story predictions for shadowbringers

[Nalien]

My sole prediction is that this expansions story is going to play heavily on the Four Crystals trope. It's already very heavily influenced by Final Fantasy III of course, but I also see plenty of Final Fantasy V in there, and O'Ghomoro is renamed to Mt. Gulg, so that's a Final Fantasy I reference right there... Heck, the entire premise for the plot ("The heroes kept on winning and that was bad!") is almost beat for beat what Bravely Default dealt with... Needless to say, I'm not trusting any new allies we gain in this expansion, especially if they're a fairy... I question whether having Minfilia pray at Crystals to restore balance is the right course of action... XIV never really goes that ham handed with references though, all I expect is Minfilia to utter "Unacceptable!" at some point...

[Theodric]

My predictions:

- Hydaelyn will be revealed to not be as pure as righteous as her devout servants believe her to be.

- Zodiark will be revealed to not be entirely on board with what the Ascians are doing in his name. He will also not be the cackling villain some believe him to be.

- Elidibus will become an ally after being betrayed by Solus. It will be revealed that his concerns in regards to balance have merit but that there is an alternative method for his goals to be achieved, namely by enforcing a pact between Hydaelyn and Zodiark.

- Sin Eaters will be loosely tied to the concept of the seven deadly sins.

- The Warrior of Darkness will wield the power of the dark but will not necessarily engage in acts of brutality. It will instead be a matter of proving that light is not always good and dark is not always bad. Both are necessary for life as we know it to persist.

- The story will continue to highlight that various individuals and factions are much more morally complex than initially assumed.

- Varis will be revealed to be occasionally possessed by Solus as part of the plan to sow chaos within Garlemald. He is completely unaware of it happening and will either be freed or sacrifice himself in tragic circumstances. His story may have loose similarities to Golbez moving forward.

- The First will highlight that the only way for those on the Source to survive is to put aside their differences and find common ground. As a result, both Garlemald and Eorzea alike will need to engage in some serious diplomacy and self reflection.

- The sixth zone will be a light tainted wasteland located behind the large wall shown in artwork that depicts the region Eulmore is a part of.

- Those living within Eulmore will have forged a pact with the Sin Eaters in exchange for a shaky alliance of convenience.

- Solus will be the main antagonist of the expansion and will have no loyalties to anybody but himself. He will inflict something nasty upon Garlemald but will fail to account for the survivors banding together, seeking outside aid and striking back.

- Solus himself may or may not be dealt with at some point during Shadowbringers, yet his actions will play a part in setting up 6.0 as an Ilsabard focused expansion.

My biggest 'out there' theory:

- Norvrandt will somehow be 'grafted' to the Source. The New Year's poem makes me suspect it to be a slim possibility.

[JeanneOrnitier]

I definitely agree with what I think Moose was saying about Crystal Tower. I'm betting on the CT on the First being the Source's CT that was flung back in time and across dimensions. That'd match with G'raha saying "how long has it been since that day?" and "if history must be unwritten" in the trailer. When G'raha wakes up after his thousand-year stasis he was put in at the end of the raid, he sees something went wrong in our future so he sends CT back in time somehow.

I really like Nalien's idea of bringing back the series' old restore 4 crystals standby.

[Jaywalker]

Another prediction--I think Darkness (capital 'D' because I mean metaphysical force here) will be found tying to concepts like selfishness, guilt, shame, fear, etc. Very in-line with Dark Knight questline. But I think the WoL/D is going to be confronted with the fact that these aren't necessarily bad and are in fact hugely important in being good. Without being selfish you can fall victim to abuse or throw your life away like it's worthless. Without guilt when you cause harm (accidentally or deliberately) it becomes very easy to keep doing it. Without healthy shame, you can become a burden and cause misery to yourself and others. Without fear, you can place yourself and others into hugely dangerous situations without ever realizing the gravity of that.

Darkness keeps things in perspective and lends weight to light. Especially with the state of Eulmore, I think part of what the WoL/D will see is that the wealthy have become so convinced of their own perfection and virtue that they are incapable of understanding or having compassion for the suffering of others. It's not even malicious. It's like trying to explain pain to someone who's never felt it.

[Mansion]

I'm mostly on the Moose track, with the ShB trailer being a symbolic illustration of what we are actually avoiding through our adventure in 5.0.

I might get my expectations influenced by my own desires and my own fears.

