Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[Scintilla]

Emet Selch himself showed exactly what Hydaelyn did when he was explaining it in SHB when he created that clone of Ryne. That didnt involve killing her.

He says, "if she were to strike you," while looking at Ryne and then snaps his fingers. A second Ryne materializes right next to her. "Two individual, identical in appearance, yet reduced in all respects. Strength , intelligence, the soul itself- all is halved."

Which by the way before that he states plainly that she was summoned to enervate him.

Enervate: cause (someone) to feel drained of energy or vitality; weaken.

Return to Eulmore in the journal

Whilst I know which cutscene you're referring to, could it be considered with complete certainty to be an exact replication of what may have happened? Or just a simple illustration to accompany Emet's story? As you know, Ryne herself wasn't affected in any way because it was only a demonstration. Hence, any after effects that may have applied had it been true wouldn't have been depicted. For example, if sundering had caused the individual to lose their memory or undergo an entire personality change, it wouldn't have been shown; True Ryne would still maintain her own personality because she wasn't sundered. The second Ryne would only depict identical looks, not any hidden effects. We would have to rely on Emet's description and, whilst he listed one or two effects, he couldn't realistically list everything.

I wish we knew more...

[Rannie]

An illustration can still correctly reenact something that happens. Remember he was alive when the events took place. He saw the effect it had. He does say that no one remembered what happened to Amaurot and the lives they held before hand, but that took time for it to fade.

It was shown that their memories weren't completely destroyed, did they remember every single tiny detail I doubt it but then let me ask you this do you remember every tiny detail of your life? I sure dont. Btw the proof about remembering is shown at the end of the Qitana Ravel. Someone had to make those cave drawings and during that Emet even said that over time their memories faded not that it happened as soon as the sundering occured.

Btw he didnt need to include all the effects he summed everything up when he said everything was halved. You honestly can not get anything else from him saying "All [ sic ] is halved"

[Elladie]

An illustration can still correctly reenact something that happens. Remember he was alive when the events took place. He saw the effect it had. He does say that no one remembered what happened to Amaurot and the lives they held before hand, but that took time for it to fade.

It was shown that their memories weren't completely destroyed, did they remember every single tiny detail I doubt it but then let me ask you this do you remember every tiny detail of your life? I sure dont. Btw the proof about remembering is shown at the end of the Qitana Ravel. Someone had to make those cave drawings and during that Emet even said that over time their memories faded not that it happened as soon as the sundering occured.

Btw he didnt need to include all the effects he summed everything up when he said everything was halved. You honestly can not get anything else from him saying "All [ sic ] is halved"

I see. So Ryne was split into fourteen (as an example) but the original Ryne didn't change in any way except that she became physically weaker? She kept all her memories? So the other thirteen Rynes that suddenly appeared on thirteen shards, did they have her memories too? Why weren't the memories split if - as you say Emet said - all were 'halved'? Surely that means memories, intelligence, everything? How are any of these people still Ryne if everything that made them Ryne has been divided by fourteen? If the original Ryne remembers everything, as do all the thousands of other original entities, why don't they write down what happened, teach it to their children and grandchildren so it doesn't get forgotten? Why doesn't it become the supremely important thing EVERYONE has to remember?

As I recall, even Hydaelyn's existence has become forgotten for the most part, as have the Ascians, and Zodiark is completely gone. The cave paintings in the temple never have their origin explained, and that has always bothered me. Knowing where these came from would go a long way to answering a lot of questions. How do we know an Ascian didn't make them? How do we know someone didn't make them after being told 'an old legend' by an Ascian? We don't ....

People have talked about Emet Selch's total disregard for anything and anyone else, but this is not how I remember him. I remember him repeatedly expressing his wish that the WoL doesn't fail this time, that they prove strong enough. I remember him repeatedly raging that mortals aren't fit to be stewards of 'this star' because of their failures and wars and so on. Yes, he dismissed mortal races as useless but at the same time he very much seemed to want the WoL to prove they were NOT useless. I have no idea what he would have done if we had shown ourselves strong enough to contain the light because of course we weren't strong enough.

