Scholar's Identity Transformation

[Minali]

"Some people might say that it's a little more angelic, but I would be happy if you could take your time to try it out for yourself."

What is there to try out? There is media tour footage of the whole thing now, saw a Hrothgar with Seraphism active showing the whole thing in detail. It's not "a little more angelic", the design is an angel. It's not much different than a random angel glam, just that an angel glam doesn't cut off racial traits like tails. You can call it different and pretend it's totally a fairy and super in lore somehow with some gymnastics, like some people in the threads about Seraphism, but it doesn't change how the design is by all accounts of what we have seen from angels and fairies in this game, including a grown scholar fairy in a Variant Dungeon, a generic christian angel.

I don't know, maybe it's less obvious to a person who didn't grow up surrounded by christian iconography at every corner like I did in Germany, where we had 10 churches in my small home town alone. No clue. But even if you go by stuff you see in the game only, it takes a lot to deny this costume doesn't fall into the same category as scholar fairies Lily and Statice nor Feo Ul or any other fairy in the First.

[GTK0HLK]

I don't know, maybe it's less obvious to a person who didn't grow up surrounded by christian iconography at every corner like I did in Germany, where we had 10 churches in my small home town alone. No clue. But even if you go by stuff you see in the game only, it takes a lot to deny this costume doesn't fall into the same category as scholar fairies Lily and Statice nor Feo Ul or any other fairy in the First.

People need to remember.

Pixies Originate from the first, we had to connect with Feo first.
If they are the same things as Fairies, we undoubtled never have issues with them in the first place, or would of had a nod to it like all job connections.

Fairies Are from the Source, and then can evolve/power up into seraphs.

The one in AloAlo really has the most easily explainable reasons, yet one cannot ever say a thing about them as solid without them having to expand on it.

Seraphism for all intents and purposes does fit the lore of Scholar. (my most preferred healer to play.)

The topics are, and have always been just about how it looks and individual interupts your viewpoint that hasn't always been accurate.
(Just like White Mages never been 100% about being Angel's, it's about Being with light Aether Enhanced Nature Magic, and the Elementals.)

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What is needed, maybe if we ever get to a point where Seraphism further evolves and upgrades.

Is More Tactical Look, Runes, and Seraph Blue Chucked on it.

But that's the most.

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Do I wish or want them to change it to match Seraphism?

Not for or against it. But would dislike if they complete forgot the lore that has been built(Which is being misinterpreted for the intent of Muh Glamour) for it. (Some concepts thrown here just make it a clone of Enshroud, which it is just a higher vfx of all burst modes that jobs have.)

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The one thing that does need to be adjusted?

The Racial Features Lacking, just like with Enshroud.

Which needs it's own thread.

If they had put effort, and gave simple conversion into the "Transformation" or variables. You'd have Mark's on you, just like Zenos did at the end. Except this time it would be for SCH(and RPR if they ever update it)

Which is one of the things that is getting you large support, cause people dislike racial traits getting deleted, just like with Helmets, or Fangs.

[OgruMogru]

In the media tour there is a Japanese article that includes mention of Scholar's new Seraphim transformation and potential future lore explanations:
https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/doc...w/1593842.html




Keep in mind these are Google Translations and may have inaccuracies. Someone else may be able to offer a more nuanced translation.

So we're never getting job quests again because the battle team might decide to flip flop on something later down the road.

[Minali]

So, uh, Yoshi-P said we're supposed to wait and see how Seraphism looks in game and check it our ourselves, right?

I just reached Lvl 100 with scholar and had a very close look.

I still hate it a lot.

The gameplay of Seraphism is fine, but it never was about the gameplay to begin with.

It might be somewhat lore appropriate in that way that they took a being that looks like an angel, acts like an angel, is named like an angel and appeared as an angel in previous Final Fantasy games and called it a fairy or fairy adjacent. However, as someone who grew up around a lot of christian symbols, churches and what not despite not even being religious, I feel it's safe to say this is an angel costume. And yes, costume. It is not exactly super different from a normal angel glam, except it also cuts off my cat ears and my tail for no good reason.

Here some comparison screenshots for the people who don't play SCH as a catgirl. (The book is not part of the transformation, that's the Shb relic.)