1. They find the beacon by the Crystal Tower, we get there, meet G'raha Tia who explains that we must get to the First through the Cristal Tower. He found a way to use it as a gate between Shards?
2. We get in Crystarium, learn about the prophecy of bringing the night so we might as well make it happen. Insert series of Fetch Quests to make ourselves useful for the Cristarium population, and an instanced battle to protect them from a threat, and show we are badass. Could also be the 61 dungeon as a mission to prove ourselves worthy.
3. We learn about our potential fellow Scions that crashed on the First so we follow that track up to Il Mheg. Level 63 dungeon and we fight Titania to show our power again and get friends there for future beast tribe quests. Here I guess we find the Twins. We have a fellow Tank from Cristarium for the Trust system.
4. We get to Rak Tika, 65 Dungeon and find Urianger and Yshtola. Whole subplot about the burning of Rak Tika etc. Subquests about the Ronkan empire lore.
5. Kholusia and Eulmore. I guess a big plot point will be about how Eulmore was anti Sin Eater and then changed their position. We might want to get them back in the fight, either by clever discourse or brute force / 67 dungeon. Fighting Innocence makes sense here. And we have Thancred and Minfilia back.
6. Mifilia gets kidnapped. It has to happen again. We get to Ahm Araeng here, Flood of Light details. Ascians come back in the story. Bigger plot about Light / Dark.
7. Last zone, last fight, bringing back the night and all that jazz. Let's rebuild the world, see you in Eden.

I have not thought about:
- What happens on the Source during that time? (I guess we will have cutscenes about that, but I don't see actual gameplay happening)
- How the previous Warriors of Darkness story echoes with our own.
- If Elezenos follows us on the Source like a party-crasher, that could be fun. He somehow gets that Solus is on the First, and we concurrently try to fight Solus.

[Anonymoose]

Another prediction--I think Darkness (capital 'D' because I mean metaphysical force here) will be found tying to concepts like selfishness, guilt, shame, fear, etc. Very in-line with Dark Knight questline.

Now that you mention it, I'm curious if they will try to tie Darkness and Dark Knight together at all in Shadowbringers, or if DRK being the expansion's theme job was just the obvious choice artistically, but lore-wise irrelevant / incidental. Until now, the dark in dark knight has been lower-case; a reference to the fact the job runs on negative emotions (even though mob team did use Dark spites that one time, lol).

[Lauront]

My predictions

Seconded on all these. I think they'd make for a very interesting narrative, if all or even most held up. The last one does sound possible, and may be consistent with a Rejoining of a type other than what the Ascians have imagined. I'm also banking on Solus being a betrayer of some sort to the Ascian cause and on the WoD possibly gaining Zodiark's Blessing, in order to more efficiently spread darkness without necessarily having to act in a way consistent with the usual spread of that force all the time. Zenos is the biggest wildcard in all this. Solus could be if the possession theory holds up, because then we have a potentially renegade Ascian, who is out for himself, having rejected any sense of duty to their god. That could make him quite a dangerous foe, if he isn't just going behind Elidibus's back because he thinks he can do a better job. There's some Ascians who already doubt Elidibus's methods, so it's not outside the realms of possibility, however much Solus flatters him in front of Varis.

Another prediction--I think Darkness (capital 'D' because I mean metaphysical force here) will be found tying to concepts like selfishness, guilt, shame, fear, etc. Very in-line with Dark Knight questline. But I think the WoL/D is going to be confronted with the fact that these aren't necessarily bad and are in fact hugely important in being good. Without being selfish you can fall victim to abuse or throw your life away like it's worthless. Without guilt when you cause harm (accidentally or deliberately) it becomes very easy to keep doing it. Without healthy shame, you can become a burden and cause misery to yourself and others. Without fear, you can place yourself and others into hugely dangerous situations without ever realizing the gravity of that.

Darkness keeps things in perspective and lends weight to light. Especially with the state of Eulmore, I think part of what the WoL/D will see is that the wealthy have become so convinced of their own perfection and virtue that they are incapable of understanding or having compassion for the suffering of others. It's not even malicious. It's like trying to explain pain to someone who's never felt it.

It's possible but there's also the matter of degree to consider here - the First is so far gone it will need a huge tilt back towards a balanced state. Whilst the above all ties nicely into the DRK quest line - which I thought at the time was fitting MSQ material - it will probably be a combination of factors. Also, as with the citizens of Eulmore, so might it be with Hydaelyn, that her rift with Zodiark stems quite directly from the opposed aspecting of the two Crystals, such that they gauge each others' motives negatively simply because they don't understand each other at a fundamental level.

