Original Theme Song A Precurser?

[Teakwood]

I'd be willing to bet a significant pile of gil that they did have the Seventh Umbral Era storyline planned, if not from the start, as a potential place to take the story in the future; I think that in a perfect world where the launch did not go catastrophically poorly, they'd have spent a -lot- more time building up to the Seventh Umbral Era, but especially when Yoshi-P took over and kicked 7U into high gear, I've felt like we're playing the "X Years Ago..." prologue segment to a story. There's too much foreshadowing of the Primals, the Aether, the Empire's plans, and the Eras- and last but not least, the opening song's lyrics.

It's a particularly good catch- the FFXI main theme, Memoro de la Sxtono, was deeply plot-relevant and actually wound up showing up diegetically within the text; there's no reason to expect that the FFXIV main theme is not equally relevant.

We've heard snippets of the melody, half-remembered, at key points in the game's story, while we're receiving what we're assuming are premonitions of the Seventh Umbral Era - do note, by the way, that the "sky erupting in flames and meteors falling and messing everything up" cutscenes were all in the game well before the relaunch plans, those were part of the original storyline.

Also note the female voice exhorting us to 'look, think, feel' (I believe; it's been a while and I don't particularly want to start a new character just to verify) that sounds quite a bit like Calloway's voice in the very opening cutscene, after a visual/audio effect that we later learn to associate with the presence of the Echo.

Given the manner in which the planned Seventh Umbral recontextualises the lyrics to Answers, interpreting the song as a simplistic ballad about uncertainty in the face of strife does violence to the text. Almost certainly, the melodic quotations of Answers in 1.xx cutscenes are diegetic, remembered fragments of the song which Calloway (One of the Twelve, perhaps?) has already sung to 'us' - XIV 1.xx is taking place in the 'past', and our entire existence within 1.xx has been an Echo vision granted to persons within post-cataclysm Eorzea - a world in which the Twelve are taking an active interest to counteract the effects of Meteor and the Primals' wrath - so that they could understand what precisely happened to put the world in the state that it's in.

Remember that, according to Menphina, droves of people - the player characters - have suddenly and without explanation begun receiving the gift of the Echo; this isn't explained within the storyline proper, but the sudden appearance of the Echo in the world pre-cataclysm is a result of the Twelve allowing cataclysm survivors to experience and understand pre-cataclysm existence.

(If you were Nophica, you'd want people to appreciate things like 'how much better they have it now the Black Shroud's been nuked from orbit', right? Okay, that was a bit dark...)

According to this interpretation, the lyrics to Answers become much more clear, but especially this stanza:

To all of my children in whom life flows abundant
To all of my children to whom death hath passed his judgment
The soul yearns for honor and the flesh the hereafter
Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after

Death has passed its judgement on the people of Eorzea; those who survived the cataclysm are being granted an understanding of the circumstances leading up to the cataclysm. I'm not sure what the goddess' long game is here - why we need to have actually experienced 1.xx - although I have a feeling that, in-character, our vicarious experience (literally, XP, levels, and so forth) will allow us to survive the post-Cataclysm world.

"Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after" is to be taken in-character as well: What our 1.xx character has learned about the nature of the world, the Primals, and so on, will be of use to the 2.0 characters which inherit their experiences and live their lives vicariously. In Final Fantasy XI, much of the most important action in the story happened off-camera and was revealed, if at all, via flashbacks; I posit that in FFXIV, Yoshi-P and the writing team have taken an already-extant, heavily foreshadowed concept within the story and moved it forward in the narrative in order to coincide with the requisite changes to Eorzea in the 2.0 re-release.

I fully expect to hear more quotations of Answers' melody within the soundtrack either leading up to 2.0, or of 2.0 itself, but I -definitely- expect the song to come into play within the narrative at some point involved with the transition to 2.0. We'll have to wait and see, I suppose. It's a great piece of music, and I remember being deeply puzzled by it when I first heard it and did not have the context we now have; I hope that it remains the game's main theme and gets quoted within the game in the way Memoro de la Sxtono was remixed and referenced at key points of XI's plot, as it's extremely emblematic of the entire 1.xx to 2.0 story arc.

[bobbygunz]

I think you guys are way over analyzing it in terms of 2.0 and 1.0 and etcetera. Like it's just not that complicated.

There are several different voices in the song. Each one says something different, and offers an alternative point of view. The intro-voices which ask "tell us, where must we wander" is sung in the voice of the Gregorian chanters. It's a collective voice representing the "walkers of the path" or anyone searching for meaning. Their legs are "long tired" from having wandered so far without answers.

The next part, which is done in a happy voice with harp music, obviously suggesting some kind of Diety (maybe Siren?), and she is preaching to all living creatures, i.e., "To all of my children". She is trying to convince them that "the land is alive, so believe".

Then the following segment is full of chaotic voices, all of which resound with the experiences of life, both good and bad, and preface the rest of the song which is sang in a more brutalized, violent voice.

