Revelations from Patch 5.3

[Iscah]

General thoughts on MSQ:

The first part with the kids dragged unexpectedly. With so much content to go through and the knowledge that things were quite urgent for my friends' wellbeing, here I am participating in this cute but not particularly relevant sidequest instead. It's not terrible but the story isn't off to the exciting start I was anticipating.

The Exarch arriving with his arm all crystalised was a nasty shock. A highly predictable one of course, but still unpleasant to see it's happening.

Rammbroes' message to G'raha strikes me as odd and ambiguously worded, and I originally took it with an alternate interpretation that didn't seem to play out. I need to set my thoughts on it out as a separate post, I think.

It was interesting having the specific plot point that the Exarch would have to see G'raha as his true identity for them to successfully merge. It's a noticable thing that the WoL does call him by name and make him start to connect to that long-forgotten self again, so perhaps we really contributed to that working out in the end.

It was nice to see Hythlodaeus again.

That last scene between the Exarch and Lyna is lovely.

I had a panic moment when they suggested the Exarch might be a primal like Elidibus. That really would have been awful.

Elidibus feels out-of-character and rushed. The narrative works for the here and now but it doesn't feel like it clicks with the patient schemer he's been portrayed as overall. Or has he been sliding into insanity for some time?

I thought I was going to need more tissues for this finale. Did need them for the scene with Seto.

There's a nice shot where you're clutching the Exarch's crystal and, for me, Aurelie always wears the House Fortemps signet ring still and that was visible too. So symbols of two people that are dear to her and - it strikes me now as I write this - one she lost, one she can yet save...

The victory lap send-off was nice and all, but I thought it was quite urgent at this point to get the Scions home before their souls are irrevocably broken? The ship is sinking, the lifeboats are ready and suddenly everyone wants to go back to their cabins.

The animators need more budget for getting characters to physically interact. There were some much-needed hugs in farewell cutscenes that went unmade.

Also I feel like there was a missed opportunity for us to hold up the Exarch's crystal as the city gathers to farewell us all.

When Tataru mentioned making new outfits for everyone I was excited to see what they'd be, but it was just their outfits from the First again. Aside of not being new, it just seems a bit odd to see them back in the Source wearing those outfits? It seems out of place in a way that it didn't when they were in the First.

Also, Alisaie's animations were hilarious.

Re. G'raha Tia:

I am just so happy that Raha is back. I don't care how narratively appropriate it would be for him to truly die there; I like him and I want to give him his wish and take him with me on adventures.

It makes a lovely afterthought to that scene on the clifftop in Shadowbringers, when he expressed how much he wished he could travel the world with us - at the time he thought he was describing a dream that he knew could never happen, and now it is going to be reality and it is wonderful.

On a side note, I really really like his new outfit design. It draws on all the details from his Exarch robes and works it into a nice balance of modern style and fantasy details. (I wish we got more things like this for glamour gear instead of plain modern casual.)

Meanwhile, it's nice that we've let the people at the Crystarium know that he's actually alive and doing well. Must be a terribly strange thing for them though.

All happiness aside though, wasn't he specifically in the tower to guarantee that there'd be someone able to control it at whatever point it was reopened? Unless the soul crystal continues to be functional as a key not physically bound to an individual, I suppose.

Re. the solo duty:

The solo duty fighting past characters felt like it didn't know what it was trying to achieve. Funnily enough I'd been writing elsewhere just a few days earlier about how the Lv70 DRK quest was disappointing, presenting the idea of forcing you to relive past guilts and regrets then making you fight a collection of people you didn't feel particularly guilty about fighting, and how it would have been so much more effective if they'd made you slay illusions of people you cared about. It would have been horrible, but narratively effective.

I hit this part and thought "oh wow, they're actually going to do it this time."

They didn't. It fell flat the same way.

The weirdest thing is that it started with that gut punch of fighting some of the Scions, but then just had the rest of them stand around decoratively. If you're going to go such an awful route, for goodness sake, carry through with it.