Regardless, I fully expect this expansion to pull at the morality string from time to time. It's one thing just slaying red-shirt beings of 'light' that are made to seem conveniently 'bad' to not make us feel awkward, but to actually have the WoL make some less than noble decisions? Now would be the time to throw mud into the water and really test how far we'd go in the name of Darkness, without losing ourselves.

That's what I am hoping for - I find the Sin Eaters too convenient a foe, because then it's just a case of defeating the obvious baddies, only because they're light-aspected, that very neatly happens to restore the balance on the First. It may work in terms of a narrative, but it'd be a dull one, and much wasted opportunity. Further, add Zodiark to the mix, and his own motivations and reasoning not being outright evil, even if odd or threatening to mortal eyes, and you have a truly thorny path ahead.

I think the question is why Elidibus wants balance, for it’s own sake or as a path to survival. I do think he has a shred of good in him for saving Unukalhai, and with us confronting a world threatened by Light it makes sense to me that this point is coming up.

Indeed. I believe he probably sought him out as a prospective recruit for the Ascians' own ranks, much like Hydaelyn seeks out the Echo-blessed to be her champions. With Zodiark dormant, that job probably falls to him. It made sense for him to leave Unukalhai with the Scions, as he was still naive in many ways. I see Elidibus as an Ascian who is less fanatically devoted to the means of bringing Zodiark back (Lahabrea and Nabriales enjoyed the mere act of causing chaos), and more focused on the end goal of reviving their god... as such, he may be willing to take a more reasonable approach if such arises.

The Crystal Tower on the First isn't actually a different structure; it's the same tower that exists in our dimension, but from a different time. Mr. Enigma, who most assume at this point is G'raha Tia, has been using the tower either in unintended ways or at an unintended pace to subvert an unavoidable future by changing the monolithic block of 4D spacetime (in the same manner as Alexander banished himself into a stable temporal loop). By displacing the tower onto the First, the tower of today is able to interact with the tower of the future and create a bridge through which to drag the Warrior of Light via a beacon and a conveniently supercharged Echo, somehow.

From G'raha's point of view, he is changing the initial conditions of 4D spacetime and thus UN-WRITING future-history. Perhaps this is true and we're about to go down the Final Fantasy rabbit hole of alternate timelines and a whole new layer of fractal dimensions. I hope we instead just stick to the Alexander mechanics and the truth is just that, because future G'raha never crossed past G'raha's path, he just dosen't realize that this itself is now the stable loop in which history "has always existed".

That's an interesting theory. I had thought that the Tower might simply replicate itself wherever the Allagans went to, in order to anchor itself, or simply have created facsimile of itself when they began experimenting with portals to other worlds, since, to my knowledge, we don't really know how far they went in that regard and whether the Voidgate was the only instance of them trying to tap into another Reflection. I also hope they don't go too crazy with the time travel trope as it can become very messy outside of the realm of stable time loops.

[Sathona]

Didnt Yoshi P said evil or good is only a matter of perspective during one of the ShB reveals?
I know he likes to tease and hint..i doubt we are turning away from Hydaelyn to embrace Zodiark but i assume we will be the Gray.
Like the balance between those two. I still dont understand the cutscene after Praetorium that we are seeing Zodiark either. Maybe he was trying to communicate with us[?]
Either way yeah i doubt we are turning on Light for Dark

[Lauront]

Well for now there will be a shift to spreading darkness to save the First, but later on we may aim for balance to rejoin the two crystals in order to stabilise the world. The point about light or dark not mattering inherently is made by Arbert in 3.4 as well.

Another point of interest is that one of Zenos’s outfits for Dissidia is being withheld so as to avoid spoilers for 5.0. I wonder if it means another body hop, eg to Varis, or whether he just gets a new outfit if/when he reclaims his body and takes on whatever role he will.

[guardin]

I think it's going to be a rehash of FFXV, only with better world-building and better character motivations.

The WoLD pops out of a crystal in Lestelum the Crystarium, the city that is holding out against the darkness light and is constantly fighting of the scourge sin eaters. The WoLD then goes on a roadtrip with their True Companions bringing back the light darkness to world while fighting the scourge sin eaters off. Throwing a wrench into all of this is the chancellor emperor of the nation that wants to invade the WoLD's nation who does want the darkness light to consume the world, since that would be good for him back home. In the end, the WoLD ends up bringing the darkness back to the realm.

i disagree. ff15 had the adventure part down that ff14 just cant seem to figure out. HW was amazing but the rest was meh. ff15 and 13 had the best story since 10. they had adventure, character building and you felt close to the npcs and cared about the world. ff14 world feels like...incomplete like people dont have homes or part of worlds kinda just mashed together. SHB though looks like a great step up for story though