Speculation on Fandaniel's Motive

[KageTokage]

I have a feeling that somebody Fandaniel knows is the reason he's so nihilistic. If I were to take a guess...the worst life can do to you probably happened to them, possibly also a "fate worse than death", with the individual being somebody Fandaniel cares about more than anybody else. If the world can be so cruel to do that to them, why should the world be allowed to exist? Why shouldn't he end it all and free them so they can be together in death?

Yoshi P did mention that one of his favorite characters in Endwalker was "Fandaniel's *redacted*", so there's evidently someone with an important relation to him.

I'm leaning towards that someone being Venat, though I couldn't guess how they're related.

[Vyrerus]

Yoshi P did mention that one of his favorite characters in Endwalker was "Fandaniel's *redacted*", so there's evidently someone with an important relation to him.

I'm leaning towards that someone being Venat, though I couldn't guess how they're related.

Wasn't that Ishikawa's one liner on the fanfest page?

[Lauront]

My own take on it is that he is rebelling against the very concept of life/existence itself. I don't think it's just the near immortality of the ancients that set him off, because that "problem" is now "solved" following the Sundering. He could very easily just face a permanent death (as permanent as they can be in this setting, anyhow) and have no memory of his former life at all, but that doesn't seem enough for him. Taken at face value, he wants to destroy all existence utterly. To some degree, he does seem to regard the world as a broken husk, but given how he reviles the way the ancients clung to life as well, it seems to be a more universal rejection of the very concept of existence.

I've mentioned this before, but his invocation of a term like "Telophoroi" is to me suggestive of an ancient order or movement. It's not inconceivable that some ancients did wish to die for good, but even if the cycle of rebirth didn't have the churn it does now, it surely would've existed in some form, and so mere physical death would not suffice. As Veloran noted, the destruction wrought by the Final Days was so comprehensive, the world's aetherophysical laws ceased to function in their usual manner.

He also emphasises his status as a "sovereign individual"; I think he is railing against both the ancients' idea of collective duty, but also the weaker version of it that's survived that means there are those who would stand in the way of the world's termination.

I recently stumbled across this 1.0 WHM quest line video, which seems quite familiar in some ways. Specifically, the references to keening and the Wrath that gripped the elementals, plus the fact that in this process, they would manipulate the wills of men. Touching on something a bit different, during the fight with Suzako it's mentioned the Aramitama causes a disruption in the Lifestream - surely then a similar state in the elementals could do the same? Furthermore, as others have noted before, the mural version of Hydaelyn and Zodiark resembles the shape of the elementals quite a bit. How odd, then, are these claims from Oha-sok:

All interesting claims given recent story aspects, referencing nihility (=nothingness), the end of things and the duality of light and dark, which this being claims to ensure. Probably a lot of it for dramatic embellishment, but given that light and dark and their division play a key theme (plus they reiterated the desire for the Amano art for 6.0 to reflect no dark, no light, no good, no evil), perhaps there's a bit more to it. I suspect in the original it was referring to the wrath (darkness) and then calm (light) of the elementals. The thought that this could be some remnant of stray anxieties given form from ancient times occurred to me, but Oha-Sok is rather categorical that she spawns from the wrath of the elementals.

It raises the question of whether Ramuh's own claim about the origin of the divide of light and dark is going in the right direction, given that he attributes it to man's nature and the "darkness" that resides within him - bearing in mind, he is a primal and therefore, his knowledge not necessarily accurate.



Either way, conjuring or unleashing something deeply threatening and unnatural into the Underworld may be sufficient. What intrigues me about Fandaniel is he is using the Telotowers to realise this new version of the Final Days. Who is to say something similar did not occur in ancient times, only that the methods used did not initially stand out to the ancients and seemed harmless? Of note to me in the benchmark is that the things he's conjuring up simply turn to dust on death.

This structure from the Walls of the Forgotten in particular stands out in the murals. Y'shtola believed it was part of Amaurot, but what if we're looking at a prototype Telotower? It looks even starker if you invert the colour scheme (this vid on the general theme of inversion of colour is pretty good.)

Anyway, I'm also tending towards the view that he has a relation to Venat, as per my earlier posts; this vid does a good job of capturing some potential associations.

Although of course this game has its own "Ultima" (albeit nothing but a presumably otherworldly entity that gained consciousness), with the XII one being a holy esper (description here), I can't help but note a similarity between her pose here, and Venat's... a minor point.





Lastly, I'm not convinced that (quasi-)immortality would naturally/inherently tend towards such despondence (and I am perhaps a little biased here, as I see the drive of our own species to extend our own finite lifespans as something to strive towards, so such a dim perspective on the concept is one I am less receptive towards); after all, the concern expressed by the NPC was a worry about something that could eventually happen, and it's not like the remainder of the ancients, or other long-lived beings like the dragons, desire their own destruction. There is an entire universe to explore.

