Encyclopedia Eorzea THREE

[Cleretic]

We also got our first look at Fourchenault way back in EE1 and nothing about Sharlayan has changed (at least not in any substantial way) as to make the book "meaningless". The Lore team is generally that good with consistency that the times when they do retcon things stand out (looking at you, Echo/Blessing of Light).

Even the Echo/Blessing was more of a localization thing than the original writing; in the Japanese script Midgardsormr's big post-Keeper of the Lake scene distinguishes between them off-handedly (and crucially, alludes to both of them being a form of protection), and in English that part was obfuscated to the point of basically not being there because of that scene being written extremely differently. That caused a uniquely weird situation where in Japanese, that distinguishing is a stated but dormant fact that got built on much later, similar to something like the Creeping Death, while in English they just sorta didn't get the chance to correct the record until it was too late.

Yes, it's still about as annoying, but it's also way weirder than just 'retcon'. (I'd also say it's a credit to the writers that even the worst of these only reach the level of 'annoying'.)

And similar to Sharlayan, the EE1's info on Ala Mhigo and Garlemald is only 'inaccurate' because it can't reflect the events of the story written afterwards, it's all pretty the money for what we'd go on to see in Stormblood and Endwalker respectively. And similar to Fourchenault, EE1 had a portrait of Solus Galvus that was used as the basis for his appearance in the Bozja storyline. It also has a table of every Garlean title except 'viator' (which was made up on the spot so fair enough), which you can find mirrored on the internet these days, but it came from there, and describes a lot of titles that we would only see in the game afterwards, like 'bas', 'goe' and 'nan'.

[Anonymoose]

We know the original 1.x story was supposed to end at Silvertear Lake and most concepts in the story would tie into the "force" there (which was never revealed and might no longer even exist in the world-setting). There have been a lot of clues over the years that support the hypothesis that the Echo either was either uprooted from its original explanation without a plan for how to explain it in the new setting, or never had an explanation at the start at all. You can see several retrofits to the concept over time, so there was probably never any hope that whatever Eorzeans theorized it to be as of EE1 would be remain totally accurate.

In 1.x, the Echo was primarily a plot device - a contrived psychic power to explore history and it just happened to protect you from primals. It was implied that you were blessed by something and therefore couldn't be blessed by something else. This split into the Echo + the blessing in 2.00, when they revealed Hydaelyn and added the "collect the Crystals of Light" concept (theory: they wanted to exploit the nostalgia). Lahabrea originally alludes to it in not-EN Toto-Rak. (Why EN skipped Lahabrea's "James Bond Villain Overexplains Himself" Monologue, I was never quite sure on that.) Endwalker splits it again by separating the Echo from the primal protection, which feels like a very late-game development.

In my humble opinion, it actually looks like there are two layers of blessing. We see other characters refer to receiving the blessing as if it represents divine intervention through the crystal(s) not unlike we saw in the Praetorium. However, Lahabrea and Midgardsormr also highlight something I like to call "the champion factor", something unique to you that marks you as Hydaelyn's chosen. Unlike those gifted with a single crystal, somehow the crystals are drawn to the Warrior of Light. The set wants to be complete. And while other characters can exhaust their crystals, we see the Warrior of Light restore exhausted crystals alight twice (Midgardsormr's attempt to sever the connection to Hydaelyn and when one was "sacrificed" alongisde those of the Warriors of Darkness to bring them into Urianger's trap).

So where we are today is the Echo, the blessing of Light through the Crystals, the champion factor, and the Traveler's Ward primal protection.

Some of it is still a little inconsistent / murky, so I'd expect Eorzean scholars' understanding to keep on shifting, lol.

[WhiteArchmage]

Yes, what I meant was more that for most of the game we treated the Echo as the power that protected us from Primal Influence until Endwalker suddenly said "Hey, it's great how the Blessing of Light protects from Tempering, huh? Yeah, that good old Blessing of Light that does that thing that we repeatedly said the Echo did." Reinforced when Venat tells us "Huh, you have my Traveler's Ward on you, which protects you against aetherial influences. It is extra special because we all have the Echo here..."

So we kinda have to ignore or headcanon away a whole plot point from Stormblood about the Echo (or rather, the Resonance) giving protection from Tempering to Fordola and Zenos. Which one can headcanon away as "They had the Echo copied from Krile, who canonically has the Blessing, so maybe the Resonance also copied the Blessing and Zenos was full of <kupo!> when he said his theory about the Echo and Will and Tempering." And Arenvald also has the BoL for good measure even though it's never mentioned. In fact, it was in Heavensward when we heard that not everyone with the Echo has the BoL (way earlier, actually, since it was a huge reveal that Iceheart had both plus a crystal of light). And it got kiiiiind of an excuse when 5.3 states that the Echo is a literal awakened memory and Hydaelin has an answering machine message on loop and possibly gives the BoL to anyone that hears it on the off-chance of getting the WoL.

