Major Spoilers for all Expansions - Some general things I didn't understand

[WhiteArchmage]

Yeah, no, Light and Darkness are not elements, they're polarities. There was the whole powerpoint by Urianger about it. You can have Light and Darkness without necessarily using one of the six elements, which is what Hydaelin and the Ascians do. Presumably for that you forgo the elemental wheel entirely and use pure Umbral or pure Astral magic, and on that point there's no way that Darkness can be Umbral or Light Astral.

Presumably we can use it, too, though even the lore books have shyed away from using "light" to describe out abilities, even WHM's Holy whichis generally the ONE Light magic spell (alongside Dia) in the series is classified as "unaspected" in the game and the lore book calls it an "incandescent blast of purifying energies". The "darkness" that DRK uses is kind of an outlier but even EE1 uses the expression "inner darkness", or "entropic energies" when one loses control of said inner darkness, which is more in line with the unbridled "astral" aspect.

[Eloah]

The first part, I can get behind. The second, I don't understand. The flood of light was astral and yet it left everything it touched in stasis, which we're told is the umbral quality. So... it was an astral flood of umbral light??? Same for the flood of darkness. It left everything it touched in a state of overactivity that ate away all free aether (and apparently merged the lifestream with the physical world leading to undeath). Heightened activity is astral.

Maybe there just isn't really an astral or umbral aspect of light and dark, respectively.

I'll try to explain this as best as I can, because, while it makes sense in my head, the words always feel odd while trying to explain.

Okay, to start, most people are aware that Light and Umbral represent passivity, while Darkness and Astral represent activity. And as elements Light represents the concept of stasis while Darkness embodies change. Those concepts when polarized into either Astral or Umbral then become stability or stagnation or chaos or advancement.

But, since each element naturally aligns to one of the aspects, that means that the opposite aspect is the "bad" one. So Astral Light is stagnation and Umbral Darkness is chaos. It semi makes sense. With stagnation, you are "actively" keeping things at a standstill, preventing anything from occurring at all. With chaos it's the opposite, you are passively letting things happen without a guiding hand, which can lead to natural disasters.

Hopefully, that helps explain things a bit. Like I said, it makes sense in my head, but I'm never sure if I'm explaining it right.

[Cleretic]

but until more/other information is given, this what the game is telling us.

Where? Where is the game telling us this?

I find a pretty key thing in lore-talking, especially when you're also doing things with that lore like fanfiction or roleplaying, is to constantly review your preconceived notions. We're prone to accidentally lying to ourselves, misremembering details as being officially stated in the game when they were just implied, speculated, or even completely fabricated by someone else entirely, possibly even ourselves. This is even more true for the content you hold close, because you're unlikely to have actually replayed, say, the questline for your main job anytime recently. There's nothing wrong with that, that's basically just a fact of how human brains work, they aren't perfect. But we owe it to ourselves and everyone to, when a preconceived notion is questioned, to be able to either find and share where we got the idea, or to accept that we might not have it right.

And that's what I'm asking of you. You're saying something that's going against how I, and several others, remember this particular part of the game. So prove it and convince us, rather than just saying 'I'm right, trust me'.

[Eloah]

Yeah, no, Light and Darkness are not elements, they're polarities. There was the whole powerpoint by Urianger about it. You can have Light and Darkness without necessarily using one of the six elements, which is what Hydaelin and the Ascians do. Presumably for that you forgo the elemental wheel entirely and use pure Umbral or pure Astral magic, and on that point there's no way that Darkness can be Umbral or Light Astral.

Presumably we can use it, too, though even the lore books have shyed away from using "light" to describe out abilities, even WHM's Holy whichis generally the ONE Light magic spell (alongside Dia) in the series is classified as "unaspected" in the game and the lore book calls it an "incandescent blast of purifying energies". The "darkness" that DRK uses is kind of an outlier but even EE1 uses the expression "inner darkness", or "entropic energies" when one loses control of said inner darkness, which is more in line with the unbridled "astral" aspect.

The devs have stated that Light and Darkness are not a 1:1 parallel with Umbral and Astral, and act as both aspects and elements. Polarities might be a better word to use. But some people might confuse that with aspects as well. That's why I used the Adverb analogy, since I makes the most sense.

[Eloah]

Where? Where is the game telling us this?

I find a pretty key thing in lore-talking, especially when you're also doing things with that lore like fanfiction or roleplaying, is to constantly review your preconceived notions. We're prone to accidentally lying to ourselves, misremembering details as being officially stated in the game when they were just implied, speculated, or even completely fabricated by someone else entirely, possibly even ourselves. This is even more true for the content you hold close, because you're unlikely to have actually replayed, say, the questline for your main job anytime recently. There's nothing wrong with that, that's basically just a fact of how human brains work, they aren't perfect. But we owe it to ourselves and everyone to, when a preconceived notion is questioned, to be able to either find and share where we got the idea, or to accept that we might not have it right.

