Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[EdwinLi]

Alright, here's some of my thoughts. Bear in mind that I have completed the story, so don't open up the boxes below if you have not!

I'm going to place my bets on whatever is behind the 'Terminus' monsters being the true threat to all life as we know it. Since they arrived before Hydaelyn and Zodiark even entered the picture that means that they're probably still out there somewhere. Given that the Ascian homeland is basically a twist on the City of the Ancients from FF7 and Zenos is basically a twist on Sephiroth I'm going to tentatively suggest that the Terminus will be a twist on Jenova.

That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I feel so pleased to see that there was nuance and depth to the Warriors of Darkness and the Ascians. The latter still have to be stopped, of course, but their reasoning is sympathetic. They lost absolutely everything and since they're immortal, their pain and torment only grew over the ages.

As for Hydaelyn? As I proposed in the past, she is both not who she claims to be and she put forward malicious lies that failed to expose just how much she messed up. There's a high chance that we'll be fighting both Hydaelyn and Zodiark. Though we'll see how things go from here.

Garlemald went as I suspected, too. Varis' death was tragic yet befitting his honourable streak. Gaius expressing concern for him was a touching moment and I'm betting that he'll make a point of directing his attention away from rooting out the Ascians and towards reforming his homeland/stopping Zenos. Speaking of Zenos, he really is an unhinged man-child. Even more so than usual. Even Vauthry at least tried to do some good, misguided as he was. Yet Zenos? He's clearly willing to throw the entire world into chaos just to appease his obsession with the Warrior of Darkness.

Ya..........

Zenos is one of those Antagonist that is so obsessed with the Main Character they will make the entire world burn just to satisfy his desires. If many mangas/animes/JRPG stories taught me with these type of characters, these are by far the most dangerous and chaotic Antagonists as they will cause more death than any Antagonist we will ever face once they begin their rampage which it seems has just begun.

[SaitoHikari]

Alright, here's some of my thoughts. Bear in mind that I have completed the story, so don't open up the boxes below if you have not!

I'm going to place my bets on whatever is behind the 'Terminus' monsters being the true threat to all life as we know it. Since they arrived before Hydaelyn and Zodiark even entered the picture that means that they're probably still out there somewhere. Given that the Ascian homeland is basically a twist on the City of the Ancients from FF7 and Zenos is basically a twist on Sephiroth I'm going to tentatively suggest that the Terminus will be a twist on Jenova.

That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I feel so pleased to see that there was nuance and depth to the Warriors of Darkness and the Ascians. The latter still have to be stopped, of course, but their reasoning is sympathetic. They lost absolutely everything and since they're immortal, their pain and torment only grew over the ages.

As for Hydaelyn? As I proposed in the past, she is both not who she claims to be and she put forward malicious lies that failed to expose just how much she messed up. There's a high chance that we'll be fighting both Hydaelyn and Zodiark. Though we'll see how things go from here.

Garlemald went as I suspected, too. Varis' death was tragic yet befitting his honourable streak. Gaius expressing concern for him was a touching moment and I'm betting that he'll make a point of directing his attention away from rooting out the Ascians and towards reforming his homeland/stopping Zenos. Speaking of Zenos, he really is an unhinged man-child. Even more so than usual. Even Vauthry at least tried to do some good, misguided as he was. Yet Zenos? He's clearly willing to throw the entire world into chaos just to appease his obsession with the Warrior of Darkness.

I personally think that...

The Terminus was actually something that was indirectly created by the ancient Ascians, it's just they're too proud to even consider the possibility. They kept talking about making the will of the planet manifest in the wake of the crisis, but the impression I got was that the Terminus actually -ARE- the will of the planet made manifest, and they supplanted it with their manipulation (perhaps abuse) of the world's energy, the ultimate culmination being the summoning of Zodiark himself.

And I now wonder if it wasn't actually Hydaleyn herself that divided the world into fourteen, but the act of summoning her using up the world's remaining aether (that one figure in the city mentioned that half of the population sacrificed themselves to summon Zodiark, and another half sacrificed themselves to empower Zodiark to stop the calamity IIRC, so where did all the energy to summon Hydaleyn even come from?), or something related to the Terminus working in the shadows as the ultimate punishment of some sort.

If there's one thing that this expansion should have made clear, it's that the Ascians -do not- know everything, and what they do explain is rarely the full picture. Emet-Selch also never explained exactly how Zodiark was able to stop the original Calamity. For all we know, it was probably done in a similar way to how we tried to contain the Light - and we all know the problem with that. Meaning that assuming Hydaleyn actually was ultimately responsible for splitting the world, she probably did that precisely to stop the Terminus from coming back.

