CG Midlander

[Catapult]

I went through the main scenario CSs and nothing.. no person w/o shadow , now i'm watching Gridania story line and found this ...Nael hinting at a cooler world if Bahamut's destruction happens.

Nael Van Darnus:"Yes, but much brighter the light that shines forth from the void! Think of it, Gaius! Within that nothingness lies root of all creation (the mother crystal?) pure potential, limitless possibility!(a real reborn?) this is the wisdom of the ancients!"

That sounds a lot like something Exdeath would say. Of course, it doesn't mean your "awesome" plan won't backfire on you the moment you realise that power has it's own plans.


On the gender issue, I'd go with not knowing the gender leading to an instinctive assumption. We all do it every day. If we don't know someone's gender, we take a stab: Usually make, unless you're more of a feminist, or perhaps envisiging them as a Miquo'te.

The alternative is to trawl through all the German, French and Japanese versions to see if there is any consistency... (or we could ask Ferne for a favour?)

[Fernehalwes]

On the gender issue, I'd go with not knowing the gender leading to an instinctive assumption. We all do it every day. If we don't know someone's gender, we take a stab: Usually make, unless you're more of a feminist, or perhaps envisiging them as a Miquo'te.

Thanks for pointing this out Catapult!

This was exactly what I was trying to get at when translating the purposefully ambiguous Japanese lines. Assuming that your Path Companion doesn't know who this Paragon is, he/she is going to use the pronoun that feels the most natural to him/her. When writing the 9 variations, I took into consideration the companion's personality, and chose a pronoun accordingly.

Now, while we're on the subject of pronouns...

Japanese is a unique language, in that it can completely omit the subject (and on occasion the object) of a sentence. Japanese writers (in particular, the writers on FFXIV) use this technique a lot to fudge the gender of a individual that they want to keep 'mysterious.' Another way of fudging comes by way of repeating the name of the subject in place of where we would use a pronoun.

For example: The Paragon tied the Paragon's shoes while reading a diary entry that the "gender-less entity that is the Paragon" wrote earlier that morning.

Now, I could throw that into the text files as-is, but I'd have Grammar Nazis poking me with their red-hot pitchforks, so I often find myself going to the original writers and asking them if it's OK to reveal the gender of a character through pronouns (usually for the sole reason of keeping the text natural-sounding, and avoiding the gender-neutral plural pronoun--they).

Then again, what if there was an even simpler answer?
When is a Paragon both a male and a female?

(from Anonymoose's post #327)
-> I overheard on the Ashcrown linkpearl that one of the Paragons was sighted in Thanalan
-> I have learned from the Ashcrown Consortium linkpearl that the sylphs have sighted one of the Paragons

(cue dramatic riff)


Have a good Turkey Day, guys!
Tryptophan is your friend!

[Anonymoose]

This post took forever. I might just skip the other one and just leave it at Catapult is right. The Sharlayans refer to themselves as "we archons" like six times in that one scene. They're all Archons. Archons from from that guy who made Signs that one city state and all belong to the same club.

On to bigger matters.

Q1: Does the sign in the Path of the Twelve foreshadow Bahamut's prison?
Q2: Did The Twelve imprison Bahamut the first time?

We'll call the original prison Dalamud Prime and the attempt at resealing him Second Dalamud.

The "blades" launched by the prayer beacons are quite diverse. Some kinda fit the Twelve's symbols, some kinda fit their legendary equipment... I'm not really quite sure what to make of some of them - but if you want to give it a shot, go for it (cheat sheet below).

The pieces that fall out of Dalamud Prime are mostly just blank sticks. There are two that are a little more well defined; you can almost make the case for the one on the top far left looking like the crosses seen bottom center, and the one to the left of it looking like the the one in the vertical middle to the left of the harpoon. However, remember that these two anomalous spikes from Dalamud Prime show this morphology on the inside edge, where Second Dalamuds are on the outsides, where all of Prime's are, again, blank sticks.

