Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[swiss_Momo]

well, Cylva has the Echo as well, so I assume the planned course of events was this:
Ardbert strikes down Cylva, forcing him to give up on his friendship -> she uses her Echo to revive and absorbs that part -> "I now have the power of friendship and anime on my side" -> can now defeat Ardbert and his party -> first shard is now kept one step before the flood and ready for rejoining

now I'm not sure if he instead got his crystal of light by sparing her life, or by later defeating Mitron and Loghrif.

[TankHunter678]

Thank you for sharing and translating this.

It cast an interesting light on what happened, but it's still not clear how it would have worked. From what I understand, by striking the mortal blow on Cylva, Ardbert would have gotten his Light Crystal. Wouldn't that tipped the balance toward Light even further? How can Cylva win by being killed and lose by being alive? How and when did Ardbert got his Light Crystal? What triggered the flood if Cylva's plan failed?

Because Ardbert would not have gotten his crystal if he killed her. Although each WoL had to sacrifice something they did not sacrifice it completely. They overcame their moment of weakness and in doing so earned their crystals.

[Alleo]

OK, wow, this is interesting. So I just finished the final conclusive role quest playing in German, and there is a whole plot point missing in the English version.

As we know, Cylva groomed each member in Ardbert's party into becoming a WoL by having them sacrifice a part of their soul. Now what is missing in English is how Cylva secretly absorbed these parts to power up herself. This is most notably during the echo flashback were she confronts the party as the Shadowkeeper. In English she basically just repeats the "By his/her sacrifice, a warrior born!" line while going over all the party member, but in German she says this:

Good to know that this did not happen in the english version. At the start of the questline (in german) I was wondering how she could still be alive but these quests did explain it a bit. (But I am still wondering how something like that created power she could "eat") Also Ardbert not throwing away friendship still gave him his crystal so it seems that its not necessary to turn down a part of yourself to get it. (Because when she started to talk about them losing part of themselves I wondered why we never went through that)

Also in the quest its made quite clear that she wanted Arbert to "kill" her thus him throwing away this part of him but then because she was immortal she would be back and kill them. With that the flood would not happen but the first would be ready for the rejoining.

----

Another point I had about reincarnation: We know for sure that the WoL was once an Ancient one. But I do wonder, if those Ancients ones were different from the other (spoken) races why are we reborn as such a spoken race? Emet "splitting" Ryne did not result in her looking different, she looked the same but just weaker. So shouldnt Ancient ones still be Ancient ones?

I also found it interesting that most of the "soul twins" on the first do look quite a lot like their source soul. Be it the merchant or our "beloved" Rowena and Gerolt twins. Heck even Ryne looked a bit like Minfilia. Is this SEs way to say that these split souls do share the same look or at least race (which Emet shows with his Ryne split) or is it just for the laughs? But then the advertisment WoL also looks so much like Ardbert.

Again just a small point that popped up in my head.

[Iscah]

Jumping over from a different conversation about Hades because it's off-topic to that thread, and more general...

Another thing I would point out is that his second form increases in size just after his mentioning of being raised up by the prayers of his fallen brethren.

That emphasis reminds me of something I've been thinking over.

The final area has references to Shakespeare's The Tempest of course, and I've seen it described elsewhere that Emet-Selch is Prospero, creator of this illusory private kingdom.

My own familiarity with The Tempest is limited, but what I do know well is Prospero's closing speech, or rather Loreena McKennitt's song version of it. (Note the lyrics underneath have an error, the end of the first verse says "released" where it should be "confined" by both the sung lyrics and original script.)

Full 'lyrics' from the script, minus some lines not used in the song:

Now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint. Now ’tis true,
I must be here confin’d by you,
[...]
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be reliev’d by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

And my ending is despair
Unless I be relieved by prayer...

I have to wonder how deliberate the referencing is.


(I also really should replay The Dying Gasp since I only played it the one time for story, but I'm temporarily unsubbed since renewal time coincided with being busy IRL and it made sense to save a week or two of payments... but does mean I can't go and check things when I want to. Are there any other lines that would reference this?)

[Erendis]

Was not sure which topic to choose for this. Someone on reddit had an interesting idea about Crystal Exarch.

Was it confirmed that in the bad future the 1st rejoined to the source? If it did, then Crystal G'raha is also 9/14 rejoined while his 9th shard still exists on current 1st...

[Alleluia]

Was not sure which topic to choose for this. Someone on reddit had an interesting idea about Crystal Exarch.

Was it confirmed that in the bad future the 1st rejoined to the source? If it did, then Crystal G'raha is also 9/14 rejoined while his 9th shard still exists on current 1st...

Well, he might not have a shard on the first. I think discreet soul shards only apply to those with sundered Ancient souls, and we have no indication he is one. But yeah, he's got a "denser" soul than... anyone besides the unsundered Ascians, I suppose? Which is interesting. That might come in to play at some point.

[Iscah]

Was not sure which topic to choose for this. Someone on reddit had an interesting idea about Crystal Exarch.

Was it confirmed that in the bad future the 1st rejoined to the source? If it did, then Crystal G'raha is also 9/14 rejoined while his 9th shard still exists on current 1st...

Yes, the Rejoining definitely happened - that's what supercharged the effects of Black Rose and spread it far beyond the battlefield.

I don't think there's any more of a paradox to the soul shards co-existing than a 'simple' time travel plot (no dimensional travel) where there are two versions of a person existing at the same point in time.

Rejoining souls also seems to be a deliberate process outside of a dimensional rejoining, so I don't think there's any danger of G'raha Exarch accidentally absorbing G'raha Tia's ninth soul-shard... unless you're suggesting that might be something they want to do? (It's not like we intend to allow the Rejoining that would return it to him, right...?)

That still has the big moral issue that makes acquiring extra soul-shards unlikely: they're currently other people.

Also, the very hypothetical question of whether he'd even be able to claim the same soul-shard twice if he tried, or whether they'd be "unique" and he's already got that piece.

[Absimiliard]

It seems reasonable to operate under the supposition that each shard is something like one piece of the greater puzzle. Taking an identical piece out of a duplicate puzzle and trying to make it fit perfectly in the original won't work out too well, particularly if its counterpart from the original puzzle has taken its place. It could also simply be that while not necessarily a function of uniqueness, a single shard could not be absorbed more than once regardless.

If the opposite were true - if an individual could indeed absorb the same shard multiple times from different timelines - then a loop would occur that opens a can of worms I'm not entirely sure SE would want to explore. An individual crazed enough to hop timelines and kill their alternate selves repeatedly for the purpose of absorbing them could conceivably gain an immense amount of power for their efforts. One would require specialized skills and a means of traversing the timelines to pull this off, however.

[Iscah]

One would require specialized skills and a means of traversing the timelines to pull this off, however.

*has sudden horror vision of Zenos absorbing Alexander rather than Zodiark*

[Schan]

10 characters stuff yadda yadda yadda

I'm just here sitting waiting to find out if we're ever going to merge with Unukalhai or not since he is a Warrior of Light from the 13th and I theorize he might be one of our reflections. Time will tell.