"Now open your eyes while our plight is repeated." This is the voice of someone who refuses to be deluded. If you think about the Astral and Umbral eras, there seems to be an eternally repeated struggle for the peoples in Eorzea (constant death and rebirth of civilizations) and the singer doesn't want to be a pawn in this game anymore.

The rest of the song is about the lies of the various religions, the inevitability of death, and the futility of their god-given lives "Why given life, must we die?"

Then the ending resolves with the singer realising that the answers are beyond her. "My life is a riddle".

And then there's this:

"In one fleeting moment from the land doth life flow
Yet in one fleeting moment for the new leaf doth grow
In the same fleeting moment thou must live, die and know"

Which basically translates to: "death happens, life happens. Find whatever wisdom you can." In terms of Umbral/Astral eras, it may also be referring to the eras of destruction and rebirth as well, I guess.

The take home message is that Eorzea's history is rampant with cataclysmic events, and also some power struggles between the primals and gods, which the people of Eorzea don't really play a part in, except as pawns. There is also this so-called gift of "The Echo" which nobody really understands and are on an eternal unanswered quest to figure out.

[Aynslesa]

Or it could be *just* that complicated.

I mean, when you think about it, SE has an ongoing history of running really involved, really complicated plotlines that intertwine in ways that are never readily apparant when the contant is initially released. As Teakwood pointed out, Memoro de la Sxtono turned out to be more plot-relevant to Final Fantasy XI than anyone ever imagined, although it took them several expansions to reach that point in the story. And that had most of that story written out and planned from when the game was first conceived.

There's little doubt in my mind that the Seventh Umbral Era was always intended to be where the game was always meant to lead. All one has to do is look at the Main Storyline quests, which were available long before the announcement of 2.0 - heck, they were available before the dev team change-up occurred. Those quests heavily push the incoming arrival of the Seventh Umbral Era.

It is possible to simplify and generically interpret the lyrics of 'Answers', but I personally don't believe that that was the intention of the song. Looking at it from that viewpoint would be to say that it could be the theme song of any fantasy role-playing game - and since when has that been true of any Final Fantasy theme? Not to mention the fact that the entirety of the song was pulled from .dat files but has yet to be featured in the game itself - they didn't just record a couple of lines for a few cutscenes, they wrote and recorded a full song with the intent of using it later in the game. That, I think, is highly in favor of its importance.

And to say that the Echo is something that no one understands and will never find the answer to I think trivializes the very purpose of the Echo in the story. The Echo exists for a reason, and I think we've only just begun to touch on it. It isn't simply some random gift that a group of people just happen to have. *Something* gave our characters the echo, and it gave it for a reason.

Let's not forget that when we all entered into Eorzea in the first place, our characters were all disoriented - as if suffering from the effects of suddenly becoming shoved into an Echo.

[Zenaku]

The songs lyrics do seem to fit what is happening now almost perfectly, but I think it's just a coincidence.

or they just took what the song said and use it to make it happen so it not coincidence it just happen to be that they just did what the song said.

[MartaDemireux]

Ahhh... Memoro de la S^tono... That song was integral to story of XI. If memory serves they even played the recorded version at the end of Chains of Promathia as well - being the only words spoken in-game aside from the opening movie.

I know in the beginning of the Gridanian opening you can hear the part where Susan is singing the part in the song where she first comes in. At the end of the opening you can hear her say "Walk free, walk free, believe. The land's alive, so believe" very clearly. So it definitely seems, too, that XIV is following XI's footsteps in making a theme song share such importance to the game.

Beginning to think that the Seventh Umbral Era was actually intended to be the games first expansion pack at this point. However when the game flopped they may have decided to push it forward (like was said before) and now we're getting what we're getting. And yes, as Zenaku says, it's very possible Yoshi directed this with the theme song in mind. As far as Dalamund coming into the picture and all anyway.

I don't know if anyone else caught this, but when the game was first released and they gave us a cinematic at TGS2010. The fire in the sky we all saw when we received the power of the Echo actually is depicted within this movie - it's the fall of the the dragons and the airships. At the end of the movie you can also clearly see (at around 6:10) Ifrit and Titan. One can only assume that the current Primal battles that we're receiving are in direct relation to the event when they all shot down to the world below. If they're going to go into this much depth and continue to link us with it even now in anticipation for 2.0, I find it very hard to believe that the song would have no connection to it as well.

Edit: And at the end of the movie the Miqo'te even says, "Let's give the bards something to sing about." Maybe the Echo truly DOES go very deep and get very complicated to the point that we're living in an echo while experiencing another echo. It could mean that the song being sung is not ONLY about the war that happened but also in that it depicts the future to come.

We could be playing the middle part of the two events. When 2.0 happens maybe we wake up from this Echo and then move on into the real 2.0 using the knowledge we gained during the echo to fight the antagonist in 2.0 and beyond.

Didn't mean to turn this into a speculation thread... but it's just so tempting when various puzzle pieces get strewn about!

[bobbygunz]

Or it could be *just* that complicated.

