Crazy Personal Headcanons

[Jandor]

Ok so crazy headcanon... the game even with Endwalker is STILL a better love story than Twilight. <_< >_>

I'll be in the corner now waiting for my hot chocolate....

Zenos flies to the end of all creation to be with you, pours his heart out and offers you the most meaningul gift he can think of, all on a field of light framed by the stars.

It's all very romantic if you think about it

[Erendis]

Nothing romantic about being stalked tbh.

[Jandor]

Nothing romantic about being stalked tbh.

Still a better love story than Twilight.

[sidurgu-12]

Still a better love story than Twilight.

if Midnight sun is to be believed zenos is definitely more romantic than edward.

[YianKutku]

I know this headcanon is not true in the slightest, but it's been sticking in my head ever since I played the MSQ:

The title for a traitor to Garlemald is "viator". More specifically, "outcast and enemy to Garlemald", and so the title "viator" is given to mark them as a "wanderer"/"traveller", ie an exile with no home.

However, this is a post facto explanation given for internal Garlean consumption. After all, Solus was the one who came up with the list of Imperial titles, and when he had to think up a title for someone branded traitor and outcast, the first thing he thought of was "traveller", because Emet-Selch still has lingering and complicated feelings over Azem's actions and the Convocation's reactions.

[Enkidoh]

I know this headcanon is not true in the slightest, but it's been sticking in my head ever since I played the MSQ:

The title for a traitor to Garlemald is "viator". More specifically, "outcast and enemy to Garlemald", and so the title "viator" is given to mark them as a "wanderer"/"traveller", ie an exile with no home.

However, this is a post facto explanation given for internal Garlean consumption. After all, Solus was the one who came up with the list of Imperial titles, and when he had to think up a title for someone branded traitor and outcast, the first thing he thought of was "traveller", because Emet-Selch still has lingering and complicated feelings over Azem's actions and the Convocation's reactions.

And that also plays further into my earlier comments about him still having lingering feelings over Venat, and Lahabrea still feeling salty about having his concept used without his permission.

Goddess, the Unsundered sure are/were a psychological train-wreck (but then, 12000 years worth of emotional baggage would change a person I guess).

[Lium]

I used to think it made no sense to play through the entire story as anything other than a hyur, especially after what we learned in Shadowbringers.

But after Endwalker, my new headcanon is coming back as a cat or a bunny or whatever is exactly something Azem would do, just to troll Emet-Selch and the Unsundered. This is especially the case if you play a Lalafell.

"Ha! I kicked your ass as a potato!"

[MediocreIndigo]

I have a headcanon that the reason you get the Wind-up Herois after beating Endwalker is because the WoL has it commissioned offscreen, considering they're probably the only person alive who has seen what Venat looked like before she became Hydaelyn. It seems like something they might do to remember her by. I also think that the reason Argos gets unlocked as a mount after Endwalker is because now that Venat is no longer around you've essentially become his new master.

[Simple_Barghest]

Less headcanon, more salt, sorry if anyone else has mentioned this already:
The Echo is useless and actively harmful, UNLESS you have Antagonist listed anywhere on your character sheet.

My reasoning:
Every time the WoL and people allied with the WoL have Echo visions, they are immensely painful headaches. Sometimes so debilitating are these visions that they are taken advantage of by people outside of Echo-user's head.
And if an Antagonist has access to the Echo, they always have the ability to use it in ways to IMMEDIATELY counteract anything related to the protag's Echo.

Examples off the top of my head, not including the HEADACHE scenes which are just standard Echo affair:
1) Stormblood, WoL gets Yotsuyu-related Echo visions. Nearly gets hit in the face, only doesn't because Lyse is there.
2) Bozja storyline. Mikoto's future visions are nearly-useless most of the time, and the few instances she tries to take advantage of them to help the WoL and the cause of the rebellion, it goes wrong. More on that later.
3) Shadowbringers. Multiple instances of the WoL getting an Echo vision that results in somebody getting away, a Sin-Eater / Cardinal Virtue getting off scott-free, somebody getting stabbed, what have you.
4) Endwalker, Melee DPS Role Quests: Echo vision striking and putting WoL down to their knees right in the middle of a horrible combat situation.
5) Heavensward, Ysayle is the only other person with the Echo there besides you. Shiva proves to be a useless transformation at multiple instances, and the one instance of it proving capable (the pursuit by BIG fucking Garlean airship), she dies the next scene after.

Meanwhile Antagonists, include:
1) Zenos, who uses his Echo to do such things as: Possessing a Primal. Becoming an Ascian after death. Eating the Mothercrystal. Becoming a Primal and breaking his way through space-and-time through battle autism.
2) Misija, topically enough, who gets the exact same future visions as Mikoto, gets to know that Mikoto ALSO got those visions instead of something else entirely, and ALSO gets an effective and powerful Primal summoning + transformation (at least until she became a boss fight in Delibird Regibird or however you spell that instance).
3) Fordola at first, who funnily enough proves both of these points. Her first bit of Echo usage includes combat precognition, warranting an entire plot bit around the revolution of Ala Mhigo where we have to create a set of tools specifically to counteract this combat precog.

The only reason the Echo existed was for exposition dialogue and flashback sequences. Every other time it's invoked, and even instances where it's used to give only exposition, it comes at a cost. It's frankly a liability, and it doesn't surprise me that after Venat "teaches" the WoL how to "use" their Echo in Elpis (a scene that infuriated me to no end), we get NO other instances of the Echo throughout the entire rest of Endwalker.

tldr plot device make upsetti spaghetti

[Simple_Barghest]

To tie up the point I was making on Fordola before I realized I was running out of text space due to unhinged rambling and ranting:
Fordola began with her combat precognition Echo, and after she was imprisoned and slowly started becoming a side-protagonist, she never uses it or seems like she has access to it anymore. And in exchange, gets a non-stop influx of negative emotions and memories from everyone around her.