Revelations from Patch 5.1

[Cilia]

On Vauthry

Vauthry is a very complicated issue to deal with.

On the one hand, he is fully culpable for the evils he perpetrated.

On the other, it's not entirely his fault because he was raised from birth to believe that anything and everything he does is right and good because he is the one doing it.

Vauthry is innocent in the sense that he is not the architect of the evils he perpetrated, and by Sin Eater standards having been born a Sin Eater he has no sins to be forgiven (all Sin Eaters except Lightwardens being named "Forgiven [Sin]"). Thus, Innocence.

Is it fair to pin all the blame for all of the horrible things that went on in and around Eulmore on Vauthry? No... not all of it, but he is still responsible to some degree.

Mysterious Figures

The Mysterious Figure that appears before Zenos is, by my estimate, [b]not[/i] associated with the Ascians. Zodiark is their god - why would they help Zenos "hunt" him? Sure, it's possible Zodiark would devour Zenos instead of the other way around... but given that Zenos has already exceeded their wildest expectations with his Resonance, why take the risk?

Who is it? I have no idea. Aulus somehow giving himself Resonance and surviving the same as Zenos is a nice idea, you know, keep the Sephiroth / Hojo duo together... but past that and his white clothing denoting an emissary, I'm drawing a blank.

With the Ardbert lookalike, there are only a few possibilities I'm seeing:
1. Elidibus has restored and body-jacked his corpse.
2. Another fragment of the Warrior of Light's soul was enlisted by Elidibus to go against us.

Notably he does not have Ardbert's trademark bloodstained "Bravura of Darkness."

[KageTokage]

Pixie quest stuff

Seems like the initial suspicions about An Lad being Titania in some form or fashion were basically confirmed with them mentioning having experienced a vision of being trapped in a castle.

The Mysterious Figure that appears before Zenos is, by my estimate, [b]not[/i] associated with the Ascians. Zodiark is their god - why would they help Zenos "hunt" him? Sure, it's possible Zodiark would devour Zenos instead of the other way around... but given that Zenos has already exceeded their wildest expectations with his Resonance, why take the risk?

My thoughts on that matter.

Working with what they've already established about the nature of the soul and the Echo, it wouldn't make a lick of sense to me for Zenos to be that powerful.

If there was something genuinely special about the nature of his artificial Echo or his soul the Ascians almost certainly would've noticed by now, but from all we've seen so far he's basically just one of them; albeit one with exceptional physical/martial prowess to go along with their usual abilities.

His soul was mostly made exceptionally dense due to being infused with the aether of countless sacrifices which seems to be directly tied to potency of one's Echo as soul perception was a standard ability amongst the ancients and he was revealed to be capable of such as well.

The only unusual ability he's shown off so far was the ability to dominate a primal and control it, but we don't actually know if that isn't something any sufficiently Echo user could pull off. The notion of him being able to dominate something as powerful as Zodiark, who was summoned through the sacrifice of countless thousands, if not millions of individuals possessing strength of soul/aether comparable to him and was able to temper unsundered ancients like Elidibus and Emet Selch still comes across rather absurd to me even if said primal is still weakened from the Sundering.

That said, I'm thinking he's just being strung along by the Ascians as they're aware of how simple-minded he is and they see him as an easy target for exploitation. I'm also on board with the possibility of the "new" mystery Ascian in question having been Aulus as there's not too many notable individuals Zenos would actually recognize/be concerned with outside of us. It would certainly help explain why the Resonant project was such a success as no one understands the nature of the soul better then they do.

I honestly think he might end up choosing to cooperate with them willingly simply under the reasoning that wherever they're making trouble, we're bound to show up.

[Crushnight]

Mysterious Figures

With the Ardbert lookalike, there are only a few possibilities I'm seeing:
1. Elidibus has restored and body-jacked his corpse.
2. Another fragment of the Warrior of Light's soul was enlisted by Elidibus to go against us.

Notably he does not have Ardbert's trademark bloodstained "Bravura of Darkness."

The law says 10

Also to note no stubble beard i think this is a warrior of light from another shard possibly another part of us.

[Puksi]

On Vauthry

Vauthry is a very complicated issue to deal with.

On the one hand, he is fully culpable for the evils he perpetrated.

On the other, it's not entirely his fault because he was raised from birth to believe that anything and everything he does is right and good because he is the one doing it.

Vauthry is innocent in the sense that he is not the architect of the evils he perpetrated, and by Sin Eater standards having been born a Sin Eater he has no sins to be forgiven (all Sin Eaters except Lightwardens being named "Forgiven [Sin]"). Thus, Innocence.

Is it fair to pin all the blame for all of the horrible things that went on in and around Eulmore on Vauthry? No... not all of it, but he is still responsible to some degree.

Ten words is like the forum version of a one-nut mark bill

If not the Titania analogy, the next closest one I can think of: saying he is fully culpable is like blaming Thancred for the massacre at the Waking Sands. I'm not entirely sure why Vauthry should be held to a different standard than every other character who has been corrupted by the sin eaters.

The writers were at least very clear to establish he was mentally unwell and physically corrupted by the Lightwarden wedged directly in his chest (on the heart side, interestingly), from the moment we met him. How could he be expected to have true control when no one else in the same situation -- not even the WoL, at the end, without intervention -- did? We're to forgive the Eulmoran nobility for being "influenced" by him, despite them having free will the entire time before our arrival at Eulmore to fight him -- but completely ignore he was influenced corrupted before he was even born? By a Lightwarden, that no one short of the WoL had a chance of resisting--and the WoL would have destroyed worlds, had they lost control. Would the WoL have been responsible for that, would the destruction have been their informed decision -- or the inability to resist the instincts/will of the Lightwardens?

Lightwardens do not follow the naming conventions of lower Eaters, so I really don't know if that is a sure-fire proof of why "Innocence" was the name.

But, tl;dr: It would really be nice to let it be known who the actual "architects of evil" were. If not Emet-Selch, because explaining Ascians is complicated, then certainly Vauthry's father, rather than elevate that man to "the good old days" of Eulmore. They used a woman like an animal to turn her infant into a monster. To sweep that under the rug is the last thing I'd expect from a "hero". :s