Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[Milea]

Implications regarding the shards and souls

Do you think Unukalhai is our soul split on the Thirteenth like Ardbert was on the First, and that\\'s why Elidibus saved him?

Regarding your question

I think anyone who has echo is a shard of someone from ancient Amourat.

That is:
Minfillia
Arenvald
Krile
Unukalhai

That Emet said we aren\\'t even life to him spreaks volumes about who Unuk must be.
An ascian saving a person means they regard them as life. That means they are part of Amourat.

He could be part of us, or part of someone else.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Was there ever any touching upon the fact that the statues in Ampador had an uncanny resemblance to some of the sin eaters?

I'd say we could probably chalk that up to the weirdness of time between the Source and First, except that the timeflow doesn't ever seem to flow backwards like it would need to for Amdapor to see the eaters.

Maybe we'll get an Amdapor (Even Harder) mode that will go into it in a patch. Or maybe some ancient Amdapori just had a vision of the future.

[Chewy2nd]

If you speak to Moren after completing the MSQ

You can tell him about Ardbert and his friends and he says he will amend the history about them

[Milea]

One interesting revelation on primala.

Thanks to Bismark, we glean something interesting.

It suggests many primals aren't just ideas but actualized on one of the 14 worlds.

Thag is, Ifrit might be a real fire creature somewhere out there.

The myths might passively reside in the minds of beings from before the world was split apart.

Of course, some primals are just creations of the past like Shiva, King Mog or Thordan.

But others like Bismark may be referencing an entity on another world.

[Alleo]

Did the three quests in Amaurot to unlock flying:

They are really interesting.

The first one shows that they cant just create anything they want (even if they could) and have to let it be checked by certain people. And only if them allow they can do it. They can also leave the ideas there for others to use them. In a way this is great because this controls such a immense power but at the same time it also restricts the people quite a lot and could end in too much control. Funny how one NPC then give us his toys that we should try out which are creepy, talk strange and even attack us. He says that this was not intended to be this way and needs to change it. That really shows how they are able to create creatures that can be harmful and are far from perfect.

The second one is about what we are wearing. It was interesting to see that we are seemingly children to them and that they dont seem to care about our race which kinda might hint that they already existed there? The NPC does not like that we are wearing our own creation and wants us to wear robes just like everyone else does because its horrible to be so proud of ones own creation. I find this to be quite surprising. So they are allowed to create something but not show it around too much and at the same time have to wear what everyone else wears..that really puts down individuality quite a bit and I am not sure if I would like living there. Also the woman who should get us the proper robe does not have one and seemingly created a combined creature because she was not paying attention for a second towards it..she even says that adults make mistakes which hints that they are really not that different from us but a mistake her might have quite the big consequences.

The third one was about discussions. Seemingly they love to discuss even without finding a solution. The discussion was about helping other cities where the catastrophes are already at the door..one was for helping them but not because of the people but more because of being able to create something new that might solve the problem..and that these people who are under attack have no right to be the only ones to do that. I found that really shocking and it kinda shows that maybe they were not that great in some places and it gives ground to the idea that they only summoned Zodiark when they were under attack not caring about the rest of the world that much. The other NPC was against helping, that these people should solve the problem on their own.

In the end only those three quests alone (in the german version at least) hit home that maybe not all was that great there and that they were more than able to create all those horrible creatures themselves. They are not perfect and seemingly dont want to have people showing individuality..which was hinted thanks to them wearing their titles instead of their names.

On that...

My problem with the childhood justifications is that they add little. They already used it for Vauthry and Livia, and it can only add so much and doesn't fundamentally shift the blame, other than serving as an excuse. One which is incapable of really doing much to colour his modus operandi. He killed his father - and the only reason was to prevent him from getting in his way in hunting you, and not for any perceived grievances against him. Plus we're just assuming he was a negligent father. However, that's besides the point. Those kind of justifications won't get much further than that, and with Zenos now into his adulthood, it's not like he'll just "see the light". Doesn't work that way with psychos.

