The Ascians going forward

[Iscah]

I think it's currently something like:
A) Ascian aether/memory doesn't necessarily dissipate upon body-death, and they can possess/remake a body.

I think it is (and has always been the case) more that "something" happens to the soul at the body's death, and regardless of what the something is, the Ascians have the ability to sidestep it by abandoning their body and retreating to the rift before that natural process happens.

Endwalker has reframed what the something is, but I don't think the rest of that explanation has changed since ARR.

Sometime I'd like to do a deep playthrough of the game, noting what gets said about these things at every turn and how our understanding got built up.

[kaynide]

I think it is (and has always been the case) more that "something" happens to the soul at the body's death, and regardless of what the something is, the Ascians have the ability to sidestep it by abandoning their body and retreating to the rift before that natural process happens.

Endwalker has reframed what the something is, but I don't think the rest of that explanation has changed since ARR.

Sometime I'd like to do a deep playthrough of the game, noting what gets said about these things at every turn and how our understanding got built up.

Ditto; (Unless Cleretic is around with a video in the wings on it!)

It feels like Zenos might have been on the cusp of discovering/being able to survive without a body/body hop, but not quite able to endure death.

On the soul, I'm curious what function it actually serves in lore.

Since they are an actual thing in this world and are measurable (The Ancients could confirm if things had or didn't have souls), what does that actually mean?

If the soul generally retains no memory, what's the point of it being recycled at all?

We already know via Meteion that there was some kind of means of blocking the natural progression of the soul...but can new souls be created when all old souls are used up? Or do Is there some critical mass where new births are without souls? With Metion doing her thing was there really no way to make a new soul (and if not, why…do souls require Dynamis?)

I had kind of hoped Ultima Thule might talk on that more.

[Cleretic]

Ditto; (Unless Cleretic is around with a video in the wings on it!)

For what it's worth, I have considered a 'review playthrough' of sorts where we really start picking through stuff from back then, although it feels more like a streaming project than a video project.

If what you're suggesting is a video on 'what happens after someone dies in this universe', going over everything we've got on that? That... actually sounds like a really interesting subject, I might do that! The main idea I have for my next video actually involves a lot of broad research and might take some but time, that one would be relatively more focused.

[kaynide]

For what it's worth, I have considered a 'review playthrough' of sorts where we really start picking through stuff from back then, although it feels more like a streaming project than a video project.

If what you're suggesting is a video on 'what happens after someone dies in this universe', going over everything we've got on that? That... actually sounds like a really interesting subject, I might do that! The main idea I have for my next video actually involves a lot of broad research and might take some but time, that one would be relatively more focused.

I’m curious on:
1) What actual established lore says happens to the soul and/or myths related (like the 12’s heaven/hells, the Azem reincarnation, etc).
2) If any of that changed over the game (like how the concept of Dynamis changed our notions on Aether)
3) Mostly, I’m interested in anything contradictory. As in real life there can be a lot of that regarding the afterlife!

Either way, thanks for the work on the videos! Always some new perspective to be had.

[Cleretic]

I’m curious on:
1) What actual established lore says happens to the soul and/or myths related (like the 12’s heaven/hells, the Azem reincarnation, etc).
2) If any of that changed over the game (like how the concept of Dynamis changed our notions on Aether)
3) Mostly, I’m interested in anything contradictory. As in real life there can be a lot of that regarding the afterlife!

Either way, thanks for the work on the videos! Always some new perspective to be had.

This video will take a while to make anyway (for various reasons I won't start writing it until January), but I did do some quick checking to see what the basis for this would generally be, so I can at least answer these questions.

The big thing to keep in mind is that until about 5.2, we had absolutely nothing resembling direct information on this, and I'd say it took until Endwalker for the Shadowbringers information to fully make sense. Everything was basically either incomplete information or a religious belief; we didn't have any facts, so it's impossible to say if anything actually changed on the writing side of things.

There are plenty of contradictions between faiths, but most of them get at least something right; the Amal'jaan beliefs resemble the Aetherial Sea, the Dotharl got pretty close on the reincarnation, the Twelve's religion somehow figured out the seven heavens and hells. I think the only one that completely and utterly whiffs is the Garleans' (they seem to have a faith in ancestral spirits but it's hard to tell how much they believe it), but given exactly what the next patch's dungeon is I'm not willing to say we have the whole picture there either.

[Vyrerus]

It feels like Zenos might have been on the cusp of discovering/being able to survive without a body/body hop, but not quite able to endure death.

Wasn't on the cusp. It was exactly what he did throughout Stormblood into SHB. He slit his own throat, died, and then body hopped into an Elezen resistance soldier. And he discovered the means to do that incidentally. He legit thought he was just gonna die when he slit his throat.

The only real question about it, is did his soul persevere in the world, or did he jet into the Rift due to the Resonant Echo?

Whatever happens, it seems that souls with agency(Echo) can freely observe the living. As evidenced by Hades and Hyth observing us in death still, in spite of being somewhere in the aetherial sea. Coming into our dreams and such.

All and all though, this is kind of one of the realms where I don't like what we got in game. The Aetherial Sea goes from being this non-corporeal afterlife space, to just being the literal core of Etheirys. It begs the question, "What's the true afterlife in Etheirys's universe?" Because the place where souls go is physically tangible to anyone who can withstand the sheer amount of aether down there. It makes looking back on the whole, "Soul goes from the dead body to the Aetherial Sea" powerpoint that the Scions give the WoL in ARR 2.1+ a lot less meaningful. Like, the Scions even commentate, "Guess we better not let people know that they could potentially just go visit their loved ones dead spirits directly in the Aitiascope."

What a mess.