Revelations from Keynote II

[LineageRazor]

Read through this thread in one sitting, and was a bit amazed to see the G'raha theory postulated and catch on so fiercely. I don't see it, at all - even after the sketched-in G'raha eye marks. The stuff on the neck and face looks exactly like Au Ra scales to me, with the exception that they're gray rather than black or white. It brought to mind the discussion a while back about there being a third tribe of Au Ra (maybe more) who might come into play in the future. Perhaps this is it! I was also certain that the face was female - until I took a good look at that arm. That does not look like a female Au Ra arm; way too beefy. On the other hand, the face is way too effeminate to be a male Au Ra face. Someone discounted the Au Ra idea by noting the lack of horns, but the hood could cover up several of the Au Ra horn styles.

While it'd be nice to see G'raha again, I don't think this is it. Honestly, I also don't think it will happen, ever. The way G'raha promised to guard the sealed tower until the world was ready for its secrets was a HUGE flag, in my opinion. "When the world is ready" can pretty much be translated to "never" in any work I've ever seen it appear in. A time travel plot MIGHT be able to work around that, I suppose, but I still think it unlikely. G'raha's exit from the storyline had an all-too-familiar "we're getting rid of this character because we've told his story and having him hanging around would be inconvenient" feel to it. I detest that all-too-common sort of tidying up of loose ends, but can easily recognize it when I see it. (Was happy to see it averted with Alpha, even as easy as it would have been to have him disappear with Omega!)

I've talked about most of the other stuff in other threads, so will leave it at that!

[Kalise]

I don't see it, at all - even after the sketched-in G'raha eye marks. The stuff on the neck and face looks exactly like Au Ra scales to me, with the exception that they're gray rather than black or white. It brought to mind the discussion a while back about there being a third tribe of Au Ra (maybe more) who might come into play in the future. Perhaps this is it! I was also certain that the face was female - until I took a good look at that arm. That does not look like a female Au Ra arm; way too beefy. On the other hand, the face is way too effeminate to be a male Au Ra face. Someone discounted the Au Ra idea by noting the lack of horns, but the hood could cover up several of the Au Ra horn styles.

Yeah, it's a pretty sneaky teaser for sure... Since, yes, the facial markings look very similar to Au Ra scales, but the face looks very effeminate while the arm looks quite manly.

Also, while the facial markings look like Au Ra scales, the weird stuff all over the arms do not. When most Au Ra have scales on their forearm and/or their upper arm.

While it'd be nice to see G'raha again, I don't think this is it. Honestly, I also don't think it will happen, ever. The way G'raha promised to guard the sealed tower until the world was ready for its secrets was a HUGE flag, in my opinion. "When the world is ready" can pretty much be translated to "never" in any work I've ever seen it appear in. A time travel plot MIGHT be able to work around that, I suppose, but I still think it unlikely.

I dunno... Trailer Voice Guy said that the Calamity that needs undoing, is "Greater than even the 7th Umbral Calamity"

If the world is ever ready for the secrets of the Crystal Tower, it'd probably when trying to stop something this powerful from destroying it... (Especially when we're actually in a spot where we're getting pretty dangerously close to 1) The world being engulfed by Light/Darkness given the effect that the First is having as well as it seeming to be setting up for some massive shenanigans with Black Rose and 2) Ascians feeling as though their plans to cause a rejoining so as to resummon Papa Zody are coming to fruition)

Not saying this means G'raha, but he's a possible candidate. Especially given the references to time travel in the trailer (Having to "Undo the Calamity" and "Rewrite History" suggests some form of travelling to the past) - Not to mention, the trailer shows lolifillia while this art shows an adult Minfillia (Some have posited it could also be Lyse, but Lolifillia is wearing the same dress as the girl in the art (Or at least, one very similar))

It could equally be some kind of new dragon femboi, though I feel that might be less likely given SB had a significant focus on Au Ra already due to the Xaela tribes.

Inb4 it turns out to be Hildibrand or something xD

[Iscah]

I'm also surprised my wild guess caught on the way it did, to be fair, and originally only threw it out there so someone could point out some obvious feature I missed that ruled it out entirely.

I don't think it's that wild a guess. I'd already suggested during the 4.4 theorising that the mysterious voice could be G'raha - based off that apparent leak which may or may not be accurate in the end.

So once you'd pointed out that the hooded character looks like him, it all adds up pretty clearly to me.


...aha! Went back through the forum and found our previous discussion where I suggested that it might be him.

Partly, people like the G'raha Tia Theory because there was a very vague lague hinting at something with Crystal Tower, not going into detail here. But afaik that leak had been proven fake.

That would be this alleged leak that inspired my guess that it was G'raha.

We thought it had been proven fake because it's way off the mark about Blue Mage.

But now... it did correctly predict Minfilia's return - on the (special edition) box art and everything - so who knows. Maybe it's still fake and they just threw out some educated guesses about things that are likely to happen at some point.

True leak or not, the Crystal Tower is likely to come back into play eventually, because at the end of that story we had the scene where Nero throws away his magitek compass and it detects something down below the tower.

Unpopular opinion, but I think the stuff covering the neck and face looks more grey-ish and not really crystalline. At least for the part covering the face, I would claim it looks more like a nasty scar than crystals.

The grey colour makes it look like it can't just be a scar, even if the shape of it would suggest that.

The colour also could be affected by the orange-tinged lighting in that scene, which would mute the usual blue of crystals.

It's me or his right arm is thinner than his left ?

I think it might be that his right arm isn't down at his side like his left, but lifted up so we're only seeing the lower part of his forearm and the top of his hand.