Revelations from Patch 5.3

[Alleluia]

SPOILER below

Yep this is certainly the part most people seem to be confused with being that our character and the other fragments of the original soul are not exact copies of who and what Azem looked like. The only similarities that are carried from the original soul into the fragmented soul, revealed in 5.3 MSQ, is the desire to explore the world and help others. The appearance, species, personality, interests, and gender will all be completely different from each other. Heck, if I remember right, the only reason why Emet recognized our character was because he looked into our soul's color since our character's appearance is completely different from what the Original Soul looked like.

This actually brings up more questions into who IS the Original Soul Azem and it appears from what we have seen in 5.3 that next part of the storyline may also focus on exploring into who Azem is and potentially finally revealed what Azem looked like before he was sundered into our character and the other sundered fragments.

I wouldn't hold out hope for getting anything other than a robed figure regarding Azem's looks. I mean, the gender they're referred to by changes based on the PC in question. I have a feeling their physical attributes will remain hidden.

[Hikari_Kishimoto]

I find it... very convenient... that someone who was really good at manipulating the Lifestream in life is now actually in the Lifestream. And we've already somehow called upon them once...[/hb]

That is a pretty interesting theory. It would be great to see him again.


Something else that came to my mind:

Elidibus, Hades and Varis have been talking about preserving the balance between light and darkness (so that neither a flood of light or darkness was to happen and to destroy the shard/source). As we know, this is what happened to the 13th. (And the reason why it was not possible to rejoin it with the source)

So, why was Hades trying to cause a flood of light on the 1st shard? Wouldn't that have turned it into a smiliar zone like the 13th? (Therefore, unable to be rejoined?)

And...

since all the Unsundered are gone and the light is already pretty strong on the source, doesn't that mean, if we slay the last remaining ascians, the source is going to be overflood by light too?

[Cilia]

YoRHa: Dark 10chars

Some stuff holds up in 2P's characterization (if it can be called that). I was forced to replay the Copied Factory the other day, and she does actually sound concerned that the machine lifeforms are being controlled. But she wasn't that interesting. Basically Mide with even vaguer motivations. Surprised she didn't have a scar under that mask...

But why bomb the dwarfs? And why show up in black at all? Sure, it's dramatic, and not totally unprecedented for 24-man characters to undergo personality replacement surgery between patches, but come on. It's momentary shock value at best, but now that we have that precedent, further speculation feels almost meaningless. Why bother laying out a rug that's just going to get pulled? Wait, what if the P-units are actually purple?

I mentioned before that part of the fun of twists is being able to guess them, at least in part. I suppose I haven't lost all my emotional investment, but I'm getting there. Knowing Yoko Taro's reputation for "oh it's just so sad" endings isn't really helping. I also have no prior attachment to 2B or her panties, so her arrival is just another reminder that "this wasn't made for me."

But honestly, I've carried a bit of prejudice against the NieR series ever since I found out Replicant was a thing and someone had made the call that we westerners would only want Gestalt. (I'll take a pretty-boy lead over a hypermasculine escapist avatar any day.) Anyway...

Ultimately, my problem with it is...

With Shadowbringers presenting a lot of old things in new and interesting ways, I was expecting the Automata raid to do the same. To this end I expected 2P to be a fresh take on a familiar face; 2B in a way, but adapted to fit the world of XIV. What she ended up actually being is an evil knockoff of 2B that exists for the sole purpose of "giving birth" as Adam did in Automata. (And the "real" 2B is also here. For some reason. Somehow.)

Super disappointing.

Meanwhile we still have no context for what the Automata stuff is doing in Norvrandt. With the driving mystery keeping me invested in the series answered and so disappointingly, I have no real reason to care anymore.

While I don't like Ivalice and the Return to Ivalice series did rely on egregious infodumps to make sense, at least it did. We had reasons to care about the Lexentales themselves, if not their quest to find Ivalice and clear their family name. We have no real reason to care about Anogg and Konogg, who have treated us as little more than their gofer from square one, and none of the Automata characters have interacted with us all that much (other than 9S trying very hard to kill us at the end of Copied Factory).

I'll wait and see what happens in the final chapter but what we have doesn't hold my attention (grotesque imagery stopped being shocking after all that Dead Space I played). So, whatever.

[Katie_Kitty]

For what it's worth, I don't think Elidibus was out of character here at all.

I mean yeah Elidibus is DIFFERENT here than he was before, but I would argue the change is justified. Consider this: For thousands upon thousands of years, you have been able to control who and when new heroes rise up to challenge your friends, and you have done so in service to a specific duty related to maintaining balance between light and dark. One day, you feel that dark is too powerful again, so you approach a random adventurer who gave one of your friends some trouble and test them in order to determine their fitness as a new hero.

From then on, that random adventurer goes on to become a full-fledged Warrior of Light and accomplish many great deeds, but you're always confident in your ability to control the situation if needed. That is, until they are whisked away from certain doom and transported to the site where the next rejoining is in progress. From there, they go on to stop the plan and even murder your only remaining unsundered comrade-in-arms.

