Quote Originally Posted by Voidmage View Post
I think what’s also good to remember:

If we take those flavor texts at face value, it’s Norberto’s experts.

Sharlayan is the leading expert of the theories regarding souls and it took us till EW robhavebone of them explain their theory to us.
That old guy even tells us that it’s HIS theory and that most people think the entire soul process works differently. His theory is proven correct through the aetherial sea, void questline, Alexandria.

Gerolt and the others are not experts on that topic. They might just use it as an overall word for all the components of the aether that makes a soul.

Remember most people in Eorzea still think they will go to an afterlife of the gods. Most of them don‘t even know what a soul is.

TLDR:
The word soul could just be a relic from before they explained the whole thing or it’s on universe from people who don‘t know what a souls is.
None of them studied that object.
Unfortunately, this is far from the case. Thavnarian Alchemists and alchemy quest lines were the first quest lines to delve into the body and soul in detail, and so Thavnarians, who are heavily involved in the relic quests know as much and more than Montonchaigne.

Way back in ARR the Alchemist guild leader in Ul'dah brought his lover's soul back into her body through alchemy, bringing her back to life for a moment.

In HW, a rogue Thavnarian alchemist kidnaps a ton of people. When they are found, they are mute, and then die a little later. As it turns out, he'd figured out a way with the help of an Allagan instrument, to clone their bodies, and then using alchemy he would try and remove their soul and place it in the clone body. Basically running experiments to perform the feat on himself, in order to gain back a youthful body. By the end of the quest, he succeeds, and has to be identified by the color of his aether, which is associated with the color of the soul.

So yeah... sorry, but the NPCs weren't just haphazardly using soul as a stand in for something they didn't understand. It was full blown, real deal souls.