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

[KizuyaKatogami]

There's a reason I see him as a parasite to her.

Mitron then forcefully merges with Gaia to become Ascian Prime


Gaia within the Ascian Prime manages to make a message, the red ball, to communicate with WoL and Ryne.



Ascian Prime then proceeds to start showing several of Gaia's memories as crystals and crushing them. This is another big reason I see him as parasitic to her. He wants to delete her to have his dead lover back. It's sad and unfortunate what happened to them but that doesn't give him the right to hurt someone else for it.



Emet hadn't been reborn yet. His soul was still fading thus he calls himself and Hyth "half faded souls of the dead." Once his soul is reborn that new person won't remember Emet's life. In fact the guy from Sharlayan explains that magics blocking memories fade before the memories do. So it's really no surprise that Emet knows what's going on in that UT scene.

Again, i being up Zenos as proof. As for parasitic, his lovers soul is still in there. He’s fulfilling the promise both of them made to each other. It seems the only thing tying gaia down is ryne lol, not even anything about her past without amnesia. The problem is one is existing at the expense of the other, and personally i see it as 2 people being happy is better than 1. He’s simply undoing the tragedy that occurred via the sundering, i’d say he has every right to do it. The sundering wasn’t a good act, and it created broken fractions of people. He was merely trying to put her back together. It’s no different than us picking up our shards.

[Xirean]

The lore EW presents on memory is unfortunately not particularly clear, especially as Montichaigne who articulates it is discussing two different theories of the soul, i.e. one whereby it's dissolved and re-assimilated in the Aetherial Sea so that new souls can be born, and the other focusing on what actually happens in the setting, i.e. soul rebirth (by all accounts, the correct theory, and G'raha takes it a notch further by positing that souls have intrinsic behavioural propensities.) On the one and, he states memory aether is not very susceptible to change; on the other, he says some events can imprint on the soul indelibly. I don't think he is presenting too certain an understanding of it, and my suspicion is that which theory you subscribe to has implications for what you believe happens to memory aether. Amon himself notes that he always had dreams of his times in Elpis, which he blames on Hermes's attempt to suppress his memory having the opposite effect on the memories. Text on the Convocation crystals varies between EN and FR, in that the latter states they're intended to revive memories. Equally, throughout the Eden quests, both the notion of imbuing and reviving memory are brought up, and by all accounts, the crystals are preferable as a method to what Mitron uses, i.e. the Ascian prime merger. IMO, it is plausible that germinating the seeds of a few imbued memories will suffice to begin restoring further memories, particularly as the subconscious reflects on them and tries to establish context... it may just be a case of how deeply buried in the soul they are. Either way, the lore here is more a case of just-so stories than firmly established and detailed fact, so I think both interpretations are valid.

That's fair. I mostly take the scene in Sharlayan a bit more seriously as it seems implied to explain why Emet knows what is going on in UT. As far as how memories actually work, more info is required. Either way, I don't think it is morally acceptable to try to overwrite someone with the memories of a previous life, without consent. Another thing to consider though about Gaia is that she is presumably Loghrif's first reincarnation after dying. We know Amon is a reincarnation of Hermes but we don't know for certain how many more lives that soul has lived. The WoL for example doesn't get memory flashes from Azem. The closest is echo visions of people we are talking to in that moment. They also don't get visions of other previous lives. If presented with memories from them it would be interesting to see how the WoL actually recalled those events.

Again, i being up Zenos as proof. As for parasitic, his lovers soul is still in there. He’s fulfilling the promise both of them made to each other. It seems the only thing tying gaia down is ryne lol, not even anything about her past without amnesia. The problem is one is existing at the expense of the other, and personally i see it as 2 people being happy is better than 1. He’s simply undoing the tragedy that occurred via the sundering, i’d say he has every right to do it. The sundering wasn’t a good act, and it created broken fractions of people. He was merely trying to put her back together. It’s no different than us picking up our shards.

There's a lot about Zenos we don't know. There's mention of him being experimented on and then he gets the artificial Echo and more weird stuff happens. I'd need to see specific lines from/about Zenos to see that point more clearly. Either way he is one guy and his circumstance is difficult to count as a standard one. As for Mitron and Loghrifs promise. That doesn't give them the right to Overwrite Gaia. If the WoL made a promise to Alphinaud and he died and was reborn, it would be horrible for the WoL to try to take that new person and turn them into Alphinaud. I don't think the sundering was a good thing either. I'm not pro sundering. I'm pro who is alive right now. Currently that is Gaia. Loghrif is dead and as far as we are shown, there is no way to bring her back without hurting Gaia. That is NOT ok to do. I also don't want to see the WoL going around and getting other Azem shards. Those shards are people with their own lives. For the WoL to make that person a part of themself would kill that person. That's murder and it's disgusting. I stated earlier that I didn't want Ardbert to merge with the WoL. He chose to do so to save the WoL and only chose to do so when the WoL was about to die. If that wasn't about to happen I doubt he would have done it.