The Heroes' Gauntlet was a bigger punch to the guilt factor, even if they cleared up later that the heroes are being fully, physically summoned against us - not that I'm entirely sure that makes it okay either. These aren't conjured phantoms, they're real people plucked from their worlds and thrown against us to fight with all their might, and what the heck are we doing to them by apparently slaying their souls or their will to fight?

Re. merging with Ardbert:

The thing about merging with Ardbert is that it's not the first time souls (including our own) have merged because it's already happened repeatedly in the Rejoinings. It's just, possibly, the first time that the merging soul was still conscious and in possession of its memories at the time.

It's not really clear how it works, but we're not constantly getting Ardbert talking in our head or anything. The one time he's apparently manifested, it's in conjunction with his crystal and a dear friend who can recognise his soul within you.

Re. constellation stones:

There's an interesting detail in the journal entry for "Hope's Confluence", the quest where you defeat Elidibus:

Before the Ascian fades into oblivion, however, you choose to restore his lost memories to him, giving him a semblance of peace at the last.

This seems to be the act of giving him the stones. Could this add up? When did he lose them? Did he accidentally trail them through Amaurot for us to find? (Either immediately or sometime earlier for Hythlodaeus to find them first.)

Unfortunately there's no journal text for "Etched in the Stars", the quest where you first collect them, which could have been enlightening.

Someone elsewhere pointed out that the two stones he's holding at the end are Lahabrea and Igeyorhm's. I haven't double-checked that for myself, but it's a nice detail.

Re. YoRHa

I do not care about this story one bit. I don't feel like I've been given a reason to care or be at all intrigued by its mysteries. The characters aren't endearing or amusing or... anything at all really. The whole thing is just there and the emotional investment is not.

Also is the command centre supposed to look like a low-grade computer animation compared the the rest of it? The room just looked unfinished.

(1)

(Feel free to skip this entire futile rant about time.)

I know we'll probably never agree on how to interpret the timeline shenanigans, and in some ways I really like the neatness of "our G'raha travels back to become the Exarch" restoring a single linear time loop, I feel like it would be too cheap from an emotional narrative angle. Everything he has ever expressed about the people he left behind is a lie. The Twinning's final message from Biggs III is pure theatre. And let's not even start on deliberately staging a would-be Echo vision...

Basically, yes it would close the time loop at the cost of retroactively turning a genuine situation into a massive emotional manipulation about a tragedy that never happened.

Plus, it wouldn't account for G'raha and the WoL's souls being similarly dense if G'raha never went through the eighth Rejoining. (By their current counts, judging from G'raha's post-MSQ dialogue, we have +1 from Ardbert, and Raha has +1 from the Rejoining and not +9 because duplicate fragments merge without trace. Or something.

Side note: I wonder if the unlock quest for the Twinning has variable dialogue now? As I remember, we were personally recommended by the Exarch to clear out the basement. Also his lack of personal involvement always seemed like an extra death flag to me - a pity as it would have been interesting to hear his thoughts on it.

(11)

Just finished it, my thoughts:

I thought it played it a little too safe. I would rather see G'raha with the Exarch's memories, rather than just... the Exarch but in another body. Then there's at least a little impact to his "death" and there would have been a sense of loss and bittersweetness... the scene where his body crystalised felt very lacklustre to me because I already knew he'd be fine. Also felt it was strange how soon his plan was revealed to us.

I agree the scene where he crystalised wasn't as sad as I'd expected because you know you'll be waking him up again soon. It still feels solemn, though.

But as for it being "the Exarch but in another body"... I feel like he's balanced between the two, actually. Sometimes he speaks with all the experience of the Exarch, sometimes he's G'raha who has received his older self's memories but is still young. Both aspects are the recent past for him. It depends on the situation, and so far what little chance we've had to talk with him is strongly about reminiscing on the events of Shadowbringers. The impression may change as we spend more time with him just being himself.

(40)

Well for the MSQ . . . .

So lil mentions, did we give no f's about what Source Tia wanted?? like we get no scene of waking him did we just force Exarch into him & erase Source Tia.

That did strike me as odd and a little unsettling, and I was suprised they chose to do it that way (I'm pretty sure I've previously wrote against them doing it for exactly that reason), but then seeing as the writers did choose to do it then I can only rationalise that the Exarch knows he would have been fine with it.