And that's what I'm asking of you. You're saying something that's going against how I, and several others, remember this particular part of the game. So prove it and convince us, rather than just saying 'I'm right, trust me'.

I never stated "I'm right, trust me" you can believe what you want. As I said, information is drip fed to us and fills in gaps. Not always are things stated outright. For instance, the game has never outright stated we are the reincarnation of Azem, everything just points to it. So are we not Azem? I'm saying that based on all of the information we have up until this point, the game is telling us, "this is the specialty of your echo". If that isn't our Echo's specialty, then what is? It would seem odd for the devs not to have told us that by now, since they told us everything else about it.

[SannaR]

Speaking of Light and Darkness how do the Slyphs and thus Ramuh know that Light and Darkness weren't always seen as Light "good" Darkness "bad"? Sorry I was going through the msq with my one alt and when I saw Ramuh say such things it made me stop the auto- advance and wonder about this for a bit.

Also what the Azem crystal does is allow us access to the one concept/spell Azem was known for. Which just happened to bring his friends to his side.

[Zero-ELEC]

Sorta like how we learn in Endwalker that the figure in Elidibus's memories was actually Azem, not "The First's WoL" as the initial patch had us think.

That's not... that's not right. There's no indication of this whatsoever anywhere in the game.

[Eloah]

That's not... that's not right. There's no indication of this whatsoever anywhere in the game.

It is stated in Endwalker, during the Elpis section, that Azem wandered around and fought battles in their signature armor.

Plus if you think about it, the memories we see are from before the sundering. Elidibus would have no reason to think about The First's WoL, unless he is thinking about their inspiration, the "First" WoL, which was Azem.

[Zero-ELEC]

I never stated "I'm right, trust me" you can believe what you want. As I said, information is drip fed to us and fills in gaps. Not always are things stated outright. For instance, the game has never outright stated we are the reincarnation of Azem, everything just points to it. So are we not Azem? I'm saying that based on all of the information we have up until this point, the game is telling us, "this is the specialty of your echo". If that isn't our Echo's specialty, then what is? It would seem odd for the devs not to have told us that by now, since they told us everything else about it.

The game has literally said we're a shard of Azem multiple times. Not only in the "yours is the seat of Azem" cutscene, but also later when speaking with Urianger at the Rising Stones before Endwalker and a bunch of times since. Our Echo doesn't have to have particular specialty either. We already see the past at convenient times, which not everyone can do, from what we know.

It is stated in Endwalker, during the Elpis section, that Azem wandered around and fought battles in their signature armor.

Plus if you think about it, the memories we see are from before the sundering. Elidibus would have no reason to think about The First's WoL, unless he is thinking about their inspiration, the "First" WoL, which was Azem.

Where was this stated? I do not recall anything about Azem having a "signature armour" at all.

And the memory that we see the "First WoL" I don't recall being implied to be before the sundering, either. Can you back any of these assertions up?

[Eloah]

The game has literally said we're a shard of Azem multiple times. Not only in the "yours is the seat of Azem" cutscene, but also later when speaking with Urianger at the Rising Stones before Endwalker and a bunch of times since. Our Echo doesn't have to have particular specialty either. We already see the past at convenient times, which not everyone can do, from what we know.



Where was this stated? I do not recall anything about Azem having a "signature armour" at all.

And the memory that we see the "First WoL" I don't recall being implied to be before the sundering, either. Can you back any of these assertions up?

It is possible that the game has said "we are Azem" and I'm not remembering. I just know the game "hints" at it heavy-handedly. Sort like how it's doing the same for Golbez currently. This game has a lot of context clues. Though anything from someone in the modern day, like Urianger, is meant to represent the inference of the player, since they are gaining that knowledge as we are.

The message about Azem's armor is a one off conversation in-between quests, so it's easily missed.

And the memory Elidibus has has Ancients in it, so it has to be before the sundering.

I am not trying to advocate that people have to believe me, but these are where the games context clues are leading us. And these solutions make sense given all of the information we have. Just look at Ryne, context clues made her out to be 17, but "no one" believed that. The next encyclopedia is released and guess how old she is, 17. Not everything is outright stated, the dots need to be connected.

While I'm not providing, the "answers" some people want, I am giving example of the information we have been given. But if I'm not believed, where is the information to the contrary.

We know the Echo manifests in everyone differently, we know the Echo is the remnants of the Ancients creation magicks, we know recalling the past is a common Echo ability, we know ours has some specialty, and we know Azem's specialty was the summoning of allies. So it makes sense to link all those together.

We know Elidibus idolized Azem, we know Azem traveled and help people all over, we know they fought their own battles, we know the sundered souls have vague memories of the world pre-sundered, we know Elidibus's memories we see are before the sundering, and as I said prior, a conversation in Elpis says Azem had a very unique armor they fought in. So why wouldn't all those dots connect.