It's more that his encounters with us, and just about everyone else, have been, as others put it, "one note" - and like Theodric said, he's not even that true to his word. With other antagonists, like the Empire, the Ascians, and others besides, there's at least lots of different ways they can manifest the pursuit of their agendas and deeper reasons behind them. As things stand, even Vauthry may end up being a better fleshed out (no puns intended) character than the princeling.

Again, given his mania with pursuing you, it makes sense that it would be he who would try hijack the two Crystals like that... let's just hope they find a way to improve how engaging he is as a character. I too would prefer he did not outlast Elidibus, yet SE do seem to have some Sephiroth-type nemesis story in mind for Zenos.

About Zenos

I am not saying that his childhood is a excuse but at least they do like to point out that nobody is truly born a monster thus even Zenos might have been different if he was raised some other place. We do not know how Varis was as a father but somehow I doubt he was a loving one. In the end its the actions we are doing right now that should be used to judge us and the past can only be used to explore on how it might have happened but without it taking down what someone did. Which is why I disliked that some saw Yotsuyu as a victim of Doma just because of her past, even though she still had a free mind and choose to be so horrible.

So yeah Zenos is a monster. And he was fine for one expansion. But I honestly hope that he will not be our true big enemy till the end..

Well there is much more going on than we originally believed due to the revelations in 5.0....

While yes, reaching a understanding and preserving what life is now with the shards would be a more direct story path, let us not kid ourselves that something in a future storyline won't force us to find a solution to create a Complete World without sacrificing lives with a Calamaity.

We yet to learn the cause of that original Calamity and I suspect the source of that Calamity will be returning in a future storyline, most likely after or during the final moments when we defeat the Ascions and Zodiark which looks like to be soon now they are down to their last Leader, to finish what it started and may not be possible to stop unless the world is complete so the world has enough strength to fight back.

The first time it happened the world did not fight back because it was considered giving up on living thus why the plan to create a actual will, being Zodiark, to fight back the Calamity was put into motion and also the lack of time to discover the source of this Calamity prevented them to find a alternate solution that will not require such large sacrifice of life.

Speaking of complete.....

I am curious how the story will progress to have our WoL gain back the remaining 5 fragments of his or her soul. The story seem to set this up as important and related to our WoL's Origins.

I think that we may begin to see visions of the Original Soul's memories later and more of it will be seen as WoL's soul becomes more complete. Though that does put into question what will become of our WoL and what effects will he or she experience other than just past life memories returning.

Well the story can go in many directions but do we even know for sure that we need to defeat Zodiark (we probably will but its not 100% sure)? If we take out the Ascians that try to summon him and then become the protector of the worlds we dont need to even kill him. His agends are gone and he is captured. We do not know everything right now but is there even a way for him to wake up without destroying the shards? His essence was splitted too, and to awake him they need to destroy the shards and combine him back into the source. If he can only rise again through that would a awake Zodiark not mean that billions of lifes are lost? Not sure if that would be the story that I want to have..especially after saving the first.

We also have barely any information on the old calamity. Amaurot was not the only city in that world, just the one with the most important people in it. Their creation magic was able to create anything but restricted by the city so that nothing harmful would come. I would not be surprised if we simply have some of the Ancient wanting to create something different thus creating monster which (as Emet told us in the dungeons) let to fear, which then created more monsters out of their magic. Maybe they just got unlucky and the planet was just under natural attack too at the same time. Or maybe its as simple as them using to much of it. They live forever and seemingly according to that one side quest even the creation of a robe for our character is out of our reach...this shows imo how weak we are but also how much magic was needed even for that. I just cant see how this would be without consequences for the aether of the planet.

I am not saying of course that your ideas must be wrong. We simply dont know and I really wonder if they go along and suddenly introduce an even worse enemy than the Ascians out of nowhere. Maybe it will be a great lesson that even those ancient ones are not truly perfect and that we can create our own demise even with the best interest in mind.

I am not sure if we ever will get complete. Maybe the end of the story will be, that its fine to not be perfect. Ardbert only was able to join us because he died and came in contact with us. So either we have to travel to all the shards and hope that they are there as ghosts or die soon. Or they are already death and the shard is rejoined with the source but then we would need to die too..because we only got the other souls because they rejoined with the source one after the calamities. I am quite sure that our character would not allow that to happen. Maybe we will learn more about our past through the echo or Elidibus but never truly return to being the one from before.