I'm going to finish MSQ with Scholar for queue fast pass (and because I do enjoy the actual gameplay) and then never touch it again until this is being changed. I started this game as Arcanist and struggled so hard to learn scholar in Shb for years, but I finally got the hang of it and started to enjoy it in the last year of the EW patches. It pains me to put it down again after so much work, I like the gameplay itself, but this transformation into some christian religious entity taking away my glam and my racial traits is just a big no for aesthetic reasons. However, it's not only aesthetics. I won't even recognize myself on the battle field anymore without putting a focus target on me, because my eyes are not that great at some days, even with glasses, and having her altered in her entirety like this won't help with anything.

[KisaiTenshi]

It might be somewhat lore appropriate in that way that they took a being that looks like an angel, acts like an angel, is named like an angel and appeared as an angel in previous Final Fantasy games and called it a fairy or fairy adjacent. However, as someone who grew up around a lot of christian symbols, churches and what not despite not even being religious, I feel it's safe to say this is an angel costume. And yes, costume. It is not exactly super different from a normal angel glam, except it also cuts off my cat ears and my tail for no good reason.

I think Yoshi-P and the dev team probably didn't understand the issue. Like ignoring the entire "christian iconography" angle. That is clearly Angel-styled. Not "Faerie"

When i think Fairy, I think "butterfly-styled wings", and indeed if you look up "fairy" in google, nearly every single image you see has butterfly styled wings. Even cartoons that expressly read "fairy" do this (see Winx Club.) When you look for "mythical pixie", you also see a lot of the same "butterfly" but also other insect-styled wings like bee and dragonfly.

Feathered wings you only see on Angels. regardless of colors. (Like "demon/devils" can have black feathers, heck FF7 Sephiroth literately has this in official artwork.) While it is not expressly "an angel thing" it is definitely contradicting the established "Fairy" lore the game has used till now.

Do I think this is a big deal? Not really, but it feels like the conflation of "White Mage" is supposed to be the "light/holy" character, with scholar who has none of that. Some people want the scholar to be the military/combat tactician and all it's relic gear reflects that aspect. So it seems really strange to have things that should be part of one healer, on the other. Like if you swapped with Temperance with Seraphism, I'm sure both jobs would be like "that fits better", though maybe not what they want either.

[gllt]

I think it looks wrong for SCH, yeah.
It's cool, but it's wrong.

[Minali]

I think Yoshi-P and the dev team probably didn't understand the issue. Like ignoring the entire "christian iconography" angle. That is clearly Angel-styled. Not "Faerie"

When i think Fairy, I think "butterfly-styled wings", and indeed if you look up "fairy" in google, nearly every single image you see has butterfly styled wings. Even cartoons that expressly read "fairy" do this (see Winx Club.) When you look for "mythical pixie", you also see a lot of the same "butterfly" but also other insect-styled wings like bee and dragonfly.

Feathered wings you only see on Angels. regardless of colors. (Like "demon/devils" can have black feathers, heck FF7 Sephiroth literately has this in official artwork.) While it is not expressly "an angel thing" it is definitely contradicting the established "Fairy" lore the game has used till now.

Do I think this is a big deal? Not really, but it feels like the conflation of "White Mage" is supposed to be the "light/holy" character, with scholar who has none of that. Some people want the scholar to be the military/combat tactician and all it's relic gear reflects that aspect. So it seems really strange to have things that should be part of one healer, on the other. Like if you swapped with Temperance with Seraphism, I'm sure both jobs would be like "that fits better", though maybe not what they want either.

Agreed, although I am not sure if CBU3 truly didn't understand this distinction between fae and angels. Seraph as a reoccuring figure and summon exists in previous Final Fantasy games and is very much being described as an angel. The name itself is from an angel from real world religions. (Granted, irl Shiva and FFXIV Shiva don't really have a lot in common either, but as said, it's more than just the name.) They are not the same and they should know this really well.

I still feel like they just wanted to bring in Seraph as fanservice into the game, for fans from other games with Seraph in it, and didn't know where else to put it but to the pet healing job, when creating Shadowbringers. And then things escalated. ^^;

[Connor]

I still feel like they just wanted to bring in Seraph as fanservice into the game, for fans from other games with Seraph in it, and didn't know where else to put it but to the pet healing job, when creating Shadowbringers. And then things escalated. ^^;

To be fair though, Seraph has existed since long before Shadowbringers, since I think Heavensward was when job-specific LB3’s were introduced (i.e Scholar’s Angel Feathers).

