Patch 7 1 speculation

[Anonymoose]

The fact that Pandaemonium had a check-in-with-the-NPC window attached to it at the end made me paranoid as all hells that there was more to this down the line, especially with the totally casual reference to some "magnificent legends and tales from bygone civilizations" appearing to allude to the presences of Athena, auracite, and the High Seraph, and that Ultima "may be the cause of countless tragedies" throughout history. (That sounds like it may be more than a nod to Ivalice.)

I'm half-jokingly rooting for a build-up to "Ultima Prime", the real one, being the big bad of "Endwalker-2" (the second long-term catharsis). I would say bonus points if we end at Silvertear Lake but we've come back to and wandered away from it a couple times already.

I hesitate to speculate on much else. That, "Are we just going to be sad forever!?" stands out to me. Years ago that would have felt like a guaranteed plot hook - everyone would react to that situation differently, and then some faction would seize control of the Solution IX infrastructure and build up to a bigger exploration of the core themes with the souls and regulators and all that.

In Dawntrail, though - in the thru-lines of the base main scenario, at least - it doesn't feel like many actions had any indirect or unintended running consequences or pushed any problems to different recursive levels to manifest in other ways (...yet?). The drama did not have very many moving parts. So it's also possible that line will be resolved with a few minutes of exposition about what pain and loss can teach us about ourselves and each other and how it can be used constructively and shouldn't be denied and rejected. Really cap off that "rapid-fire review of past themes" vibe 7.00 had, lol.