Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[SaberMaxwell]

I have a question, pertaining to lore.

I really didn't like this expansion. I think maybe it's because of two primary reasons- one, I watched too many videos from the devs, got my expectations up for what they were going to deliver, only to have those perceptions dashed at the door.

And two, maybe it's because I don't understand a key portion of the lore. From what I understood from the conversation with Urianger, he was simply stating that the names of Umbral and Astral were changed to Light and Dark.

In Thancred's subsequent interjection, he stated that the source focuses on the effects these aetherial types have on things, and not the generation of these energies. Which, when he said 'perhaps we got it backwards', I believed he meant 'Got the focus backwards- instead of focusing on effect, we should have focused on generation.' Because those are the words he literally just said, and it would make sense for his topic to follow them. Unless I MISSED something.

I'm trying to find things to help me like the expansion--I was so hyped for it, and I felt so disappointed. Someone pointed out that the' elements were flipped,' meaning Light is darkness here, and Darkness is light. But from the conversation, that's not what I gathered, probably due to the contrite method of dialogue delivery.

If that's the case, then my initial disappointment and broken promise feeling of' being the warrior of darkness' which only felt like a TITLE people handed out, would technically be not entirely correct. But, at the same time, even with this new information, we're still not the warrior of darkness. Just because the titles and beliefs are different in Norvrandt, unless there's some outstanding evidence to prove we're actually entwined in 'darkness,' we're still the Warrior of light. We didn't embrace the darkness at all. The point of the entire expansion is moot.

Maybe you guys can help me out, I REALLY want to love the expansion like everyone else does. Am I just genuinely not understanding? Or am I stuck in a plot hole I was supposed to ignore?

10characters

We're the Warrior of Darkness on the First in the same way we were the Warrior of Light on the Source; people just started calling us that so that's what we were. Like WoL, it's a title and beyond that isn't much more than calling someone Lahabrea or Emet-Selch.

[Arzalis]

I have a question, pertaining to lore.

There's more to it than that.

First you need to know what astral and umbral energies are. Astral energies are the powers of creation and change. Umbral is more about keeping things as they are.

It was always assumed that light was astral and darkness was umbral. The revelation from Urianger is that it's actually astral darkness and umbral light. This does work with everything we know so far too. Hydaelyn (light) wants to preserve things as they are. Zodiark(dark) wants to create new things, but has to destroy other things to do it.

You ultimately need a balance of both. It's highly implied the Amaurotines brought about their own destruction by creating the entities you fight. The creatures that pop in do so in exactly the same way ascians use their magic, which further solidifies darkness is the power of creation and that can be chaotic and lead to destruction. On the flip side, light is a stasis; a standstill where nothing changes and nothing has a real identity. We basically saw that with Vauthry and the sin eaters.

We're both the warrior of light and the warrior of darkness, because the shard and the source have different words for the same concept, but we also are starting to understand that you really do need both. One extreme is just as bad as the other.

[SaberMaxwell]

Okay, question:

Did Ardbert rejoin with us, or did he reincarnate? I was thinking he reincarnated, because a suspiciously similar Hume boy ran up to us, excited about adventuring. Can a soul rejoin without its home shard likewise rejoining?

[BillCipher]

10characters

... people just started calling us that.

There's more to it than that.

First you need to know what astral and umbral energies are. .

So, from what I gathered:

That makes the Light the technical 'bad' force, then? Or, at least, by eorzean standard. And I feel like our character has learned nothing about balance. To that point I suppose, if the later patches writing is any good, we might see some existential questioning from our character. Maybe coming to real terms with there not really being a good or a bad guy in any situation. Or not, considering we killed Emet in the end, and solidified our ability to control and harness the Light by rejoining with Ardbert.

That said, that still doesn't work with the expansion promise of 'Becoming what we must' and 'Embracing the darkness.' The only darkness we managed to embrace was listening to Emet tell a story a few times. Heck, fighting Light with Light doesn't make sense. The title thing aside, it would have been a far better story to make a pact with Emet, allow some form of corruption in and ignore Hydie's blessing- If Dark Knight's exist, this is physically possible with the Echo- and in the end, Emet turns out to have planned for us to lose control and become overwhelmed by the corruption.

Our souls could have been reset right by Ard rejoining. There was so much potential, and having our character simply make the same mistakes and- heck, take in so much light against light that it corrupts the- is a major waste of opportunity. I wish we hadn't had to kill Emet in the end, perhaps forming a temporary pact with the Ascian might have been interesting.

I digress. I still don't see how this makes us the warrior of darkness, or how the lore or the story holds up with the claims that were made. Is there something else I'm missing in the lore, maybe? Another point of interest? Something else I could have misunderstood that made us the warrior of darkness, aside from the terrible- yes, the original ARR plot of UR THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT JUST BECAUSE wasn't great writing either, but it was forgivable for its age- excuse of 'You're the warrior of darkness because we said so?'

Heck, it's even heavily implied that we were Emet's best friend that betrayed him. Likely we invented and summoned Hydie. If that's not the top tier WoL and nothing to do with darkness, I have no idea what is. Help?

