Revelations from Patch 7.4: Into the Mist

[Shadotterdan]

Skimmed through this after catching up. One thing that's kind of bugging me is the remark about the world ending. I had a thought regarding that, now that Hydaelyn is gone, what is keeping the realms seperate?

[Cleretic]

Skimmed through this after catching up. One thing that's kind of bugging me is the remark about the world ending. I had a thought regarding that, now that Hydaelyn is gone, what is keeping the realms seperate?

According to Y'shtola's hypothesis in the 6.x patches: nothing. Hydaelyn being a primal of light, or stasis, meant that her existence slowed the, like... interdimensional aetheric equivalent of gravity to either a complete or near stop. The Thirteenth, being a world of darkness, was the one most able to resist that stalling effect, which is what led to voidgates between the Source and Thirteenth. Without Hydaelyn there, then logically, that process has been allowed to speed up again. I didn't, however, get the feeling that this was an imminent concern. Y'shtola would definitely be the type to bring that up, and she didn't. I feel like it's on the same level as the fact that our real-life moon is drifting away from Earth... but at a rate of centimeters per year; by the time that's in any way relevant, human life will not be.

It's entirely possible that things are changing faster than we're aware of with the shards, but knowing what little we do about the two people who are currently raising this issue, I think it's a bit more likely that, if that's what they're worrying about, they are going hyper-long-term overreactionary. It does seem like exactly their type of flaw.


Incidentally, thinking about it: While we know that ice is the element closest to light on the whole 'stasis' thing, I wonder if lightning is the closest to darkness on the whole 'change and motion' thing, which might explain why, of all places, the lightning-tilted shard was the one that the key opened up to.

[TheRealQuah]

Good point. I couldn't find the P8 quote, but for the unenlightened:



It seems fairly clear they possessed something that allowed them a glimpse of the future, be it their own abilities or otherwise, and if it were as common an occurrence as Themis makes it sound, it's hardly unlikely that they might have foreseen something relating to the Final Days or the Sundering. It may have been what caused them to defect. As for the idea that Azem can't have their own feelings, thoughts and traits as a character because they relate to us, I think that flew out the window when the writing started actively quoting them, inserting them into stories, and roping them into a polycule with Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch. They were their own person, and even our WoL has been steamrolled into having an at the very least cordial and respectful relationship with Emet in spite of some players' disdain for him. They're not above pushing a narrative for our character.

I believe that it's just another closed time loop. It explains everything. We aren't just the reincarnation of Azem, we are the original Azem. At the end of our journey as the WoL we go back to Elpis to become Azem. It explains why Azem has such prescience over what is to come, and better, it explains the reason why Azem didn't try to avert the final days and went off on their own. They knew of the sundering. And thus Azem created the key that we now posses as a way to be able to travel between shards post sundering.

It stand to reason that such an artifact could have bad side effects if in the wrong hands. If we can use it to traverse the rift then in theory anything can and that's where dimensional fusion comes in.

A bit of a more out there theory I have now is that with Hydaelyn gone, we are going to start seeing natural rejoinings, Halmarut alluded very vaguely to something and I believe this is what it was. It also then also fits into what Yoshi_P is saying IRL about a second realm reborn - we are going to see a calamity happen in game and cannot stop it this time.

[Lunaxia]

I believe that it's just another closed time loop. It explains everything. We aren't just the reincarnation of Azem, we are the original Azem. At the end of our journey as the WoL we go back to Elpis to become Azem. It explains why Azem has such prescience over what is to come, and better, it explains the reason why Azem didn't try to avert the final days and went off on their own. They knew of the sundering. And thus Azem created the key that we now posses as a way to be able to travel between shards post sundering.

I want to say I don't think this would happen, particularly as there's been noted disparities between ourselves and Azem that couldn't really be overlooked unless we fully rejoined the Source, and also because I like that, for the moment, we have a character and history with some mystique and intrigue left around them after they unceremoniously threw the Twelve in the bin... but given they rounded out a ten year arc by doing the same thing with Hydaelyn, I can't say it's impossible, lol. I suppose the existence of the key means even the former isn't completely off the table... and actually, the idea of the WoL being faced with the dilemma of the world necessitating rejoinings to survive after Hydaelyn and Zodiark's demise would be really interesting, unless they deal with it the way they did tempering.

Someone threw the idea out of a second major calamity in another thread, and all I can say is while I love the idea and that the game is in chronic need of some sort of catalyst to take the story in a different direction, I struggle to see it happening. Ever since Endwalker it's been clear they've grown averse to taking any kind of real risk that might potentially upset the playerbase, and they're more intent on preaching the joys of harmony and how friendship is magic than putting out a genuinely gripping story. Going off Halmarut's words and what Elidibus said at the end of Pandaemonium we can assume there's definitely something that poses a threat to the star at large, but the days where they wrote the likes of the Seventh Calamity and the Bloody Banquet feel like they're well and truly behind us.