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s made very clear several times through Scholar’s lore that the ‘faeries’ we see are actually two aspects of another entity (Lily, which I’ve always assumed is literally Seraph). Based on their general form (winged humanoids with fancy glowing wings), I wouldn’t say it’s much of a stretch that if you take an Angel and make it into smaller copies of itself, they’d look more like fairies than angels. Like, the fairies essentially are just ‘small angels’, and you squish two together you get a normal sized Angel (Seraph).

Plus, there’s no actual evidence for it, but considering Scholars summoned their ‘fairies’ with the intent of calling a being that would restore and strengthen those around it, I always assumed the original ‘fairies’ they summoned probably were more ‘angelic’ than ‘fairy’ (beings of light flying down from the heavens bringing healing and HP shields lol). Especially since they’re characterised as essentially ‘granting salvation’ to the otherwise too weak Nymian Military. Just a shame they got wiped out by Black Magic Cooties lol

How the hell that leads to ‘you literally become an Angel ’ is something I’ll never understand though lol. I think Seraph itself is something that’s always been intended as part of Scholar’s ‘lore’, as it were. But things like Seraphism just completely throws away literally everything they’ve tried to build before it (which unfortunately is kind of the ‘design philosophy for every job this expansion lol). Like, there is a huge gulf between ‘military tacticians that designed a means of summoning an angelic and/or fairy like aetherial construct, and a guy literally turning into an Angel before everyone’s very eyes lol. Scholars are Jesus is now ffxiv canon I guess?


Finally, why the hell did Scholars need to summon anything if they could just turn themselves into actual angels lol…

[KisaiTenshi]

Agreed, although I am not sure if CBU3 truly didn't understand this distinction between fae and angels.

The first White Mage Relic (Thyrus) looks like this:


What does that look like? If we go by lore reasons, it looks like an elemental. But note the wing pattern. Now look at the wing pattern on the scholar Seraphism.

If we go into iconography, a seraph is a 6-wing class of angel. No two sources agree on anything other than having 6 wings. Any other angel in theology gets less and less human-like the closer to god they are. Like, just like with Shiva and Ifrit, relying on a real world interpretation inside a fantasy game is just silly.

But this is why people make these arguments. It's very clear that the white mage, scholar and astrologian are "too samey" to the point the developers have confused the lore for the healers, and have taken them in directions that might have been more appropriate on another.

If CBU3 really wants to, and they should, they should take apart all 4 healers and give them strictly different kits, lore, and job quests reflecting such going back to level 1. I like playing white mage, and I like swapping to SCH and AST, but they play so samey that I will sometimes forget to even summon the fairy. The fairy in ARR was powerful, but also would get KO'd by monsters. The fairy now is barely more than an auto cure-1 heal bot.

[Connor]

The first White Mage Relic (Thyrus) looks like this:


What does that look like? If we go by lore reasons, it looks like an elemental. But note the wing pattern. Now look at the wing pattern on the scholar Seraphism.

If we go into iconography, a seraph is a 6-wing class of angel. No two sources agree on anything other than having 6 wings. Any other angel in theology gets less and less human-like the closer to god they are. Like, just like with Shiva and Ifrit, relying on a real world interpretation inside a fantasy game is just silly.

.

Isn’t a lot of that to do with culture and/or a general misunderstanding of Christianity aside from broader features that are more universally known though? I.E the figure of Angel would be easily recognized by many people in Japan, but if they were shown a Cherub (the baby Angel one not the giant head on fire with wings lol) or a Seraph, there’s a good chance many would still just identity those as ‘Angel’. I also imagine they’d use the words interchangeably, I.e using Seraph to refer to an Angel.

So I think they’ve just been using ‘Angel’ more as a generic term for ‘shiny being with wings’ as opposed to the more traditional ‘winged servants of [a] God’. Hence why there’s so much ‘Angel’ iconography going everywhere - because they see ‘wings + shiny = Angel’ lol. Which would make sense given that Christianity as far as I know isn’t really a big thing in JP, so they aren’t really exposed to that kind of iconography to have more than a passing knowledge of the details.

As for why they decided to use that exact same iconography for two completely separate classes…I don’t even think a real Angel could figure that one out lol