Now, suddenly there is something very different about this random adventurer. Suddenly, they've demonstrated abilities faaaarrrrrr beyond anything you've ever expected. Suddenly, you're not in control anymore - You may not even be able to defeat them if you tried. Now you're desperate, scared, trying to find something - Anything - That will let you gain control back over the situation. That's definitely going to make you drop the "hur hur I'm a big bad brilliant schemer who knows all" act and very rapidly too.

[EdwinLi]

For what it's worth, I don't think Elidibus was out of character here at all.

I mean yeah Elidibus is DIFFERENT here than he was before, but I would argue the change is justified. Consider this: For thousands upon thousands of years, you have been able to control who and when new heroes rise up to challenge your friends, and you have done so in service to a specific duty related to maintaining balance between light and dark. One day, you feel that dark is too powerful again, so you approach a random adventurer who gave one of your friends some trouble and test them in order to determine their fitness as a new hero.

From then on, that random adventurer goes on to become a full-fledged Warrior of Light and accomplish many great deeds, but you're always confident in your ability to control the situation if needed. That is, until they are whisked away from certain doom and transported to the site where the next rejoining is in progress. From there, they go on to stop the plan and even murder your only remaining unsundered comrade-in-arms.

Now, suddenly there is something very different about this random adventurer. Suddenly, they've demonstrated abilities faaaarrrrrr beyond anything you've ever expected. Suddenly, you're not in control anymore - You may not even be able to defeat them if you tried. Now you're desperate, scared, trying to find something - Anything - That will let you gain control back over the situation. That's definitely going to make you drop the "hur hur I'm a big bad brilliant schemer who knows all" act and very rapidly too.

Don't forget the part that Elidibus never intended for our character to defeat Lahabrea and Emet-Selch.

Since the beginning of 2.0 as revealed in 5.3 now, Elidibus was the one who set our character on the path to become the Warrior of Light all this time and the lesser rank Ascian we defeated in our starting city state was there for the purpose of making us into the Warrior of Light. Heck, Elidibus fully expected us to have lost the final battles of 2.0, 3.0, and 5.0 because he was the one who pulled the strings of our adventure from behind the scenes this entire time yet some how our character always wins.

This mentally destroyed him and leaving him feel responsible for the downfall of all their past plans and the death of both Lahabrea and Emet Selch because he never intended for our character to become such a threat to their plans as the plan was to make our character into the Warrior of Light to maintain the balance and lose to them by the end of 2.0, 3.0, and 5.0 so the calamity can properly happen without any overload on the specific element.

From the beginning we were puppets being pulled on a string like countless other warriors of light with expectations that every victory and defeat being exactly as planned by the Ascians but at some point in some place something made our character different from the other Warriors of Light that gave us the power to defeat the Ascians in actual defeat rather than a planned defeat they setup.

[RyuDragnier]

Don't forget the part that Elidibus never intended for our character to defeat Lahabrea and Emet-Selch.

Since the beginning of 2.0 as revealed in 5.3 now, Elidibus was the one who set our character on the path to become the Warrior of Light all this time and the lesser rank Ascian we defeated in our starting city state was there for the purpose of making us into the Warrior of Light. Heck, Elidibus fully expected us to have lost the final battles of 2.0, 3.0, and 5.0 because he was the one who pulled the strings of our adventure from behind the scenes this entire time yet some how our character always wins.

This mentally destroyed him and leaving him feel responsible for the downfall of all their past plans and the death of both Lahabrea and Emet Selch because he never intended for our character to become such a threat to their plans as the plan was to make our character into the Warrior of Light to maintain the balance and lose to them by the end of 2.0, 3.0, and 5.0 so the calamity can properly happen without any overload on the specific element.

From the beginning we were puppets being pulled on a string like countless other warriors of light with expectations that every victory and defeat being exactly as planned by the Ascians but at some point in some place something made our character different from the other Warriors of Light that gave us the power to defeat the Ascians in actual defeat rather than a planned defeat they setup.

What I think the reason for that, is pretty obvious.

If we take what we've learned about previous WoL (namely Ardbert and his crew), it's possible the crystals gained were always spread among multiple WoL. However we didn't get one singular crystal, we got ALL OF THEM. When Hydaelyn noticed we were Azem (it's possible Venat has the eyes like Emet and Elidibus), she gave us access to the power of all her crystals. If this guess is correct, Hydaelyn gave us more power than she would normally give a WoL, and outplayed Elidibus in the long run. Though I'm wondering how much of this was also the work of Alexander, considering how much he had been manipulating things to get us to the proper timeline.

[ObsidianFire]

Elidibus, Hades and Varis have been talking about preserving the balance between light and darkness (so that neither a flood of light or darkness was to happen and to destroy the shard/source). As we know, this is what happened to the 13th. (And the reason why it was not possible to rejoin it with the source)

So, why was Hades trying to cause a flood of light on the 1st shard? Wouldn't that have turned it into a smiliar zone like the 13th? (Therefore, unable to be rejoined?)

This was gone into in 5.0. To cause a Rejoining to happen, a world has to be brought to the brink of a Flood, but not actually Flood. The Rejoining has to happen before the pressure gets too much. Our going around killing Lightwardens is bringing the 1st Shard back from the brink of a Flood, but also back from the high light energy needed to cause a Rejoining. Which would making the Ascian's efforts on the 1st Shard go to waste.

