New Revelations: Time Shenanigans

[Iscah]

Exarch's last line of 5.0 is "This is no time to be sleeping, G'raha Tia!" and it comes after a long interior monologue in which he realizes his dream is within reach but he can't journey to the Source himself. I think there's only one real interpretation for that. He's also vague enough about his origins if you haven't done CT, such that Source!G'raha could simply be treated as if he was sealed in beforehand without changing too much (though he would presumably still know Krile).

From everything I've seen of how the game handles optional stories, Estinien is the one exception to the rule - and if they're going to make further exceptions then we really should have Unukalhai involved in the MSQ by now.

Estinien is also in a different kind of situation, because he is essentially in the same state at the start and end of the dragoon questline, while G'raha is drastically changed.

Also if you watch the default (no CT progress) version of the Exarch's conversation with Urianger, there's a line where he says that the WoL hasn't met G'raha yet, which is why he's keeping his identity concealed so that first meeting between us won't be "soured" by the events he intends to happen here. If they were going to mess with their usual approach to the timeline and say "Crystal Tower has happened even if you didn't play it" then it would make more sense to do it there.

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On the "no time to be sleeping, G'raha Tia!" line... I did start writing about that last night but I felt like it was maybe a bit off-topic since I do have a different, non-time-travely interpretation for that - since I was working from the starting assumption that he can't be let out of the tower in the present day, so I tried to think what else he could mean.

I actually think it could be more metaphorical, especially if you consider his comments post-MSQ:

[Menu: What would you like to do?]
> Call him G'raha Tia.

CRYSTAL EXARCH
...!
How strangely that name rings to the ears. Long as I have been the Crystal Exarch, it has ceased to be an act. This is very much who I am now.
Yet when you speak to me as the young man I once was, he cannot help but stir within.
And the old days come flooding back. The days when we sought the truth of this tower together...
You were an inspiration to me then. Though I did not think it possible, you have become even more of an inspiration to me now.

So we can gather that, even though of course G'raha and the Exarch are the same person, he perceives them as different identities from different parts of his life - and he has been the Exarch for a hundred years now, with his 'real' identity left long behind and unable to be used, apparently all so he can keep it a secret from us when we finally arrive!

With his long mission over, it seems that at last he feels like he can be himself at least a little more. He returns to the Crystarium with his face unhidden, and doesn't have to maintain his "mysterious sage" persona like he did before.

So after all this time, G'raha Tia - his younger, passionate personality - is finally able to 'wake up' and exist again.

I'm not sure if it's stretching a little, but I think it makes more sense than him trying to call to his physical past self who is in stasis in another plane of reality.



Also I copied out his monologue from the farewell scene.

When I was a boy, many long years ago, I yearned to stand tall as the heroes of eld.
But like a fool seeking to pluck the stars from the heavens, my every attempt to reprise their deeds fell short...
And then one day, an all but forgotten dream from my youth stood before me, in the flesh.
A hero who looked to the horizon and beyond, and saw I knew not what.
All I knew was that I would give anything to stand at that hero's side.

*we pass through the portal. He reaches out to touch it, but is zapped by it*

CRYSTAL EXARCH
Would that it were so easy...
The glory of the heavens was ever beyond the grasp of those who never thought to reach for it. But if I have gained anything from all this, it is the courage to stretch out my hand.
Do you hear me, G'raha Tia? This is no time for sleeping!

Everything else seems to reflect his experience at the current point in time - he aspires to stand by the hero he remembers from long ago in his youth, and has courage now that he didn't possess before.

Waking up young G'raha in the tower wouldn't achieve that aspiration for the Exarch as we know him - it would just create a split timeline.

I take it as a sign he'll be continuing to have an active role in the patch quests, and maybe we'll finally get to go on an adventure together where he doesn't have to conceal his identity from us, and he can just enjoy it.