Sharlayan origins and the Endwalker Trailer

[Theodric]

A couple of the Scions outright admitted that if they were in Emet-Selch's position, they would do the exact same thing as he sought to do. Furthermore, it has arguably never been framed as a 'right' and 'wrong' conflict so much as the Sundered doing everything possible to protect their own interests and survive whereas the Unsundered have sought to do the same thing.

There's also a number of interviews containing commentary from the development team explaining that it is all a matter of perspective, though even putting that aside it's entirely fictional so I remain baffled by some of the emotional pleas and not so subtle attempts to frame people as being 'wrong', 'insane' or 'bad' for liking, rooting for or coming to sympathise and understand specific characters and factions. The prudent approach, I rather suspect, would be to agree to disagree on subjective plot elements.

Once again, I also feel obligated to point out that just because a handful of individuals on an increasingly niche forum do not like particular plot points or lines of speculation that does not necessarily mean that the story told is 'terrible'. We'll see how Endwalker actually plays out in a couple of days, at any rate.

Shadowbringers received overwhelmingly positive feedback for its nuanced story, intriguing characters and thought provoking narrative. I'll be tempering my expectations as I usually do, though given the stakes for an impressive finale I find myself cautiously optimistic. Even Stormblood, which isn't my favourite expansion, still ended up being far superior to what the competition offered as far as I'm concerned...and even then, Stormblood's main issue was the split focus.

[Vyrerus]

I hope

No bit here. Shadowbringers was about laying the truth of the world bare. You just happen to not like the truth, because it's hard to deal with.

You can be reductionist towards the truth if you'd like. The truth is that everyone on every shard is real, but they're living on the borrowed souls of those who were wasted by Hydaelyn. Those same souls still get to live after Rejoinings.

The events of the game can be boiled down in any number of ways, and a boiled down reading will always be far off. Just because you boil down what I say while also applying your own perspective to it doesn't make it any less the truth. /shrug

And I have finished Baldesion Arsenal. I've had the Demi-Ozma mount since before Shadowbringers launched. I just didn't care about Ejika's resurrection, and subsequently forgot about it. I'll link the recording of my Proto-Ozma clear if you'd like. Might have to, considering you've got horse blinders on.

[Rosenstrauch]

While we're on the subject of the Baldesion Arsenal, could someone refresh my memory on something?

How exactly did Ejika Tsunjika trick Eureka into thinking it had successfully tempered him? I'm asking because, off the top of my head, Ejika does not have the Echo. In fact, I recall him having a chip on his shoulder regarding Krile because she did.

[Lauront]

A couple of the Scions outright admitted that if they were in Emet-Selch's position, they would do the exact same thing as he sought to do. Furthermore, it has arguably never been framed as a 'right' and 'wrong' conflict so much as the Sundered doing everything possible to protect their own interests and survive whereas the Unsundered have sought to do the same thing.

There's also a number of interviews containing commentary from the development team explaining that it is all a matter of perspective, though even putting that aside it's entirely fictional so I remain baffled by some of the emotional pleas and not so subtle attempts to frame people as being 'wrong', 'insane' or 'bad' for liking, rooting for or coming to sympathise and understand specific characters and factions. The prudent approach, I rather suspect, would be to agree to disagree on subjective plot elements.

Once again, I also feel obligated to point out that just because a handful of individuals on an increasingly niche forum do not like particular plot points or lines of speculation that does not necessarily mean that the story told is 'terrible'. We'll see how Endwalker actually plays out in a couple of days, at any rate.

Shadowbringers received overwhelmingly positive feedback for its nuanced story, intriguing characters and thought provoking narrative. I'll be tempering my expectations as I usually do, though given the stakes for an impressive finale I find myself cautiously optimistic. Even Stormblood, which isn't my favourite expansion, still ended up being far superior to what the competition offered as far as I'm concerned...and even then, Stormblood's main issue was the split focus.

Well said.

It's unfortunate really, but I suspect the issue is that certain individuals struggle to separate fiction from reality, also refuse to grasp the nuance involved and cannot accept that people have differing interpretations of it and/or different story preferences (a lot of people like games as fairly unconstrained "what ifs"), and so attempt to shame others for disagreeing with them... so be it, but it's not exactly the sort of person I see any value in engaging.

[Vyrerus]

While we're on the subject of the Baldesion Arsenal, could someone refresh my memory on something?

How exactly did Ejika Tsunjika trick Eureka into thinking it had successfully tempered him? I'm asking because, off the top of my head, Ejika does not have the Echo. In fact, I recall him having a chip on his shoulder regarding Krile because she did.

Ejika specifically refers to it as the Blessing the whole time in English, and that's one of those, "We're not really sure." I think the idea was that he's supposed to be, "Just that good" and resisted through sheer force of will, long enough for us to defeat Eureka's avatar.

But we're likely going to find out that it's Sharlayan tech that's yet to be named. Same stuff that's gonna shield Thavnair temporarily from the Telo Tower, I suspect.

[Cleretic]

While we're on the subject of the Baldesion Arsenal, could someone refresh my memory on something?

How exactly did Ejika Tsunjika trick Eureka into thinking it had successfully tempered him? I'm asking because, off the top of my head, Ejika does not have the Echo. In fact, I recall him having a chip on his shoulder regarding Krile because she did.

No given reason, but personally, I suspect it to be that he outsmarted Eureka and its weapon.

