Lore Misconception: Souls CANNOT be Perma-Destroyed

[Cryoson]

[MAJOR SPOILERS UP THROUGH DAWNTRAIL]



There's a common misconception I've noticed in the community that when a soul's aether is completely "burned out" it ceases to exist entirely. Whether it be Venat and her summoners, Blasphemies, or Alexandrian Regulators, this sentiment fills discourse and even the wiki.

This idea is demonstrably untrue. While the exact mechanics of when or whether a soul will reincarnate are uncertain, the fact that they continue existing is explicit.



I assume this misconception was started by the Scion's realization in Endwalker that when a person is turned into a Blasphemy, their soul's aether is completely expended in the process and disappears. However, it is later revealed in Ultima Thule that the reason these expended souls were disappearing was because Meteion was snatching them away and trapping them within the dead star. Even when completely "used up" these souls had to be sequestered to ensure they wouldn't come back. In this case, it was a literal in-story misconception that gets cleared up later, but I fear some people missed it and got the wrong idea.

This misconception would then be strengthened by certain ambiguous lines of dialogue like Venat saying her soul would not remain. Regardless of how you choose to interpret this line, The Watcher explicitly states that her spirit lives on within all life on the star. You could see this as just a comforting platitude, but The Watcher would have a very literal understanding of how this stuff works, and I somewhat doubt that he would straight up lie to us.

Then, you have Ascians and White Auracite. I'm not sure why anyone believes that perma-killing an Ascian literally deletes their soul since... y'know... Emet-Selch? Not to mention Fandaniel, who is tormented by the apparently inescapable condition of existence. Why would he be, if the cycle could be permanently broken? Why hatch his convoluted and very long plan when he could just use the White Auracite instant delete button?

And then you have Alexandrian Regulators. This one is a lot messier and people have debated for years on this. Anywhere from permanent destruction to it working the same as it does on the 13th, and everything in between. I'm not here to give my opinion on what exactly happens, but I will say that if souls were truly being perma-destroyed, there's no conceivable way the Ascians would have allowed it to continue. Emet-Selch told us to seek the golden city, so he knows about Alexandria. If they were in the business of destroying soul shards before he could rejoin them, I expect he would have been very unhappy about it. The Regulators being an interruption to the natural cycle doesn't mean they're the end of the line.

Finally, there are also several minor examples, such as Minfilia's soul being consumed by Ryne, Moenbryda sacrificing her aether to kill Nabriales, Hydaelyn sacrificing most of the Warriors of Darkness to stop the flood, and Ysayle's last stand as Shiva. All of these characters got their aether used up, and all of them reappear later in the story.



While somewhat unclear, I expect that terms like "destroy" or "burned out" are meant to refer to a soul's power simply being used up, not ceasing to exist. The fact that these concepts are all translated from Japanese doesn't help either; it's already hard enough to explain Buddhism and similar religions in English. Besides, if a soul did cease to exist when being used up, that would be kind of antithetical to the whole premise of what a soul is in the first place, and strangely grimdark to boot. Like I said earlier, you can make an argument that certain characters cannot reincarnate, but permanently removing a soul from the equation is, and should be, completely impossible.

[Kranel_San]

I assume this misconception was started by the Scion's realization in Endwalker that when a person is turned into a Blasphemy, their soul's aether is completely expended in the process and disappears. However, it is later revealed in Ultima Thule that the reason these expended souls were disappearing was because Meteion was snatching them away and trapping them within the dead star. Even when completely "used up" these souls had to be sequestered to ensure they wouldn't come back. In this case, it was a literal in-story misconception that gets cleared up later, but I fear some people missed it and got the wrong idea.

Where was this mentioned exactly? Because I don't remember it being mentioned in the MSQ

[Cryoson]

Where was this mentioned exactly? Because I don't remember it being mentioned in the MSQ

The mistaken belief begins in the cutscene after Vanaspati:

Y'shtola: "As I feared . . . I saw nothing. Not the Blasphemy that perished here, nor the other men turned beasts. And because of this I now see all too well. There is no aether. Where the creatures should be, I saw naught but emptiness . . . The instant these people are seized by the transformation, their aether begins to rot and crumble away like dried mud. Until from their corporeal forms to their very souls, nothing remains.

Alisaie: "Gods be good, you're saying they cannot be saved?"

Y'shtola: "Not by any means known to me. Or by any means at all, like as not. For there is naught left to save."



Then, the truth is revealed in Ultima Thule:

Meteion: "Of the stars we visited, most were already devoid of life. And where there was life still, the inhabitants wished for death. But even death, we learned, isn't truly the end. It is but a part of the cycle of rebirth. Souls return to the star-or in its absence, a larger flow. And eventually they are reborn. Alive again to know suffering anew. True salvation lies not in dying, it lies in not being born. This is the gift I would give to you. To all life on beautiful Eitheirys. To that end, we created an egg wherein life cannot quicken-that dead sun."

