6.0 Story Speculations

[WhiteArchmage]

Makes a lot of sense. if i'm not wrong "sa" and "son" are essentially synonyms for each other one is just feminine while the other is masculine? I'm starting to think maybe those question marks were actually on the card :P

Completely unrelated linguistics tangent that nobody asked for (but I spent more than 3 semesters specifically learning): Quite a few of the romance languages (that is, those that evolved from Latin), have gendered pronouns and articles (el/ella/ello-la/el/lo-un/una in Spanish, il/elle-le/la-un/une in French); however, when a noun starts with a vowel, the feminine pronoun/article discards its final vowel to accomodate.

This led to a very funny thing with the word "water": in Spanish it evolved from the Latin word aqua, and its infinitive form was "Illa aqua", over time the double A became bastardized and the result was "Il aqua". So in Spanish we use "El agua", in masculine, when talking about the singular, but "las aguas", in feminine, when using plural. It doesn't actually mean the word changes genders, as you'd still say "el agua clara" (the clear water), keeping the noun feminine and using the feminine form of the adjective, but the masculine form of the article.

In THIS case, it's because French has two forms of the singular "his/her/their" pronoun. Which is kinda funny because the gender being pointed out in "sa/son" is the person/object being DESCRIBED, while in English it refers to the person/object it BELONGS to (well, belongs is the wrong word, but I'm struggling to translate it right now). "sa soeur" (his/her/their sister) is thus grammatically correct, but "son soeur" sounds weird. Apropos of nothing, in Spanish we only use the possesive "su" for singular, and "sus" for plural; no gender either way.

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

Completely unrelated linguistics tangent that nobody asked for (but I spent more than 3 semesters specifically learning): Quite a few of the romance languages (that is, those that evolved from Latin), have gendered pronouns and articles (el/ella/ello-la/el/lo-un/una in Spanish, il/elle-le/la-un/une in French); however, when a noun starts with a vowel, the feminine pronoun/article discards its final vowel to accomodate.

This led to a very funny thing with the word "water": in Spanish it evolved from the Latin word aqua, and its infinitive form was "Illa aqua", over time the double A became bastardized and the result was "Il aqua". So in Spanish we use "El agua", in masculine, when talking about the singular, but "las aguas", in feminine, when using plural. It doesn't actually mean the word changes genders, as you'd still say "el agua clara" (the clear water), keeping the noun feminine and using the feminine form of the adjective, but the masculine form of the article.

In THIS case, it's because French has two forms of the singular "his/her/their" pronoun. Which is kinda funny because the gender being pointed out in "sa/son" is the person/object being DESCRIBED, while in English it refers to the person/object it BELONGS to (well, belongs is the wrong word, but I'm struggling to translate it right now). "sa soeur" (his/her/their sister) is thus grammatically correct, but "son soeur" sounds weird. Apropos of nothing, in Spanish we only use the possesive "su" for singular, and "sus" for plural; no gender either way.

This. This is why I didn't pay attention in french class even though its Canada's Second Language LMAO!

This was a very insightful tangent none the less

[Fenral]

The idea of Anima being linked to Fandaniel was fielded before, though I brushed it off due to his and Seymour's dispositions being wildly different. Knowing there's a character related to Fandaniel whose name was important enough to be redacted, though, now I can't help but wonder...

Incidentally, when Yuma Uchida showed up at fanfest and got interviewed by Yoshi-P, it was ahead of his character having voiced lines or even a name. Even the alias "Crystal Exarch" ended up being a pretty big hint simply because the number of established male characters with ties to anything "crystal" was rather short to begin with. Which is to say, if they can't say anything, there's definitely a clue in there, though we may just be latching onto Anima because it's there.

We can be sure somebody has serious mommy issues, though.

[KageTokage]

Anima is almost certainly not going to exist in the same context it does in FF X. I'm thinking they chose to include it mostly because it matches the whole "doom and gloom" theme Endwalker has going on.

I'm also really curious about who this individual related to Fandaniel is. If they're not simply a post-humous character driving his motivations, they could potentially be a co-conspirator; possibly even a higher authority he's answering to.

[Cilia]

We can be sure somebody has serious mommy issues, though.

Anima is almost certainly not going to exist in the same context it does in FF X. I'm thinking they chose to include it mostly because it matches the whole "doom and gloom" theme Endwalker has going on.

