Do the Scions know? (Spoilers)

[YianKutku]

That's not certain, actually. It's hinted that only folks who have the Echo are ones who bear a fragment of an Ancient's soul. For everyone else, their souls are simply Lifestream stuff and upon death dissolve back into the Lifestream, just as described in the ARR quests where they were discussing how to kill an Ascian.

If it WERE the case that EVERYONE has a fragment - what happens when you run out? Remember that fully three quarters of all Ancients were absorbed into Zodiark, so Soul fragments can only come from the remaining one quarter, and those fragments need to be distributed among all the races, including the Beastmen. What happens if a child is born and there are no fragments left?

I actually recall a Q&A on these forums after 5.0 release where a bunch of lore questions were answered, but I can't find it right now. In it, there was an answer about Ancient souls which said that every soul was an Ancient fragment.

I remember this because it was so unexpected, and also caused a lot of problems and contradictions to established lore (or lore hints), such as where Alpha's soul came from. However, as mentioned, I have no idea how to search for that thread.

(Can anyone else corroborate or find that thread? I have the vague impression it also had the answer from Soken that the Rak'tika "Civilizations" theme didn't have any real lyrics.)

[Kesey]

I actually recall a Q&A on these forums after 5.0 release where a bunch of lore questions were answered, but I can't find it right now. In it, there was an answer about Ancient souls which said that every soul was an Ancient fragment.

I remember this because it was so unexpected, and also caused a lot of problems and contradictions to established lore (or lore hints), such as where Alpha's soul came from. However, as mentioned, I have no idea how to search for that thread.

(Can anyone else corroborate or find that thread? I have the vague impression it also had the answer from Soken that the Rak'tika "Civilizations" theme didn't have any real lyrics.)

I could be over thinking this theory, but I'm starting to wonder about the speculation Urianger had at the end of 5.3 about the connections between world religious beliefs and the crossover with Azem. We see the deification of "The 12" where one member was called Azem and I begin to wonder if the ancient soul shards in the other Scions correlate back the other deities in "The 12" and they weren't really gods but a group of adventurers who saved the world together long ago and were important enough to be remembered but over time the story gets muddied and they are recognized as deities. Even places like the Azim Steppe where Azem is the central deity, still interacts in their religious stories with other beings.

[YianKutku]

I could be over thinking this theory, but I'm starting to wonder about the speculation Urianger had at the end of 5.3 about the connections between world religious beliefs and the crossover with Azem. We see the deification of "The 12" where one member was called Azem and I begin to wonder if the ancient soul shards in the other Scions correlate back the other deities in "The 12" and they weren't really gods but a group of adventurers who saved the world together long ago and were important enough to be remembered but over time the story gets muddied and they are recognized as deities. Even places like the Azim Steppe where Azem is the central deity, still interacts in their religious stories with other beings.

It's kind of the friction between verisimilitude for mythology, in that plenty of things get conflated together to form the bulk of beliefs about a given deity, and Doylist storytelling, where we're supposed to look for hints and foreshadowing everywhere as Chekov's Guns. (I'm putting aside the stated habit of the devs to deliberately leave open plot hooks so they can come back and use them much later; back when the Warriors of Darkness first appeared in 3.x, the Shadowbringers storyline had not been conceived of. Source is Live Letter LIII.)

We know, albeit from 1.0 dialogue, that the current idea of Rhalgr as "a bag of angry muscles" was actually based off an Archon from the Fifth Astral Era. (Roegadyn name, so I can't spell it.) So there's already precedent for the images and (most likely) domains of the gods being worshipped now having been changed over time. This is exactly how mythology works in RL, and I'm sure Koji Fox would love to expound more on this (as would Banri Oda, who I think is a bigger mythology fan).

But we also have this whole "Azem and Azeyma and Azim" thing, specifically mentioned in the game dialogue, which takes time (however trivial in the grand scheme) to code in, which means it must be significant. This is not how mythology in RL works, but it is how self-contained stories work.

[Rannie]

I think this is how things are. Considering Y'shtola asked us if everything was wrong and we just shake our head. Along with how her and Urianger both had a small chat that we over heard about how the Lightwarden light wasn't being absorbed just being contained. I would like to think those two would have had another talk about what to think or do with knowing we used to be co-workers at the slightest with the Ascians. I'm not sure we know that we used to be friends of Emet's as you can be just a friend of a friend or any of the other Ascians.

Eh except when we use the crystal during the Elidibus fight in 5.3 we hear emet Selch specifically state that Azem was his dearest friend and Hythlodaeus said that that crystal was back were it belongs when he first gave it to us.

Herein I commit the chronicle of the traveler. Shepherd to the stars in the dark. Though the world be sundered and our souls set adrift, where you walk, my dearest friend, fate shall surely follow. For yours is the Fourteenth seat—the seat of Azem

Edit: Also, if memory serves me correctly the Scions or some of them have basically said that it didn't matter who we were in the past or if someone else was split from our soul, we are who we are currently. Nothing more nothing less. Same thing when Seto said our souls where Strikingly similar to Ardbert's.

