Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 2)

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

Didn't play through 5.55 for like a week because I was gwiber farming! Let's talk MSQ

Fortnite Levelliur

First off excellent character introduction, lines up perfectly with the way he has been painted. There was some dialogue from Alisaie saying that Thancred at his lowest point being a jerk to Ryne was similar to her father so I fully expected an asshole but I do want to talk about this sentence in particular and it's implications



A. Force of Nature seems pretty confidant on what the Final Days are but the Scions we're ignorant to that truth till Emet dropped a knowledge bomb on us, is there an asican in Sharlayan? Have they gotten info from a more divine force???

A. Everything Danny Phantom has been up to thus far has not been a threat to Sharlayan and they have some way to counter-act it

C. Whatever Sharlayan considers to be the Final days does not add up with what Fandango has done so far. What makes his strategy different than the original? Are we finally gonna get a peek at Mezaya Thousand Eye's chronicles? Would that detailing of calamities contain knowledge of THE greatest devastation the world has faced? IDK

The Disowning was a surprise however, I expected him to take his children home by force and saying that their choice "to walk the road to ruin" is none of his business was not that. He is definitely playing a character and if anyone can see through it it's G'raha Tia, master of lying to people he cares about. Whether he's playing some crazy game to make sure is children don't come home or is giving them more freedom of not being tied to the forum, it takes a real jerk to come up with a plan like this

Wonder if that New Years Poem was about him? Wonder how his wife will react to "honey I stripped our children of their ties to us"

Carteneau

The duty was really cool and I adored the team-ups from a character perspective. Urianger, Thancred, Y'shtola as team OG scions, Warrior of Light fanclub of G'raha and Alisaie and finally Estinien, Alphinaud and WoL finally get to team up together.

Everyone's favorite dragoon shut Alphi down completely when he wanted to come to the Aery with us saying that "one does not practice on Nidhogg" so seeing him call for us to go with him was quite cathartic

Seeing everyone's feats. I think I can definitively make a combat strength hierarchy of the scions going into Endwalker

WoL>Estinien>G'raha>LARGE GAP>Y'shtola=Urianger=Thancred>Alisaie>Alphinaud

Everyone looking to the moon was anime af and was cool

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

Opinions part 2

Zenos, The Dreamer, and the Roar

Immensely hyped for the Reaper showdown with Zenos though I'm still curious on why he's going for Zodiark and you know...not the one who beat him the first go around? People don't like him but I just think he's really cool and a good foil for the WoL and I'm excited to put him in the dirt

The dreamer is probably referring to whatever is inside the massive tower or Zodiark the way Fancy Dance and Zenos were talking about it makes it sound like a new entity instead of Zenos himself. Is the Reaper Avatar for Zenos that dreamer? Idk how confident I feel about our tiny voidsent against Anima or Zodiark

The sound heard I assume is a reference to the "sound" that heralds the end. Specifically described as a "Keening" that was heard and the world started to literally fall ill. With that to cap us off all our players are in place. We got Sharlayan playing Amaurot, Two Entities of immense power dueling at the end of the world and a shit ton of terminus beast on the way.

6.0 IS GONNA BE SICK!

[Iscah]

There was some dialogue from Alisaie saying that Thancred at his lowest point being a jerk to Ryne was similar to her father

I'd come across that quote the other day while replaying Shadowbringers, and I can't remember quite how Thancred was acting in the preceding cutscene but it was when Minfilia (not yet Ryne) had suggested seeking out the Oracle and merging with her, and I think he he didn't want her to go but she insisted. I need to recheck that.

Anyway, the exact quote:

ALISAIE
I can't imagine what Thancred must be feeling to behave this way. To say he's changed since coming here would be an understatement. He may as well be a different person. He reminds me of─
...Ah. He reminds me of Father.
He argued with us for months about our plan to go to Eorzea, but in the end, he accepted our decision. I...do hope he's doing well.

[Rosenstrauch]

Finally dinged 25, so I can get into Dalriada tomorrow if I feel like it.

Rank 25 Quest

Well, Fran saving Mikoto instead of Misija was unexpected, and a pleasant surprise. It seemed like this was being hinted at in the Rank 23 Quest, wherein the WoL breaks their promise to Mikoto and actually lets Lilja and that one Bangaa in on Mikoto's vision. I still maintain that a parachute would've been fine though. Seriously, why is it that the only airship heavy nation in the world that actually employs parachutes is Garlemald?

Lilja getting hurt instead was a pretty decent subversion of my expectation, too. She grew on me pretty well since her introduction at the start of the Bozja questline, and I have to say I'm far more invested in her survival than the likes of, say, G'raha Tia. Actually, that's something I've found I feel for the bulk of the Bozja characters. I'll be sad to see these characters go when this is over, whereas I can't really say the same for Y'shtola, Urianger, or Thancred.

Menenius and Lyon having a bit of a "if they weren't the villains, this would all sound heroic" moment was a very welcome touch, too. I think I do finally have a grip on Lyon's behavior at least. Maybe that'll change once I clear Dalriada, but I'm now leaning in favor of the "Gabranth's death is a coverup" train of thought.

Daguza, Clariccie, Dabog

Not surprised to see Daguza and Clariccie return for a final fight or two. I was surprised to see them run off again, though. I've taken a bit of a liking to both, though I can't help but wonder what purpose there is in their survival if the end of the story is nigh.