Also, we proved ourselves to Emet-Selch in the end. I think the focus now is to prove to Elidibus that we are capable of being the new stewards of the world, and Zenos' incoming actions might represent a challenge to all of that. We did prevent the rejoining of the first shard for now. But the Black Rose still exists, it just won't cause a rejoining when it's used now. I expect Zenos would probably modify it...

Honestly, I think the endgame is going to involve us time traveling back to a point in time where we can potentially stop the original calamity and thus eliminate the need for Zodiark and Hydaleyn to be summoned in the first place, let everything happen as it did, or... Some sort of third option in an attempt to preserve everything possible. I feel this might be what Alexander was hinting towards at the end of that arc, about us eventually reaching a crossroads of sorts that determines the fate of all creation.

[Guiballad]

On the full MSQ

FFXIV always had a great story for a MMO. Heavensward was an excellent MMO plot line.

But Shadowbringers? Shadowbringers is absolute JRPG excellence.

The First was built amazingly both visually and lorewise. I've mostly done MSQ and some side stuff but i feel like this is such a complete world and a fantastical one at that. Also all the lore about the cosmogony of our world + the Ascians backstory was nothing short of incredible.

The main plotline itself was very well thought out and, looking back, very well foreshadowed. If you've been paying attention to the lore so far and the pre-release material then you could easily predict some stuff (descring Innocence as ranking above every sin eater kinda gave the game away the second you learned Vaulthry could command them) and yet there was a LOT of twists and turns that, while also well built, really took you by surprise.

Chracters where great around. All the Scions were very well explored and their writing was on point. Ryne (lowkey mad i couldn't suggest Minifillia as a name) caught me by surprise how much of an actual character she was and how much i actually came to care for her. But the biggest surprise to me was Solus. Or Emet-Selch. Or HADES. Going from "the dude that shows up at every party even though nobody really likes him" to a very tragic, sympathetic antagonist was the real cherry on top for me. I'm sad to see him go but it would ruin his narrative arc to keep him around. The Exarch had a surprising backstory even though we all knew who he was but honestly he was such a darling of a character. That scene before we activate the giant Talos were it's just the two of us is ADORABLE. Also i would die for Feo Ul.

I have a LOT of feelings and if New Game Plus allows us to redo just one xpac i might do it again when it launches.

On post-ending stuff

The whole thing with Zenos vs Elidibus was over really quickly huh. Hope this plays out in 5.x instead of being a hook for 6.0
Also Varys? 99% sure he's coming back. The cloning project Emet-Selch told us about has to lead somewhere right?

I feel a little bit bad for Elidibus. He seems to be all alone now. But i feel like he needs new ideas because this is the second time around he's just throwing Warriors of X at us and the first time it really wasn't that effective. Him letting Zenos get his body back was an interesting twist however.

Level 80 dungeons

Ok so i was NOT ready for Ironworks Alexander being a thing. Specially since the whole dungeon was basically FFXIII enemies/bosses until we got to him.

I was also very not ready to see the tag line "Guardian Force" and Quetzalcoatls appearing like this. I'll need to read back on the cutscene but Lahabrea being a scholar on basically soul manipulation is... very interesting indeed. Something tells me he may have had a heavy hand on the creation of the primal summoning processes they teach beast tribes.

All in all in VERY satisfied. Can't wait for Eden and 5.x

[MrThinker]

Like most here, I absolutely loved this expansion, in terms of its pacing, its world building, its character building on both sides of the fence, and the fact that they made our character a character without actually being a character. There are many things I'd love to point out,

like the missable lore drops from good ol Hades,

But what interests me the most is

that both the WoD and Ardbert are apparently the reincarnations of an Amaurotine. And not just any Amaurotine, but the Fourteenth member of the convocation that lead Amaurot (and that would serve as the precursor to the ascian overlords) who disagreed with their fellows over their plans to imbue to the star with a will and vacated their position as a result.
At ARR we were 8/14 of that original being, and now at the end of 5.0 we are 9/14 sonce it appears Ardbert joined his soul onto ours.
I wonder how people will take this. I mean it was always implied that our character was special somehow, but having an actual backstory might not be everyone's cup of tea. Not that this would retcon most people's established backstory since that would only cover this most recent life of ours.
And if that is the truth of things, who else recognized us for what we are? Did Lahabrea, does Elidibus?
On another note, what is the likelihood that Unulkalhai, the only non-malformed survivor of the 13th shard, being another fragment of that original Amaurotine?

