Gridania 1.0 Story Questions

[Catapult]

<rolls out a red carpet and sets up a chair with the name, CATAPULT stenciled into the back>

<Waltzes on in casually, drops into the chair, begins sipping at a glass of white wine.>

So, let's see what we have here...

-So reading through the Loremonger posts and going through dialogue in non-Echo situations, a lot of the NPCs (namely E-Sumi and maybe Dunstan) still mention Fye as if she were a little kid, or that she's still looking for Dunstan in the present time. I think even the present-time kids talk about her, too? So...why is that? Are they saying that Fye was doing the same thing in the present that she was in the past without your Echo's interference? And that we're actually doing the same for Fye in the present as we are in the past--except for some reason we don't see her in any adult form in the present like we do with Khrimm? (or maybe we do and just haven't figured out who yet?)

This isn't put to us very explicitly, but we can infer some conclusions. Here are some excepts

Nicoliaux: Oh, look! It's <your name here>.
Sansa: <Your name here> saw a moogle in the forest. It asked him to give a message to Fye.
Ryd: Really!?
Sansa: I see her in the forest sometimes, too. And I hear the grownups talking about her. They say Fye is sad because the elementals are real.

Pudgy Moogle: But there's more. The elementals have something to ask of you, as well.
Pudgy Moogle: Tell the Hyur girl, the one named Fye, to stop wandering the wood, kupo.

I get the feeling that Fye is no longer living in Gridania and has also become a hermit of sorts, albeit for reasons different to Khrimm. She's not a wildling and the elementals seem to wish her no harm. I get the feeling she is suffering from long-term depression that has developed into a significant mental health issue.

Keep in mind this is all in the context of her having not seen Dunstan at the Grand Rite - my theory on the alteration of history really messes with this interpretation after the fact. I'm hoping a little more of this gets cleared up in ARR because, as you have discerned, we haven't been able to find an adult Fye in the game so far (female midlander with crimson eyes and charcoal hair - yes, I went looking).

-What is the true nature of a wildling? Do they actually exist, or is that solely the term the higher-ups of Gridania use for their secret little anti-Garlean force they plan to use for war (I think that's what it is according to Papalymo and Yda in one of the later quests? correct me if i'm wrong) consisting of Dunstan and Khrimm's parents? I think there was some mention of a "real" wildling in the posts with reference to the Conjurer class quests, but I wasn't able to finish those in time before the servers closed so I'm not sure...if they're real, though, how can you tell someone's a wildling? Just that they have a ton of woodsin on them?

What a wildling is and what they are considered to be by Gridanian society are indeed two different things.

Dunstan, Sigurdh and Oona seem to be labeled as wildlings for political convenience, so that the population stays away from them and they can go about their "mission".

A real wildling is Brother Morys of the Conjurer quest line. As a child, he angered the elementals something horrid and was taken by them. The elementals consider him their property, brainwashed him and if he tries to leave the forest great elementals start coming out from everywhere to drag him back kicking and screaming. Instead, he serves as a hearer for Stillglade Fane, which is a medium of communication between the elementals and the citizens of Gridania. Yep, he's a bonafide tool.

Wildlings seem to be feared by the populace because in order to become one, you have to have done something seriously nasty to piss the elementals off really badly. And the elementals also have this habit of considering bystanders to be just as guilty of a crime as the one that committed it - woodsin rubs off on the people around them. The gut reaction is thus to keep away from those tainted wildlings so it doesn't affect you. But of course it is more complicated than that. This is why Morys' status as a wildling is not public knowledge - to prevent panic breaking out.

((I'm sure Ferne will correct me if I've gotten anything mixed up here, either with a post in this thread or an in-game quest, preferably the latter.))

-So...by the end of the story, we set things right with Fye, Khrimm and Dunstan in the past, making it so she knew what to do to save him ten years ago-ish. Does that mean Fye wouldn't be living in the wood with Hermit/Khrimm anymore because we changed the past? But if that's true, why is it that in the present, the Hermit doesn't reflect that and still doesn't believe in the Elementals after what they did to him?

Welcome to the history-changing theory that isn't properly understood. Ferne has articulated that we can interact with history but cannot change the outcome of anything important. Khrimm is still a hermit of the wood, though his reasons may have changed. It may be that Fye still has to be wandering the wood, but no longer in the search for her brother.

Unless of course the whole mind-splitting headache was history saying "nuh-uh! You can't do that. Get out!"