Consider that all of Eureka's created weapon-primals (except for Proto-Ozma, which is weird) have a wielder with a fitting personality; the wielder becomes the mythical bearer of this blade. Indeed Odin is according to some lore an actual myth from somewhere in the north. So it's a bit of a 'Jane Foster as Thor' situation.

But I don't think Ejika thought like that. He wasn't asking for 'a sword worthy of Odin' or something like that, because he doesn't think that way. He would've just gone 'give me a real good sword'. And if you do that... what would a primal that's just 'a real good sword' even temper you to do, really? Would it just temper you with a desire to swing it at something?

I think Ejika realized that. He realized that even if that blade would be dangerous in the long term, an effective 'blank slate' primal would do the job right now. After all, the most it would want from him would be 'kill something', and... well, look what they actually did with the thing!

EDIT: It's either that, or just the simple notion that a Eureka weapon tempering takes some time, it isn't instant. Which does seem to be the general depiction given to Odin; if it were instant then it would just be an unbroken chain of 'people grab it and then they're Odin', while in its storyline someone does run away with it (thus implying at least a brief 'not being Odin' period), and the FATE taking a few days to respawn does suggest that it takes some time to really consume the wielder. If Ejika knew that, and knew he at least had a couple minutes before he was gone, that'd explain his plan. He doesn't need a lot of time; just enough time to throw a sword.

[Daralii]

No given reason, but personally, I suspect it to be that he outsmarted Eureka and its weapon.

Consider that all of Eureka's created weapon-primals (except for Proto-Ozma, which is weird) have a wielder with a fitting personality; the wielder becomes the mythical bearer of this blade. Indeed Odin is according to some lore an actual myth from somewhere in the north. So it's a bit of a 'Jane Foster as Thor' situation.

But I don't think Ejika thought like that. He wasn't asking for 'a sword worthy of Odin' or something like that, because he doesn't think that way. He would've just gone 'give me a real good sword'. And if you do that... what would a primal that's just 'a real good sword' even temper you to do, really? Would it just temper you with a desire to swing it at something?

I think Ejika realized that. He realized that even if that blade would be dangerous in the long term, an effective 'blank slate' primal would do the job right now. After all, the most it would want from him would be 'kill something', and... well, look what they actually did with the thing!

EDIT: It's either that, or just the simple notion that a Eureka weapon tempering takes some time, it isn't instant. Which does seem to be the general depiction given to Odin; if it were instant then it would just be an unbroken chain of 'people grab it and then they're Odin', while in its storyline someone does run away with it (thus implying at least a brief 'not being Odin' period), and the FATE taking a few days to respawn does suggest that it takes some time to really consume the wielder. If Ejika knew that, and knew he at least had a couple minutes before he was gone, that'd explain his plan. He doesn't need a lot of time; just enough time to throw a sword.

It probably is just a time thing. The cutscene cuts to his point of view a couple times and there's a purple filter over everything.

[Rulakir]

I also get the impression that the more ardent Hydaelyn defenders feel as if their sense of morality or life choices are being attacked, which is odd. We're discussing a fictional universe that exists in an unnatural state where reincarnation is confirmed. Real life rules don't exactly apply.

I've never liked Hydaelyn starting from the intro to ARR. It has absolutely nothing to do with discoveries made in ShB (although those made it exponentially worse), I've always found her unsetttling and that was continuously exacerbated through Minfilia. The only interest I'd have in fighting her is if it means my WoL will finally be free of her. Whatever issues anyone has with Ascians doesn't make Hydaelyn any more worthy to follow. I don't consider choosing one wrong to fight against another a good choice and clearly neither did Azem back in the day.

[GoldStarz]

I forgot to mention G'raha. He doesn't have the Echo, but is 8x rejoined which could only happen if he were a sundered Ancient.

Because the Ancients weren't the only people sundered? There was also the new life that was created after the laws of the star were rewritten, brand new souls that were created from seemingly nothing.

No bit here. Shadowbringers was about laying the truth of the world bare. You just happen to not like the truth, because it's hard to deal with.

You can be reductionist towards the truth if you'd like. The truth is that everyone on every shard is real, but they're living on the borrowed souls of those who were wasted by Hydaelyn. Those same souls still get to live after Rejoinings.

The events of the game can be boiled down in any number of ways, and a boiled down reading will always be far off. Just because you boil down what I say while also applying your own perspective to it doesn't make it any less the truth. /shrug

I mean you do realize that Shadowbringers is pretty much all about how the Ascians' worldview is flawed, right? Even if you regard Hydaelyn negatively, preventing calamity is still the act of saving countless people, the fact that someone's soul becomes a little bit denser doesn't change the fact that millions of people died to make that happen. To "lay the truth of the world bare", it's genocide. Plain and simple.

[Mixawaves]

I don't consider choosing one wrong to fight against another a good choice and clearly neither did Azem back in the day.

If we don't end up getting a Hydaelyn heel turn in EW, take note that we don't definitively know this statement is true. The specific quote from 5.2 is "I had hoped the defector, at least, would side with us, but I regret to report out overtures have gone unanswered." It's always stuck out to me that they specifically said 'unanswered' instead of some form of 'denied' because we have no information on Azem's status or whereabouts after resigning from the Convocation. It's possible they went to deal with the Sound directly or any other manner of things occurred that would have prevented them from responding to Venat's group one way or the other. And that's not to say that they would have been pro-Hydaelyn in any case; just that there is so much we don't know yet about the time between Zodiark being summoned and the meeting of Venat's group.