Is this a plothole? Question about the Endless

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Probably just him being somber and hopeful, I doubt Erenville is going to completely pick apart the machinations of Etheirys' afterlife moments after 'killing' his mother.

We don't fully know how death and rebirth works in the world, though, so maybe there's a chance that her soul and her memories find each other again, or perhaps her memories will be given form in the aetherial sea after we shut off the terminals. We see Moenbryda in the Aitiascope even though she supposedly gave all that was her toward the annihilation of what's-his-name Ascian, and she ended up down there just fine. Magic works in mysterious ways.

I refuse to believe a Sharlayan scholar simply forgot how the afterlife works in regards to his mother. Like you've pointed out the Sharalyans have dug multiple holes to the underworld and have studied it. Given the purpose of the aetherial sea is to wash away memories, sending memories to the aetherial sea with no soul should be like dropping them in a vat of acid. Not to mention, these memories are on an entirely different shard, if they did return to the aetherial sea, they should return to THAT aetherial sea and even if those memories could rejoin with Cahcuia's soul, her soul is likely in a soul cell back on the Source. Given Cahcuia states multiple times that they are just copies as the justification of why it's okay to erase them and we meet a copy of Otis, I'd be inclined to believe that the Endless are copies.

EXCEPT!

They show us the process and the memory aether is extracted and they state they are made of memory aether.

That's like telling me, a machine scanned you and I'm interacting with a virtual copy of you and then showing me them surgically removing your brain and sticking it in the machine. That's a massive distinction that needs to be clarified and there is evidence of both.

Also, Moenbryda gave up her lifeforce to help destroy the Ascian, same thing Papalymo did to imprison Shinryu. Using up all your lifeforce kills you, but it doesn't destroy your soul. There was nothing unexpected by their presence in the aetherial sea.

If a story doesn't have consistent rules, then there is no point to the story. If anything can happen at anytime, might as well skip to the combat with a 'kill, cause bad.'

As for Erenville and his mother, he's just being hopeful even though the whole process of making an Endless involves an accelerated version of the natural process of things where the Soul Aether is reborn while the Memory Aether is lost, outside of deeply traumatic events that end up "scarring" the Soul Aether like witnessing an apocalypse.

I find it interesting that multiple people have come to the conclusion a Sharlayan scholar is just delusional about how the afterlife works and we've deleted the one and only copy of thousands of people denying them the slow fade that happens in the afterlife that would allow them to reconnect with their loved ones. Yikes. I'd like to remind you all, we kinda twisted his arm and made him delete his mom...are we sure we're the good guys?

[EusisLandale]

I find it interesting that multiple people have come to the conclusion a Sharlayan scholar is just delusional about how the afterlife works

1. He's not a scholar. He's the guy who just goes and gets things for them.
2. Being intelligent doesn't prevent grief, nor its processes.

[SongOfTheWind]

I refuse to believe a Sharlayan scholar simply forgot how the afterlife works in regards to his mother

I am a bit confused. Erenville is not a scholar. He is a gleaner, knows a lot about nature/animals, that jazz. How does it make him a specialist in Aetherial things? I think he is quite obviously just mistaken.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

I am a bit confused. Erenville is not a scholar. He is a gleaner, knows a lot about nature/animals, that jazz. How does it make him a specialist in Aetherial things? I think he is quite obviously just mistaken.

Gleaners are scholars. He says so when he's talking to the forum member EW. Okay, fine, a scientist made an oopsie daisy in regards to the location of his dead mother cause he's sad. Fine. Like this is encyclopedia level knowledge in his world. It'd basically be trying to argue a computer programmer might not know what email addresses look like. I'll toss it in the pile. A person who can literally walk down to the aetherial sea because the place where he lives dug a hole to it, doesn't know what's down there or how his afterlife works, even though it can and has been visited...even Minfilia the miner was able to explain how the afterlife works...but okay, fine. I surrender. It was just too complex a notion for his sweet little gleaner head.

