Revelations from the Shadowbringers E3 Trailer

[whiskeybravo]

Destroying Hydaelyn doesn't seem like the answer (or rather, it seems like the answer only Ascians would give), since destroying Hydaelyn would give Zodiark free reign to plunge all the worlds into darkness, right?

My guess is there's a way to create a feedback loop of sorts, like it's not Hydaelyn itself flooding the world with light - but some other mechanism that's preventing a correction of balance.

[LineageRazor]

Interesting that the Sin Eaters have been a problem for a century! That implies to me that the Warriors of Darkness were ALSO from a hundred years ago. They claimed responsibility for causing the Flood of Light, and the Sin Eaters presumably started to appear AFTER the Flood began. That implies that the WoD's did all their Darkness crushing way back then.

Of course, if the Flood has been going on for a century, it's interesting that this is the first we've heard of it. The Asicans must have known. Is it possible that Hydaelyn DIDN'T know, even before she was depowered saving us from Ultima? Could the Shards be hidden from her view? She seemed to be eager to go help once the WoD's spilled their sob story, so it would be curious if she's known all along and didn't do anything previously.

As for Hy and Zo being Primals, I don't really doubt it, but think it's more likely they're Primal-like beings rather than exactly like the Primals we know. As others have pointed out, they don't (seem to) drain Aether, and we seem to have an awful lot of free will if we've supposedly been tempered by Hy. (Of course, our free will could be Hy's command to us. Reminds me of the episode of Gargoyles where Demona succeeded in turning Goliath into a mind-controlled puppet who obeyed every command. Elisa's command to him? "I order you to act for the rest of your life exactly as you would if you were not under a spell.") I've long had the suspicion that the Primals the Ascians teach people to summon aren't the only possible kind of Primal - that the Primals were deliberately constructed to be harmful, chaotic, and Aether-draining becuase that served the Ascians' purposes. Hy and Zo could be "true Primals", and free of the problems the Ascians deliberately included in their summoning process.

Not impossible when you consider each world takes on different history and time frame.

Where one person maybe born in X era in X world another version of him or herself maybe born in Y era of Y world.

For example, there maybe a version of you in another reality of Earth that is born in a more futuristic era set thousands of years from our reality of Earth timeframe thus living completely different life from what you live and experience.

this would in return have your alternate reality counterpart be born with a different belief, experience, and interests in their life thus he or she may have your name and same appearance but have a completely different personality.

This kind of alternate timeline stuff works fine when you have a multiverse with nigh-infinite variations. Unfortunately, in this situation we have only fourteen variations. It's the whole infinite monkeys thing. With an infinite number of monkeys tapping random keys, one of them is bound to write the Complete Works of Shakespeare just by random chance. Now, try it with fourteen monkeys, and see how likely it is to happen. With infinite universes, sure there might be a sci-fi version of you, a fantasy elf version of you, etc, etc. But in just fourteen universes? Very unlikely.

As you say, it is not impossible. However, as RenewalXVII says, it's amazingly improbable. For events on two worlds which, while they might have started as identical, have done their own thing for twelve thousand years, to somehow assemble the same set of genes (or whatever this fantasy world has instead of genes) to create two copies of the same individual? Absolutely ludicrous to the point of shattering suspension of disbelief.

Anyway, the way the scene with the two Minfilias played out looked a lot to me like they were about to merge together. I'm guessing that Minifilia is a part of Minfilia that split off of the Emissary to act as an incarnate presence on the world, and when her task is done she will rejoin with her. Why such a presence was needed, remains to be seen...

Eden Summon in FF8:

Sorry, couldn't hear you over the sound of turning the whole planet into a magic circle to shoot you into another galaxy so hard you both explode.

And Sephiroth thought he was so cool with his attack animations! Well, la dee frikkin' dah!

[Daralii]

I find the mural very interesting


I wonder if it's going in chronological order from left to right? If so, it looks like there was a civilization destroyed by fire (calamity?) from there came what I'm assuming to be proto Zodiark-Hydaelyn (or is it mostly Zodiark?) and with people worshipping it underneath. Then after that we see them split off between light and dark with their respective worshippers.

There's another panel to the right a shot or two after.



The order it's supposed to be read in is the question. Either it's about a complete Rejoining(destruction -> the two crystals and the shards -> singular Will of the Planet), or it's about the Sundering(singular Will, sundering creating the two crystals and the Shards, destruction).

[Lauront]

On Zodiark/Hydaelyn...

Although it is possible that Emet-Selch is lying, I doubt that he is. With the Ascians, it's more a case of being selective with how much of the truth they reveal than outright lying - even instances of Elidibus or Lahabrea supposedly lying were cases where Hydaelyn's intervention changed matters; hardly something they could consider a reliable factor in devising their plans.