He was a very tortured character who, I think, only endured as long as he did because he'd been tempered. I think he would have given up long before if not for that. He was seeking to recover the people and the city he loved, and his tempering used that to drive him. At the end, after our blade of light tore through him, it felt to me as though his tempering faltered, and he died as himself, no longer bitter and driven by hatred but seeking only that Amaurot be remembered.

Dismissing him as a genocidal maniac, end of story, seems very much to be missing the whole point of him. I readily admit I've never been a willing member of Team Hydaelyn, my WoL has always fought battles for other people, for friends, and so on. She doesn't like being used by any kind of external power, even if it is a deity. So she's happy to think Hydaelyn is no better than any other player in this aeons long game. No worse, either, of course. I'm not casting Her as the villain. She feels more to me like a computer program that started running a bit wonky as soon as its creator died.

[Rannie]

Eladie, who's to say that nothing was written down? For the source and especially in Eorzea which was ground zero for EVERY single Calamity that the Ascians what could have possible survived intact. Memories again fade over time which Emet said so himself again. And if something has been destroyed repeatedly and having to be constantly rebuilt, you start finding it harder and harder to keep things as a reminder. Also oral tradition isn't the most reliable way to hand things down either. Have you ever played the game called telephone?

The premises of the game is to get a group of people together in a circle or a line which ever you want and whisper to one person a random phrase. They then in turn whisper it to the next and so on and so forth until it gets to the very last person. Once they hear what is said to them they speak it aloud. It is NEVER exactly as it was said by the first person. Usually there's a good laugh.

Hell a perfect example that I'm going to bring up again is the covenant between Midgardsormer and Hydaelyn. It went from her making a one with him to (at one point I thought it was just a goddess of the 12) to two of the twelve forming that covenant with him. (the quest that the keeper of the lake dungeon is in)

Emet Selch straight up and said that the beings on that star were nothing fragments monstrosities and not even considered to be alive (again Return to Eulmore) and that he had absolutely no compuncture when it came to killing them.

You also seem to be forgetting that the WoL is a sundered Ancient whome he actually recognized also he only decided to form an alliance with them after he realized that our character came to the first to stop a rejoining. Which he kinda does go on a tangent about us killing lightwardens Willy nilly [ sic ]. He was also so very much wanting to use us (maybe some small altruism on that but in his words he's still an ascian and still doing what he can to cause a rejoining) .

I dont see him as tortured, sympathetic yes for him carrying with the same grief for thousands of years and letting it consume him for all this time. I understand his loss completely having just lost my mother last year, but would I go about trying to bring her back the same way he is doing it for his people if I were in his position too.... no I wouldn't because the cost is too high and there is no guarantee that she herself would be the same.

Hell I doubt Zodiark would even be able to bring back Emet's lost people the way he wants him to. I'm kinda getting a sinking suspicion that it may end up being just like when Lakshmi brought back that Snake woman's dead daughter to life. An empty husk.

[Scintilla]

An illustration can still correctly reenact something that happens. Remember he was alive when the events took place. He saw the effect it had. He does say that no one remembered what happened to Amaurot and the lives they held before hand, but that took time for it to fade.

It was shown that their memories weren't completely destroyed, did they remember every single tiny detail I doubt it but then let me ask you this do you remember every tiny detail of your life? I sure dont. Btw the proof about remembering is shown at the end of the Qitana Ravel. Someone had to make those cave drawings and during that Emet even said that over time their memories faded not that it happened as soon as the sundering occured.