[Rulakir]

Either way, I don't think it is morally acceptable to try to overwrite someone with the memories of a previous life, without consent.

My issue with this is it puts Loghrif permanently in the back seat of any life unless she chooses not to be reborn, which seems to be a thing as of EW. This is another reason why I consider the sundering such a violation because the original soul's rights were not only overwritten once, but in perpetuity. It's like the crime that just keeps on committing.

The WoL for example doesn't get memory flashes from Azem. The closest is echo visions of people we are talking to in that moment. They also don't get visions of other previous lives. If presented with memories from them it would be interesting to see how the WoL actually recalled those events.

At this point the WoL should too. I don't buy this bit about them not wanting to step on the toes of players' headcanon when they've developed a personality for Azem, which is probably the most egregious thing they could have done. It's too late to make Azem a separate character from the WoL too as we're consistently told how alike they are, which also superimposes a personality onto the active player character. I honestly don't know what they were thinking with this. Add on EW's lack of diverse dialog options and I genuinely don't feel a connection to my character anymore, I'm just RPing Yoshi-P's WoL now.

I think if we do get our 13th shard and become 10/14 that it's high time we start having dreams, flashbacks, something that other characters less rejoined than we are have. Just have them as first person perspective, Azem never has to be shown or heard.

[Xirean]

My issue with this is it puts Loghrif permanently in the back seat of any life unless she chooses not to be reborn, which seems to be a thing as of EW. This is another reason why I consider the sundering such a violation because the original soul's rights were not only overwritten once, but in perpetuity. It's like the crime that just keeps on committing.

We unfortunately cannot undo every wrong deed. The means to "fix" things involve hurting/killing other people. Two wrongs don't make a right. Yes people died, but their souls are reborn and those new lives have every right to live what life they can.

It gets a bit worse when you consider that it wasn't really Loghrif or Mitron at that point. They were both sundered which means an Ascian put memories back into them. Those two already got overwritten once. Which means one of their reincarnations has already been robbed of life. However seeing the direction this thread is taking I'm inclined to believe people think that is a good thing. Please tell me I'm wrong.

[anhaato]

We unfortunately cannot undo every wrong deed. The means to "fix" things involve hurting/killing other people. Two wrongs don't make a right. Yes people died, but their souls are reborn and those new lives have every right to live what life they can.

It gets a bit worse when you consider that it wasn't really Loghrif or Mitron at that point. They were both sundered which means an Ascian put memories back into them. Those two already got overwritten once. Which means one of their reincarnations has already been robbed of life. However seeing the direction this thread is taking I'm inclined to believe people think that is a good thing. Please tell me I'm wrong.

Nah, this thread is pretty deranged. I agree with a lot of what they say which is why I come here but I also have to be honest. You're talking to a self-declared "proud rejoiner" and they're not the only ones who think Ascian genocide is good and the sundered shouldn't be allowed to exist, despite hundreds of pages discussing why Venat committed genocide and that makes her a villain. Again, I agree with the point on Venat which is why I come here, but instead of combatting hypocrisy it seems the latest trend is being just as much of a hypocrite in the other direction.

[Skyborne]

It would actually be liable to make things worse in the long run as you'd potentially have people as powerful as the Ancients being the norm, but without their moral compass and unity to prevent strife and we already saw how badly Hermes on his own was able to mess things up without even really intending to originally.

Still once more a shame that Elpis was mainly just a main story prop for a couple levels and we never got much of a glimpse of their history or how the original 14 came to be leaders. Their culture was formed around unity/preventing strife and suppressing their darker natures, as hinted to by that one Amaurotine shade that tells you to dress properly, so there must've been some fireworks flying around at some point...

Also, throw me in the pile of "wish there was some way to rejoin that doesn't involve cataclysmic disasters" since 5.0. If we can suddenly cure tempering with funny pigs and suddenly all of the "Alliance" and beast tribes are all holding hands and singing, well...

Nah, this thread is pretty deranged. I agree with a lot of what they say which is why I come here but I also have to be honest. You're talking to a self-declared "proud rejoiner" and they're not the only ones who think Ascian genocide is good and the sundered shouldn't be allowed to exist, despite hundreds of pages discussing why Venat committed genocide and that makes her a villain. Again, I agree with the point on Venat which is why I come here, but instead of combatting hypocrisy it seems the latest trend is being just as much of a hypocrite in the other direction.

There exist ascian fans/villain fans who are miffed that one type is misdeed is swept under the carpet and its perpetrator praised in glowing sparkling terms with the developers telling us she isn't a bad guy, while the other type(which is intended to remedy the former) is treated as what it is. I know, I know! Just lock me up irl, I am far too dangerous.