What I could see is it as a stance the odd immortal could take, and then you have someone like Fandaniel, regarding both the cycle of rebirth post-sundering and the nigh-immortality of the ancients as equally futile, because both entail the shackles that attend existing and being alive in his mindset

No individuals are immortal, but a collective may be. It makes me wonder if Fandaniel views that the world cannot actually be special, because the world cannot end. It's another kind of 4th wall break, because the nature of MMOs doesn't allow them to end.

I got a similar vibe from the whole Elidibus and his loss of memory and identity, and becoming Mr Final Fantasy, as a reference to the game itself being a theme park of FFs and at times having to find and assert its own identity. Definitely an interesting way to look at it.

Through the summonings of twisted "dark primals" which are born through a combination of stunted creation magic and the tortured souls of their summoners, the byproduct of these magics, the will of death, is again taking shape within the Lifestream. Of course this also connects to his association with Zenos, who is himself all about inflicting death on others with his obsession with "the hunt", which might be said to be a proxy for the innate necessity of life to consume other life.

That's a very good observation. Given the nature of these Primals' summoners, a death wish would fuel them. I suspect they're going to have to be careful with how they draw on Zodiark's power, because he is a primal geared towards salvation and thus, preservation. Also, unfathomably mighty and very angry. So perhaps the idea is to funnel that power into another primal that Zenos can more easily control.

To touch on why he believes as he does and wishes for death, let's just look at his nature as a sundered Ascian. He was raised up and entered into his station and given the memories of his past life as Fandaniel, but attendant to this would naturally be the recognition that he's lived countless other lives, to him most likely all meaningless. So in addition to his Ascian status having forcibly bound him to an ancient crusade and faded memories, he, like everyone else, is subject to a cycle of life, death, and rebirth, repeating everything endlessly for thousands of years. As we see he's ecstatic to be free of his given mission in 5.3, so too does he want to be free of the cycle of life which is imposed upon everyone.

Agreed, I get a similar sense.

To tie this all together with some musical cues, the weariness of the soul's endless wandering is something that's been present as a theme in the story at least as far back as Answers. If the question is "Why were we given life just to die?", then Fandaniel's answer would be that there is no reason and that everything should just return to oblivion. And on that note, there is a particular shared intonation during Fandaniel's segment of the Endwalker trailer. Firstly, this rendition peaks with the line "Now we go for freedom!" as Fandaniel ascends the tower, and as I've already laid out I think he is very closely associated with the concept of freedom, and as a character believes that true death equals freedom. However, the second part of this comes at the end of his segment, in which a very specific sound is heard.
https://youtu.be/XJ-51r-sG4k?t=162
Does that screeching tone before the cut sound familiar to anybody? Well it should, considering it is precisely the same tone present in the Scions & Sinners rendition of Return to Oblivion, after the very line, "The soul yearns for oblivion, oblivion!".
https://youtu.be/ZTEPqYwvAzw?t=68

I ask you, what are the chances this is a pure coincidence? The exact same piercing sound present in two different songs, both of which are associated with the concept of a neverending doomed fate and the repeating rebirth of the soul?

I think you're onto something with the song references, in the sense that in death, there is total freedom.

And it's not just Return to Oblivion which has such themes; even the original version of it has some rather strangely familiar concepts:

Fragile creatures, we are taught to fear the Reaper
Ever running, we are dead before we meet Her
These voices telling me let it go (let it all go)
I try and try but I can't say no (try and say no)
This endless nightmare has just begun (nowhere to run)
My heart is dragging me down into oblivion
The endless lies, I've cast aside, locked them in ice
Steeled is my soul, my blood grown cold, I've gained control
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

Certainly a very dim, fatalistic viewpoint, and I guess it's no accident that Return to Oblivion echoed some of them given that Ryne was taking on Shiva's form - Ysayle in turn being a bearer of a crystal of Light.

On to my last point, and this will be getting into further speculative territory, but I think we may be able to pin down the ultimate end of Fandaniel's story here. A surprising amount has been made within the narrative about somehow talking with Fandaniel and resolving things peacefully. People are pretty bewildered at this considering that we didn't reach any such ending with any of the previous, far more sympathetic Ascians up to this point, but with Fandaniel such a thing would, in fact, have far more impact. If it is indeed the case that the nature of the Sound is as I've postulated above, simply killing Fandaniel or destroying it would be, thematically, completely backwards. If the idea is accepting the cycle of life and death, as indeed the entirety of the conflict with the Ascians has been about given how deeply their motivations are fueled by grief and loss, inflicting death to end the conflict is a self-defeating resolution. And if I was to touch on Ishikawa's prior writing, WoL simply being the "Weapon of Light" and smiting the evil seems rather out of character, no? Rather, it would be that an acceptance of those subconscious impulses and the nature of death and rebirth, rather than repression, destruction, or rejection of it, is what's necessary for actualization into a healthier and more balanced world.