Another thing that surprised me was the twofold revelation that the original Dabog is dead (and may have been for quite some time), and that Sicinius has discovered the means of copying his memories and abilities into the minds of other soldiers. That sounds quite a bit like the Oversoul/Overmind system from the Sorrow of Werlyt questline, and from what's been said (Sicinius attributing this knowledge to the VIIth Legion) it sounds like that's exactly what this is referring to. It's more than a little disturbing, if that's the case, and leads me to wonder if Sicinius being handed over in the epilogue isn't actually part of the coverup. It'd be one thing if nobody could really tell that a well burnt corpse wasn't actually Gabranth. It'd be another thing entirely if nobody actually knew Sicinius's face, leading to him overwriting a hapless stranger's mind with his own.

On the other hand, I do recall his dossier not actually having his face, and mentioning something to the effect of how reclusive he is. So it's possible he really could get away with such a feat. And even if not, cloning was introduced way back in A Realm Reborn, and the Heavensward Alchemist questline featured an antagonist using modern day cloning in his schemes. Plus, there was that whole "Room full of Solus clones" bit from Stormblood. So it's not out of the question that a clone was handed over.

Ah well. I'll have more to say when I actually do Dalriada.

EDIT: Dalriada + Epilogue

Menenius is a man after my Lily's own heart, lol. According to the dossier, the Diabolos Armament was meant to house its' namesake voidsent. Obviously this can't be the case, as Diabolos was sealed in Amdapor and can't be in two places at once. So what, exactly, was being kept within the Diabolos Armament? It could have simply been an artificial voidsent, but I'm not so sure of that.

"... fine." That sounded awfully belligerent to me, and Lyon did seem to be on edge when it came to Gabranth in that final cutscene. But given the sequel hook in the form of two more apparent trigger weapons and the heavy-handed foreshadowing with Gabranth's death, I wholeheartedly believe it to be a coverup. Besides, it'd suck if Gabranth just died offscreen like that, y'know?

Misija's death is about what I expected thanks to having it spoiled for me. Literally Darth Vader'd, though with the addition of the player or Bajsaljen being the one to mercy kill her. And of course she's not forgiven by the masses for he crimes, which is... well, the most realistic ending. I'm not happy she's dead, but I'm not outraged or anything either.

Lilja taking a load of shrapnel to the gut? Ouch. Poor girl. I'm glad she's alive, though. So very glad. I wanted to write a short fic set before this patch in which she and Lily discuss their shared home of Dalmasca, with Lily relating to her what it was like before Garlean occupation and Lilja doing the same for growing up under it. I figured something like that might be interesting to read. But I never got around to it, and it feels a little cheap to do it post-ending, lol. I might just do it before Endwalker, assuming I can work up the nerve to do so. That aside, I do hope she's around in Endwalker, too. She's been the most pleasant addition to the cast in Shadowbringers short of Ryne, if you ask me.

Mikoto, well, I'm glad she's alive too. And I hope the same for her. I still believe she'll have a part to play in Endwalker's 8-Man raid questline, Pandaemonium, due to her name being a reference to an important FF9 character and Pandaemonium's name being a reference to both FF2 and FF9.

As for the rest, well, like I said earlier in this post: I like these characters a lot more than the Scions at this point. Perhaps it's recency bias, or just that they haven't rankled me quite as hard as Y'shtola and Thancred's frequent brushes with death, or Urianger and the Exarch's penchant for secrecy... or the entire snafu of Exarch's survival in 5.3, which I have rambled on enough about. Regardless: If they show up again, I'll be happy.

Oh, and I guess I need to get good at the duels. That hoverbike mount isn't going to get itself.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Daguza, Clariccie

Not surprised to see Daguza and Clariccie return for a final fight or two. I was surprised to see them run off again, though. I've taken a bit of a liking to both, though I can't help but wonder what purpose there is in their survival if the end of the story is nigh.

10 characters

Both of them are part of Lyon's Beastmaster crew. I wonder if they plan to have Pagaga, Daguza and Clariccie act as reoccurring antagonists alongside Lyon as part of a BST Job questline. Llofii and her monceros might end up returning as allies.

[LystAP]

10 characters

Both of them are part of Lyon's Beastmaster crew. I wonder if they plan to have Pagaga, Daguza and Clariccie act as reoccurring antagonists alongside Lyon as part of a BST Job questline. Llofii and her monceros might end up returning as allies.

I hope Pagaga won't be one.

She's really popular on Twitter. And I like her.

[Tensaihime]

MSQ

that big dramatic pointless fight he craves.

I just saw this and I’m howling because it’s so true. Like, why even go to all this bother if what you want is so simple?

[Crushnight]

I dunno how anyone can claim content hasn't been cut majorly in this expansion. We got less dungeons and we got less ultimates and no deep dungeon, like it or not, that's less content.

In fact, this game has consistently been bleeding and losing content in every expansion as time has gone on. Shadowbringers has less content than Stormblood, and Stormblood has less content than heavensward. It's pure denial to pretend this isn't the case.

Actually HW had less content than SB did, but ShB definitely has the least amount of content of all 3 expansions.

HW had more dungeons but SB had more trials, SB also had Ultimates, 4 exploratory zones in Eureka, 3 savage exclusive phases compared to HW's 1.

Like the content or not SB has had the most content released in its entirety with HW coming in 2nd and ShB coming in 3rd. People can very well be in denial about cut content but if we want to deal with facts Stormblood was the expansion with the most content in it and Shadowbringers has not lived up to that same amount of content(quality is a different issue all together).

[Brightamethyst]

I just saw this and I’m howling because it’s so true. Like, why even go to all this bother if what you want is so simple?

Just look at who founded the empire and is the basis for all Garlean culture. Of course everything needs to be as overly dramatic as possible.

[Tensaihime]

Just look at who founded the empire and is the basis for all Garlean culture. Of course everything needs to be as overly dramatic as possible.

Oooh, that’s a very good point.