I really want to find the will to keep playing, but I'm just so disappointed.

[Zackneifein]

Actually you know what the Ascians remind me of now?

The Great Beings from Bionicle. Both were immortal sage rulers of their world, created many lifeforms, and when their planet was about to be destroyed they made a godlike being who could save it.

Well, no need to go this far :

The Ancient from Final Fantasy III, they caused of Flood of Light and created at the same time the Cloud of Darkness, The Lunarians from Final Fantasy IV, ultimate race of magician and Lost Civilization, Terrarian from Final Fantasy IX, supremly advanced civilization able to create life from Magic. It's a common thing in Final Fantasy

Okay, question:

Did Ardbert rejoin with us, or did he reincarnate? I was thinking he reincarnated, because a suspiciously similar Hume boy ran up to us, excited about adventuring. Can a soul rejoin without its home shard likewise rejoining?

For me he obviously rejoin us. He could not have been reincarnated since the young boy is a young boy... not a new born baby. It was just a good way to say goodbye to Ardbert.

About the Light / Darkness :

First it's not because a surabondance of Light is a bad thing that the Light is bad, and the same thing for the Darkness. Ardbert said it to us a long time ago already.
About the potential of a temporary pact with Ascian, sorry but it doesn't make sense. They want the death of the vast majority of lifeform from the Source, if not the totallity. It would be a great change, according to the Darkness way, but would it be a good thing ? I don't think so.

WoL and WoD are titles. The title of an Eorzean Hero and of the one who will bring back the night in the First. But if one of those is our true nature, it's WoL. It's Hydaelyn benediction that helped us against the Sin Eater. It's Hydaelyn benediction that stopped the Flood of Light. And it's Zodiark chosen that brought the Flood of the First.

[Alleo]

The problem with your theory....

is that you're assuming that no matter what a Calamity MUST happen for all Shards to fuse into one Planet. However, I am saying that it maybe possible that later in the story we find a way to fuse all shards into one world without a Calamity thus creating this new world where the lands of the remain shards become part of this world without overlapping one another's existance.

Of course the different shards will bring with them the countless different cultures and conflict will appear but that is part of the cost just like discovering a new Continent that has its own Civilization with their own belief and cultures.

Well it remains speculations no matter what

I could also say that the problem with your theory is, that its kinda a fairytail or miracle solution to it. That somehow we suddenly find a way (and are powerful enough) to put all the shards together without sacrifice. I find that in the story that they are trying to tell to be of very low chance and I dont really understand why we would even need that? Let the shards exists on their own. The only reason the ascians seemingly even want them to be back is because of wanting their death race back. Why would we need a merge? One new continent that is discovered would already create conflict, but here we are talking about whole worlds. Of course you can have your theory, but I really doubt that this is the end goal. Not when we are fighting for us to stay how we are. Not when we are in the story quite fine with the way our souls are right now. Unlike the Ascians we dont care if we are not "perfect". I think this might just end more with us gaining a complete understanding and us making sure that the worlds will be save.

About Hydaelyn

Imo, I don't think Hydaelyn has evil intentions despite being possibly a primal. We know from the Gobu storyline that the primals will take on the emotions of their summoner. If the summoner has pure intention, then it's possible for a primal to be born with just good intentions. Ramuh is one example, he was self conscious that he would be threatening the very land he was summoned into to protect.

I think so too:

Seeing how she was summoned as a enemy to Zodiark and from people that were against sacrifices and wanting to leave the reign to the future generation I honestly doubt that she is bad. She might not be perfectly good either but all her reactions until now have shown someone that lets us live our lifes and only acts as an reaction to the Ascians. Her own words are "hear, feel, think" which are more to the side of freedom and free will and "answers" shows that she does not understand why we continue to fight among ourselves. So just because she might not have told 100% the truth (as in her coming after Zodiark) does not mean that she has bad intentions. I mean Urianger likes to keep things to himself too and did not even explain to us the danger of taking in all the light..heck he even lied about seeing the future...yet I would dare and say that he is not a bad man. Someone on reddit made a nice post that maybe her being summoned was under the view of freedom and life unlike Zodiark which needed sacrifice. It kinda fits with her actions. I mean she only took Minfilia when nothing else was working.

Okay, question:

Did Ardbert rejoin with us, or did he reincarnate? I was thinking he reincarnated, because a suspiciously similar Hume boy ran up to us, excited about adventuring. Can a soul rejoin without its home shard likewise rejoining?

I think he rejoined with us. He was a shard of our soul and him rejoining with us gave us the power to withstand the light thus not turning into a monster. Later he is seen walking at the same place we are so I took this as him being part of us now. It would also be a bit strange to have him be the boy because that would make him an Ascian that took over someone else because everyone is already born with their own soul thus it cant be him. The boy was probably just there to show us how we give hope to the next generation, greating more adventurers that will take care in the realm even if we are not there anymore.