Alternately or as well, seeing as we didn't actually see G'raha's reawakening, perhaps we woke him first up and asked whether he was willing to accept it. Not that you'd probably want to say no to something like that, but again, the Exarch IS G'raha and would justifiably know that he would want to do it.

Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey.

(74)

One thing I thought about today that kindda made me sad was...

Hythlodaeus is still walking around the recreation of Amaurot. And even though it's not really him, he seems self aware and therefore sentient in a way. And now that Emet is gone he will be forced to walk through the shadows of the magics that make up the place and the ghosts of his people mindlessly repeating their day to day, until the time comes when it, and he, slowly fades away. That is a hell of a sad thought to think he is condemned to such a fate.

Well... maybe he can make friends with the Ondo? If Archaeotania can run that far away from the city then maybe he can too.

We'll have to introduce them next time we're visiting the Tempest.

(117)

I don't know if this is something I missed from 5.2, but Rae-Qesh in the Cabinet of Curiosity is pondering the marvels of the world, like Ryne talking about finding a bird underwater.

Generally, Rae-Qesh is always talking about shoebills.

Specifically, if you missed it in 5.2, Ryne finds the shoebill in the benthos' lair when we sneak in there.


(164)

[on naming conventions]

What I'm mad at her about is the whole subtle convo she has as current dialogue once everything is done. About G'raha.
She says she won't drop the Tia portion until he decides what he's going to be in life or whatever, basically saying she doesn't acknowledge that he was already a Nunh. Guess she needs him to bang some of his own nieces like a regular Nunh before she gives him true respect. Big props to Alphinaud though.

You're assuming that he should rightfully be considered a nunh. I don't believe that he ever was, and if he could have been at one point then he isn't any more.

For now he is G'raha Tia and he introduced himself as such in the ending cutscene. Rammbroes is still calling him that as well, and I'm sure Urianger wouldn't be so informal as to drop the title even if everyone else did.

But the problem isn't with what the characters are choosing to do, it's with the information in the first place. (I'm on the verge of taking this to the localisation forum because they don't seem to be able to keep their own lore straight on this subject.) Y'shtola's explanation simply does not line up with the official Naming Conventions - tia doesn't specifically denote anything, but is the default state of not being a nunh, even for someone who previously was a nunh but was ousted by a challenger. And G'raha is definitely not a nunh.

He could maybe theoretically have claimed the title while he was Exarch, not that it would count for anything in the First, but it would be bending the definition and in any case he'd essentially abandoned his name and identity as a Seeker at that point - he couldn't use it openly because his plan relied on it remaining unknown, and his expected path led him to a place where he'd never have a reason to take it up again.

Now, as G'raha himself says, he is no longer leader of the Crystarium and holds no territory or power. He has not claimed a tribe. He is currently a tia and has no reason to be addressed otherwise, unless Y'shtola's dialogue is an outright attempt to rewrite the lore. She should be correcting Alphinaud on his misunderstanding, not repeating it.

(176)

To expound on this, if you pierce any soul with a pure aether blade, then the soul will be destroyed rather than return to the lifestream. This is part of what made Haurchefant's death so poignant. That javelin of light, "Spear of The Fury" was meant to kill and destroy an immortal Echo user(the WoL). Instead it kills Haurchefant, body and soul.

We haven't just been killing Ascians, we've been erasing them completely. At least, that's how it goes in the writing of the NA version.

Your later posts seems to indicate you're just theorising based on what we know about using a sufficiently concentrated blast of aether to destroy an Ascian.

That doesn't instantly mean that any blade formed of any concentration of aether will have that effect. And like our destruction of the Ascians, it may require the soul to be contained first.

Even when we were already firing a pure blade at Nabriales, it took Moenbryda's aether to create enough force to even pierce his defences.

So yes, IF Zephirin was strong enough and IF he was looking to destroy our soul and not just kill us and IF the soul doesn't need to be contained before blasting it... then yeah, maybe. But not necessarily and we have evidence to the contrary.