What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Rulakir]

Yeah, it'd be annoying, especially if thus far they shied away from giving an Azem much of a distinctive persona out of fear of fan reactions, and then suddenly it's rah-rah Venat. Particularly since they already set up a groundwork for them to be neutral.

It's not like they keep their hands off the WoL, which is even more egregious. Much to my chagrin, mine is racist since she has an adverse reaction to every Garlean she meets. She is disturbingly easily influenced, goes along with whatever she's told to do with a smile, doesn't ask questions, and forgives everything (as long as it's a protagonist). Whether or not I can object or at least disapprove of something is at the whim of the writers and if they give me more than one dialog option that's just the same thing worded differently 3 times. EW was especially bad in dictating how my character felt about things, which was more often than not the polar opposite of how I, as the player, felt.

Frankly, I feel like Hydaelyn fans got to live out their ideal scenario in EW. Those of us who never liked her are stuck with Azem headcanon that hopefully our character's original incarnation would've done better. I'm reminded of something Lurina said: "Rather than having a sense that the story is giving me a choice of what to believe, it feels like the story is telling me to believe something - that a mass-murderer is a great person - I find kinda gross. It makes me want to quit the game because it feels like I'm not on the same page ethically as the writers."

[KizuyaKatogami]

while referring to the 14 seat and is primarily a title of office, its unlikely that Azem would be involved in the events of the Sundering or even being responsible for the Unsundered. so far, we know of 2 potential Azems that we have interacted with being Venat who we know was a previous Azem, and Themis who may be an Azem or could be an Azem based on the He/She dichotomy used by Venat when referring to the current sitting Azem with Emet and Hyltho, and Themis on his initial introduction where he referes to Azem as she probably referring to Venats time as Azem.
While I don't think Pandaemonium may shed some light on the idea of sundering a soul to separate it from something it became like the creations/transformations in Pandaemonium leading to what Venat did to sunder Zodiark it is an interesting theory.


There are technically 2 or 3 potential Azems that would be involved in the story. Venat, Themis/an unknown, make it really hard to pinpoint exactly who is what given that there is no direct involvement and only an idea of a wandering persons. I think this is why all the Ancient locations like Amarout work the way they do, why we collect 14 crystals of the seat of the convocation, why the Zodiac is represented, why Hythlo explains Azems crystal creation and questions if it is his actions or his recreators, and even why Elidibus doesn't seem to recognize the WoL after we use Azems crystal to use Azems favorite spell to summon our "friends" to our side, and why there is so much misdirection in general when it comes to Azems identity.
Azem for better or worse has either a large connection to the WoL and the story or the writers are 7 heads, or the Azem that the story indicates we are potentially involved with really is the root of corruption.(which I favor because it makes more sense to be Hydaelyns familiar/ and at worst Azem after Hydaelyn created the familiar itself to act as her proxy. only because of the dialogue with hythlo when we get to Elpis where he states that it is odd that a familiar would have a soul)

Themis is Elidibus not Azem lol

[Skyborne]

Especially given that Emet deeply cared for Azem and while he and Hythlodaeus may be back together and whole, Azem is apparently permanently sundered now that EW made such a big deal out of sundered > unsundered cause dYnAmIs.

I haven't been able to keep up with the live letter questions thread, but I wonder if anyone brought up the fate of the reflections? There was an SHB interview about how the state of the world was 'unstable', that it was a bad thing in some povs, and I have to wonder if without Hydaelyn's light to stabilize it all it'll come together again on its own eventually... might be my copium, though.

snibbety snab

Pretty much my feelings. The Scions have their individual moments, sometimes, but otherwise as a whole lack color figuratively and physically (lol white hair). It also felt like they had some character development rolled back in EW. I kind of liked Y'shtola for playing devil's advocate and sticking up for the other guys (beast tribes, then ancients) but then in EW she was basically a brick. Urianger went back to his cloak and dagger nonsense even with our heart to heart on the Moon. The twins displayed their naivety in Garlemald, at the cost of those girls' lives. I still kind of miss Thancred's Locke/Zidane-esque charm, but I guess he's never getting that back since he dropped his brd/rog schtick and swapped to GNB. At least Estinien has been faithful to his character, he and Vrtra were one of the highlights of EW for me.

