Revelations from Patch 6.5: "Growing Light", Part 1

[Iscah]

After not being able to queue for Thaleia yesterday, I did it tonight, and wow Yoshida was not joking when he said it might be a bit harder than the previous ones. That final boss was the most stressful fight we've had in ages.

Funny thing, I've been jittery-nervous all day and I think "finding out what will happen at the end of Myths" has been subconsciously causing at least some of it.

So.

Final thoughts on Myths of the Realm

My overall feeling is that this is a reasonably nicely told story that shouldn't have existed.

Up until this point, the Twelve's existence was ambiguous. They were the gods that the population of Eorzea believed in, with no tangible proof and plenty of past implication and speculation that they might not be real at all. It could have been left at that, especially once we had already found the real gods (or closest thing to it) that had physical influence over the planet.

Are we now going to have to confirm and deal with the existence of the kami, Azim and Nhaama, the Mol tribe's elder gods, the real Mriga and Manusya and whatever gods we find out there too? I assume and hope not. And if those can all remain ambiguous, then why did the Eorzean pantheon need resolution?

On a separate note, the ultimate irrelevance of the Watcher feels odd. His entire involvement in the story and addition to the list of the Twelve seems to have been to act as a red herring for what we expected as the final boss.

Also, as a few others have similarly commented, I didn't really like the "here are the true mortal identities of the Twelve" thing but did appreciate learning that Hythlodaeus had a competent second-in-command running the show, because of course he did.

But anyway. Godsspeed, Deryk; may the eternal wind carry you onward, and may we meet you on the road. Maybe hanging out with a yellow bird and a little robot.

[Eisi]

Totally agree with you, Iscy.

Does Deryk now actually travel the world like Alpha and Omega? He explicitly said he'd visit the places named after the gods so that might be a hint for potential spawns? Would be neat!

[Iscah]

On the discussion re merchants

The simplest in-game answer is that there are merchants around Elpis, some with an explanation like the gemstone trader (IIRC she says she's got some kind of familiar that eats bicolor gemstones), others being harder to explain like the multiple junkmongers selling player equipment that, from a lore perspective, would be outlandish garments no respectable Amaurotine would be caught dead in. (Some sell the PVP-copy sets and others the Neo-Ishgardian sets.)

Thinking over Myths of the Realm, I put a finger on something that was bugging me...

I dislike it in something of the same way I dislike the Sorrow of Werlyt, in that it spent a large chunk of its time introducing a cast of characters with one-note personalities for no other purpose than to kill off every last one of them by the end of the story.

On a totally different track, I checked the variable cutscene in the Ocular.

Confirming that if you turn off the "reflect quest progression" button, the cutscene ends just before Gaia would have arrived.

Other than that, the scene up to that point mostly has the same script either way, besides one line where Beq Lugg mentions working with Unukalhai.

Also, for anyone who picked the line about coffee biscuits when Gaia was asking who you were, that answer doesn't really make clear that she was just joking, which she says straight away if you ask whether she's lost her memory again.

Does Deryk now actually travel the world like Alpha and Omega? He explicitly said he'd visit the places named after the gods so that might be a hint for potential spawns? Would be neat!

I don't know, but it seems possible.

Just after he left, I flew down to Moraby and checked the Mark of the Spinner in case he was there, but he wasn't. Though it would have been lucky to find him on the first try even if it actually is a thing that can happen.

Purely speculative, but if he does turn up, it would be neat if he gave little bits of extra lore about something useful when you found him.

[Turnintino]

Also, for anyone who picked the line about coffee biscuits when Gaia was asking who you were, that answer doesn't really make clear that she was just joking, which she says straight away if you ask whether she's lost her memory again.

Just wanna say that this bugged me as well lol.

I chose that option during my actual play-through, and I assumed, as her response carried on, that she was joking, but it really shouldn't be as ambiguous as it is. In English, her actor's reading was strange, but that's on the director; if she'd been told, "Gaia's joking here," I imagine she might've given us a more playful reading, but it certainly doesn't sound like that was the case. All it would've taken to fix that, though, would've been an extra line or two for clarity.

Anyway, I'm glad I went back to rewatch the cutscene with the other option, because that branch is much less awkward, much more charming, and it was interesting to hear she was writing an actual book -- about what, we may never know, but nevertheless.