Edit: Is it just on my side or is the forum not function correctly? I have the reload the page a lot of times until I can even answer a post..and the likes appear and disappear all the time. x)

[Lauront]

On Zenos and the below...

I can only agree. He's just not an interesting character. There's not much room for further background and depth, as with the Ascians, and he just comes across as someone whose only defining trait is being powerful... solely to fit a plot device regarding domination of the two Primals. I say "plot device" because you roundly defeated him earlier on - so why should Elidibus struggle, when he could at the least contend with the same you who earlier defeated Zenos? Particularly when we saw what one of these guys is really capable of when at the zenith of their powers and, unlike Lahabrea, did not body hop non stop... there's just no consistency. Yeah, they can pull out justifications and say "...but X was different", doesn't make it any less contrived beyond a certain point.

Seems like they'll just go down the route that the Resonance is even mightier than the Echo and he's had time to refine it whilst dead... okay, but it's about as interesting as Rei in the new SW films, which is to say not at all. He'll want you to dominate Hydaelyn so you can battle it out as gods, but when you refuse, he'll probably just try gobble her up himself. You could just as well have positioned an Ascian to do this. They have boxed in Zenos in a way where it is exceedingly difficult to give him anything more compelling than being a bored brat, whatever the 'metanarratives' around his character. They don't alter the fact that he lacks any depth. This would be like a Zenos version of Innocence. I'm sure he'll be a fun fight. I just hope they find a way to build him up a bit better.

This isn't the end of the world, but you can see it from here...

I think Zenos has cemented himself as our Endgame for this story...and he's done so with the most FF villain plot that has ever FF Villained a villain plot! He seeks to devour a god...and not just because power, but because he wants US to devour a god TOO...so that THEN, only after we've both devoured a god's power, can we truly fight how he wants. I fully expect Elidibus is gonna succeed in freeing Zodiark just long enough to be hoisted by his own petard and Zenos kills him and eats the Zodiark...at which point we're in a full on "World of Ruin" situation unless we devour a Hydaelyn, which we probably won't do because it would be just that much worse...will be likely complete with a flesh tower, a Zenos worshipping cult of nihilism, and a very bored Zenos constantly throwing tantrums because we won't "play" with him how he wants...

more Zenos talk

It's not that I'm surprised Zenos is prominent, it's that I think he's one-note and boring, and I also really don't like the frenemy thing he keeps pushing. Especially after how good Emet-Selch was, I really really don't want to deal with someone I actively dislike as a character again. Especially not if he's going to be the endboss of the patch cycle.

I really think he should have stayed dead after 4.0.

Zenos thoughts.

Hated him in SB. He was a dull one note character, and his disinterest in the war kind of cheapened both liberation stories for me, making it feel like they were only possible because the guy in charge didn't give a crap. And his first two boss fights were not imposing or intimidating. They were tedious. Giving a boss massive hp to whittle down a fraction of while giving him easy to deal with mechanics and then a scripted 'you lose' ending does not make a boss feel powerful, it makes them feel annoying.

In SB's patches I thought the direction Zenos was going in was potentially interesting but he's just reclaimed his body already now? It felt a bit rushed and if it's now just back to hunting the WOL for him I think they'll struggle to make him interesting, especially post Emet-Selch.

[Theodric]

Regarding Zenos:

It all comes back to Yoshi-P stating that he wouldn't be a character who we would sympathise with. I don't like him either - Regula, Varis and Gaius all have depth and nuances to them yet two of them are now gone. I'm glad that neither Regula or Varis were turned into cackling villains, at least. Gaius intrigues me and he has due cause to take the fight to Zenos himself and try to stop Garlemald from breaking apart too heavily. Yet Zenos doesn't feel like a character so much as a plot device. He'll kill anyone who gets in his way according to his own words.

...except he didn't do that. He had multiple opportunities to kill the likes of Y'shtola and Lyse during Stormblood. Yet the only person he killed of real consequence is his own father. Emet-Selch had compelling motivations. Zenos doesn't - and I find myself dreading our next encounter with him.

He'll need to somehow become more powerful than ever before. Yet what will he do at that point? I'm hoping he abandons Garlemald and travels to the First so that we can deal with him as the 4.3 boss. He's already overstaying his welcome and I can't see how he'll become more compelling.

I also do not want him to outlive Elidibus.

[Alleo]

About Zenos:

I dont need every person in the game to have nuance, that would not be realistic at all because even in real life you will have people being horrible just because they can. Yet in that way they did give him some points to show why he got that way, which includes his childhood but the character right now is just simply boring. He was fine for Stormblood, but I am not sure if I like him being part of the future story.

[Theodric]

More Zenos:

Zenos' childhood isn't to blame for him becoming that way. He wasn't written to be a sympathetic character by Yoshi-P's own words. His father called him exactly what he is - a spoiled prince. He had access to things that others could only dream of and it still wasn't enough since he considered himself better than his peers and was in a perpetual state of boredom until he crossed paths with the Warrior of Light. He's a complete and utter sociopath/psychopath. He doesn't care about anything beyond his hunt.