[SongOfTheWind]

Gleaners are scholars. He says so when he's talking to the forum member EW. Okay, fine, a scientist made an oopsie daisy in regards to the location of his dead mother cause he's sad. Fine. Like this is encyclopedia level knowledge in his world. It'd basically be trying to argue a computer programmer might not know what email addresses look like. I'll toss it in the pile. A person who can literally walk down to the aetherial sea because the place where he lives dug a hole to it, doesn't know what's down there or how his afterlife works, even though it can and has been visited...even Minfilia the miner was able to explain how the afterlife works...but okay, fine. I surrender. It was just too complex a notion for his sweet little gleaner head.

I think they had to lobotomise him a little tiny bit for him to accept the plan to erase her and be hopeful at the end.
But also, even if her soul were to be released as a result of his actions, even then - the aetherial sea is not a hanging out place. I don’t think any scholar proved or even theorised that souls are meeting there and exchange news. It’s not the purpose of it. Also logically him being a very young Viera means it would be hundreds of years before he joins that fancy sea. No one is waiting for him, all memories wiped, souls reborn, maybe many times.
So to me it all sounds like a very out of touch wishful thinking. Cause really, who is he going to live that dream for? I wish he did it for himself, not his mother who abandoned him several times. I really hate that message.

[Loggos]

II wish he did it for himself, not his mother who abandoned him several times. I really hate that message.

Yep, all the nonsensical "soul physics" aside, the messages they were trying to feed us were just as half-cooked. I too wish that he would have gotten a moment of emancipation or self-realisation, understanding that he can follow his own dreams.

Everything about the last zone felt so patronising towards Erenville. His grief was constantly delegitimised while every aspect of Cahciua's perspective was presented as the "right thing" and her bad parenting decisions were downplayed as funny and charming quirks. Erenville on the other hand was painted as unreasonably dour and grumpy who deserved the never-ending stream of teasing and of being "corrected".

But I just don't think "kid Erenville always cried and begged his mum to take him with her/not leave him alone whenever she would go away for a prolonged period of time" or his words à la "you always decide everything by yourself and then leave (and I have to deal with the results)" are very charming.
I think it's reasonable that this kind of behaviour (esp. during his childhood) caused him quite a bit of recurring pain.
I don't mean to say he should hate his mum but she also shouldn't be treated as this person with superior wisdom that is 100% right and Erenville as the irrational one who is always wrong, and that him following her words and path will automatically be the best thing for him.
He can love her and forgive her and still recognise that he is his own person with his own ideas, desires and dreams and they might not be the exact same things that were fulfilling for his mother.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

It's like making robots that act like your dead grandparents and locking them in a room together for all eternity, and then never entering that room again. And you might think, "Yeah, that's odd, but grief is weird, and we do weird things to try to process grief." And yeah, we do...but there's no grief here. Regulators ensure that you can't remember your dead loved ones, thus removing grief from the equation. So now you've got 2 roombas in a shed pretending to be your grandparents where you'll never witness it, and you don't even remember that you ever had grandparents....so what purpose is there to the roombas in the shed? Living Memory is an absolute nonsense system that doesn't help anyone, and it does so at the cost of requiring an unsustainable amount of energy.

That was something else that hit me as dumb. Why go through all this trouble of keeping the dead around if you're gonna wipe them from everyone's memories? I'd make more sense if they were like, "Miss grandma? Then go visit the upstairs amusement park, she's there."

They clearly also made a copy of his soul and tested what options were available to them. The copy that got experimented on (before Queen Sphene's) become the endless Otis, written off of the memories up to that point and the other copy was either tossed away into the Robot, or they were trying to come up with a way of creating artificial bodies to supplement the corporeal form post death.

Never in this game's history has there been a single example of a soul being copied. If that ever becomes possible, they might as well just set their afterlife lore on fire, cause they are done.

Yep, all the nonsensical "soul physics" aside, the messages they were trying to feed us were just as half-cooked. I too wish that he would have gotten a moment of emancipation or self-realisation, understanding that he can follow his own dreams.

Everything about the last zone felt so patronising towards Erenville. His grief was constantly delegitimised while every aspect of Cahciua's perspective was presented as the "right thing" and her bad parenting decisions were downplayed as funny and charming quirks. Erenville on the other hand was painted as unreasonably dour and grumpy who deserved the never-ending stream of teasing and of being "corrected".

