Question pertaining to the afterlife in FFXIV

[Cilia]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[i]I believe it was mentioned in one of the Shadowbringers short stories (Hades', in fact) that souls can be neither created nor destroyed, and they simply cycle through the Lifestream as beings are born and die on the world.

Individual souls may not consciously possess the memory of all their lives, but souls themselves do not cease to exist through natural processes.[/hb]

[MuseTraveller]

That was such interesting read!

I want to point out, yes it's fiction and rules change or some things are left vague for a reason. I don't think we'll ever get a 100% clear answer on souls and reincarantion in FF14 but if the Lifestream concept bothers you so, consider all the way-arounds we've seen in the story so far!

I think the devs and writers want you, the player, to have room to imagine and interpret as you like it. You have Hildibrand, you have that scene in Heavensward, you have Palace of the Dead and Edda, you have The First, the fact that The Source's souls are more condensed and thus stronger and all kinds of rule-breaking moments that you can use to explain why a soul won't be gone forever but can return.

Even if the Lifestream is the rule, it doesn't mean it can't be broken.

[KageTokage]

I'm expecting 5.2 to answer some questions that were raised regarding the nature of the soul and the Echo.

They did mention that the "echoes" in the patch title was partly in reference to the gift we possess.

[LineageRazor]

Individual souls may not consciously possess the memory of all their lives, but souls themselves do not cease to exist through natural processes.

We have conflicting stories as to what happens to a soul when it passes into the Lifestream. Characters in the game pretty bluntly state that souls dissolve into the Lifestream. I don't remember exactly when this is, but I believe it was back in ARR when Moenbryda joined the storyline. They were talking about Ascian souls, and how they avoid that particular fate - and then moved on to how to subject them to it, using the White Auracite.

Things may also have been different in the time of the Ancients. When they summoned Zodiark, they "rewrote the laws of the universe". Who knows what this did to the Lifestream? Additionally, there was the "new life" they created (and eventually tried to cannibalize) in order to restore vitality to the world. The souls of the New Life may work differently from the souls of the Ancients.

That's my current working theory, at any rate - that most souls, being descendants of the New Life, dissolve in the Lifestream, but the fragments of the Ancients' souls do not. And even the souls that would normally dissolve sometimes hang around in various ways, as ghosts, or Pixies, or Dotharl reincarnations, or whatever - the dissolution is not a hard-and-fast rule.

[Cilia]

We have conflicting stories as to what happens to a soul when it passes into the Lifestream. Characters in the game pretty bluntly state that souls dissolve into the Lifestream. I don't remember exactly when this is, but I believe it was back in ARR when Moenbryda joined the storyline. They were talking about Ascian souls, and how they avoid that particular fate - and then moved on to how to subject them to it, using the White Auracite.

Things may also have been different in the time of the Ancients. When they summoned Zodiark, they "rewrote the laws of the universe". Who knows what this did to the Lifestream? Additionally, there was the "new life" they created (and eventually tried to cannibalize) in order to restore vitality to the world. The souls of the New Life may work differently from the souls of the Ancients.

That's my current working theory, at any rate - that most souls, being descendants of the New Life, dissolve in the Lifestream, but the fragments of the Ancients' souls do not. And even the souls that would normally dissolve sometimes hang around in various ways, as ghosts, or Pixies, or Dotharl reincarnations, or whatever - the dissolution is not a hard-and-fast rule.

To be more precise, what the Ascians do is use Dark Crystals to teleport themselves to the interstitial world between worlds (the Rift, or the Chrysalis, or somesuch) when they're on the verge of death, avoiding the Lifestream altogether. You see this happen when the crystal on Lahabrea-possessed Thancred's choker breaks, and Igeyorhm attemps to do so after defusing from Lahabrea (as the Ascian Prime) only to be thwarted by the Warrior of Light's use of White Auracite. (Emet-Selch / Hades, on the other hand, fights to the bitter end.)

We also know that souls do not consciously possess the memory of their lives, but retain their existence through the process used to create non-Source Ascians - other than Lahabrea, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch, they're all shards of the previous Overlord that had the memory of their past lives returned to them. (Specifically the memory of their life as an Amaurotine Conclave member.)

Of course, I agree that it's possible Zodiark's summoning, his rewriting of the laws of the star, and Hydaelyn's Sundering may all have had a profound effect on the Lifestream and the cycle of souls, but that's unclear at this time and without evidence I have to go with a contrary stance.

[Alleo]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[i]I believe it was mentioned in one of the Shadowbringers short stories (Hades', in fact) that souls can be neither created nor destroyed, and they simply cycle through the Lifestream as beings are born and die on the world.

Individual souls may not consciously possess the memory of all their lives, but souls themselves do not cease to exist through natural processes.[/hb]

Wasnt it also in that short story where they kind of said that the Ancient ones even liked the "underworld"? Seeing how they at the same time later did not accept the sacrifice of their own people I wonder if the old lifestream allowed the people to keep their memories? So when somebody died it was not that bad because the long living ancient ones will see them again and they will remember their lives? Thus the difference to Hydealyns lifestream is, that she maybe takes these memories? (Which could also be a way to give those lifes a chance to start new after that horrible catastrophe had happened)

We have conflicting stories as to what happens to a soul when it passes into the Lifestream. Characters in the game pretty bluntly state that souls dissolve into the Lifestream. I don't remember exactly when this is, but I believe it was back in ARR when Moenbryda joined the storyline. They were talking about Ascian souls, and how they avoid that particular fate - and then moved on to how to subject them to it, using the White Auracite.

