Interpretation of an Endwalker Plot Point (Spoilers for the Entire MSQ)

[Cleretic]

After beating 6.0, if you go back to talk to the Watcher, he says "The Loporrits have told me of your victory over Meteion. It is a relief to know Hydaelyn's wish for Etheirys and Her people was granted. She is not here to revel in your victory, but so long as there is life on Etheirys, Her spirit shall live on. In the soothing summer rains, and gentle spring breezes, She will be with you always." While she may not be physically present, the Watcher seems to imply that her will lives on among the inhabitants of Etheirys. I've also seen people interpret this statement as meaning she has been incorporated into the star itself.

It's... really difficult, it turns out, to describe how I take that to be 'she lives on through the world around us' without that literally meaning that she is alive because we're dealing with a setting where that is also possible, but I genuinely believe that he's saying that in the way that us human beings would say that about a dead family member. She's with us in the spiritual sense, but not in the literal spiritual sense of her spirit being an extant thing that is with us.

I mentioned this earlier but there's evidence to suggest that turning into a blasphemy doesn't actually remove someone from the cycle of reincarnation. Y'shtola witnessing the decay of the aether of people turned into blasphemies with her aethersight is what initially leads the characters to assume that they're unable to return to the aetherial sea, but if you do the healer role quests you see Fordola experience a vision of her friend Charlet leaving for the afterlife, despite the fact that he had succumbed to the transformation.

And I never took this to be an actual vision Fordola saw, and more of what Fordola is convinced is happening. Fordola's pretty far out of the loop in terms of essential information, so she probably doesn't know what Y'shtola told us, and even if she did... well, she's exactly the kind of boneheaded stubborn person to ignore it anyway. I love Fordola, she's great, but she is not smart.

I do think that people who became blasphemies are back in the cycle of reincarnation, but that's because we stopped Meteion vacuuming them up into Ultima Thule. But we also know that the lifestream deposits souls into the nearest planet, so chances are Charlet's not joining us in the Source even if his soul gets to live again.