The clones of Emet.

[kaynide]

I mean, yeah, sure. There could be a massive clone factory on the moon that re-raises all the ascians endlessly for all we know, but with all the information in place it is pretty safe to say the ones specifically "staked" by white auracite are dead-dead. The ones killed by other means (Emmerololth/Lahabrea) are questionable, but probably dead.

It would cheapen his death speech and his "wave" to Elidabus if he was, in fact, alive/being reborn.

..of course we do have a massive Bioshock-Infinite level time paradox on our hands, where Emet-Selch is probably alive in the "dark future"...so there is that....

[Wiz33]

I know I'm very late to the party. What makes you guys think that Emet is dead at all? Think back to every thing that happened once you set foot on Amaurot (actually ever since Emet first showed up in ShB)). The only illogical conclusion is that Emet is dead. Everything that happened in Amaurot is just a test to see if you're truly worthy and he would have an exit strategy all planned out if you were. Emet was not staked with White Auracite when you hit him with the Aether axe. He has already destroyed the White Auracite and darkness have already returned when you hit him with the Aether axe. So technically, Ishikawa did not lie. Did she ever came out and said that Emet is truly dead and we'll not see/hear him again? If she did, then she lied as we already have.

[Beddict]

I know I'm very late to the party. What makes you guys think that Emet is dead at all? Think back to every thing that happened once you set foot on Amaurot (actually ever since Emet first showed up in ShB)). The only illogical conclusion is that Emet is dead. Everything that happened in Amaurot is just a test to see if you're truly worthy and he would have an exit strategy all planned out if you were. Emet was not staked with White Auracite when you hit him with the Aether axe. He has already destroyed the White Auracite and darkness have already returned when you hit him with the Aether axe. So technically, Ishikawa did not lie. Did she ever came out and said that Emet is truly dead and we'll not see/hear him again? If she did, then she lied as we already have.

He still got dunked by a gigantic Blade of Light. The whole point of the White Auracite is to trap the Ascian long enough to pierce them with the Blade of Light, breaking down the barriers of their soul so they can be drawn into the Lifestream where they die. With Nabriales, he tried to flee so we trapped him and then charged up a Blade of Light with Moenbryda's help to kill him. With Igeyorhm, she tried to flee so we trapped her and then used Nidhogg's Eye to form a Blade of Light and kill her. But with Emet-Selch, he wasn't trying to flee so we didn't need to actually trap him with White Auracite, and it was mainly used to slow him down while he tried to kill everyone. He may have broken the White Auracite, but that doesn't matter because we still pierced him with a concentrated Blade of Light made using the aether of the Light Wardens. That barrier around his soul is gone, and he fades away into the Lifestream.

Further supporting the whole "Emet-Selch is dead" but is one of the Tales from the Shadow short stories. From the poem at the end of Ere Our Curtain Falls:

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint, as is my breath
That quavers here at brink of death.
'Twas e'er my fate to wager all
For that which wrought my brothers' fall,
And thus the aether beckons me
To depths of black eternity,
To dream of things long lost and gone,
And futures which might yet be won─
Though not by me, lest you mistake,
For others wait, the stage to take,
And while their worth is far from sure,
I bid the falling curtain─pause.
Let "encore" be my final word,
Their epilogue to death preferred.

He's pretty dead, he's falling into the Lifestream, and his final word, his "encore" was the snap during Seat of Sacrifice where he saved us.

[Wiz33]

Mis-directions. Think about this.

Emet said that he will not lie to you (and technically he hasn't, he just omitted a few things) Emet said that he could have wiped out your entire party in The Dying Gasp without a blink right at the start. Why didn't he? Did you notice that the ring of arrows landed in a circle around Alisaie and Aiphinaud instead of on them and a perfect killing shot on Ryne only knock her out for a bit? If his intention is to take out your band of misfits. They would have all be dead at the beginning of The Dying Gasp, much less timed a perfect rescue at the end no worse for wear. it's because he believes that you are worthy but after waiting/carrying the burden for thousands and thousands of years. He has to be sure.

Given that he created Vauthry, he would know what absorbing all that Aether will do to you more than anyone else. So everything that happened once you set foot upon Amarout is a setup to save your butt if you're indeed worthy. If Hythlodaeus's shade (create by Emet) can see Ardbert beside you and notice the color of your souls. Emet certainly can and did recognize that each of you carried a fragment of Azem's soul way before. My theory is that he believes that combining 2 souls (yours and Ardbert's) will allow you to control and channel all the excess Aether but he doesn't know if it can be done (after all, if he knows how to rejoin souls, they're won't have to work towards the rejoining). So he took a gamble that having 2 fragmented soul close to each other under great stress (not unlike a calamity) may make it happen. So all the trails in Amarout are so he can be sure that you will persevere through and to put you under so much stress that your 2 fragmented soul will join. Remember his last words before the final battle "Very Well, Let us proceed to your final judgement". Judgement for what? Judgement for if you're truly worthy!

[Wiz33]

Since everything in The Dying Gasp is a setup. He would have an exit strategy all planned out. We're talking about Emet Selch after all. As I said earlier, Hades have already destroyed the Auracite lance (so no longer trapped) and darkness have fully return to cover everything before you hit him with the Aether Axe. What you put a hole through is just Solus zos Galvus's body. Emet's soul just retreated to the void like any Ascian when their body was destroyed until they find another host or in his case, activate one of his clone. Ascian trapped and destoryed by White Auracite generally goes out with an "arhhhhh". They don't get to retain their form and carry a conversation (the Crystal tower is binding Elidibeus, not destroying him). That's why he was there to snap you out of it in SoS.