CHEAT SHEET IF YOU WANNA TAKE A CRACK AT THIS

Azeyma (Warden): Symbol is the sun, hand holds a fan
Nophica (Matron): Symbol is a leaf, hand holds a scythe
Thaliak (Scholar): Symbol is a scroll, hand holds a staff
Llymlaen (Navigator): Symbol is a wave, hand holds a harpoon
Halone (Fury): Symbol is three spears, hand holds a shield
Byregot (Builder): Symbol is a hand, hand holds a hammer
Nald'thal (Traders): Symbil is a shell, hand holds a balance
Althyk (Keeper): Symbol is an hourglass, hand holds a greataxe
Nymeia (Spinner): Symbol and possession is a spinning wheel.
Oschon (Wanderer): Symbol is a walking stick, hand holds a bow
Menphina (Lover): Symbol is the moon, hand holds a skillet
Rhalgr (Destroyer): Symbol is a meteor, hand holds a staff

Next, one would expect that if they were made by similar means, that Dalamud Prime would, like Second Dalamud, have 24 spines made from 12 "swords." This doesn't seem to be the case - the first piece that falls from Dalamud Prime shows it to be its own unique spike. On top of this, there appear to be far more than 24 spikes on Dalamud prime. I think I can count about 21 on just the visible face in one freeze-frame.

If you want to be super nit-picky (like me) you can also note that Second Dalamud lacks any appendages at the poles, which is the key support that caused the Dalamud Prime to fail once lost.

What I do find kind of neat, though, is that the explosive pattern of Dalamud Prime creates circles on its surface that look like those used to summon Ifrit, and those hanging around Second Dalamud. What's up? Could they be connected? Possilby. But does SE love using sigil circles for magic all the time, anyway? Definitely.

Last, Second Dalamud is covered in Eorzean script; these are actually the alphabet repeated over and over, but we can pretend they're arcane magics, or our prayers incarnate.

Somewhere at SEHQ, someone just yelled,
"I TOLD YOU MOOSE WAS GOING TO CHECK IT.
SOMEONE GO PAY FERNEHALWES HIS WINNINGS."

Dalamud Prime shows no indication of anything like this on its surface. Maybe. I did get this one anomalous screenshot, for the sake of being thorough, that does seem to indicate some symbols (if you want it to. It also kinda looks like a My Little Pony if you want it to. Regular old broken rubble is on the menu, as well).

If it's stript, it's certainly not Eorzean, though, that's for sure. For completeness, here's an example of both Second Dalamud and the one frame of End of an Era that looks kinda like Dalamud might have some scribble on it.

What can we conclude from all this?

Well, for starters, lets' talk about the Path of the Twelve's logo. Simple answer? Who knows! The symbol was in the game at launch on September 22nd. Yoshida-san's accession was announced on December 10th, and by January 1st he knew the basic outline to the Seventh Umbral Era at least as detailed as "Drop Moon - Get Bahamut." It might be a reference, it might be a retcon. Either way, though, it fits. We can have this discussion after we see what The Path of the Twelve thinks its origins and goals are in ARR.

But are the two Dalamuds the same creation?

At this point, I don't really think so. To me, it looks like the Allaghans did this with their own technology, and that when we channeled our prayers to The Twelve they just attempted to divinely "undo" what just happened. The Dalamuds look different enough, to me, to say that the second was an emulation of the first.

Thing is, this question will definitely be answered someday... No sense putting all this work into it now.
(the Moose said, realizing how much work he just put into this now)



EDIT
HAPPY THANKSGIVING, FERNE (AND ERRYBODEH ELSE, TOO)

[Mieck]

Q1: Does the sign in the Path of the Twelve foreshadow Bahamut's prison?

At the risk of sounding like I'm pouring cold water on the issue, I submit that it is, from an artistic and design point of view, a natural progression.

ie; It's just a clock face. It's one of the most common motifs in existence.

I think (stress *think*) it more likely to be something that caught Yoshi's eye and gave him a steer with the direction as opposed to being right in from the start.

/eagerly awaiting Fern to crush me yet again...