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

[Theodric]

I am... like... incredibly confused by what's been going on here.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[BaconBits]

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Your sig is giving off some serious "the hell's going on up there" energy.

[Lauront]

I am... like... incredibly confused by what's been going on here.

I remember seeing a white-hot Pandaemonium take on Reddit that Erichthonios would go on to become our Lahabrea. And... I... just... nah fam, for multiple reasons. I mean, what we know so far about Pandaemonium seems pretty clear to me, but I will concede we do not know exactly when it takes place. It might be before Themis actually became Elidibus. But the Azem mentioned in the quest line is very much supposed to be us, and I don't think it's ever been ambiguous?...

Eric certainly doesn't seem to be him. I think the NPC who gives you the quest is a better candidate, for being his sundered fragment, maybe. As for Themis? He is not donning a red mask, but he is donning the robes of an Emissary, so I wonder if he's perhaps working for something like the Words of Elidibus, assuming such exists. Once he's joined the Convocation he gets to know Lahabrea personally, so everything thus far suggests it's before then.

Yeah I think the topic of Ancients and space is weird too. Like, we have Venat coming up with the star trekking bunnies and her Moon being a literal functional spaceship. Given that they're her creations, can we infer that they're based off her own knowledge of how space travel works (and I assume she wouldn't be the only one with that knowledge – much like the Hermes-Dynamis point, I can hardly believe an entire civilisation of immortal academics wouldn't share scientific knowledge with each other, which is one of the reasons why "Hermes had to become Fandaniel!" just bothers me)? Or did she create them with the intent "hey, research space travel for me then build an ark for humanity", which they then did? In either case the end result is the same: logically, space shouldn't be this completely unknown thing for Ancients. But I guess they just willingly chose not to research it much?...

Speaking of, I had long headcanoned (oh no not another headcanon in this thread!) that the Seat of Nabriales had to do with astrophysics, what with his timey-wimey shenanigans and meteor rain. But Endwalker absolutely did not help out there.

Might also be that since a researcher was already looking into it, the others chose not to focus on it much. It's probably also fairly resource-intensive... which as Overseer of Elpis may have been less of an issue for him. But on the point as to why he'd be useful (mainly celestial currents, but also dynamis) as Fandaniel, again he's not the only person with that knowledge. It's strange that they wanted to present it with such a sense of inevitability to it, but did not actually write it in such a way as to cement that, e.g. the Watcher mentions it is scholars in the plural whose understanding it is to be be thanked for Zodiark.

[KizuyaKatogami]

fine, Kizuya.
No, you weren't interested in discussing anything. Your initial response was

My reply was speculation, to Teraqs post which was also speculation. No one was directly stating anything, it was merely the possibilities. So, there is no confusion. You're trying to have a discussion about something that no one said, about things no one was discussing.

You’re free to believe what you wish Dapperfaffer, however i think i know what i’m interested in. Yes, my initial response was merely offering some correction to your speculation as it relied on something we already have an answer to, so i just wanted to inform you of that before we discussed anything further regarding to that. We were discussing Azem’s role, it was a discussion.Just in case it’s a foreign definition for you:

“the action or process of talking about something in order to reach a decision or to exchange ideas.”

There was certainly and exchange of ideas going on.

[TaleraRistain]

So, no, the WoL gender link to Azem isn't irrelevant. Its super important. Since, you know, the WoL is Azem. Its kinda hard to have a female PC with a Male Azem, otherwise there are things one might be able to speculate as it breaks the narrative of the story.

The gender link between WoL and Azem is irrelevant because the story does not change based on your gender. You posited two situations where one precludes Themis from being Azem based on Azem's gender while the other situation where Azem is female allowed it. That is what is not possible. If one situation for the gender of Azem wouldn't allow for the result you posit, then the result is not possible because that would be changing the story circumstances. And the only thing that our gender changes is how people refer to us. The story is gender neutral, so any theory that would depend on a certain gender is not possible.

[dapperfaffer]

The gender link between WoL and Azem is irrelevant because the story does not change based on your gender. You posited two situations where one precludes Themis from being Azem based on Azem's gender while the other situation where Azem is female allowed it. That is what is not possible. If one situation for the gender of Azem wouldn't allow for the result you posit, then the result is not possible because that would be changing the story circumstances. And the only thing that our gender changes is how people refer to us. The story is gender neutral, so any theory that would depend on a certain gender is not possible.

The gender link between the WoL and Azem is relevant because it changes the reference between each PC, for how they are identified and its tie in to the reference of Azem. The 2 suppositions I made were predicated solely on whether Pandaemonium occurs before or after Elpis to which one of them can't be possible because it breaks the story unity between PCs, and the other also can't be possible because it doesn't directly eliminate the concept of Themis being Azem.
In order for the story to not break under both suppositions the gender link has to be relevant. The gender neutrality of the story is dependent on the correct PC and Azem gender link.

[SpectrePhantasia]

What......?

[Sicno]

Just going to add this to support your argument (and attempt to get this thread back on topic :P):

WOW, now THAT slipped under my own radar :P Nice catch!

So that means even herself could have somewhat helped if she had really intended to instead of sitting on her high horse, instead of becoming a 2nd judge in the "judgment of humanity".

I believe it was if the creation was to be released into greater Etheirys. Hermes subverted that by sending the Meteia directly into space from Elpis. I think Hythlodaeus cut him some slack because he was a friend and believed him to be an upstanding guy.

Yeah, and in this case what I'm trying to do is leave some room for "this is possible" to cut the writer some slack because if we go the route where dynamis knowledge was truly so absolutely abysmal and nobody else knew anything then the plot would crumble apart even harder. Because how then did Hermes acquire enough knowledge of dynamis as to create an entity capable of traversing the entire universe and also of twisting their powerful creation magics and even entire life forms into dynamis from the edge of the universe? Of undoing their entire species and their planet, and also the rest of the universe? Did he one day wake up and came up with all of that on his own?

[TaleraRistain]

WOW, now THAT slipped under my own radar :P Nice catch!

So that means even herself could have somewhat helped if she had really intended to instead of sitting on her high horse, instead of becoming a 2nd judge in the "judgment of humanity".





Yeah, and in this case what I'm trying to do is leave some room for "this is possible" to cut the writer some slack because if we go the route where dynamis knowledge was truly so absolutely abysmal and nobody else knew anything then the plot would crumble apart even harder. Because how then did Hermes acquire enough knowledge of dynamis as to create an entity capable of traversing the entire universe and also of twisting their powerful creation magics and even entire life forms into dynamis from the edge of the universe? Of undoing their entire species and their planet, and also the rest of the universe? Did he one day wake up and came up with all of that on his own?

I didn't follow the entire line of this but the Ancients knew about dynamis. Hyth mentions it. He says it constitutes a certain percentage of the universe. It's a similar percentage of the real life amount of dark energy in our universe so I think one of the writers was low key making a science joke.

[Rulakir]

WOW, now THAT slipped under my own radar :P Nice catch!

It's easy to miss since it's a dialog option. It's at the part after you tell everyone what happens in the future, Venat asks if we've learned anything of interest in Elpis and you have the choice of saying dynamis is involved, it has something to do with Hermes & Meteion, or you're not sure.

So that means even herself could have somewhat helped if she had really intended to instead of sitting on her high horse, instead of becoming a 2nd judge in the "judgment of humanity".

Yeah. The plot needed to be tighter to accept such a controversial decision. One of the best comments I read by a Japanese player was, "Venat and Hermes are co-conspirators, aren't they?"