So, assuming Emet-Selch is living up to his name (Angel of Truth), this has some interesting ramifications. I had thought this might be where things are headed based on two developments in the lore.

1) That Eureka, a mere Primal, could fashion just about anything given enough aether, including another Mothercrystal.
2) The striking resemblance of Ultima, the High Seraph, to the cover art on the ARR box art of Hydaelyn, with the crossed arms, the halo and the wings.
I think what Emet-Selch is saying is all the more plausible because it could explain why they're attached to those giant crystals to begin with, which are massive sources of aether which allow them to self-sustain indefinitely.

This raises some interesting implications, in that if they are Primals, from what we know of these beings, it also means they did not pre-date the formation of the world as we know it, because they would have been brought about by their worshipers. This is where I think the parallels with Ultima come in. She was a being of pure destruction who, through worship, gained consciousness and became a Primal. Initially, I thought maybe she gained a glimpse of Hydaelyn when being confronted by her and took her form in mockery or out of hubris, but now I think it's likelier that her worshipers had an idea of what Hydaelyn looked like and tried to re-create that. Especially since the lore behind her heavily implies she is not of this world, e.g. when it's stated that Ultima as a spell should not be feasible given the aetheric density available on the Source.

This, in turn, means that it is their worshipers who might affect their disposition. If Zodiark was summoned for ill purposes (or even out of a sense of fear), perhaps due to his natural affinity to darkness, that could have made him evil. Hydaelyn - as in the Primal in the Crystal - in turn, like all the other Primals, would no doubt simply be conceive of herself as a being which simply exists, rather than collective prayer given form through aether. That might be why she can't conceive of Zodiark as anything but evil. Whereas in reality, like other Primals, such as Lakshmi, his nature is shaped by the intentions/emotions/thoughts of his summoners.

So, what I am speculating was the case is that these crystals existed naturally, with a great concentration of aether in them, one aspected to light, one to dark, and the lifeforms around at that point began gravitating to worship of them. This may be where the origins of the Ascian Overlords lie, since they're ancient - it is possible they were the very beings who gave Zodiark his form. It's difficult to say with certainty, especially given that some of the Overlords may be latecomers. Possible that Emet-Selch was one of those people, and the others joined the club later on.

I think the difficulty in the setting is that with the crystals disjoined in this manner, light and dark no longer stay in a natural balance and so the worlds wax and wane between them, with this potentially taking proportions adequate to give rise to a flood in certain cases. As such, going by what Banri Oda said regarding the state of fragmentation into the Shards being a bad thing, it could be that they have to be rejoined... just not necessarily through the means the Ascians envision, given that these may in the end revolve around reviving their Primal version of Zodiark, more than anything else.

It leaves many questions, including whether the Ascians were around at the time, who were Hydaelyn's worshipers and whether the Ascians are all aware of this, and if so, on board with it, and also for what reasons? Could this be what they mean by the true nature of the Echo?

Elidibus still strikes me as an agent whose intention is to ensure the balance is restored, at whatever costs, and I suspect that is why he serves Zodiark - as in the crystal - as opposed to the Primal version the remaining Ascians revere. However, it is looking likelier and likelier that Emet-Selch is going to take on the role I thought he would for 5.0. I just wonder whether he's been playing the other Ascians for fools, and whether he has greater ambitions than simply reviving Zodiark, but maybe latching onto him like Zenos did to Shinryu.

Assuming that Emet-Selch is possessing Varis in the tent scene in 4.5, as I suspect, it begins to all tie together, when he speaks of "one race" (before the shattering) and taking control of the reins of history.

On the Sin Eaters...

The Eulmore thing played out more or less exactly how I was expecting it to, regarding the Sin Eaters living there and being fed living beings as a source of aether. If I had to guess what may have happened, is that following the failure of the WoDs and the attendant inception of the flood, it's likely that blame began turning inwards. So even with the First's Overlord banished, things did not take a turn for the better, thus the notion that this may be due to the impurities of the denizens of the world, and thus with the perception that Light = good, the idea came about that feeding the "sinful" to these beings - who, like Voidsent - hunger for aether, would free them of their current predicament. Hence why you have Innocence, who I presume is someone much like the Cloud of Darkness, at the top of the hierarchy of these beings. Eulmore, IMO, is likelier to be driven by fanatical zeal than mere callousness towards the outside world.

[Kusanagi7]

im guessing we dont kow where this cave picture place is though id guess its the 6th zone in shb?

