Revelations from Encyclopaedia Eorzea III

[SannaR]

That the current working theory about Reaper avatars is that the reason why they can mesh so well with their reaper and can allow them to go into the avatar state is that the avatar is that person's shard from the 13th.

[JepMZ]

Glad, I guessed correctly. I just read that part just now. And here people thought it was Golbez lol

They repeatedly say Ryne is in fact Minfilia's reincarnation, and yet in-game Hydalyn brought her soul to the Source herself and we briefly have met her soul again helping us. A bit confusing. Perhaps Ryne really is her shard too, maybe, in order for the reincarnation comment to be technically true

[CNitsah]

That the current working theory about Reaper avatars is that the reason why they can mesh so well with their reaper and can allow them to go into the avatar state is that the avatar is that person's shard from the 13th.

How does that work with the WoL? It was not really subtlely implied in 6.4 and 6.5 that the real Golbez is the Azem shard of the 13th.

[edit]
didn't we have a spoiler tag?

[Cleretic]

p38:



I think it should be "secrete"?

No, 'secret' in the verb form basically means 'to hide a thing'; it's a generally pretty archaic term, so you mostly see it in fantasy and period settings now. 'Secrete' is DEFINITELY wrong, unless that crystal is... significantly grosser than we were ever told. That's a very different verb.

How does that work with the WoL? It was not really subtlely implied in 6.4 and 6.5 that the real Golbez is the Azem shard of the 13th.

[edit]
didn't we have a spoiler tag?

We do have a spoiler tag (it's [ HB ] without the spaces), but as mentioned in the OP, there is no point to actually spoiler-tagging anything in this thread, because it's all basically extra flavor text for stuff we've already had for months-to-years. I exercised a bit of an exception given there's a character that seems likely to come up next month that hasn't appeared otherwise, but there's no point spoiling anything about stuff that's already in the game; if you're looking at the EE3 and/or people talking about it, you've already signed that waiver.

But to answer your question: The Avatar being their Reaper's shard is a theory described as 'both unverified and unverifiable'. To me, that reads as the writers saying 'we're never going to answer this, here's the biggest hint for people who are looking for that, but decide on your own favorite reading'.

And I think that works because it just does not matter. We have a lot of potential contenders for the Thirteenth's Azem shard: The Avatar, the CoD of Darkness, Golbez, Zero, Diabolos, Other Golbez, Cagnazzo, that one Hecteye; pretty much every single named voidsent is a possible answer... and any confirmation would change or deepen exactly none of them. What's the value in even answering the question at that point?



(Personally, I think it means much more interesting things for Zero and Zenos than it does the WoL; that was always an atypical relationship, but this adds some interesting potential angles about it.)