Edit: Oh dear, you've awoken the beast.

[Cleretic]

I believe that it's just another closed time loop. It explains everything. We aren't just the reincarnation of Azem, we are the original Azem.

You play a miqo'te. Presumably, by choice; you selected the cat people on character creation because, out of all those choices, it's the one you like the most. Just like how I picked an elezen. A lot of people have some form of connection or resonance to the character and race they selected.

Azem is not a miqo'te. They can't be, those don't exist yet. So to become Azem through time loop, not only would your character have to go through a multitude of Rejoinings that we are explicitly against because of the horrific amounts of death that those entail (which you apparently seem to be okay with), your character will also need to be un-miqo'te'd. Stripped of the visual distinctiveness, that base character creation choice that you made and any attachment you have to that.

Are you okay with that?

Do you think everyone will be okay with that?

Because if I try to think of the worst possible thing that they could do with this--throw off all limiters, all rationality, we're going full self-sabotage--it's exactly that. This choice would betray damn near everybody: the people who love their Warrior of Light would hate to have their distinctiveness stripped away, the poeple who like playing with Azem off in the Fanfiction Zone would hate that this got retconned away, the people who like any other part of the rest of the game world would hate that we abandoned it (and I know this one because frankly, the Ishgard and Ala Mhigo people are already in those states; hell, some Tural fans are already there). All of those people get sacrificed solely to appeal to, basically, just the Ancient fans... who are the part of the fanbase that I've perhaps seen be most okay with the hand they were dealt. A loud minority that's mostly left aside, Ancient fans mostly seem to like that they were given one and a half zones, a tragic end, and that's it. That's what they want, they're happy!

I think that this would be a terrible direction for so many reasons, but this is the one that jumped off the backburner. People put this theory forward and I don't even know who it's for. I don't know who wants this!

[Mansion]

I don't get the point of the key if it were created by Azem too. In the large scope of things, what would be the final goal for them to have that key? Because from my remembering of what we heard of Azem, they are more of a "problem-solver" more than a big planner.
Besides, Azem presumably knew they would be sundered and thus lose memory of their Ancient identity. What would be the point of creating the key if there was no guarantee one of their sundered identity would find it, know how to use it and have the same mindset than the original Azem? Because as far as we know, sundered people from an original ancient can have very distinct endgames (see Ardbert and the WoL for instance, there was a time when we were almost enemies).

And while I'm not as categoric as Cleretic on Azem being a dead-end writing-wise, I agree that the more time people connect with their WoL, the less they will like anything added to the original Azem.I personally prefer the original Azem dead and gone, and the player evolving in the scraps of this history the way they want.

[Lunaxia]

I don't get the point of the key if it were created by Azem too.

Azem was something of a maverick, but it's clear that amidst their rather chaotic and seemingly impulsive approach to solving problems there was typically an inherent method in their madness and they saw more than they let on, both literally and metaphorically.

The most common theories are:
- It was their answer to the Final Days, but they were unable to stop it/ be ready in time
- It was their answer to the Sundering/ issue of Rejoinings, either because they saw the necessity of the former or perhaps because it was unavoidable
- A last minute Plan B in response to either of the above
- Some gimgaw they were working on privately - as the short stories have stated, objects facilitating travel was kind of their thing
- They foresaw some other, as yet unclear event that necessitated its use

Were it a premonition, I'm guessing the issue of who may be using it was likely answered. In the event of something else, it may have been their only answer to whatever the problem was/ may be. Who knows!

I'm not quite as confident in the notion that "most people" would reject the addition of anything else to Azem, given how enthusiastically everything else has been received with regards to how our WoL connects with the world. Fray was immensely popular, and he was considered a suppressed facet of the WoL's personality.

[Cleretic]

I don't get the point of the key if it were created by Azem too. In the large scope of things, what would be the final goal for them to have that key? Because from my remembering of what we heard of Azem, they are more of a "problem-solver" more than a big planner.
Besides, Azem presumably knew they would be sundered and thus lose memory of their Ancient identity. What would be the point of creating the key if there was no guarantee one of their sundered identity would find it, know how to use it and have the same mindset than the original Azem? Because as far as we know, sundered people from an original ancient can have very distinct endgames (see Ardbert and the WoL for instance, there was a time when we were almost enemies).

Yeah, you're putting this extremely well. You try to spell out what Azem's plan if they made the key actually might have been, and it comes off like complete nonsense, that only gets justified by increasingly more nonsense circuitous logic. The more that a theory like this relies on 'Azem has future sight' to cover the fact that it would be a worthless tool to Azem themselves, the more it relies on that future sight becoming more and more perfect, to account for how much they would need to know; for example, they'd need to know the transdimensional location of 'a shard', which is a concept that doesn't exist at the time. But in doing that, the plan becomes more and more absurd in turn, subject to more and more niche details that, for this theory to function, requires Azem to also have seen.


