Revelations from the Announcement Showcase

[Lauront]

I agree, and although a separate thing, for me in regards to lore speculation, it's more about tying existing knowledge with things, than whether it ultimately proves correct or not, which is a fickle thing.

Speaking of fun ideas, here's an interesting little thing I came across on Reddit today... if only for the fact that it brings the colours in alignment with the dawn theme of the expansion, and of course the imagery of the Final Days. The change in the sceptre, of the blue orb seemingly coiled with a reddish orb on top again is reminiscent of IX to some extent...



Have to wonder if that's where they were going with the "no dark, no light" thing.

I think, however, that the Paladin as the poster job is a misdirection in the same way that Dark Knight as the poster job for Shadowbringers was. When the 5.0 trailer dropped there were people that thought WoL was completely turning to darkness in some way, which was not quite the case.
Now, all this talk of the typical heroic fairy-tail PLD has me considering that again. Especially since Yoshida says the main reason they picked Paladin was because it represented hope. You know who else was a knight in shining armor that represented hope?

I tend to agree with such an interpretation, tbh. The derplander's silhouette on the moon even resembles Elidibus for a brief moment. Probably drawing on the salvation theme.

This doesn’t really jive with the short story we got focusing on Elidibus and Emet Selch, where it’s mentioned pretty casually that Azem was gonna use Ifrita to absorb the aether of a volcano and then fight it (literally described as being sent off to battle). I think like all societies the Ancients had varying degrees of proficiency and this undoubtedly led many to be unable to resist the beings that were summoned. Add in the fact that they are literal manifestations of their worst nightmares, ones that got worse and worse and worse throughout the Final Days, any society would be overwhelmed no matter how militarily powerful they are.

Yup, I agree with that. We have to remember this is a race with rather fantastical powers innately. The Echo is but a fraction of the powers they possessed, which were all in addition to creation magicks and immortality. Although they were peaceful, that was in terms of how they dealt with one another. Besides Azem and Hades, I think Lahabrea probably had a very good appreciation of the combat uses of their powers, considering that a use of one of his fields of study was to find methods to deal with these monstrosities, which accounted for the way in which they operated - hijacking creation magicks to create more and more of themselves. The only reason they were so effective was that they were created out of the very powers of the ancients. All of this is speculative, and I don't think they'll address the question directly, but it's reasonable to surmise they knew how to use their powers for combat uses if they needed to.

Of course the other seats, except for Emet-Selch, never really liked Azem's constant actions of not following their standard procedures of waiting for the paperwork and getting the paperwork approved before people are allowed to act.

I believe it was less about the paperwork and more to do with Azem acting unilaterally, without the agreement of the rest. The office was intended, by its nature, to wander the world and thereby guide the Convocation on what matters to fixate on. Personally I doubt Emet cared much for it either, but Elidibus, Hythlodaeus and he were all friends with the office's last holder, so they bailed them out. One has to wonder if the favour was repaid in explaining how the trio survived the Sundering.