I mean, when you think about it, SE has an ongoing history of running really involved, really complicated plotlines that intertwine in ways that are never readily apparant when the contant is initially released. As Teakwood pointed out, Memoro de la Sxtono turned out to be more plot-relevant to Final Fantasy XI than anyone ever imagined, although it took them several expansions to reach that point in the story. And that had most of that story written out and planned from when the game was first conceived.

There's little doubt in my mind that the Seventh Umbral Era was always intended to be where the game was always meant to lead. All one has to do is look at the Main Storyline quests, which were available long before the announcement of 2.0 - heck, they were available before the dev team change-up occurred. Those quests heavily push the incoming arrival of the Seventh Umbral Era.

It is possible to simplify and generically interpret the lyrics of 'Answers', but I personally don't believe that that was the intention of the song. Looking at it from that viewpoint would be to say that it could be the theme song of any fantasy role-playing game - and since when has that been true of any Final Fantasy theme? Not to mention the fact that the entirety of the song was pulled from .dat files but has yet to be featured in the game itself - they didn't just record a couple of lines for a few cutscenes, they wrote and recorded a full song with the intent of using it later in the game. That, I think, is highly in favor of its importance.

And to say that the Echo is something that no one understands and will never find the answer to I think trivializes the very purpose of the Echo in the story. The Echo exists for a reason, and I think we've only just begun to touch on it. It isn't simply some random gift that a group of people just happen to have. *Something* gave our characters the echo, and it gave it for a reason.

Let's not forget that when we all entered into Eorzea in the first place, our characters were all disoriented - as if suffering from the effects of suddenly becoming shoved into an Echo.

I agree with what you say except where you mistunderstand me. What I mean is: obviously the Answers song is relevant to just about everything in the game. It's the theme song for a reason; it includes references to the umbral eras and the echo, the players ourselves. So of course it is informed by the structure of the story and other things which the devs will have had planned since day one. And in that regard, you can reverse engineer the song lyrics to figure out features about the plot. And I agree with everyone completely in regards to that. Like, I completely agree. I guess what I found kind of far-fetched is a couple of the things that people have said such as Dalamud event being a contigency plan since day one.

I agree with people until they start getting far-fetched, like Teakwood here:

To all of my children in whom life flows abundant
To all of my children to whom death hath passed his judgment
The soul yearns for honor and the flesh the hereafter
Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after

Death has passed its judgement on the people of Eorzea; those who survived the cataclysm are being granted an understanding of the circumstances leading up to the cataclysm. I'm not sure what the goddess' long game is here - why we need to have actually experienced 1.xx - although I have a feeling that, in-character, our vicarious experience (literally, XP, levels, and so forth) will allow us to survive the post-Cataclysm world.

That stanza could just be saying: "to people alive, and to people dead".

[Teakwood]

Naw, I'm not saying that the Seventh Umbral stuff was a "if the game sucks and we need to reload, here's a contingency plan", although it's not outside of the realm of possibility given that the suits at SE forced the game to be released way before it was ready to be released. Also, their particular implementation of the Seventh Umbral and the nature of the catastrophe might have been completely different from what they originally had planned - there's really no way to know. "2.0 was a plan all along!" and "The Seventh Umbral storyline was planned all along" aren't quite the same statement; one's a bit too conspiracy-theory even for me.

Fair enough, w.r.t. the 'to all of my children' lines - but we did say this thread was Lit Crit 101, that means it's open season on context-heavy interpretations. I'll grant you those two lines, but 'look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after' seems a little too on the nose given the existence of the Echo.

Here's a question: Who do we think are the Gregorian-chant style voices singing the opening stanza? Who are the chaotic voices in the middle segments of the song? My off-the-cuff answers would be 'the people of Eorzea' and 'the Primals', respectively, but I'm a lot less confident of my analysis of those segments.

Marta: We have to go deeper! I am reasonably confident that from our characters' current perspective, the events in the opening movie have already happened. There are frequent references to an event in Mor Dhona two decades ago that stopped the initial Garlean incursion into Eorzea; moreover, if you go to Mor Dhona, the 'tower' in the middle of Silvertear Lake is clearly actually the Garlean crashed airship with the corpse of the dragon in the opening movie wrapped around it. Still, it's an event of obvious plot-relevance and I don't know quite as much about what happened there as I would like.

Thanks for your thoughts

[Skies]

"Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after"
That phrase is actually paraphrased in the game itself in a few different moments. I do know the bard that gives you the gobbue as well as Urianger mention the phrase "Yester with thine eyes, morrow with thine hands" (probably mangled some words there).

[MartaDemireux]

Teakwood: The war has already happened, and when we have our first Echo experience we see the dragons and airships falling to the ground. That's what I meant . Also it would appear that the "main character" in it is also an adventurer like us and experiences his first Echo in full.

As for things being planned... Did anyone else notice the Lalafell in the TGS2010 trailer was a Thaumaturge... casting fire and ice spells instead of the games Banish and Scourge at launch? Really makes me wonder just what the heck happened!