[Dualblade]

SO, some things that have been running through my head and hopefully aren't just a jumbled mess.

Starting with G'raha Exarch's past/alternate future:

We know the catalyst for the 8th Umbral Calamity is the combination of all the Light from the First being intergrated into the Source coinciding with the release of Black Rose, supercharging it and make it the most deadly biochemical warfare known even to our own world. But what isn't said is who exactly ordered the use of Black Rose. For all the talk some people have of needing to see the nuance of Varis's character most signs point to him giving the order for Black Rose's use. Whether it was a last resort born of his reluctance to bring full military might on Eorzea as Elidibus wanted or because he held back deliberately so as to kill as many as possible to help cause the Rejoining because of his own mad plan isn't known, but it was almost certainly him. Even if he was not the one to give the order he is still complicit due to restarting its production. In this latter case Elidibus was most likely the culprit, either behind Varis's back or possibly killing him and stealing his body to do so.

As well this very well may have been the worst of all Calamities. We know that the after effects of previous Calamities did lead to people warring against themselves over what they thinked caused it (example being the enmity against magic users during the Fifth Umbral Era.) But this was just a slaughter of the worse kind that was only barley avoided thanks to the help of people we most likely will never meet. In paticular is that of Biggs, eight of his line. It should be noted that this does NOT mean FutureBiggs is a descendant of the current one because (as I just looked up before typing all this up to make sure I know what I'm talking about) the first lore book states that both Biggs and Wedge are not using their real names in order to keep the Garleans from hunting there families down for them deserting. He most likely looks like Biggs as a hint to the player more then anything else.

On more character speculation, Estinien most likely never joined the war effort in this alternate future. He only starts helping due to Tataru and Krile tracking him down because they need the help with all the Scions and the WoL being unable to help out due to the First, something the alternate future version of them wouldn't have had to do. Its possible that this change currently doesn't actually change much, maybe in the alternate future Thancred was doing the same thing including teaming up with Gaius to try and stop Black Rose production, but we currently don't know and probably never will. The one thing that probably would have been near enough the same is that if we were going to lose to EldiZenos in the fight even without Exarch's interference, just after a much longer fight, he probably would have saved us anyways. And of course the alternate future proves Exarch's words true, it really doesn't matter whether we would have won or not because Black Rose would have killed us later on anyways. Personally I do still think we could have beaten EldiZenos if the Exarch hadn't cut in, but it doesn't matter in the end.

Which brings me to the next character, Zenos. In the current timeline Zenos ends up going to get his body and kills his father but he pretty much states outright that he only went to do that of his own volition because we weren't around for him to go after/watch. In the alternate timeline there he at best hung back and was content to let us fight our way to Garlemald and at that point would have went for his body, at worst he was an active thorn in our side by trying to fight us in his new body, possibly even body jumping to keep on coming after us. Regardless him not going after his father and his body allows for the use of Black Rose, something he himself doesn't seem to want to actually use. At best in the current timeline he'll keep it around as extra incentive for us to go after him and thus participate in his "hunt"

Now for something a little different lets go back to the Crystal Tower story. In paticular that of Xande...what, exactly, is the Xande we fight? Based on what we learn in SHB Emet was the creator of the Allagan Empire and thus was the original Xande, yet apparently the Xande we fight in CT was supposed to be his soul in a cloned body. My own theory is that, given that Emet never actually died Amon and the others involved in bringing Xande "back" thought they succeded when in fact they really just managed to create a new sentient person. As a result the notreallyXande thought he was, and since he had no memory in between his "death" and his "rebirth" he thought there was nothing after death when in reality it was because he couldn't have any memory of an afterlife he could in no way have been a part of. Makes his fate all the worse honestly.