But in the end it's a plot point that I'll raise an eyebrow and wag my finger at, not something that leaves me clamoring for CBU3 to take a scalpel to earlier scenes for consistency's sake.

[Cleretic]

Yes, what I meant was more that for most of the game we treated the Echo as the power that protected us from Primal Influence until Endwalker suddenly said "Hey, it's great how the Blessing of Light protects from Tempering, huh? Yeah, that good old Blessing of Light that does that thing that we repeatedly said the Echo did." Reinforced when Venat tells us "Huh, you have my Traveler's Ward on you, which protects you against aetherial influences. It is extra special because we all have the Echo here..."

[paragraph cut for space]

But in the end it's a plot point that I'll raise an eyebrow and wag my finger at, not something that leaves me clamoring for CBU3 to take a scalpel to earlier scenes for consistency's sake.

And again, this isn't necessarily a retcon and more just 'the English script missed a fact that wouldn't be important until it was way too late to correct it'. As I understand it, part of Midgardsormr's thing after the Keeper of the Lake in Japanese was him turning up the 'stern dad' angle and going 'she's spoiling you, you've already got a perfectly good Echo and she just goes and gives you a Blessing on top of it', basically saying off-handedly that both are protection so you should be fine with only one. That was a plot point that took nearly seven years before it came back up out of goddamn nowhere, so they didn't really have room to pre-emptively correct the record on it in the same way they were able to use Werlyt to solve a similar situation with the Heart of Sabik. I'd expect the EE3 will give them a spot to say it in clear text; if I were being really analytical I'd say that maybe they could've fit this into the EW healer role quest, since that includes Fordola and therefore forces the Resonance front-and-center, but even there I feel like it'd be completely out of left field and feel too conspicuous.

Which if anything makes for an even stupider situation than it just being a retcon, but it still looked like one to us and would've looked like one no matter how they resolved that, so the difference is basically just academic. But it's honestly testament to how tight a ship they run that this is the worst we've got; I don't even play WoW and I know this is peanuts compared to some of what they've had given to them.

[BaroLlyonesse]

They do create an interesting conversation that limit breaks are aether, not dynamis, and never have been. As far as I can tell, there's never been anything that contradicts aether limit breaks. Calling on a reserve of strength in moments of crisis might be dynamis-driven, but it doesn't mean the technique itself is dynamis.

[Cleretic]

They do create an interesting conversation that limit breaks are aether, not dynamis, and never have been. As far as I can tell, there's never been anything that contradicts aether limit breaks. Calling on a reserve of strength in moments of crisis might be dynamis-driven, but it doesn't mean the technique itself is dynamis.

Yep, this is exactly right, and some of us have been saying it since Endwalker launched: the only limit break that is confirmably dynamis is the tank LB3 against the Endsinger, and even then, that's because basically that entire fight is running on dynamis. Inversely, there are multiple LBs that could be in no way dynamis, like the Ktisis Duty Support's LBs, or Machinist's Satellite Laser, and most LBs are provided an explanation in EE1 and 2 that give full credit to a different phenomena. (Interestingly, I think most of them read as tying to the ambient aether of battlefields that's described in Monk's storyline.)

The idea that all LBs are dynamis was basically entirely fueled by 'wouldn't it be cool if', and rejected all evidence to the contrary.

[BaroLlyonesse]

Well, not even that one is necessarily based on Dynamis. She just says "Dynamis?" or (from my understanding) in JP "Is this Dynamis?". Which doesn't mean that the LB was Dynamis itself, only that your will to survive was driven by it. She could be surprised that your will to survive is so powerful that you channeled obscene aether, or that she literally cannot comprehend aether anymore and picked /something/ she understood. It's just as likely.

It's just like in the other example people tend to point toward with the fight with Ultima/Lahabrea, where Hydaelyn is all "I can't protect you anymore." The WoL going "aw crap I'm on my own, better Gohan this stuff up hardcore" doesn't mean Dynamis was used, only that the emotion triggered an aetheral connection.

[shadowclasper]

Something that's really striking about FFXIV's writing compared to similar media that tells ongoing stories over a long period is that it sticks almost entirely to what I've seen called 'additive retcons'; basically, 'there was more to this part than you first thought' (as opposed to subtractive retcons, or 'nuh-uh, that didn't happen'). Maybe it's because they've largely stuck to a generally stable group of writers working on a singular story. But the end result is that there's no part of its storytelling and lore that you can just tear out and go 'not true anymore'; that's definitely not true of other MMOs like this, and frequently not true of storytelling with similar situations like superhero comics.

Needless to say, I'm very excited about volume three!

Was just thinking this last time I compared my ffxiv book to my wow lore compendium, which has vast swathes of retconning. Yoshi p really focused on getting all their notes right from the start and hard focusing on them, keeping the story consistent and not just ignoring past lore on a whim