Btw he didnt need to include all the effects he summed everything up when he said everything was halved. You honestly can not get anything else from him saying "All [ sic ] is halved"

It's not that I'm doubting the accuracy of Emet's knowledge of events, rather whether he told us everything. Whether his description of sundering included absolutely everything there was to tell or whether it was only an overview of effects. The illustration did compliment his description of what happened but, as I said, it was only a visual depiction. It showed a physical double. It couldn't show non-physical differences, such as intelligence, memory, personality etc.. We only learnt intelligence was affected because it was amongst the differences named by Emet; we couldn't see it purely from the illustration alone. Are there any other non-visual effects that he didn't name in his summary?

The Ancients appeared to have suffered enough in the 'final days' and I would hope that you're right and the the story doesn't involve anybody having died in the sundering. Unfortunately, I'm pessimistic! I can't imagine how one individual can be divided into 14, with every characteristic that identifies them affected, and still remain the same person.

[Edax]

People have talked about Emet Selch's total disregard for anything and anyone else, but this is not how I remember him. I remember him repeatedly expressing his wish that the WoL doesn't fail this time, that they prove strong enough. I remember him repeatedly raging that mortals aren't fit to be stewards of 'this star' because of their failures and wars and so on. Yes, he dismissed mortal races as useless but at the same time he very much seemed to want the WoL to prove they were NOT useless. I have no idea what he would have done if we had shown ourselves strong enough to contain the light because of course we weren't strong enough.

The people Emet sees as lesser beings, not ones even worthy to be "alive", managed to achieve what the Ascians could not: time travel to save their society. Emet's flaw is that he put too much stock into the "power" of individuals. Because the Warrior of Light lacked the raw power to meet his standards, he dismissed him/her. If he had just cooperated with the WoL, had learned from G'raha Tia, he would have his happy ending.

Dismissing him as a genocidal maniac, end of story, seems very much to be missing the whole point of him.

He was a genocidal maniac. He had already committed genocide and despite options being available to him to stop, he continued. While this is not the whole story, it is also something that cannot be ignored.

[Cilia]

Dismissing [Emet-Selch] as a genocidal maniac, end of story, seems very much to be missing the whole point of him. I readily admit I've never been a willing member of Team Hydaelyn, my WoL has always fought battles for other people, for friends, and so on. She doesn't like being used by any kind of external power, even if it is a deity. So she's happy to think Hydaelyn is no better than any other player in this aeons long game. No worse, either, of course. I'm not casting Her as the villain. She feels more to me like a computer program that started running a bit wonky as soon as its creator died.

One of the points of Shadowbringers was, admittedly, humanizing the Ascians - showing that they do have understandable reasons for their actions, even if their means and ends are still diametrically opposed to our own. Emet-Selch may not have fit the stereotypical definition of "maniac," but I would argue that his mania was simply more subdued than usual. He recreated a near-perfect replica of his old hometown to live in, so devoted was he. Emet-Selch's demeanor may have been restrained, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a maniac... and as for the genocidal bit? Well, he was responsible for the Third and Seventh Calamities, and were it not for Crystal Exarch G'raha's intervention, would have been responsible for yet another.

The issue with "not liking Hydaelyn" is that it's ultimately irrelevant that she acts as our patron "goddess." All of the things she "tasks" us with are things we would have done anyway - again, look at Shadowbringers. We have had no real guidance or even contact with Hydaelyn since her falsified account of how her conflict with Zodiark started back in, what... 3.3? Yet everything we've done, entirely of our own volition, has played into her plans. The whole thing with Ardbert was a gambit by Hydaelyn to save the First and take out Emet-Selch, and without knowing this we did just that.

I don't even think Hydaelyn's acting in a rogue manner deviating from her "programming," so to speak. Her only known directives are to "ensure the new lives newly born inherit the planet" and "ensure those selfsame new lives aren't sacrificed to Zodiark." Exactly how she was to achieve those tasks was not specified, and given that Zodiark would have been orders of magnitude stronger than her would require drastic actions to fulfill those directives. Eons later she is still doing exactly what she was created to do.

[Rannie]

I wouldn't go so far to say she falsified her conflict between zodiark and herself. What keeps coming to my mind for it was more of a Return of the Jedi thing when Luke jumped Obiwan about saying Vader betrayed and murdered his father and Kenobi responding that what he told him was true... from a certain point of view.

