse went by Yda for 15 someodd years. That's the simplest way to explain Urianger's familiarity, but it's also possible that my memory is hazy and nobody uses honorifics for Matoya, in which case the "title" theory becomes more plausible.



As a funny aside, the lip motion in the Japanese video is totally for the English script, as if to say that Japanese is now considered the dub-over and not the other way around. I'll still play using the Japanese voices because that way I get two scripts for the price of one.

[Anonymoose]

If we're going to go crazy with the possession theories, though... who's to say Urianger isn't being possessed (by, say, Unukalhai) as well?

If the conversation had gone...

Urianger
What sayest thou, Master Matoya? We may accept this fate or defy it, but we cannot deny it.

Y'shtola
Deny? I am not won't to run from my troubles, Unukalhai.

...then that's exactly what I'd be suggesting, lol. It's a wild theory when someone doesn't suggest in any way that one character is another. If that happens, the idea is at least on the table. We've seen the phenomenon before in multiple ways, so "It's crazy and unprecedented." can't immediately take it off the table, either.

Conversely, that it is just a title is a parsimonious explanation, and yet not a one can provide any support or precedent for the idea that Matoya herself wasn't being called by her name, but a title capable of being transferred at all. So we're stuck with (at least) both for now.

Nothing is "more right" or "more likely" at this stage of the game; we're almost out of "We planned this all along and it's just getting revealed." secrets, and we're getting an increasing number of "We wrote this recently, but it ties off an old hanging plot thread." addition retcons revelations. People are going to take sides, one side is going to guess right, and then teabag the other side with "I called it!"

An example: The probabilities for Solus radically shifted when the Ascian power structure was adjusted in 4.5. It's not a subtraction retcon; no one ever said the picture Nabriales painted was exhaustive. And yet it still feels like sleight of hand to facilitate a new plot that closes old holes.

I'm just going to filter out all the theories that would be impossible without a subtraction retcon, figure out how the remaining ones would work if they were true and plug the survivor into my archives. The rest has been leaving a bitter taste in my mouth for a few years now.

As a funny aside, the lip motion in the Japanese video is totally for the English script, as if to say that Japanese is now considered the dub-over and not the other way around.

"The widely-adopted common tongue of the Hyur" (commonly known as Eorzean) is canonically English, after all.

[DarthSanguine]

My current guess is that Y'shtola is now going by the name Matoya, perhaps in the same way that Lyse went by Yda for 15 someodd years.

Lyse only pretended to be Yda for 6 years.

[ChazNatlo]

Actually, there's no pronouns used at all in that scene, as spoken Japanese tends to omit the subject clause when it is implied by context.

Good to know. Though she does use "Watashi" in her second sentence. ((The "I will hold the line." part)).

[manamoppet]

There's also the SB BLM quests where Lalai ends up sharing her body with Shatoto, the original BLM who used some manner of fancy spell to preserve her soul until she could help avert a predicted crisis.

Soul shenanigans are by no means limited to Echo bearers, it would seem.

There's also Koh Rabntah in Mor Dhona who got possessed by the spirit of the archmagus Noah after we completed the Crystal Tower.

[Sabora_Makingai]

Matoya is pulling an Orochimaru and body snatching Y'shtola's body cause she is young and powerful. hehehe