Revelations from Patch 6.1

[Enkidoh]

Something I'm curious about and having trouble wrapping my mind around. In the future G'raha came from that we prevented, the First was in the process of rejoining with the source. Why was the First able to rejoin after being flooded by Light, but the 13th wasn't able to after being flooded by Darkness? What's the difference? Someone said it might have to do with either Black Rose being released at the same time as the First starting to rejoin, or that the 13th was "tethered" to the source by the contract with the Cloud of Darkness and couldn't rejoin due to that. I'm really confused. xD Sorry if this is the wrong thread to ask in. I didn't want to make an entirely new thread to ask this question. My apologies.

Shadowbringers explained this: Yes, when the First was being consumed by Light Aether, on the Source the same elemental type of Calamity was occurring with Black Rose. (This also makes Heavensward and Thordan's Ascian-supported attempt to become a Light-themed Primal to wipe out the dragons and try to conqueror Eorzea make sense - Black Rose was the back-up plan.) When Igheryorm caused the 13th Shard to be consumed by Darkness, the other Ascians hadn't caused an equal Darkness Calamity on the Source, so the 13th just sits there.

Not just that - the First was only able to be Rejoined in the first place (pun intended), because it's Flood was stopped a century before by Minfilia-wielding-Hydaelyn's-powers and Ardbert's friends' sacrificing themselves to halt it. Enough of the world remained intact in Norvrandt (in other words, enough remained aspected to other elements) for Emet to set it up to be Rejoined with the Source by having it's Light-aspected (as in Astral, stasis and order) interacting with the Empire's Black Rose chemical weapon (which as it turns out was already Light-aspected).

The Thirteenth by comparison however is bascially broken and has become entirelly consumed by Darkness-aspected aether, turning it into the Void, so it cannot be Rejoined as it is due to no other elements really remaining there, everything is warped to Darkness (as in, Umbral - activity and chaos).

It remains to be seen if and how the Ascians might have fixed things enough on the Thirteenth eventually to Rejoin it too as the 'final part of the puzzle', but I guess we'll never know now.

EDIT: sorry for jumping back to this - VBulletin has a bug that will not sent you to the right page clicking the 'Most Recent Post' link so I mistakenly thought yours was the most recent post Denisha. I'm really sorry about that! ; ;