Which Ascians are left? (Spoilers up to 5.4 obviously)

[Bright-Flower]

To be honest, I would probably be at least a little disappointed if Fandaniel's "true goals" (as hinted in the Endwalker reveal showcase) was something deep and meaningful and had absolutely nothing to do with his current declaration of wanting to kill everything and everyone.

Mainly because it would be kind of eye-rollingly exasperating if the reason he did all that was entirely because he had an overblown sense of drama and wanted to troll a reaction.

If played right it could be an interesting twist if it was theatrics but with a point, sleight of hand to distract us from whatever his actual motivation is.

[Zohar_Lahar]

Regarding the possibility of Fandaniel bringing about a calamity, I can't help but wonder. What if the reason the Ascians went to such pains to set up the various reflections for the Rejoining was so they could control which world in particular was rejoined? If that was the case, then it's not unlikely that Fancy Dan's plan would cause a Rejoining, but without controlling for which reflection is rejoined. Or perhaps the devastation wrought by Final Days 2: Chaotic Boogaloo could result in multiple—or even all—remaining reflections being rejoined at the same time.

Heck, maybe he wants to rejoin the Thirteenth. Xande 2.0 wanted to open a permanent gateway between the World of Darkness and the Source so the voidsent could destroy everything. Maybe that was Fandaniel's doing, and it's the reason Elidibus had to keep him on a tight leash, and subsequently why he's happy the Unsundered are gone.

I pondered the similarities between Fandaniel and Xande earlier today, even wondering if he was inhabiting Xande the whole time and was kept sealed away so he wouldn't ruin the unsundered's plans. Until we freed him by "killing" him.

[Recon1o6]

had a thought: fandaniel's motivation of killing everyone could be his true goal including whatever is on the moon and zodiark/hydaelyn

so it will appear to be a sbuversion at first with zenos and zodiark, we win ofc, then it turns out nope- he just wanted everything to burn after all and his death was the beginning of plan b and fandaniel wanted zodiark gone too so that his death was permanent

[Mansion]

If played right it could be an interesting twist if it was theatrics but with a point, sleight of hand to distract us from whatever his actual motivation is.

I think no matter how well it is written / brought up, it would still feel underwhelming.
They did it quite well with Emet-Selch, and in comparison I felt Elidibus' closure was so bland (lathough we have known him for longer than Emet). They did a similar "redemption arc" for both Fordola and Yotsuyu in Stormblood's patches, and it worked well enough.
We are starting to see this for Gaius too with Werlyt.
There is a bit of that in the end of the Eden storyline...
You see my point.

Re-introducing a new villain with some "sad" background is starting to get a bit to repetitive in my opinion.
I'm not convinced by Fandaniel at all as of today, but I'd rather see him going deeper and deeper in cruel non-sense drama rather than seeing him get emotional about being bullied in his past once we defeat him thanks to the power of friendship.

[RyuDragnier]

I think no matter how well it is written / brought up, it would still feel underwhelming.
They did it quite well with Emet-Selch, and in comparison I felt Elidibus' closure was so bland (lathough we have known him for longer than Emet). They did a similar "redemption arc" for both Fordola and Yotsuyu in Stormblood's patches, and it worked well enough.
We are starting to see this for Gaius too with Werlyt.
There is a bit of that in the end of the Eden storyline...
You see my point.

Re-introducing a new villain with some "sad" background is starting to get a bit to repetitive in my opinion.
I'm not convinced by Fandaniel at all as of today, but I'd rather see him going deeper and deeper in cruel non-sense drama rather than seeing him get emotional about being bullied in his past once we defeat him thanks to the power of friendship.

I have a feeling his nihilism may be similar to Kuja's from FF9. Perhaps he has a disease that will kill him, and he'd rather everybody go with him than die alone. But in case he is defeated, he has a second plan in place that leads to the climax of 6.0 before the final battle, something that forces us to have to rush to save the world. Considering we're dealing with the moon...perhaps a Lunar Cry incident?

[ElysiumDragon]

As far as I know, Elidibus, Emmerololth (possibly), Emet-Selch, Nabriales, Mitron and Igeyorhm are confirmed dead. Loghrif technically reincarnated, so she's off the table, but not 'dead', in a sense. Deudalaphon, Pashtarot, Venat, Altima, and Halmarut are the Ascians we don't know about, and assuming the Shadowhunter eliminated two of those (possibly Halmarut and Deudalaphon), that'd leave 3.

As for Lahabrea, I suspect the 6.0 raid series will be us taking care of the remaining Ascians, and I'm going to assume Lahabrea's dead and gone, given what Fandaniel's already said,

[RicaRuin]

As far as I know, Elidibus, Emmerololth (possibly), Emet-Selch, Nabriales, Mitron and Igeyorhm are confirmed dead. Loghrif technically reincarnated, so she's off the table, but not 'dead', in a sense. Deudalaphon, Pashtarot, Venat, Altima, and Halmarut are the Ascians we don't know about, and assuming the Shadowhunter eliminated two of those (possibly Halmarut and Deudalaphon), that'd leave 3.

As for Lahabrea, I suspect the 6.0 raid series will be us taking care of the remaining Ascians, and I'm going to assume Lahabrea's dead and gone, given what Fandaniel's already said,

Isn't the common theory that one of the Ascians Shadowhunter Gaius 'killed' was (a) Fandaniel because of one of the red masks having a lion motif?

[Veloran]

It occurs to me that, assuming we include the seemingly alive Emmerololth and exclude Fandaniel who's tied up in the MSQ, we'll have five remaining Ascians in Endwalker - And there will also be five role quests this expansion.

Coincidence? I think probably!

[ReynTime]

What if Travanchet turns out to be one of the 14?

[Enkidoh]

There is so little known about Travanchet that he's almost definetely considered now just a black masked Ascian (in other words, one of the low-ranked 'grunt' Ascians) and not a former member of the Convocation of Fourteen - his sole appearence back in 1.0 he didn't even wear a robe or mask and was getting around fully in the identity of an elezen pirate that was clearly his physical host, so really 'Travanchet' wasn't even his real (Ascian) name (the name definetely sounds elezen).

Given what we now know about the black masked Ascians, the real elezen Travanchet was almost definetely long dead, and that his Ascian parasite merely took the pirate's corpse as his latest body, adopting the corpse's former name as a cover (we only knew that he even was an Ascian in the first place was because he lacked a shadow in 1.0, and his appearence on screen was accompanied by the Ascian theme Without Shadow.).

Who Travanchet the Ascian really was back in Amaurot I don't think we'll ever know, given that as I recall Yoshi basically at one time stated he was no longer even canon at a Fanfest - until Travanchet was named-dropped during the Alexander quests, so your malmage may vary on that one...