What caused Eorzeans to lose their memory of the 7th Umbral Calamity?

[Anonymoose]

When I saw there were already numerous replies to this thread, I braced myself for at least one person being utterly convinced that the fuzzy memory was "confirmed" to be because everyone had just had their souls rejoined with a sundered shard from the Seventh Reflection, lol. (Sometimes the surprises are pleasant!)

I'm with Enkidoh; at the time, I don't think anyone thought it was much deeper than "plot contrivance handwaved with aetherial craziness". Could they go back and connect new writing to that and try to retroactively explain it? Sure! It could even be something to do with the soul shenanigans, I suppose. But even this whole, "Now the Warrior of Light is confirmed to be 9/14ths of their true self!" is making me hold my chocobos. What happened to the Lifestream being an unstoppable soul blender? How many exceptions are there? I need more information.

For the time being, though, it does just look like being at Ground Zero for the Seventh Umbral Calamity + the site of Louisoix's spell and the battle between Phoenix and Bahamut is plenty to mess with your mind a bit.

What bothers me is that if you're not a legacy character, what happened to the original heroes?

Going by Una Tayuun, they just re-emerged somewhere else and are doing something else. They're still Warriors of Light, just not Hydaelyn's Champion.

Canonically even if you are not a legacy player, you're still one of them. They just never retconned it into the actual script, it was retconned in *later* after the script was written.

People can write their own personal backstory however they want, but "canonically" is a strong word. Strictly speaking, if you didn't get the opening where you appear in front of Amdapor Keep, you weren't sent away from Carteneau by Louisoix. If you don't have the Mark of the Twelve tattoo, you weren't there at all. You were recently woken to the Echo on a carriage or a boat when the story started. Those two stories just eventually converge at becoming Hydaelyn's Champion.

[redheadturk]

This is according to the developers, so I used canonically due to that.

[Jandor]

But even this whole, "Now the Warrior of Light is confirmed to be 9/14ths of their true self!" is making me hold my chocobos. What happened to the Lifestream being an unstoppable soul blender? How many exceptions are there? I need more information.

Is there some line I missed that's leading people to assume we're 9/14 instead of 2/14?

It seems a bit of a leap to assume that just because a shard merged with the source that the separate chunk of WoL soul from that shard automatically sought out and merged with the source WoL.

[MrThinker]

Is there some line I missed that's leading people to assume we're 9/14 instead of 2/14?

It seems a bit of a leap to assume that just because a shard merged with the source that the separate chunk of WoL soul from that shard automatically sought out and merged with the source WoL.

As for whether or not we have the worth of '8/14' of an Ancient's soul before the end of 5.0, Emet himself states that we have been '7 times rejoined'. In the scene at the bottom of the Ladder, he basically says that souls on the Source do benefit with some sort of reinforcement from the Rejoinings, and that the survivors of all the Rejoinings would be 'equal to' the Ascians.
In further reference to the 'shards' that have rejoined us being the shards of our original self's soul, Hythlodeaus says that our (& Ardbert's) soul colour is very distinct (and implied unique) and have the same 'hue'. If we just had random soul shards spliced onto ours, I doubt it would be the exact same as Ardberts' because then we'd no longer be 'the same person'.

Put more succinctly:
i) Emet calls us 7 times rejoined.
ii) Emet claims that the survivors of the Final Rejoining would be 'equal' to the Ascians, meaning that soul reinforcment does occur, and that we have 8/14 of an Ancient's soul by 2.0
iii) Ardbert is a shard of our soul, having the same 'soul colour'. In order for our 'soul colour' to remain the same after 7 other shards have merged onto it implies that the shards were also of the same colour. Ardbert rejoins us, so 8/14 becomes 9/14.

[Rannie]

Also add in the fact that when you first meet Ardbert within the inn at the Crystarium, he specifically mentions being drawn there and to that room (english version). Soooooooo yeah I dont see that its hard for the other shards of the WoL to seek them out and merge together. Especially if said soul is still in the lifestream and what not.

[Jandor]

Put more succinctly:
i) Emet calls us 7 times rejoined.
ii) Emet claims that the survivors of the Final Rejoining would be 'equal' to the Ascians, meaning that soul reinforcment does occur, and that we have 8/14 of an Ancient's soul by 2.0
iii) Ardbert is a shard of our soul, having the same 'soul colour'. In order for our 'soul colour' to remain the same after 7 other shards have merged onto it implies that the shards were also of the same colour. Ardbert rejoins us, so 8/14 becomes 9/14.

Fair enough, that does all seem fairly conclusive.

[Sathona]

Fair enough, that does all seem fairly conclusive.

Id like to add Hythlodaeus is also able to see Ardbert and he literally says his and our soul were once one

[Jandor]

Id like to add Hythlodaeus is also able to see Ardbert and he literally says his and our soul were once one

Yeah I remember that bit, thought it was quite neat, especially the voiced WoL near the end. Just wondering when the confirmation for the other 7 bits of soul was.

[Bright-Flower]

I wonder if there was a bug or something when I did ARR. Because some of the lines from Cid when he got his memory back and comments from people post Pratorium made it sound like they were remembering my character as a 1.0 WOL, but I didn't make my account until well after 2.0.

[Rannie]

Did he specifically say he remembered you the isle and Van Darius and how he thought you had ended it all that day?