[dapperfaffer]

Frankly, I feel like Hydaelyn fans got to live out their ideal scenario in EW. Those of us who never liked her are stuck with Azem headcanon that hopefully our character's original incarnation would've done better. I'm reminded of something Lurina said: "Rather than having a sense that the story is giving me a choice of what to believe, it feels like the story is telling me to believe something - that a mass-murderer is a great person - I find kinda gross. It makes me want to quit the game because it feels like I'm not on the same page ethically as the writers."

An overwhelming number of posts in this thread are headcanon.

Themis is Elidibus not Azem lol

I'm not saying Themis is. Only that the possibility exists due to the dialogue so far with Pandaemonium. Its clear that Azem is female at the time Pandaemonium occurs which would indicate that Pandaemonium occurs during the time Venat was in the position of Azem and before the WoL goes to Elpis. So we don't know the potential position Themis could fill in the convocation if at all whether its as Elidibus or as Azem or a mixture of both. Its headcanoning to assume that the events of Pandaemonium are in the same timeline as the WoLs with Elpis which is the only way to exclude Themis as a potential Azem. Theres also that Themis uses a similar incantation that was favored by Azem to summon allies to him as explained by Hythlo when he gives the WoL Azems crystal, albeit they are simulacrum to fulfill the necessity of gameplay, which is similar to the way Elidibus summons his warriors of Light. So it isn't clear as to which position Themis could have had since Elidibus came after Venats stint as Azem, but during the time where the Azem who is identified as male has gone missing, potentially.

[TaleraRistain]

An overwhelming number of posts in this thread are headcanon.


I'm not saying Themis is. Only that the possibility exists due to the dialogue so far with Pandaemonium. Its clear that Azem is female at the time Pandaemonium occurs which would indicate that Pandaemonium occurs during the time Venat was in the position of Azem and before the WoL goes to Elpis. So we don't know the potential position Themis could fill in the convocation if at all whether its as Elidibus or as Azem or a mixture of both. Its headcanoning to assume that the events of Pandaemonium are in the same timeline as the WoLs with Elpis which is the only way to exclude Themis as a potential Azem. Theres also that Themis uses a similar incantation that was favored by Azem to summon allies to him as explained by Hythlo when he gives the WoL Azems crystal, albeit they are simulacrum to fulfill the necessity of gameplay, which is similar to the way Elidibus summons his warriors of Light. So it isn't clear as to which position Themis could have had since Elidibus came after Venats stint as Azem, but during the time where the Azem who is identified as male has gone missing, potentially.

Is it? Do male characters get "she" as well? All other mentions of Azem are he/she because it reflects your character.

And found the answer to my own question. It changes to "he" on a male character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOx2n6DRrEw

[KizuyaKatogami]

An overwhelming number of posts in this thread are headcanon.


I'm not saying Themis is. Only that the possibility exists due to the dialogue so far with Pandaemonium. Its clear that Azem is female at the time Pandaemonium occurs which would indicate that Pandaemonium occurs during the time Venat was in the position of Azem and before the WoL goes to Elpis. So we don't know the potential position Themis could fill in the convocation if at all whether its as Elidibus or as Azem or a mixture of both. Its headcanoning to assume that the events of Pandaemonium are in the same timeline as the WoLs with Elpis which is the only way to exclude Themis as a potential Azem. Theres also that Themis uses a similar incantation that was favored by Azem to summon allies to him as explained by Hythlo when he gives the WoL Azems crystal, albeit they are simulacrum to fulfill the necessity of gameplay, which is similar to the way Elidibus summons his warriors of Light. So it isn't clear as to which position Themis could have had since Elidibus came after Venats stint as Azem, but during the time where the Azem who is identified as male has gone missing, potentially.