So many unanswered questions that hopefully ARR will clear up, but for now I'm going on the assumption that people's reasons for being where they are has changed even if their physical circumstances have not.

-Going off of the last set of questions, because we were able to impact the past, we had that big headache after the echo-in-an-echo thing. Was it only because echoing in an echo is really fatiguing to those who have the echo, or is it also because (according to the loremonger) we created a sort of alternate universe that includes us in the past and the present has to adjust to that alternate universe?

We can't be sure. I would like to think the headache is because history has hit a point where the memories of a great many people, and perhaps even the consequences of their actions, have to re-align themselves. ...or it could be any number of other things outside my theory. This is why it is all in the "speculative analysis" page.

I just had a mental image of Nymia having a emotional fit about how her needle broke.

-And this is more speculation than anything since I don't think there was any explicit reason stated in the game, but why is it that Gridania wants to hide the fact that they're preparing for war with the Empire through the wildling conspiracy? Even Miounne wasn't aware of it at the start, and she knows pretty much everything there is to know about the city-state. Is it just because the Seedseers/Stillglade Fane are generally pacifists and just don't want people to know, or could there be another underlying reason?

Ohoho! Ok, the assumption is that Sigurdh & co. are planning to use unconventional methods against the Garleans (or whatever else is considered a threat). They are described as staying in ruins to the north, which are probably the Gelmorran ruins. What we know about Gelmorra is that their civilisation pre-dates Gridania and probably also their pact with the elementals. If they were planning on using Gelmorran methods, that might be awkward for Gridanians to accept.

Or, they could be intending to incite the rage of the elementals against the garleans. There was a conjurer at Nophica's altar who told us that many rites are designed to calm the elementals, but there were supposedly once rites designed to enrage them - whatever could those be useful for?

Miounne: The conjurers teach us that elementals of the Twelveswood are not instruments of war, and no attempt shall be made to use them as such against the Empire.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Sigurdh and Oona may not be wildlings, but they may be risking becoming ones in attempts to turn Garleans into wildlings. Dangerous stuff and definitely NOT socially acceptable.

[Enkidoh]

Ohoho! Ok, the assumption is that Sigurdh & co. are planning to use unconventional methods against the Garleans (or whatever else is considered a threat). They are described as staying in ruins to the north, which are probably the Gelmorran ruins. What we know about Gelmorra is that their civilisation pre-dates Gridania and probably also their pact with the elementals. If they were planning on using Gelmorran methods, that might be awkward for Gridanians to accept.

Or, they could be intending to incite the rage of the elementals against the garleans. There was a conjurer at Nophica's altar who told us that many rites are designed to calm the elementals, but there were supposedly once rites designed to enrage them - whatever could those be useful for?

Miounne: The conjurers teach us that elementals of the Twelveswood are not instruments of war, and no attempt shall be made to use them as such against the Empire.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Sigurdh and Oona may not be wildlings, but they may be risking becoming ones in attempts to turn Garleans into wildlings. Dangerous stuff and definitely NOT socially acceptable.

The thing is, from all the information stated in the game I never actually thought that would indeed be the case - the fact that the Gridanians regard wildlings as monsters, the very idea of actually creating them would seem perverse to them. Sigurdh and Oona seemed to be leading some kind of secret resistance movement against the Garleans (it was even stated that they fought against the Garlean invasion of Ala Mihgo, and that all that bloodshed was the cause of their 'change' into wildlings) - it's probable that because they were acting outside Gridania's government, they were therefore regarded as heretics and exiles as their very existence in the forest was without the elementals' consent (it's why they all abandoned Khrimm to his fate when he torched the Hedgetree).

They could have even been throwing in their lot with the 'other' Ala Mihgan Resistance shown later in the Path of the Twelve storyline (who were stated as having agents based in the three citystates), assisting them with information and provisions.

In any event, their motives weren't really obvious - all Oona mentioned was that 'their mission was far too important' to return, and even though Yda and Papalymo reveal to E-Sumi-Yan that "Gridania intends to wage war against the Empire", the CNJ Guildmaster just kinds of shrugs and just says that he'll answer their questions after the festival.

And besides, even if the plan was to lure the Garleans into a arboreal trap, as the Path of the Twelve quests showed, the Empire had little trouble storming though the East Shroud to Moonspore Grove and slaughtering the slyphs, with not a peep from the elementals. It just seems to me that the forest isn't as nearly a powerful force as the Gridanians believed it to be.