Still don't buy my theory? let me give you more food for thought. Amarout was in ruin at the end of The Dying Gasp. How come it was back to form in Faded Memories? Some will say that Elidibeus did it. But even in that case. Who was sustaining Hythlodaues's shade, whom somehow knows Emet's last word to you (To remember them) and laying down the crystal trails for you to find? As to the "encore" reference in the poem. It's just meant that he's taking his curtain call and retiring and leaving the burden to you.

One last thing if you're still not convinced. Dead/destroyed Ascian don't get to do voiceover on future events for the next expansion. Watch the Endwalker trailer and listen at the 0:58 mark. That's Emet's voice and I confirm it in the Japanese version that it's was also the same Japanese voice actor for Emet. I'm sure we have not seen the last of Emet Selch!

[Vyrerus]

I know I'm very late to the party. What makes you guys think that Emet is dead at all?

"I AM STIFLED BY THIS VESSEL OF FLESH!"

In the fight in the Dying Gasp, Hades actually discards the body of Solus in favor of taking on the true form of his soul in order to fight us at his fullest. That is how he transforms into the giant clawed monster.

You misunderstand the auracite chunk. Take note of what the Scions were doing. They were channeling their aether so that the auracite would trap and absorb as much of his soul as possible. This is a battle against Hades's very soul. The last chunk to break is the one that gets all of their efforts, becoming the spear that he has to hold back from piercing him. It didn't stake him down. It basically made a weakpoint in his soul, a chink in his armor, which is why our Axe of Light was able to penetrate him.

As for the rest of Amaurot still being around... Akademia Anyder is a dungeon set there AFTER we've killed Hades. His illusion Amaurot was setup to persist after he was gone. The Dying Gasp takes place in the portion of Amaurot that sits in ruins above sea level. That was an active illusion he made, whereas the Amaurot beneath the sea was a passive one.

We will no doubt see holorecordings of Emet-selch on the moon in the Mare Lamentorum crystal repository. We may even get an Echo vision of him in the past. His legacy, the one he wants us to remember, is going to still impact the story.

[Cleretic]

I know I'm very late to the party. What makes you guys think that Emet is dead at all?

Mostly the giant hole in his chest from when we threw an axe made out of an apocalypse's worth of light through him. There's also the point where it's an extremely dramatic conclusion to Shardowbringers, Ardbert, and Emet-Selch's stories that would all be cheapened to nigh-worthlessness by him coming back, but mostly it's the hole in his chest.

If he comes back after that? I give up, because there is no longer value or weight to the story being told or the events being depicted. If climactic all-in gambles can be undone, huge sacrifices thrown away, dramatic character finales can be rewound, what is even the point? It all becomes meaningless; why fight Fandaniel if death doesn't stop him, why invest anything in the conflict if there is no return? Why bother, at all?

[KageTokage]

The fact they chose him to be the one to narrate the Endwalker trailer does make me feel like he's going to show up some small capacity, but certainly not as a major player.

If he was able to preserve himself to some extent in Azem's crystal, perhaps he took still more "just in case" measures in the event he decided the sundered were worthy of inheriting the world.

[RyuDragnier]

The fact they chose him to be the one to narrate the Endwalker trailer does make me feel like he's going to show up some small capacity, but certainly not as a major player.

If he was able to preserve himself to some extent in Azem's crystal, perhaps he took still more "just in case" measures in the event he decided the sundered were worthy of inheriting the world.

He HAS been a pretty big manipulator and planner up to this point. He planned the whole soul crystal stuff in 5.3 during the final battle with us (which may be where he disappeared to when we were fighting the adds), so him having planned one last "encore" for a curtain call isn't out of the question. Not to mention the unexplained existence and stalking of THAT SHOEBILL (no, I can't forget this thing, it haunts me).

[vormela]

^ He is the director and screenwriter. He is the lens, curator, and personality we view so many of the now-relevant past events through that no one until now has given us. And we will find more in the new nations we visit that he would probably have things to say about. And we may find out how he bent the truth about Amaurot and old times from Venat's group, which would really make me happy, because I want to know about my character's past life from someone besides him so it doesn't seem like he is manipulating our memories like a creepy ex-BFF (like how in psychology there is the idea of inducing false memories in patients). The Qitari beast tribe storyline deals with the interpretation of history, and I think we will be doing that with our past life on individual levels for each WoL so that it leaves some stuff open to interpretation.

I am new to FFXIV as of about five months ago so I am not familiar with crystallography or lifestream hydrology or ornithology.

I am hoping the clones make a cameo in the weirdest and most unsettling way possible, maybe as figureheads for Garlemald that give revolting authoritarian speeches and temper people, in a similar way to how the zeppelins broadcast what was basically the angry tweets of the president of Eulmore. Not the intended use! Maybe he will be able to sneak in among them. Or maybe something goofy like a synchronized swim team or some recreational traditional Garlean sport (I don't know, those always creep me out). Or we find a mass grave of just clones (there's always a clone room, as Konogg and Anogg have demonstrated!). I am hoping for the "nothing is sacred" route to be taken during the depiction of the end times! Can you imagine how much fun people probably had coming up with stuff? And the clones being used for nonprescribed purposes would be universally revolting to all Emet-Selch fans, even the people who want to hear nothing else from him again (a position I find absolutely baffling, even as someone who came from WoW where many characters and story arcs have been dead-ended by hanging onto characters for too long).

Emet-Selch was his stage name.