Tbf if you’re gonna classify peoples posts as headcanon at least fact check your own statements Azem’s gender depends on the gender of your character because he’s us. It says he for me because i have a male character.

[Rulakir]

I haven't been able to keep up with the live letter questions thread, but I wonder if anyone brought up the fate of the reflections? There was an SHB interview about how the state of the world was 'unstable', that it was a bad thing in some povs, and I have to wonder if without Hydaelyn's light to stabilize it all it'll come together again on its own eventually... might be my copium, though.

I want to say someone asked why all the shards aren't at risk of rejoining now without Hydaelyn's magic keeping them separate (since Zodiark being destroyed was the end of his protective magic over Etheirys), but I'm not 100% certain. You could ask just to be sure, I'll upvote it!

[Lauront]

The closest I can find is this. I think if you want to narrow the focus, asking a question won't hurt. The question identified is quite detailed so I'm not sure how likely it is to be picked up, especially at a non-lore focused Q&A, but if nothing else Ishikawa has mentioned combing over these in the past to see what lingering questions there are, so there's that. I do think it will eventually have to be addressed via future lore given mention of the other shards as potential places to go, since the dimensional barriers are a thing, and were frayed for the Void, which is why Voidsent can pass over in some cases even without a portal.

[dapperfaffer]

Is it? Do male characters get "she" as well? All other mentions of Azem are he/she because it reflects your character.

And found the answer to my own question. It changes to "he" on a male character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOx2n6DRrEw

Ok. So lets change it to : Its clear that Azem is male at the time Pandaemonium occurs which would indicate that Pandaemonium occurs during the time after Venat was in the position of Azem and after the WoL goes to Elpis.

Intro to Venat and mention of Azem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC6ftXitvTM female change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrnYFuHXo38 male change

But on both those situations, the intro to Venat and Themis, the reference to gender as Azem is in relation to the Player Character. So which is it? This is what I meant when I said misdirection. You can't have two presentations of story with switching gender reference to Azem as it distorts the information being given based on the gender of the PC.
After Elpis consideration
If the PC is male, Azem is male, Themis can potentially be Azem since he fulfills the qualifier of being Male and is post Venat as Azem. And Pandaemonium takes place after Elpis.
If the PC is female, Azem is female, and Themis can't potentially be Azem since he doesn't fulfill the qualifier of being female and is post Venat as Azem. And Pandaemonium takes place after Elpis.

So which is it? How do we bring those 2 points into alignment where we don't have a strong contradiction: Pandaemonium takes place before Elpis, occurs during the time Venat is Azem, or it takes place after Elpis.
Before Elpis consideration
If the PC is male, Azem is male, and Themis can't potentially be Azem since he fulfills the qualifier of being Male and is pre/during Venat as Azem. And Pandaemonium takes place before Elpis, or during Venat as Azem.
If the PC is female, Azem is female, and Themis can't potentially be Azem since she doesn't fulfill the qualifier of being female and is pre/during Venat as Azem. And Pandaemonium takes place before Elpis, or during Venat as Azem. (see what I did with my post ;p)

Which is also kinda what I mean about headcanoning. The only way to go Themis is Elidibus is from a perspective that doesn't exist based on the story or narrative provided so far. As the only PC that is affected to cause that perception is females. So yes, Kizuya I'm more then well aware that I am "headcanoning", that would be why I'm trying to discuss it. Well, should say was. enjoy your chamber.

Contextual reference:
That what we are being given in terms of representation and identity of the WoL as Azem, and the Identity of Themis as a member of the convocation are deliberate misdirection's by the writers.

[Sicno]

Let's skip all of your speculation missing the point about Azem's gender and let's just say:

...Did you not recognize Themis's very distinctive voice?