And finally of things I currently remember and thus able to write down, a little on the Blessing the WoL has. Our understanding of it prior to SHB was that it allowed us to go beyond mortal limits, but now that we know more about the world, Source and Shards all, it seems that isn't about going beyond our limits so much as tapping into the power of our original self. Even at level 80 the Amaurantan shades say our power of creation is very low, showing just how far we can really go when it comes down to it. As well we most likely manage to tap into it further at certain point of the story, in particular when Hydaelyn is helping us out during the fight against Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea. As well it seems that while we and Ardbert are supposed to be part of one being that our souls are still able to be separate even after he gave us his power given he rejoins his friends in the credits. Ardbert also wasn't the only one that people have said is very similar to us, Tenzin being the other one I can think of currently.

And thats my rather long ramble in the spoilers. I have some more thoughts in regards to Hydaelyn and Zodiark but for now I'll keep them to myself. I believe 5.X patches will bring more to light in regards to them and thus I will hold off on too much speculation there till we get through at least 5.3

[SaberMaxwell]

And finally of things I currently remember and thus able to write down, a little on the Blessing the WoL has. Our understanding of it prior to SHB was that it allowed us to go beyond mortal limits, but now that we know more about the world, Source and Shards all, it seems that isn't about going beyond our limits so much as tapping into the power of our original self. Even at level 80 the Amaurantan shades say our power of creation is very low, showing just how far we can really go when it comes down to it. As well we most likely manage to tap into it further at certain point of the story, in particular when Hydaelyn is helping us out during the fight against Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea. As well it seems that while we and Ardbert are supposed to be part of one being that our souls are still able to be separate even after he gave us his power given he rejoins his friends in the credits. Ardbert also wasn't the only one that people have said is very similar to us, Tenzin being the other one I can think of currently.

And thats my rather long ramble in the spoilers. I have some more thoughts in regards to Hydaelyn and Zodiark but for now I'll keep them to myself. I believe 5.X patches will bring more to light in regards to them and thus I will hold off on too much speculation there till we get through at least 5.3

Regarding Tenzin...

A while ago I pondered the possibility of the Warrior of Light being like the Avatar--same soul reincarnated into new bodies. With that in mind we could be a reincarnation of Ajora and Tenzin, the same soul passed down through the ages. The new knowledge--that we are indeed a fragment of an Amaurotine soul (possibly one of the 14) seems to support this theory.

[dragonflie]

Regarding Tenzin...

A while ago I pondered the possibility of the Warrior of Light being like the Avatar--same soul reincarnated into new bodies. With that in mind we could be a reincarnation of Ajora and Tenzin, the same soul passed down through the ages. The new knowledge--that we are indeed a fragment of an Amaurotine soul (possibly one of the 14) seems to support this theory.

10 character limit bypass

I think Tenzin is just a different soul. He used himself to seal Koryu, so I think his soul never reincarnated in order to keep an eye on the Seal. And we know that Echo users can pretty much avoid death by body snatching or other means, so Tenzin never really passed on.

[SaberMaxwell]

10 character limit bypass

I think Tenzin is just a different soul. He used himself to seal Koryu, so I think his soul never reincarnated in order to keep an eye on the Seal. And we know that Echo users can pretty much death by body snatching or other means, so Tenzin never really passed on.

Definitely true.

I still think it's worth keeping in mind that all four of them more or less state how much we remind them of Tenzin. Suzaku, in her aramitama-stricken rage, outright confused us for Tenzin entirely. It's completely possible our soul is just that--merely similar to Tenzin's. I think everyone with the Echo is themselves a fragmented Amaurotine, so that might be where the similarities end. Its proximity to the Ivalice storyline where we learn about Ajora, and it predicating the expansion where we learn about our origins as an Amaroutine ourselves though...

Maybe I'm seeing what isn't there, but could you blame me? lol

[Dualblade]

10 character limit bypass

I think Tenzin is just a different soul. He used himself to seal Koryu, so I think his soul never reincarnated in order to keep an eye on the Seal. And we know that Echo users can pretty much death by body snatching or other means, so Tenzin never really passed on.

Splish Splash Ten Character Limit.

Multiple characters who knew Tenzin compared us to him in a way that we were compared to Ardbert in Amaurot. He probably is a previous reincarnation of the WoL/D Amaurot soul, but it does seem like there are still differences there just like their are difference between the WoL/D and Ardbert.