[Lauront]

Interesting that the Sin Eaters have been a problem for a century! That implies to me that the Warriors of Darkness were ALSO from a hundred years ago. They claimed responsibility for causing the Flood of Light, and the Sin Eaters presumably started to appear AFTER the Flood began. That implies that the WoD's did all their Darkness crushing way back then.

Of course, if the Flood has been going on for a century, it's interesting that this is the first we've heard of it. The Asicans must have known. Is it possible that Hydaelyn DIDN'T know, even before she was depowered saving us from Ultima? Could the Shards be hidden from her view? She seemed to be eager to go help once the WoD's spilled their sob story, so it would be curious if she's known all along and didn't do anything previously.

If she's like the other Primals, she probably has genuine conviction about her true nature, i.e. genuinely sees herself as always having been the crystal goddess that she is, rather than the result of a summoning. That said, I doubt that she can't see the other shards, especially since we're not the only WoL and thus not the only one to bear the Blessing of Light. It's possible though that she does not understand what they are and the harm they can cause. After all, if an Ascian could endanger their own plans through flooding a world into darkness, it may well be the crystals themselves lack such knowledge until they see it for themselves... alternatively, it would mean Zodiark being one world further away from being revived, if it were to simply fall to the light... not to mention acting as anything but willing to help when they were discussing their fate in the presence of her champion, whom they were warning not to walk down their path, would be a trifle suspicious.

As for Hy and Zo being Primals, I don't really doubt it, but think it's more likely they're Primal-like beings rather than exactly like the Primals we know. As others have pointed out, they don't (seem to) drain Aether, and we seem to have an awful lot of free will if we've supposedly been tempered by Hy. (Of course, our free will could be Hy's command to us. Reminds me of the episode of Gargoyles where Demona succeeded in turning Goliath into a mind-controlled puppet who obeyed every command. Elisa's command to him? "I order you to act for the rest of your life exactly as you would if you were not under a spell.") I've long had the suspicion that the Primals the Ascians teach people to summon aren't the only possible kind of Primal - that the Primals were deliberately constructed to be harmful, chaotic, and Aether-draining becuase that served the Ascians' purposes. Hy and Zo could be "true Primals", and free of the problems the Ascians deliberately included in their summoning process.!

I think it's likelier that it's because they have their own inherent source of aether, i.e. the crystals to which they attach.

[Mieck]

My feeling is that the Solus reveal is not a lie, but a lie of omission - there is a great deal more to it.

Speculate, speculate, speculate!

It seems like it could serve to highlight everything that sets light and dark against each other. Hydaelyn hasn't tempered every race, because they can clearly be tempered by other, (lesser?) primals.

Or perhaps Light (with a capital L ) can temper when it is dominant, and Sin Eaters are basically the manifestation of that? Tempering is supposed to be irreversable, and Alisaie says as much about Sin Eaters in the trailer. Are voidsent the Dark equivilent? Does that mean Zodiark uses tempering as a weapon (and has trained his chosen, the Ascians, to do the same? They, in turn, train the beast tribes?)

[Rocl]

The arc I desperately want for Solus is to be a man given the secret of becoming an Ascian, and after learning the truths of the world decided to aim even higher and become the true God. As such, he's playing both the Ascians and the Warrior of Light to his own ends—but we'll see. This sort of track was what I had pegged Elidibus for, but how could anyone have guessed the former Emperor of Garlemald was an Ascian? (And honestly if you tell me you called that the former Emperor was going to return to the story in a cloned younger version of himself possessed by an Ascian Overlord, one of the Fourteen, and second Ascian of the Source I'm going to need heavy receipts.) Ascian meddling in the Empire felt obvious once we learned more of the Paragons, but the idea that Solus has been playing them (akin to Thordan ganking Lahabrea) feels so nice to me. I'm a big fan of "history in the reins of man," and while Solus' idea (if this is the case) might be a perversion it's still an appealing 'twist' for me...

What I struggle desperately with regarding Hydaelyn, Zodiark, and the Blessing being Tempering is the Enigmatic Figure's words: "How many years have I waited for this moment... For one possessed of Her blessing... For you..." (Assuming that is him!) Why would he need to wait and seek out a Tempered follower of Hydaelyn to bring back the Night and stop/reverse the Flood of Light? Did he need a rebellious soul? This explanation feels unlikely—if he knew of the impending apocalypse why would he seek out that which would seem to hasten it? Is it because he arrived on the First after Arbert had left and none remain on the First with the Echo? But he wouldn't have needed to wait so long because... because Minfilia is there... she qualifies on the basic Echo necessary level. The Echo can be replicated via the Resonant too—does that mean an artificial Tempering can be made? Something is missing. Something is missing. Something is missing.