The speculation on the origins of the sound, as emerging from collective angst owing to their egalitarian beliefs (possibly also vengeful trapped spirits due to some malfunction in the Underworld, as per Emet's short story), and that it may have given rise to the sound, is certainly plausible. However, given that this is a civilisation that was capable of enduring many thousands of years, and numbered many who could directly observe the currents of aether in the world, my own story preferences, and desire to see something like Lavos/Jenova behind it all, mean I'm hoping for it to be something released/summoned into the Underworld with the intention of devouring it from the inside out, setting the Underworld and whatever inhabited it, awry. Sort of like a virus inducing a cytokine storm in the planet's "immune" system. Nonetheless, I agree about what it might mean for his potential fate.

2. Fandaniel is what Emet-Selch warned us about: You can raise someone to an office who wasn't its original keeper, but they're unreliable. Fandaniel's broken and using his Ascian powers for something unexpected.

But precedent is sometimes a poor predictive factor in fiction.

I suspect there is something to that explanation. The weakness of the memory crystal is suggestive of the fact that this is perhaps not the "original" Fandaniel, but an unrelated shard. As you say, we're relying on precedent here, but in my estimation, his loyalty to Zodiark probably isn't too great. We know from his own account he was free to disagree with Elidibus, who tried to correct him through argument. Zodiark is dormant. Furthermore, we know from Tiamat the primal's nature affects the manner of tempering it inflicts, and over and above that, there appears to be degrees to which Primals even inflict mind-control in the first place. Unless something corrupted Zodiark, of course, but then you could question why this didn't affect the rest of them. It seems likely he is acting on his own agenda. While he does seem to have internalised the perspective of the unsundered on sundered life forms, he seems to have an equally glib view of the ancients' commitment desire to live - his affinity to Zenos may come down both to Zenos's own power, as well as Zenos embracing destruction for the sake of hedonism.

Wasn't that Ishikawa's one liner on the fanfest page?

Just so.

[Vyrerus]

Just so.

That was a humdinger of a post, very enjoyable. Also quite enjoyed the Soldier 1st Class video.

Particularly the part about the Blue Stone node at the base of Amaurot being a Telotower or at least the ancestor design for one. Y'shtola refers to it as a tower that she cannot surmise the purpose of when you look it over before heading on to Phantom Amaurot, and it does share some striking characteristics of the modern towers. Namely it shares the converging segmented "legs" and it is located only on the periphery of the city, well outside the city limit. Of course, the central tower spire is actually absent, and it definitely looks to be more stonework than "metal spine."

You'd think though, if the modern people are capable of noticing these horrible towers that the populace of Amaurot would have mentioned them as part of the cause... then again apparently prior to the Final Days, there were other calamities that the Amaurotines, "Trusted in The Scholars" to avert.

Of course, given Hades's ruler style, I wouldn't find it hard to believe that he omitted historical details concerning people that he did not respect. When we stand against him in the cutscene between Amaurot and The Dying Gasp, he says that the first thing he will do once he has defeated us is, "Expunge your stain from history's weave." Of course, this statement is tied to his animosity harbored towards heroes, but who's to say that a similar hand wouldn't have been dealt to a doomsday cult or any sort of organization that ran counter to Amaurot's rigid beliefs and policies regarding Creation Magick?

If there is creation, then there is also destruction. Perhaps the outlawing of Destruction Magicks spurred an entire movement against a world where certain desires went completely unfulfilled. Another thing Fandaniel says to us in the Royal Menagerie is that Zenos awaits us at the heart of the chaos. He seems to care about us playing our part and fulfilling Zenos's desire, for an unexplained reason. Perhaps one of the, if not the only, tenet that the Telophoroi have is the idea that no idea should be restricted or forbidden. Perhaps the idea that all life should end is one such idea, and it is this singular principle that drives Fandaniel.

[Lauront]

I agree, it's likely that they would've noticed if they stood out in any way, however I think one dimension of it that may differ is that Fandaniel sees little need for subtlety, and that's probably because hostile engagement plays into his plans in some manner. The towers stand out like a sore thumb now, but my supposition is any similar towers back then may have been built both to look subtler (if not plainer than Amaurotine architecture) and behave innocuously ("oh look, a weather station"... something like that). Without knowing how they function, part of the genius behind them may well be that their operations are too subtle to notice until it's too late. The rate at which Garlemald has been transformed into a dystopian hellscape and the biological nature of the structures we've seen showcased in the previews makes me think they can be fairly rapidly constructed (in whatever sense) and deployed.