Revelations from 4gamer

[Anonymoose]

I'm afraid though, Moose, that Hildibrand is quite canonical. <charcuterie board of various forms of evidence, ranging from conflating game mechanics and story to a well-organized bulletin board covered in conspiracy string>

Rebuttal

Gamer Escape: Exactly how canon is the Hildibrand storyline? Godbert is on the real, actual Syndicate, but much of the storyline is clearly exaggerated, if not out-right one-directionally canon. Even the NPCs claim some things make no sense.

KF: And those of us working on those quests might think, but this doesn’t make any sense! Oda-san would like to say that it’s up to the reader how much sense they want to make of it and how they want to look at it.

Somehow after all these years I'm still fond of the "one-way bubble" interpretation. ("If it happens outside of a Manderville Bubble, it's still true inside of it, but whatever happens inside of it has to be taken with a boulder of Ishgardian licking salt.")