Im sure they most likely know whats going on they just completely refuse to comment on it as it isn't "who we are in the here and now"

[YianKutku]

Edit: Also, if memory serves me correctly the Scions or some of them have basically said that it didn't matter who we were in the past or if someone else was split from our soul, we are who we are currently. Nothing more nothing less. Same thing when Seto said our souls where Strikingly similar to Ardbert's.

Im sure they most likely know whats going on they just completely refuse to comment on it as it isn't "who we are in the here and now"

Yeah, it's a major theme of at least Shadowbringers, with its emphasis on souls, but also a recurring theme throughout FFXIV (and plenty of other media). Seto himself did say that even if our soul looked similar to Ardbert's, that means very little, since a soul does not define a person.

There was also the short story about Seto and Ardbert, where we learn that Ardbert became an adventurer who helped people not because he was a shard of Azem's soul, but simply because he grew up in a small village in Kholusia where everyone helped each other.

[Veloran]

that means very little, since a soul does not define a person.

I think if anything can be said to define a person, it's their soul. And that statement kind of falls flat when you consider the people we know to be shards of each other, and see that they all share major similarities. Yes Ardbert grew up helping others in a small village, but it's hard to say that he wouldn't have ended up a helpful adventurer anyway given that WoL can quite literally be anyone from anywhere and they turn out the same way. It's pretty much impossible to buy the idea that one's soul is meaningless when we meet people like Grenoldt, Mowen, and Taynor on the First.

[Eloah]

I think if anything can be said to define a person, it's their soul. And that statement kind of falls flat when you consider the people we know to be shards of each other, and see that they all share major similarities. Yes Ardbert grew up helping others in a small village, but it's hard to say that he wouldn't have ended up a helpful adventurer anyway given that WoL can quite literally be anyone from anywhere and they turn out the same way. It's pretty much impossible to buy the idea that one's soul is meaningless when we meet people like Grenoldt, Mowen, and Taynor on the First.

I'd say think of a soul as more like a template and not a blueprint. It's been established that imprinting on the soul does leave a lasting impression, but from a template one can expand and grow. Whereas a blueprint has a definitive end.

[Gerel]

I actually recall a Q&A on these forums after 5.0 release where a bunch of lore questions were answered, but I can't find it right now. In it, there was an answer about Ancient souls which said that every soul was an Ancient fragment.

I remember this because it was so unexpected, and also caused a lot of problems and contradictions to established lore (or lore hints), such as where Alpha's soul came from. However, as mentioned, I have no idea how to search for that thread.

(Can anyone else corroborate or find that thread? I have the vague impression it also had the answer from Soken that the Rak'tika "Civilizations" theme didn't have any real lyrics.)

I can recall that thread, yeah. I think the question pertained more as to whether or not every soul was strengthened on the Source during a Calamity, with the answer being a "yes," but that it didn't mean every soul was a fragment of an Ancient (the race). There were other races coming into being post-Zodiark, after all, which became the focus of groups like Venat's.

EDIT: Think I found the relevant question by digging through my Discord DMs. Here's the link.

4. Emet-Selch remarks that we are of the Source, "seven times rejoined". Is he talking about our soul, or only the world? If our soul has been rejoined, does that mean everyone on the Source has been rejoined to another soul-fragment each Calamity, or are we (and perhaps other specific characters) special in some way?
Oda: Each time there is a rejoining, any living things have the souls rejoined. This is true for everyone equally. The souls get more dense, and potentially more powerful.

Yoshi: The Rejoining isn't just for the characters, but for the whole world. Of course, this does apply to yourself, as well.

[Veloran]

There were other races coming into being post-Zodiark, after all, which became the focus of groups like Venat's.

We actually have no evidence of this. Half the Amaurotines were sacrificed to restart the proliferation of life on the planet, but we're never actually told that this life is materially any different from the rest of the unsundered life previously existing on the star. We also don't know the timeline of how long this went on before the Anyder summoned Hydaelyn and the Sundering happened, or whether any sort of new races/species ever came into existence in that period. Personally I think Hydaelyn is directly responsible for what forms the sundered life took after the star was shattered.

Obviously souls can exist outside of all this as evidenced by the dragons, so for Alpha we should just assume he developed a soul on his own.

[YianKutku]

I think if anything can be said to define a person, it's their soul. And that statement kind of falls flat when you consider the people we know to be shards of each other, and see that they all share major similarities. Yes Ardbert grew up helping others in a small village, but it's hard to say that he wouldn't have ended up a helpful adventurer anyway given that WoL can quite literally be anyone from anywhere and they turn out the same way. It's pretty much impossible to buy the idea that one's soul is meaningless when we meet people like Grenoldt, Mowen, and Taynor on the First.

How do we know Grenoldt is a soul fragment of the same soul as Gerolt? How do we know Mowen is a soul fragment of the same soul as Rowena?