[KylePearlsand]

What I think the reason for that, is pretty obvious.

If we take what we've learned about previous WoL (namely Ardbert and his crew), it's possible the crystals gained were always spread among multiple WoL. However we didn't get one singular crystal, we got ALL OF THEM. When Hydaelyn noticed we were Azem (it's possible Venat has the eyes like Emet and Elidibus), she gave us access to the power of all her crystals. If this guess is correct, Hydaelyn gave us more power than she would normally give a WoL, and outplayed Elidibus in the long run. Though I'm wondering how much of this was also the work of Alexander, considering how much he had been manipulating things to get us to the proper timeline.

Alexander's motive

Speaking of Alexander, he is also the perfect explanation as to why G'raha was able to go back into the past despite it seemingly against what Alexander would want. Alexander wants the perfect timeline, to prevent the destruction of the world. It is the entire reason why he purposely lost to us because he sensed he was a danger to the world itself. So for the perfect timeline to happen, he needed to be defeated. We can assume Schrodinger is still around and probably had some influence on the construction of Tycoon. After all, it was modeled after Alexander himself. Based on the story, the world was dying because of Black Rose. It probably only have a few hundred years left before everyone died. Definitely not the perfect timeline Alexander wants. Sending G'raha into the past and ensuring the survival of the first would also allow the world to survive.

[YianKutku]

Don't forget the part that Elidibus never intended for our character to defeat Lahabrea and Emet-Selch.

Honestly it kind of feels like we're supposed to be deliberately not thinking about the details of the previous plotlines, because what Elidibus says in this MSQ doesn't really match what actually happened, if we take him at face value.

Like, Lahabrea died because he got outsmarted by Thordan, and it was presented as not a very high bar to clear. I don't know why Elidibus is pinning the blame for that on us. If anything, he should be mad at us for Nabriales, since that's directly our doing, and the wake-up call for Elidibus to warn Lahabrea about how we mortals can full-kill Ascians, sundered or otherwise.

I feel like Lahabrea is basically the exception that goes against the intended narrative, and thus calls the overall narrative into question. His death was not mourned, even among the Unsundered. He was stated to be especially weak from his body-hopping, to handwave why he was so easily defeated by Thordan (with the help of Nidhogg's eyes). He was fanatically devoted to Zodiark as the "true god". He contextualized the "sliver of Zodiark's powers" that is Ultima by using the Allagan Empire as an example, which not only was a recent development by Ascian standards, but was also explicitly stated in recent patches to be Emet-Selch's pet project.

Also he's the one Unsundered Ascian out of three that died screaming, rather than leave us with poignant words.

Most of it is explained Doylistically as Lahabrea being written before the devs really knew where to take the Ascian storyline in detail, ie the True Nature of Ascians and Zodiark. But in-universe, it kind of raises plenty of questions, including whether Lahabrea was simply completely nuts by the time we meet him, and so he was living in his own delusions.

[Rannie]

Honestly it kind of feels like we're supposed to be deliberately not thinking about the details of the previous plotlines, because what Elidibus says in this MSQ doesn't really match what actually happened, if we take him at face value.

Like, Lahabrea died because he got outsmarted by Thordan, and it was presented as not a very high bar to clear. I don't know why Elidibus is pinning the blame for that on us. If anything, he should be mad at us for Nabriales, since that's directly our doing, and the wake-up call for Elidibus to warn Lahabrea about how we mortals can full-kill Ascians, sundered or otherwise.

I feel like Lahabrea is basically the exception that goes against the intended narrative, and thus calls the overall narrative into question. His death was not mourned, even among the Unsundered. He was stated to be especially weak from his body-hopping, to handwave why he was so easily defeated by Thordan (with the help of Nidhogg's eyes). He was fanatically devoted to Zodiark as the "true god". He contextualized the "sliver of Zodiark's powers" that is Ultima by using the Allagan Empire as an example, which not only was a recent development by Ascian standards, but was also explicitly stated in recent patches to be Emet-Selch's pet project.

Also he's the one Unsundered Ascian out of three that died screaming, rather than leave us with poignant words.

Most of it is explained Doylistically as Lahabrea being written before the devs really knew where to take the Ascian storyline in detail, ie the True Nature of Ascians and Zodiark. But in-universe, it kind of raises plenty of questions, including whether Lahabrea was simply completely nuts by the time we meet him, and so he was living in his own delusions.

Im going to safely go with

He had gone completely nuts in between how long it had been from when the sundering as well as the original calamity combined with the addition of the body hoping. As you said we didn't get a chance to know him like Emet Selch and some what Elidibus but he was also a huge academic and going by the stuff we saw in then dungeon for the recreated Amarout, he had the mad scientist vibe from the beginning and allowed the people to go crazy on creations.

In the end I have absolutely no trouble envisioning Lahabrea standing over a test tube and petri dish cackling madly with lightning flashing in the background, while he's crying out ,"ITS ALIVEEEEEEE"