Explaining the Term "Warriors of Light"

[Urielparadox]

The opening scene for a new non-legacy character is the final battle and loux teleporting everyone out then it opens to you in a cart with a suspicious merchant(same merchant no matter what city/state you start in) and you not knowing where you came from. This to me always symbolized my character coming out of the void. I do not have a legacy account and most story npcs said I looked familiar and my Cid scene does not end after black text. I got my account 3 days after OR. Even the twins make a comment on how they believe the leaders to be not so truthful when using the phrase warriors of light, when they say that they don't remember you, as such deeds are not that easily forgotten.

[ArkhamNative]

I'm trying to reconcile this as I work out what my character has been doing in the five years since the Calamity, but these are the only ideas I have.

Sadly there can be no positive interpretation. Look at the facts: Such a character was a ranking member of a grand company who worked closely with the honored and elites to help all of Eorzea, yet was not at the Battle of Carteneau. Remained in Eorzea after meteor, but did not participate in the rebuilding, or do anything of note for 5 full years. Did not continue at the grand company or path of the twelve. Is forgotten by everyone they helped or saved, including those with the Echo, which had nothing at all to do with the Louisoix/Carteneau haze. Apparently these characters even got someone to give them a tattoo to make them look like they had been sent into the rift.

Regardless of what is done in ARR, the above facts are part of such characters' past. SE can't give them a better story than those who completed the End of Era missions, so there's really not much more to it. I call it the "drunk and homeless" scenario because that's the closest thing that fits the facts. (Thanks, devs...)

[Anonymoose]

The opening scene for a new non-legacy character is the final battle and loux teleporting everyone out then it opens to you in a cart with a suspicious merchant(same merchant no matter what city/state you start in) and you not knowing where you came from. This to me always symbolized my character coming out of the void. I do not have a legacy account and most story npcs said I looked familiar and my Cid scene does not end after black text. I got my account 3 days after OR. Even the twins make a comment on how they believe the leaders to be not so truthful when using the phrase warriors of light, when they say that they don't remember you, as such deeds are not that easily forgotten.

I feel really bad about having to tell you this... but I don't that is what's happening in the merchant introduction at all. Take a look at the "Twelvesblade" intro here and you'll see a very clear teleported out of the fold animation. Yes, we both see the vision of the ascian shown to us by the Mothercrystal, but if your introduction consisted of a merchant, what you see is that you are a normal, run of the mill adventurer sleeping mid-travel and this is when Hydaelyn awakens you to your cause. It was much the same in Version 1.0 - the player character was en route to a city, nodding off, and the next thing you know - BAM. Visions from the Mothercrystal.

If you had a merchant introduction, but Cid talked about the floating island with you... that sounds like a glitch. If you were sent into the fold, you would appear in a column of light in the same location as the New Beginning video and you would skip the merchant sequence entirely. You'd just automatically find your way back home, where you've been a thousand times.

[Enkidoh]

The opening scene for a new non-legacy character is the final battle and loux teleporting everyone out then it opens to you in a cart with a suspicious merchant(same merchant no matter what city/state you start in) and you not knowing where you came from. This to me always symbolized my character coming out of the void. I do not have a legacy account and most story npcs said I looked familiar and my Cid scene does not end after black text. I got my account 3 days after OR. Even the twins make a comment on how they believe the leaders to be not so truthful when using the phrase warriors of light, when they say that they don't remember you, as such deeds are not that easily forgotten.

That merchant is actually not the same person in all three starting quests - they're actually three different people (they're actually brothers). Even more ironic,

all three turn out to be members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, hinting perhaps that not only do they too possess the Echo, they knew far more at the start than they were letting on - they almost definitely could have seen the player had the Echo but passed it off as 'aether sickness'. You even see all three later on at the Waking Sands, and they're there amongst the rest of the Scions in the final scenes at the Waking Sands after the end credits and the 'twist' scene with Bahamut's awakening and the Ascians.

Also if you didn't get the Legacy opening, waking up on the chocobo carriage was meant to show your character as a new adventurer, regardless of whether they really were or not (the merchant even clearly addresses you as such based purely on the starting gear all characters have to start with, even level 50 Legacy characters - as it seems to me the storyline is very much made with the expectation that the player's character really is a new character, and that 1.0 characters are just kind of shoe-horned into the storyline with a amnesia subtext to explain why no one remembers them. From the point of view of most players, the original Warriors of Light never return, or at least remain unknown - the important thing from the storyline's perspective, is the player becomes one regardless.

It's rather cheap I know, but considering how long it would have taken SE to have developed several separate storylines for those who got the Legacy opening, all other 1.0 players, and truly new players, it's no wonder SE did the narrative in this way.

[Velox]

Ok so to clean up this whole thing, I read over the posts here and put together an awesome graph (mad MS Paint skillz yo) that kinda sums up everything that makes you a Warrior of Light.

So what we are left with is that a Warrior of Light is any person tasked by Hydaelyn to stop bad crap from happening. Warriors of Light appear at any time in the story, but NPCs refer to the ones from before the calamity (legacy) because they do not know that you (non-legacy) as a player are one as well (they don't know you were contacted by Hydaelyn, your story has just started). Basically everyone playing are warriors of light since everyone is aiming for the same goal. It is only at the end you are called a Warrior of Light even if you're non-legacy because, by then, the NPCs have acknowledged the divine path and power you have been granted, you are "joining" the ranks of the warriors from 1.0.

[Andaeron]

Sadly there can be no positive interpretation. Look at the facts: Such a character was a ranking member of a grand company who worked closely with the honored and elites to help all of Eorzea, yet was not at the Battle of Carteneau. Remained in Eorzea after meteor, but did not participate in the rebuilding, or do anything of note for 5 full years. Did not continue at the grand company or path of the twelve. Is forgotten by everyone they helped or saved, including those with the Echo, which had nothing at all to do with the Louisoix/Carteneau haze. Apparently these characters even got someone to give them a tattoo to make them look like they had been sent into the rift.

Regardless of what is done in ARR, the above facts are part of such characters' past. SE can't give them a better story than those who completed the End of Era missions, so there's really not much more to it. I call it the "drunk and homeless" scenario because that's the closest thing that fits the facts. (Thanks, devs...)

Actually, I don't think it has to be quite bleak. I have worked out the gist of what my character would have been doing for five years, more or less. I don't actively roleplay, but I do like creating context for my characters.

One thing that is never discussed in the story (so far) is the aetheric disturbances and massive incursions of voidsent that plagued the cities during the final descent of Dalamud. But just as hundreds fought at Cartenau, many stayed in the cities to defend the homeland- for what good repelling the invaders if you lose the home you protect anyway? Adaeron was one such defender, fighting in the streets of Ul'dah. After Bahamut's release and attack of course everything gets fuzzy there, but there was catastrophic damage rent on the cities, so I imagine that as a carpenter of moderate skill, he found work rebuilding Ul'dah, making tools (had to get rid of those 999 Elm Hafts somehow), and probably even working on refugee structures. Five years hence, he begins having strange dreams, and fearing the omen it portends, he heads back to Gridania to pick up the bow once more, and go back to being an adventurer.

[ArkhamNative]

Actually, I don't think it has to be quite bleak. I have worked out the gist of what my character would have been doing for five years, more or less. I don't actively roleplay, but I do like creating context for my characters.

No, it doesn't have to be bleak, though there's nothing wrong with bleak.
And it doesn't even have to be bullet-proof, or be canon. Like the Goobbue walls, which happened after final save, across all worlds, though I'm happy that the devs incorporated those into canon.