Quote Originally Posted by Absimiliard View Post
FFXIV's own writers wrote that stuff for the crossover event. We can't attribute it to Shadowbringers shenanigans either, as the Re[in]carnation side of their deal was implemented well into Endwalker's lifespan. For my part, I think they should've either left that bit out entirely or put it in the main game. Forcing people play the NieR gacha to get lore for this game was kinda scummy.

As for the cave paintings; one wouldn't need to have their previous identities intact to recall those things. It may not even have been the first generation of sundered who made the paintings in the first place, merely people whose souls yet retained some deeply ingrained residual memories of those events and the major players therein. Even if it were, I'm afraid scrawling some half-remembered things on a cave wall isn't indicative of being remotely intact. Even chimpanzees have been known to produce primitive illustrations of things they found particularly horrifying or interesting. Not to say the sundered were as chimps, mind; merely that the ability to draw things is not limited to those of high intelligence or even complete sapience.
I don't think their point was that they were intact, but that sundered people weren't broken to a point they couldn't form coherent thoughts.

The fact Emet couldn't understand them would imply the Echo wasn't working, but on the other end, they would have lost their memories after their deaths.
I see a few possible explanations:
- The cutscene is wrong and Emet-Selch meant they couldn't form words but still understood them with the echo ;
- There was a time of adaptation where the sundered people were so disoriented they couldn't form coherent thoughts ;
- These memories took a few rebirth to be cleansed, somehow ;
- Zenos isn't the only one who dreams of the Final Days, perhaps it was more common back then.

Pure conjecture though,