EDIT:

It also appears that when they were still the convocation, the Ascians had specific positions, i.e. Lahabrea was Speaker, Elidibus was Emissary and I think Emet-Selch was Architect. For our position, I believe we were the 'Warden' since that is what Hades exclaims when we break free of his bonds in the final battle.

[Guiballad]

Like most here, I absolutely loved this expansion, in terms of its pacing, its world building, its character building on both sides of the fence, and the fact that they made our character a character without actually being a character. There are many things I'd love to point out,

like the missable lore drops from good ol Hades,

But what interests me the most is

that the WoD(and Ardbert) is apparently the reincarnation of an Amaurotine. And not just any Amaurotine, but the Fourteenth member of the convocation that would serve as the precursor to the ascian overlords, who disagreed with their fellows over their plans and vacated their position as a result.
At ARR we were 8/14 of that original being, and now at the end of 5.0 we are 9/14 sonce it appears Ardbert joined his soul onto ours.
I wonder how people will take this. I mean it was always implied that our character was special somehow, but having an actual backstory might not be everyone's cup of tea. Not that this would retcon most people's established backstory since that would only cover this most recent life of ours.

About that...

While it does seem that our soul and Arbdert's are fragments of the same being i wonder if this would be the case for all Echo bearers.
A soul gifted with it is unable to fade into the lifestream. If Hyadelyn's supposed power of fragmentation is a thing then perhaps those are the shards of the souls of the ancients she cast down.

[Anselmet]

We will never get the adoration/romance that we want from npcs...

But Zenos will always be there to love us.

[MrThinker]

About that...

While it does seem that our soul and Arbdert's are fragments of the same being i wonder if this would be the case for all Echo bearers.
A soul gifted with it is unable to fade into the lifestream. If Hyadelyn's supposed power of fragmentation is a thing then perhaps those are the shards of the souls of the ancients she cast down.

I do personally think so tbh.

Emet-Selch made it sound like it is that that the sundering split the souls into 14 and only 14 pieces, no more no less. The other echo bearers are indeed more likely to be OTHER reincarnated Amaurotines, but we (as privilege due to main protagonist powers) are the special one.

[Zackneifein]

About our WoD/WoL

The original owner of our WoD/WoL soul fragments (who now has 9 out of 14 of them) was clearly an important person, the Amaurotine who spoke to us during the strange administrative part of the last MSQ spoke of this soul as recognizable among the 'thousands' (our and the one of Ardbert being of the same origin), and that he was a close friend of Emet-Selch.

It is also clearly stated that one of the Council members left, the fourteenth, in disagreement with the proposed solution and the sacrifice of a large part of the population. I think this fourteenth Council member wanted to do the same thing than our WoD/WoL in the face of adversity and challenge (which makes sense if we think it is the same soul), fight, give hope to his allies and never give up, which has, let us not forget, made him a legend in the future after the eighth calamities, inspiring the future generation.
It is also hinted that the apocalypse is surely a misuse of the creation magic, which materialized the fears and doubts of the Ascians. If it's the case, it means that by giving hope to the people, and by pushing them to fight, and not to give in to fear , the apocalypse could have been stopped.

After the Council "saved" the world by the repeated sacrifice of surviving populations, i think that it's once again this fourteenth who opposed the last sacrifice of future generations to restore the past generation, and that he is the one who invoked Hydaelyn with his lasts faithful friends by sacrificing themself to allow the existence of a future and not a return to the past (which would in no way protect the return of the apocalypse in reality, and of more sacrifices). Our character and all his equivalents in all shard (Ardbert for the First) is probably the heir to the soul of the fourteenth, and the others Hydaelyn's chosen his ancient companions.

About Hydaelyn and Zodiark

I still think that Zodiark is Evil, and Hydaelyn, if not Good, at least with good intention, the Flood of Light is not her responsabilities, and the sundering the only way to allow the futur to be born. I don't see her becoming an ennemy. She has never done anything evil against the people of the shard, and not even the original human, she did what she was ask for, and never asked for other sacrifice and tried her best to never become a easy solution to resolve problems like Zodiark

About Emet-Selch

The smile at the end, after asking us to remember them was... really something. At long last, he finally see us worthy, as the heir of the soul of his long lost friend. I find it quite beautiful

[Theodric]

I don't understand why so many people around these parts fail to grasp the core themes of the narrative. Then again, this place has always had an odd obsession with Hydaelyn so I can't claim to be surprised!

[Lauront]

I suppose they have to take comfort in their pet theories even as the fabric holding them together crumbles into dust. Dark crystal man bad, Hydaelyn good.

Please...

Guess the point of the story has yet to sink in for some.