I mean all that she told is was at one point she and Zodiark where one they split he was evil and they fought. She had to split him (from what I can remember from what was said in Word of Mother at work so it may be a little off) across 10 and 3 shards and then seal the rest of him on the moon. Now shes trying to keep him from being released and she had already failed in doing that 7 times already.

I dont know if they summoned Hydaelyn from a part of Zodiark or not but we can go from a certain point of view on this with how the ancients were of one mind at one point but then diverged. *shrugs* the rest seems kind of on par. I will say i do agree that Lucy has got some more splaining to do. Because the whole certain point of view angle loses its kick after a while.

[Alleo]

It's been three months since I finished ShB, and there is still one thing no one has been able to explain satisfactorily during all these back-and-forth discussions.

Why is it okay for Hydaelyn to have ended the existence of everything on the Source by splitting it into fourteen bits but not okay for Emet Selch to end the existence of all those bits by bringing them back (rejoining) them into their original form? I am struggling to see how these two acts differ.

If separating them isn't killing them, how is rejoining them killing them, to put in another way?

We dont know what splitting did at that time but I doubt it killed the people. Why? Because you need people alive to even have future races. Nobody there to reproduce would kinda mean that nobody would be born. Thus they must have survived. (Also there is the cave painting which shows that people did survive otherwise who would have painted that?) It could be that it simply took away the memories or it could be that the people remembered but thanks to their power being split they could not do anything and only over time did the past die.

So as long as we dont know for sure how that part happened we cant just say it was that bad or not. But I doubt it killed. Rejoining is something different because the souls existed splitted at that part and to rejoin again one part of the soul has to give itself up. So they need to die.

Emet also did not want to just bring life back together. He stated ingame that if everything is rejoined (and suddenly they should all be living beings again even in his view) they still plan to sacrifice that life to maybe get the ancient ones back. It was never the plan to just stop there.

We know that they had planned to sacrifice ‘life’ to Zodiark to resurrect the sacrificed Ancients, but we don’t know exactly what that life consisted of; Did they intend to sacrifice people? Had they intended to sacrifice animals? Or plant life? Or both?

Yes we dont know exactly and it could be that they included animal life in that too but there are some things ingame and in the short story that gives us further hints:

-Hythlo mentions that a part of their race wanted to give the planet to the new life and later Emet says that the spoken races cant be trusted with the planet: This imo makes me doubt that we are talking about plants or common animals. You would not talk about giving something in the hand of lifeforms that cant even act on their own and Emets words do fit with it being sapient life.
- The short story makes it clear that they only see things with souls as truly alive. Thus why they could grind their creations into crystals without any remorse. Yes animals can develop a soul but we never saw a normal plant ever have one and even most beasts seems to not have one (especially since a lot of our beasts are their creation too). So if he talks about the new life then for me it makes sense that he is talking about life with a soul.
- Zodiark needed an unknown amount of Amaurotines souls to exist and then later rebuilt the planet. We know that these ancient beings are immensly powerful. Why would Zodiark exchange a soul for a couple of plants especially if they dont even have souls? No imo they needed at least something with a bit of power which is probably why ancient ones were against it...for just one single ancient soul you would probably still need huge amount of other lifeforms with souls.
- There is also not a single hint imo in the game that hints towards it just being plants. Heck them just needing plants would have been a great solution..just take a bit of land and grow some trees on it and then later chop them down..I mean we do something similar to this to get wood.

[Rannie]

I'm wondering how did the Ascians leap to the conclusion that Zodiark would be able to bring back the 75% of the ancients that sacrificed their lives and souls to Zodiark to stop a calamity and bring new life back to the planet. Are they seeing this as some sort of Rhea and Kronos baby God eating scenario? Wouldn't those souls/aether have been used up in the process or am I just over thinking the aetherial digestive system of a primal?