The Kuribu of Amdapor is most likely based on a Sin Eater, as is their Winged Lion. However, we see animate Kuribu and Lions on the first—though the Kuribu differ slightly (feeling more alive! actual hair, not carved stone, etc!) Did the Amdapori accidentally summon Sin Eaters before? Is the Apocalypse Cow FATE in Eureka Pagos transforming the Holy Cow from dzo to Winged Lion mean that it was a Sin Eater itself? Since the Palace of the Dead features pomanders that turn the player into a succubus and later a very different looking kuribu mean that that it transforms them into a Sin Eater akin to the Voidsent? If Sin Eaters have been appearing for about a century and the Amdapori have depictions of them at least 1600 years old... from whence did they come? I have to image this has more to do with the time between Shards being dissimilar.

Is the "power of Eden" mentioned in the raid blurb on the expansion sites the next evolution of our Blessing of Light? That's a good idea; but weird. All of this is weird. Where does the Black Rose factor in? How does it factor in? Solus was interested in it... Varis has made it... we do see Gaius and Estinien meet—perhaps they discuss it? Guh, what is happening with that thread? Why isn't there any Garlemald whatsoever in the trailer! Is that 5.X content? I never wanted to go to the First GIVE ME ILSABARD.

What is happening what is happening what is happening ẅ̸̥̲́͒͒͂̓̅́́̑͂̀͘h̸̨̧͍̺̫̯̭̮͌̒a̷͍̩̣̞̳͉̮͌ͅẗ̷̮̩̳̱̱͕̤͙́̓̌͆̄̒͆̽̃͗̚ ̶͙̏̑̀̇̓́́̅ĭ̶͔̣̫͆̇̿̈́̆̌̈́̐͊́͋͝͝͝s̴̢̥̬̩̘̬̱̠̩̰̱̙͂͌̅̑̔ ̸̡̛̛̘͇͎̬̱̜͚͉͈̒̔̓͛͗̓̏̕͠h̴͓̻̱͓̮̯̄̃͒̊̀̄͂̌͝ằ̸̦̹̪̫̗̱̰̯̘̪̪̀͂͐͑͂̚̚͝ͅp̸̜̭̟͎̳̔̐̿́̅̀̃̏̈́̎̒̓p̴̨̛̛̭̠͇̣̳̭͓̤̖̠̏̀͐̅̈͋͜ȩ̵͎͇̣̘̤͔͈̬̲̭͈̲͔̪̍̇̀́͛͘͝͠n̸̢̗̻̼̜͖̹͍͉̻̟̈́̏̈́́̒͊͐͝ͅį̶̦̫̠̯̹͔̯̦̘̲̲̜́͗ͅn̷̨̨̨̮̘͔̰̳̊̆͒̃g̸̛̛̥̦̼͖̭̼̬̬̭̜̲͔̮̯̣̾̊̇̿̓̅̈́̈͌

It's going to be a long couple of weeks.......

[Jonnycbad]

Interesting that the Sin Eaters have been a problem for a century! That implies to me that the Warriors of Darkness were ALSO from a hundred years ago. They claimed responsibility for causing the Flood of Light, and the Sin Eaters presumably started to appear AFTER the Flood began. That implies that the WoD's did all their Darkness crushing way back then.

Not necessarily. For example, there's a Roe wearing red in the Crystarium shown in by some in the media tour who is the exact same Roe who gives the Derplander the leve cards in the 1.0 trailer. Since the Roe is still alive it means that either

1) WoDs journey was in the last 20 years or so,
2) Time doesn't flow anymore and everyone is ageless.

[Daralii]

The Kuribu of Amdapor is most likely based on a Sin Eater, as is their Winged Lion. However, we see animate Kuribu and Lions on the first—though the Kuribu differ slightly (feeling more alive! actual hair, not carved stone, etc!) Did the Amdapori accidentally summon Sin Eaters before? Is the Apocalypse Cow FATE in Eureka Pagos transforming the Holy Cow from dzo to Winged Lion mean that it was a Sin Eater itself? Since the Palace of the Dead features pomanders that turn the player into a succubus and later a very different looking kuribu mean that that it transforms them into a Sin Eater akin to the Voidsent? If Sin Eaters have been appearing for about a century and the Amdapori have depictions of them at least 1600 years old... from whence did they come? I have to image this has more to do with the time between Shards being dissimilar.

The second lorebook established that Amdapoori mages saw visions of beings from a higher plane, which they created golems in the image of. These are the winged lion and Kuribu, the latter of which is differentiated from the real thing by the red gem on its chest that provides the aether to animate it.

Please grant us answers, Koji.