But in all honesty, I'm quite tired of feeding this derail. Which is what this is, none of this is from the patch, and at best it should all be going on in a different thread. So instead, I'm gonna talk up an angle on the Doomtrain that I've gotten on board with over the last couple weeks, and hopefully we can talk about that, instead:

The Ninth is a shard that fell into apocalypse roughly around their equivalent of the Industrial Revolution, hitting an interesting sort of 'period sci-fi' angle that we rarely see: their world fell in much the same way that sci-fi often depicts Earth failing if they go to hard with whatever new technology the author is afraid of (justifiably or not)... but the Ninth is a historically-rooted fantasy; they basically fell to their equivalent of the steam engine, or coal-fired power stations.

That itself is both interesting and a little funny, but following it makes the Doomtrain go from a non-sequitir 'boss for the sake of it' to, maybe, the most appropriate monster we ever could have fought: Of course the horrifying boogeyman of a world that died to their equivalent of the steam engine is an unstoppable demon train carrying nothing but pain and death! Slow enough to know it's coming... but much too fast to do anything about.

[Mansion]

I'm not quite as confident in the notion that "most people" would reject the addition of anything else to Azem, given how enthusiastically everything else has been received with regards to how our WoL connects with the world. Fray was immensely popular, and he was considered a suppressed facet of the WoL's personality.

Thank you for your reply! I can understand better your point of view
On the topic of Fray, I would raise that it worked so well because (besides being very well written both in general and in comparison to other job quests) players into roleplay that would gravitate toward playing a Dark Knight would likely be touched by this specific story. It's not that deep but it works just great in that pre-existing and easy to guess context.

I enjoyed it too for instance, although I don't care much about roleplay or what job my charecter uses. And while Azem's identity kind of leaves me a bit indifferent, I will have a harder time when my character is having seemingly a different feeling towards a character than I do. I don't mind the scions but I had a very hard time with Emet Selch from the end of ShB on. I don't relate to him, I wouldn't like him as a person, I would not want him around me.
I don't mind Azem being a hot headed fighter ready to help anyone, I sort of think it works with the WoL who is kind of similar. But there is a point where it might get difficult to relate to Azem the more they get details added to their character.

And that's not saying it's impossible to create a great psychological ark for the WoL, piecing together something of a darker side of Azem and then learning to live with it. I actually think that would be a good story. It's just not what I'm used to from FFXIV writers who tend to avoid adding deep personal traits to the WoL.

[Lunaxia]

Thank goodness for that.

Thank you for your reply! I can understand better your point of view
On the topic of Fray...

No problem, it's always nice to engage in a genuine discussion.

I suppose could you could posit that, but I think it underestimates just how many people responded to that particular questline and the esteem (hah) its held in amongst the playerbase - to the point that players otherwise not inclined to play the class do so purely to experience the story. It examines the reality of the WoL's deeds and the subsequent mental and emotional impact in a way that I think most characters can relate to, regardless of their chosen personality. And more than that, it also marked the first time the game really allowed the WoL to respond and resonate with what was going on around them and brought them into the story as their own character, as opposed to a faceless yes-man used to facilitate the plot - and as it turns out, players really, really like that. It was recognising and applying this, and emphasising the focus on our character, that made Shadowbringers the homerun that it was (and conversely, Dawntrail much less so.)

This is why "players prefer a blank template to project their character on to" is fundamentally such a non-argument, as is "oh, characterising Azem too much will never work" because it's doing the exact opposite that has actually been crucial to the game's success. We were given a backstory, a history, a name (in essence), relationships, an active connection with the villain - and the players went crazy for it. And they still are - it's really only here that certain, extremely vocal individuals greet the idea of Azem as something innately offensive. In most other places, interest in that part of the story is still very high, as is the intrigue surrounding who exactly they were and what they were doing behind the scenes.

I enjoyed it too for instance, although I don't care much about roleplay or what job my charecter uses. And while Azem's identity..

I think this is a pretty common sentiment, and one like to happen to most players on at least one occasion. The side effect of a narrative for our character is that not every single person will be pleased all at the same time, particularly at times when fan majority rule takes effect, such as with Emet or G'raha, who they do have a tendency to push based on their popularity. But I think it's a reasonable trade-off for a much more engaging story and sense of depth for our character, and in fairness to them, they never take it to much excess - the barebones of it is the WoL is a good guy who tries to connect with and at least understand the people they meet, be they friend or foe, while helping where they can, and so long as they continue to operate within that outline, as with Azem, the prospect of alienating the playerbase is unlikely. And even if it hadn't been before, I think Wuk Lumat taught them the dangers of pushing something a little too hard.