[Jeeqbit]

Hydaelyn literally tells us, very clearly, that she will never live again: "Long after I have gone, though not even my soul remaineth". This is obviously because her soul was used to form a primal. Primals don't reincarnate; at best, people can resummon them with enough faith and aether. But we put a stop to that.

As far as Emet-Selch goes, that's a case of tempering and while I don't know if tempering can permanently damage the soul, we do certainly run into cases of tempering that we cannot reverse because it has corrupted their soul too much.

For White Auracite, what we did with Emet-Selch wasn't the same as what we did in ARR, because in ARR we were specifically taking advantage of the fact that the fragmented Ascians had technically died and shed their flesh and we could trap them. Emet-Selch is not in that boat because he had never actually died, was too big for the White Auracite and was powerful enough to simply destroy it so that it didn't trap him. Although it didn't trap him, it did wound him enough for us to defeat him and free his aether to the lifestream.

[Cryoson]

Hydaelyn literally tells us, very clearly, that she will never live again: "Long after I have gone, though not even my soul remaineth". This is obviously because her soul was used to form a primal. Primals don't reincarnate; at best, people can resummon them with enough faith and aether. But we put a stop to that.

Souls used to form primals can absolutely reincarnate, Hythlodaeus is living proof (dead proof?) of that. Unless you mean specifically souls controlling the primal, but I'm not sure this has ever been confirmed.

However, isn't this more of an argument for her being unable to reincarnate, rather than her ceasing to exist? Even if she was forever stuck in Hydaelyn, that's still existing.

For White Auracite, what we did with Emet-Selch wasn't the same as what we did in ARR, because in ARR we were specifically taking advantage of the fact that the fragmented Ascians had technically died and shed their flesh and we could trap them. Emet-Selch is not in that boat because he had never actually died, was too big for the White Auracite and was powerful enough to simply destroy it so that it didn't trap him. Although it didn't trap him, it did wound him enough for us to defeat him and free his aether to the lifestream.

What do you have to support this claim? Why would White Auracite's effect of rendering you vulnerable to dying either destroy your soul or leave it intact depending on the exact way it occurs?

And again, if this was what White Auracite does, why did Fandaniel not use it on himself a long time ago?

[hydralus]

Considering how many times they drag people back from the dead I never once thought that souls were permanently destroyed by anything.

[Jeeqbit]

There is a quest somewhere, I think it was the Scholasticate quests, which had someone become a primal but otherwise appear normal. Has been a long time since I did it though.

Souls used to form primals can absolutely reincarnate, Hythlodaeus is living proof (dead proof?) of that.

I believe that was by design. The Ascians specifically designed Zodiark in a way that would allow them to restore their people once Zodiark had completed its job. It was designed so specifically that it had a named individual as its heart, and Emet-Selch and others constantly talked of being able to restore their people once its work was done.

What do you have to support this claim? Why would White Auracite's effect of rendering you vulnerable to dying either destroy your soul or leave it intact depending on the exact way it occurs?

Just what I remember from the MSQ, which I did *looks at watch* 11 years ago. It was designed for the specific circumstances of the sundered ascians because they do a whole visual explanation on it. That explanation doesn't really apply to Emet-Selch.

why did Fandaniel not use it on himself a long time ago?

He didn't seem to just want himself to go, but rather, everything along with him.

[Cryoson]

I believe that was by design. The Ascians specifically designed Zodiark in a way that would allow them to restore their people once Zodiark had completed its job. It was designed so specifically that it had a named individual as its heart, and Emet-Selch and others constantly talked of being able to restore their people once its work was done.

That's possible, but it doesn't explain Shiva. Ysayle "becomes" Shiva when she summons her, and died fighting as her, but later appeared in the aetherial sea as any normal spirit would. Again, if you're only saying that primal souls can't reincarnate, you'll get little pushback from me; as I stated in my post, I'm not disputing that possibility, only reaffirming that they continuously exist in some fashion.

He didn't seem to just want himself to go, but rather, everything along with him.

I always interpreted everyone else dying as more of a logistical requirement than a priority worth waiting for, but I suppose that's up to interpretation. I still don't think the White Auracite affected Emet-Selch any differently though. It's a method to kill an immortal, I would need evidence to believe it erases souls on top of that.

[Yuella]

What the Alexandrians did was separate souls and memories. When someone dies in battle, the regulator expends one memoryless soul to bring that person back to live without their memory becoming contaminated by another person's memory

[MsQi]

Been a while but i think it was heavily implied that as aether diminishes, dynamis increases or at least can remain. I interpreted it like the law of conservation of energy: an aether universe gradually becomes a dynamus universe. basically pure emotion.