Wasnt this stated by mortals? (Scions) I mean how would they even know this to be the case? IMO it could simply be that this was what they believed at that time.

[LineageRazor]

Wasnt this stated by mortals? (Scions) I mean how would they even know this to be the case? IMO it could simply be that this was what they believed at that time.

Possibly. The folks who were talking all had a Sharlayan education, though, a community that is implied to be very rational and scientifically rigorous. Not the sort of people to stand by matters of faith as rock-solid fact - especially given that they were basing their anti-Ascian strategies on those very beliefs. While I don't know how, exactly, the Sharlayan's figured out what happens to a soul after death, I strongly suspect they had SOME kind of rigorous scientific testing that lead them to that conclusion.

They could still be wrong, of course. But I don't think it's just a matter of untested personal beliefs. And if they ARE wrong, then we need to toss some of our own assumptions out the window, such as Nabriales's and Igeyorhym's deaths. Both were taken out by way of the White Auracite plan, which relied on the Ascian's soul dissolving into the Lifestream once they were unable to escape to the void between worlds. If souls DON'T dissolve - then what happened to those two?

[SannaR]

So far the only people we know who didn't directly go back to the life stream are the Ascians due to their dark crystals and Zenos. All of them have an echo. We also know that it can dissolve just about anything as reasons why you don't use the spell Flow and why the island of Vale got plunged into it in hopes to get rid of an Ascian. If it works anything like the one from VII then when something dies it's soul and probably aether goes back to the life stream and sits around until it's reborn again. I think some of that gets used to help rejuvenate the land post calamity unless the 7th was just different in that it was caused by a primal which didn't fully die due to how it's prison worked. I also don't think the souls that become a pixie or fuath go to lifestream as to me it seems more like hey this child died traumatically at least where the fuath are concerned and are instantly reborn as said being. It also seems that the shards have their own lifestreams as far as we know the source don't have pixies or fuath. The closest we get to pixies are the sylphs yet they're not born from the souls of a dead anything if I remember correctly.

[SannaR]

Possibly. The folks who were talking all had a Sharlayan education, though, a community that is implied to be very rational and scientifically rigorous. Not the sort of people to stand by matters of faith as rock-solid fact - especially given that they were basing their anti-Ascian strategies on those very beliefs. While I don't know how, exactly, the Sharlayan's figured out what happens to a soul after death, I strongly suspect they had SOME kind of rigorous scientific testing that lead them to that conclusion.

They could still be wrong, of course. But I don't think it's just a matter of untested personal beliefs. And if they ARE wrong, then we need to toss some of our own assumptions out the window, such as Nabriales's and Igeyorhym's deaths. Both were taken out by way of the White Auracite plan, which relied on the Ascian's soul dissolving into the Lifestream once they were unable to escape to the void between worlds. If souls DON'T dissolve - then what happened to those two?

They did have the anti tower which allows one to visit the aetherial sea. Thancred's aether being hampered being the whole reason he obeyed Y'shtola and didn't come with us as she feared he'd be affected by the swirling aether within.

[Cilia]

Rereading the short story ("Through His Eyes" - Tales from the Shadows), it never states that souls cannot be destroyed. It does say, however, that the Ancients were unsuccessful in creating artificial souls - souls can only be gifted by the planet itself from the aetherial sea (known to the Ancients as the Underworld, and more colloquially as the Lifestream) to which they return upon death.

Regarding soul creation, as stated beforehand the Ancients were unable to create an artificial soul. Ardashir may have created an artificial soul in Heavensward's relic weapon quest, but it's also possible the Anima was eventually gifted with a soul by Hydaelyn. Alpha was also an artificial being gifted with a soul after the Omega raid storyline in Stormblood, and if one wants to be generous, Omega may have been given one in its final moments as well.

Regarding destruction... as King Thordan says, in the end souls are just aether. A special kind of aether, more dense than most (I suppose), but ultimately aether all the same. They can be destroyed by being used as fuel for primals, or otherwise have their integrity compromised by blasting them with a dense enough burst of aether (the White Auracite trick used by the Scions). What makes the Ascians so difficult to kill is that their Echo allows their souls to persist without bodies, avoiding a return to the Lifestream; by compromising their soul's integrity, it breaks down into its base aether and is presumably returned to the land and eventually the Lifestream (or used as fuel, in Lahabrea's case).

As for reincarnation... it's said that only the star (planet) can give the gift of a soul. If Zodiark was created to be the will of the star, and Hydaelyn later usurped that role, they would be the ones governing the cycle of souls. In that case, it's not unreasonable to conclude they would be capable of filtering out particularly noteworthy souls and setting them aside for later use instead of letting them dissolve into the Lifestream; otherwise some souls' identities may simply be too strong to dissolve completely, fall into the Lifestream as a part of the cycle of life and death, and later be reborn without the memory of their past lives.

(My money is on the latter, due to the Alters present on the First and the Warrior of Light's implicit status as a reincarnated Ancient, as well as the process used to create non-Source Ascian Overlords.)

Nabriales and Igeyorhm had their souls blasted apart, preventing any sort of reincarnation. Lahabrea had his soul blasted apart and then consumed as fuel for King Thordan. Emet-Selch (Hades) may have died as natural of a death as an Ancient can, so reincarnation may be possible for him, but he would not have his memories and thus not be "Emet-Selch."