While it's entirely possible Anima was included purely for her grim appearance, I don't (want to) believe that's the case - one of the things that makes Anima memorable is her personal connection to a major antagonist, and I just don't think they'd waste that kind of narrative potential and throw her in just because she's kind of scary looking.

We do lack any sort of context, so at this point she could be just about anything... still, one can't help but grasp for connections given Anima's origin.

[RyuDragnier]

While it's entirely possible Anima was included purely for her grim appearance, I don't (want to) believe that's the case - one of the things that makes Anima memorable is her personal connection to a major antagonist, and I just don't think they'd waste that kind of narrative potential and throw her in just because she's kind of scary looking.

We do lack any sort of context, so at this point she could be just about anything... still, one can't help but grasp for connections given Anima's origin.

It could be that Anima becomes a physical manifestation of the Sound, or of the souls of the dead. Her trademark attack in FFX was Pain, with her finisher being Oblivion, after all. Both of which we saw were being brought to the ancient civilizations as the world itself was engulfed in fire and destruction.

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

After rewatching some cutscenes from 5.4 and 5.5 I think it's a pretty safe bet to take some lines into consideration. G'raha Tia on two accounts talks about how not everyone can be saved by Alisaie's new found tempering cure.

Once in 5.4 when Ga Bu asks if everyone else can be saved
"Without wishing to dampen the mood, I feel compelled to add certain caveats regarding the viability of the treatment for general use.
As you know, reversing the effects of tempering demands a profuse amount of aether. And while Alisaie was able to heal Ga Bu alone, I fear the same will not be true for those who exhibit more advanced symptoms. Moreover, the treatment's effects are limited to the soul. It offers no succor to those whose very flesh has been altered through prolonged exposure to a primal's influence. All of which is to say that we cannot save everyone."

and again in 5.5 when Tiamat asks about the rest of her brood
"Many have been subjected to the Allagans' dark arts, their flesh irrevocably altered. For such tortured souls, I fear there can be no salvation."


Aside from being a total downer :P I think it's likely that in Endwalker someone we know is going to be tempered to an extreme degree that we can't fix and it's going to cut deep. What better way to ignite a sense of hopelessness then to provide a solution to a problem only to realize that it wont work in this scenario. Who the victim of this plot point could be is up to speculation but I have a feeling this would hit hardest with a main scion. However, I also don't want to throw any of them under the bus because even if some have seemingly completed their character arcs (Thancred) that doesn't necessarily mean all that's left of them is to go die in a hole somewhere and I also don't know if Square has the balls to actually kill a core cast member ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[WhiteArchmage]

snip

It WOULD be interesting. We've seen what the effects of such deep tempering are: Captain Madison and the Drowned, for starters. But the most notable are, of course, SIN EATERS. I'm not saying Fandaniel knows about the cure for Tempering, but it WOULD be on-brand for what we know of him to deliberately set to temper people so hard as to warp their bodies beyond saving. With the chaos that Sin Eaters caused on the First, having a continous source of sorta-Sin Eaters but Astrally-aligned would create a LOT of Chaos.

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

It WOULD be interesting. We've seen what the effects of such deep tempering are: Captain Madison and the Drowned, for starters. But the most notable are, of course, SIN EATERS. I'm not saying Fandaniel knows about the cure for Tempering, but it WOULD be on-brand for what we know of him to deliberately set to temper people so hard as to warp their bodies beyond saving. With the chaos that Sin Eaters caused on the First, having a continous source of sorta-Sin Eaters but Astrally-aligned would create a LOT of Chaos.

You know I totally forgot about the Sin Eaters when writing this but you are absolutely correct. There is also already a precedent with Astrally charged monstrosities aka the denizens of the 13th. If we use the assumption that the Flood of Light and Flood of Darkness are Identical to each other barring polarity maybe Fandaniel could fill his victims with Astrally charged aether and warp them into psuedo-voidsent. I think your idea is pretty solid!

[Theodric]

Another way to do it could be to have something go wrong next time one of the major protagonists decides to call upon the power of a Primal. I think it'd be a poetic, touching moment to have to put down an ally that went on a rampage after turning themselves into a Primal. With how deranged Ryne became after doing just that, there's definitely room for such a thing to happen.