Questions about other shards of Fandaniel… (6.0 Spoilers)

[Shookbeast]

I think you need to entertain a possibility that's much more likely, both in terms of general plausibility and in terms of narrative convenience: What if there wasn't a Fandaniel shard before him? What if Amon was just the first one they found? It's not particularly implausible; on the scale the Ascians were working on the Third Astral Era was relatively early in, and they apparently didn't lose Ascians all too often before we started offing them, so it wouldn't be that weird that the reason it's empty is because nobody's been sitting there anyway. The actual line in question just says 'the seat of Fandaniel lies empty and waiting'; there's no actual implication that it was a recent vacancy.

And on a practical writing standpoint, there just not being any previous Fancy Dans means there's nothing to clean up when you're done with the story, and no open questions to resolve. Don't need to answer how they died if they never lived in the first place. Given that they've openly said Endwalker was the end of the whole Zodiark/Hydaelyn/Ascians story, it'd be a pretty bad idea to introduce loose ends right at the last moment.

You left out the part of the quote which got my ears up. Emet says, “And as fortune would have it, the seat of Fandaniel lies empty and waiting.”

It’s that first “fortune” part which got me interested. It’s possible that line implies the lack of an available Fandaniel is a recent one - and Emet considers himself lucky to have found Amon.

It’s also possible the Ascians just didn’t bother with old troublesome Hermes before finding Amon.

But I do wonder… something prompted them to decide that was the time to snag them a new Fandaniel.

As far as starting new threads at the end of an old storyline - the writers got to seed for future stories somehow (besides having Emet rattle off the DLC). And if there were another Hermes shard out there, perhaps he’d make an appearance in the 6.X patches to help tie up some of those loose ends.

[Cleretic]

You left out the part of the quote which got my ears up. Emet says, “And as fortune would have it, the seat of Fandaniel lies empty and waiting.”

It’s that first “fortune” part which got me interested. It’s possible that line implies the lack of an available Fandaniel is a recent one - and Emet considers himself lucky to have found Amon.

It’s also possible the Ascians just didn’t bother with old troublesome Hermes before finding Amon.

But I do wonder… something prompted them to decide that was the time to snag them a new Fandaniel.

As far as starting new threads at the end of an old storyline - the writers got to seed for future stories somehow (besides having Emet rattle off the DLC). And if there were another Hermes shard out there, perhaps he’d make an appearance in the 6.X patches to help tie up some of those loose ends.

The problem with your idea is that it's at least four 'what if's deep, and none of them really have any evidence in their favor. 'What if there was a Fandaniel shard before Amon, and what if he was more like Hermes, and what if he peacefully left the Ascians, and what if he went on to be Deryk specifically?' You're getting too excited about something EXTREMELY unlikely--the only storylines that ever get that wild outside of an expansion MSQ are normal raids, and this would be a long bow for even those.

Your only real evidence is a very specific and selective reading of a single line by Emet-Selch. Not only will I point out that Emet picks his words for maximum emotional manipulation--and framing something as 'fortunate' is a great way to both make the intended audience feel special and like the opportunity presented might be very slim--but that you're picking apart language choice from the English version, which is known to be particularly loose and flowery. I'd suggest checking the script for other languages if your evidence is right down to linguistic semantics; I've fallen into the same mistake myself, with a Fandaniel line from 5.2 that turned out to only be eyebrow-raising in English and of course turned out to be nothing.

[Shookbeast]

The problem with your idea is that it's at least four 'what if's deep, and none of them really have any evidence in their favor. 'What if there was a Fandaniel shard before Amon, and what if he was more like Hermes, and what if he peacefully left the Ascians, and what if he went on to be Deryk specifically?' You're getting too excited about something EXTREMELY unlikely--the only storylines that ever get that wild outside of an expansion MSQ are normal raids, and this would be a long bow for even those.

Your only real evidence is a very specific and selective reading of a single line by Emet-Selch. Not only will I point out that Emet picks his words for maximum emotional manipulation--and framing something as 'fortunate' is a great way to both make the intended audience feel special and like the opportunity presented might be very slim--but that you're picking apart language choice from the English version, which is known to be particularly loose and flowery. I'd suggest checking the script for other languages if your evidence is right down to linguistic semantics; I've fallen into the same mistake myself, with a Fandaniel line from 5.2 that turned out to only be eyebrow-raising in English and of course turned out to be nothing.

Thanks, I’ll take a look at the original text and see what translations I can find (:

And no worries about the deep read on the possibilities - that’s more fun on my part than seriousness (but it could be…).

I wonder about old Fandaniel though. They spent so much time telling us this wasn’t really Hermes, but more a crazy Amon - and then they introduce us to Hermes - but he’s not that same guy causing trouble as Fandaniel. It makes me think there’s more to explore there regarding a Fandaniel who is actually cool with being Hermes. We’ve yet to really settle the remaining sundered Ascians, and have a limited cast to pull from…