6.0 Story Speculations

[Kesey]

Except he recognized you're Azem a long time ago. He even mentioned that you don't remember. If Hythlodaues's shade can recognize who you're, Emet certainly did despite his show of surprise. That's why the crystal trail was laid out for you.

You are not immediately recognized as Azem. You are only recognized as a having a soul that is from a fractured Ancient soul because you have the echo. You are not recognized as Azem until you meet Hythlodaues. When Emet complains you don't remember, he wants a generic Ancient to remember the fun times in perfect Amaurot.

If he knew you were Azem, Emet would have needed a different plan.

[Cilia]

You are not immediately recognized as Azem. You are only recognized as a having a soul that is from a fractured Ancient soul because you have the echo. You are not recognized as Azem until you meet Hythlodaues. When Emet complains you don't remember, he wants a generic Ancient to remember the fun times in perfect Amaurot.

If he knew you were Azem, Emet would have needed a different plan.

Eh. Not necessarily. In his first Shadowbringers cutscene he just says something like "With a soul like that..."; it's uncertain what he means, or if he recognizes the PC as having Azem's soul.

More pointedly, he calls you down to Amaurot so you can turn into the uber-Lightwarden "with dignity" i.e. so your comrades don't have to see it. Even expresses disappointment that you failed to live up to his expectations. Also remember, throughout Shadowbringers at least, Emet-Selch does not lie.

Even if he does see you have Azem's soul it's not until Ardbert rejoins with you that he sees the PC as being quintessentially "Azem," just amnesiac and in mortal form. Hence why he goes so hard into denial about it, declaring you "a broken husk, nothing more" and stops messing around.

Back on point: without further information I'm assuming the hellscape is a sort of illusion conjured by Anima prior to the battle with her, like how you do the Aetherochemical Research Facility and then go on to the Singularity Reactor.

[MrThinker]

So our dungeons are;

Tower of Zot
Gate to the Gods
Burning Thavnair
Somewhere in Garlemald city but seperate from the imperial palace
Hellscape
Crystal World
Ancient Amaurotine place probably on the moon

Some of these dungeons might actually be one in the same, but the aesthetics are so different from each other I find it hard to believe.

But that also means that we have at least 7 dungeons with Trusts, meaning that we may have 2 level cap dungeons as part of the MSQ.

And if one of those classically "extra" dungeons is part of the MSQ, maybe the last dungeon is also "MSQ" meaning that we have 3 level cap dungeons and extended level cap experience for the story.

Yes that is a lot of maybes

EDIT: Argh, one the things I thought was a dungeon might be a solo duty instead DX

[Wiz33]

You are not immediately recognized as Azem. You are only recognized as a having a soul that is from a fractured Ancient soul because you have the echo. You are not recognized as Azem until you meet Hythlodaues. When Emet complains you don't remember, he wants a generic Ancient to remember the fun times in perfect Amaurot.

If he knew you were Azem, Emet would have needed a different plan.

If Hythlodaeus's shade created by Emet can see the distinctive color of Azem's soul on both you and Arbert. There is no way Emet would have missed it. That's why I believe that everything that happened in Amaurot was staged by Emet to save your butt.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Emet is very visibly and audibly shocked when he sees Azem after you fuse with Ardbert. He didn't know before that scene.

Hythlodaeus had better soul-aura-vision than Emet did, that was established in one of the Tales from the Shadows stories.

[KageTokage]

Back on point: without further information I'm assuming the hellscape is a sort of illusion conjured by Anima prior to the battle with her, like how you do the Aetherochemical Research Facility and then go on to the Singularity Reactor.

While it would make sense with the implication that the people trapped in the towers are locked within a nightmare of some sort that's being used to spur them into summoning primals, by all appearances Anima is at the top of the central tower (You can see the characteristic spikes and red haze, as well as the same creepy orange lights that were present in the opening trailer) and the Garlemald dungeon already seems to be a raid on the tower/imperial palace which begins by entering via a train below before taking an elevator into the upper reaches where you can see the same architecture you passed through during the Estinien MSQ duty; albeit with strange bone-like structures covering everything.

[Wiz33]

Emet is very visibly and audibly shocked when he sees Azem after you fuse with Ardbert. He didn't know before that scene.

Hythlodaeus had better soul-aura-vision than Emet did, that was established in one of the Tales from the Shadows stories.

But does that extend to the re-created shade?

[Cilia]

But does that extend to the re-created shade?

Implicitly, yes; the shade states both that it has a greater degree of autonomy than the rest (which it attributes to a stray thought during its creation) and that it sees Ardbert's soul following along with you, stating it's unlikely anyone else could have seen him. Given Emet-Selch never says anything about Ardbert, I'm very inclined to believe Hythlodaeus (shade).

[Veloran]

Implicitly, yes; the shade states both that it has a greater degree of autonomy than the rest (which it attributes to a stray thought during its creation) and that it sees Ardbert's soul following along with you, stating it's unlikely anyone else could have seen him. Given Emet-Selch never says anything about Ardbert, I'm very inclined to believe Hythlodaeus (shade).

This logic is inconsistent. It requires that we believe Emet-Selch wasn't paying attention when creating Hythlodaeus and accidentally gave him true sapience, yet also gave him an incredible power to a degree that he himself did not possess. It assumes that we can trust Hythlodaeus when he posits his own idea of how he was created, while simultaneously ignoring his belief that Emet must have also recognized WoL's soul was Azem. And of course, it insists that we not presume Emet knew in advance and did not himself plan for the situation with the Azem stone, simply mistakenly recreating Hythlodaeus who was truly responsible, despite him letting slip that he knew exactly what Hythlodaeus would have told WoL about the sacrifices to Zodiark when he himself references that exact thing while arguing with the Scions.

[Wiz33]

Implicitly, yes; the shade states both that it has a greater degree of autonomy than the rest (which it attributes to a stray thought during its creation) and that it sees Ardbert's soul following along with you, stating it's unlikely anyone else could have seen him. Given Emet-Selch never says anything about Ardbert, I'm very inclined to believe Hythlodaeus (shade).

Hythlodeaus never said that he has more autonomy (at least not to the degree of finding and setting up the crystal trails in Etched in the Stars), just awareness, enough to realize he's a recreated shade. The distraction he talked about was probably Emet putting more detail in his recreation because he was reminded of their friendship.