Some people claim that one of the themes of this expansion is family. I disagree as the family relations were all terrible and half the cast end up offing a family member. So if the theme was family, it'd be "don't have them, because they'll be the literal death of you." What I think is they attempted to create a theme around legacy, but the message was, "No one lives forever, so have kids and burden them with fulfilling your dreams." And that forces me to ask for the hundredth time, "WHO WROTE THIS?!"

[Zaniel]

Some people claim that one of the themes of this expansion is family. I disagree as the family relations were all terrible and half the cast end up offing a family member. So if the theme was family, it'd be "don't have them, because they'll be the literal death of you." What I think is they attempted to create a theme around legacy, but the message was, "No one lives forever, so have kids and burden them with fulfilling your dreams." And that forces me to ask for the hundredth time, "WHO WROTE THIS?!"

This is a recurring issue in Dawntrail, they try for X theme or feeling then their flashy reveal sends it in the complete opposite direction. "It's about accepting other's cultures" but then everyone's cultures are shallow/abominable/not explained/based on food only/over-ridden by Eorzea's CIA Hostile Regime Change Team. "Experience the feelz of the sad fate of the Endless", oh but the Endless are just ChatGPT sessions, don't feel bad about it. Which is it!?!? What are you trying to write?!?! "The Skyruin is the greatest threat Tural has ever faced and if it is released the continent will be destroyed!!". Oh wait no don't worry it's depowered so you can just kill it and skin it. This happens over and over and I just have no idea how they scripted out and/or storyboarded the plot.

[Havenchild]

Never in this game's history has there been a single example of a soul being copied. If that ever becomes possible, they might as well just set their afterlife lore on fire, cause they are done.

I'm not sure how you can come to another conclusion for Robo-Otis and Endless Otis.

Endless Otis remembers up to he becomes Robo Otis. Endless Otis is still "living" as an Endless though post death for hundreds of years?
Robo Otis remembers everything to present, again hundreds of years.

Each have distinct memories post experiment.

If Endless are made from Memories of a Soul, but according to Robo Otis, they merged his soul with the armor, then they had to have duplicated his soul somehow. I don't believe given the context we have, there is any other explanation.

[aTanpopo]

But I just don't think "kid Erenville always cried and begged his mum to take him with her/not leave him alone whenever she would go away for a prolonged period of time" or his words à la "you always decide everything by yourself and then leave (and I have to deal with the results)" are very charming.
I think it's reasonable that this kind of behaviour (esp. during his childhood) caused him quite a bit of recurring pain.
I don't mean to say he should hate his mum but she also shouldn't be treated as this person with superior wisdom that is 100% right and Erenville as the irrational one who is always wrong, and that him following her words and path will automatically be the best thing for him.
He can love her and forgive her and still recognise that he is his own person with his own ideas, desires and dreams and they might not be the exact same things that were fulfilling for his mother.

I managed to find transcripts of the japanese text for MSQ, since I was curious if localisation changed anything with how characters were presented. Some characters have a different feel to their personalities from how they speak in the JP version imo, so I just wondered what differences i'd find, if any.

Honestly i just came out feeling even more sad since the line you brought up about him being left while his mum went off on adventures had 1 small difference in japanese:
EN: "Oh, how you would cry and beg her to take you along. It must've been hard on you."
JP:「あの頃のエレネッシパ、寂しくて泣いちゃったり、一緒に連れていけって必死にせがんだり……　大変だったよねえ？」
"Back then Erene'shpya was so lonely he would cry, and frantically beg (his mother) to let him go with (her).... It was really tough on you wasn't it?"

On the one hand I'm glad there is more confirmation that its not just some headcannon, because the game never elaborates on the relationship between them/no one comments on it I was starting to think I was just crazy and cooking up stuff. But on the other hand, now I'm just very sad ;__;

BTW the conclusion to his arc still felt rushed when I read through the JP text, so its not an issue with localisation specifically, but the way some things are worded felt like they had a bit more flavour in JP at least. If they had more of a build-up to that end moment, maybe I would be more inclined to believe him changing his whole life's purpose. But it feels like whiplash the way they ended up handling it.

Maybe post-MSQ will elaborate on the specifics of living memory and make it feel less riddled with holes, but I'm not optimistic. Hard to retroactively make something like that feel better.