Launch Trailer Hype Thread

[Okamimaru]

I took the line about bending vs breaking in an ominous tone... it's better to bow to the empire than be broken by it...
As for zenos and his katanas I had envisioned them akin to the fftactics samurai katanas... the sword has its own soul... or maybe he's just " more magitek than man now"...

[ZhaneX]

I took the line about bending vs breaking in an ominous tone... it's better to bow to the empire than be broken by it...

Yet it was also paired with the line "therein lies hope". While the paired "therein lies freedom" might imply something like finding peace in enslavement, "therein lies hope" almost seems to imply waiting for the opportune moment to strike back against your oppressors.

[EdwinLi]

Thankfully, the game itself seems to be taking Zenos's observations for what they are: the psychopathic ravings of a monster in human skin.
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I am not talking about "Natural selection" bull **** kind of stuff. I am saying that Zenos is probably the most self aware of what people will do for the sake of things only.

We always get the question from NPCs and to other NPCs "Why are you doing this?" and expecting always some complex backstory to build sympathy or reasoning behind the actions but sometimes the reason is a simple "just for the sake of it."

Some people enjoy making others suffer for the sake of making others suffer while others make others happy for the sake of making others happy. It is like certain NPCs we meet who chosen to save the life of others for the sake of saving a life. Then there is certain other NPCs we know that have killed hundreds for the sake of it such as certain NPC in 3.5 MSQ that unleash Garlean Drones to kill all the Ala Mhigo resistance members.

Others choose to live there life the way they want without disturbing others for that sake alone.

Zenos statement of "only man has the wisdom and clearity to embrace violence for its own sake" is more to "man's" abiltiy to be self aware of their own actions to act out just for the sake of it.

It is like when a person has to choose to save a person's life or choose to save himself instead. No matter the choice they make their choice at the core is for their own sake either to save a life and feel the satisfaction that they feel they did the right thing or to save himself for self preservation.

Yet it was also paired with the line "therein lies hope". While the paired "therein lies freedom" might imply something like finding peace in enslavement, "therein lies hope" almost seems to imply waiting for the opportune moment to strike back against your oppressors.

The dialogue probably reflects on what Yotsuyu went through when Doma was under Orthard old government. We know in the lore she does all the horrible things to people of Orthard because of a strong hatred she had for them under the old government rule before the Garlean Empire took over which has been stated to be quite bad before the Garlean Empire took over.

[Cilia]

-snip-

You kind of missed my point there... I was trying to discern the source of Zenos' overwhelming power, not necessarily comment on his mental state. I would nonetheless argue that anyone who considers everyone weaker than him mere fodder for killing as he wishes, and thinks anyone who doesn't embrace violence for its own sake is less than human, is not of entirely sound mind. I admit that is just my opinion, though I don't think Eorzea (and going by his reputation even Garlemald) really disagrees.

Anyway... nethicite is a special magic stone from Ivalice. It functions by absorbing magical energy (Mist / aether), then releasing it for power, and comes in two flavors: deifacted and manufacted (god made and man made). Deifacted nethicite functions mostly as a nuclear weapon and takes a long time to charge. Manufacted nethicite has a wider array of uses and charges faster.

The specific use I'm looking at is its ability to augment the power of a fighter. One of the five Judge Magisters, Bergan, had implanted manufacted nethicite into his body to raise his power - but it eroded his sanity to a degree as well. I can't help but wonder if Zenos did not do something similar, given how he's able to shatter Y'shtola's thus-unbreakable barrier with one hand and apparently kick our ass even though we've taken on Regula van Hydrus, one of his peers. (That one nobody can argue - we had no Blessing of Light active and canonically defeated van Hydrus in single combat.) Granted [manufacted] nethicite is not known to be extant on Hydaelyn, but I admit I am only hypothesizing.

I'm not saying we should be the greatest fighter on Hydaelyn... but given what we've fought, there must be something behind Zenos' power that lets him toss us around as he does.

(See, Theodric? I'm actually pretty knowledgeable on Ivalice. I just don't like the already-myriad references being compounded with a name drop for the 4.1 24-man.)

[CatStarPrime]

I would offer, that, near the end of 3.0, Midgardsormer hizzownself said of us - the WoL - "Of all thy kind, none is stronger" - or very close to those words.

So unless you opine, Middy is playing fourteen layers deep in his own game (possible) and lying about that; in that particular moment in the Story - the WoL is, in fact, practically undefeatable, 1v1, against "our kind" - humanoids (?).

The only thing which keeps the WoL from being an unstoppable Mighty Engine of Destruction, is the Plot Railroad.

[Alleo]

I tend to not believe that we did a whole hell of a lot solo. After all, one of the big themes of the game is "strength through unity," so for us to slay Primals and the like on our own goes completely against that. Plus, there are more than a few times that NPCs will outright tell us to gather up some friends before we take on threat-X, Y, or Z (Void Ark and Alexander series comes to mind), and as infrequent and inconsistant as that is, it still makes more sense that we teamed up to take on most major threats.

Yes some adventures might have been done with other people but its even stated in the Encyclopedia Eorzea that we fought through the Aetherochemical Research Facility and against Thordan completely alone. So we canonically defeated Regula, two Ascians and Thordan and his 12 highly trained knights alone! The same is written about Ravana.This should have been more than enough to show that we are kinda like mortal gods on our own. And Thordan was even kinda a special case in all those primals fights since he was empowered by dragon eyes, the prayers of many many years and the Warring Triad too. Heck even in the Encyclopedia its written that nobody knows how the WoL managed to do such a feast.

Nidhogg at the end should have been a solo feast too. We landed there directly on the back of his brother and Sohr kai was a solo trial for us (Aymeric and Alphinaud went throught theirs solo too) so we had no time to gather adventurers that are even willing to go against such an enemy. We had the help of a dragons eye but it must have been still quite a feast to kill him. He even commented on this when he was flying into the air as a ghost.

Also its interesting that if we did Alexander with other people this would have meant that they should have been at least near our level too, yet the only reason that Alexander went away was the WoL again. I know that this is a debate for eternity since the game itself sometimes tells about gathering other people but at least in quite some cases being alone is the only thing that makes sense. The scene after Bismark does not make sense if we have others with us, we definitely were going to Azys Lla only with scions so there could have been nobody else there.

I do not say that we are always alone but the really big bads of HW were done solo thus we should not really loose against one mortal like that. At least in the trailer it looks like we stand no chance against him since he does not even want to kill someone helpless like us. It just feels like an insult to the WoL after all that he/she did..so like I said, I really hope that there is a reason for it.

[YianKutku]

Yet it was also paired with the line "therein lies hope". While the paired "therein lies freedom" might imply something like finding peace in enslavement, "therein lies hope" almost seems to imply waiting for the opportune moment to strike back against your oppressors.

Assuming the line is said by Yotsuyu, the key word in there would probably be "waiting". As in not acting immediately or in the near future, but waiting for some undefined moment in the far future, during which time Yotsuyu and the Imperial occupation can continue to strengthen their rule.

I think she's making that speech to the subjugated Domans (or presenting it as her justification to the WoL or some such) in order to quell their discontent. (Or try to, at any rate.) Don't resist and rebel, but just accept your current situation, and you'll live to see another day.

[ZhaneX]

-Snip-

Seems a very valid inference to make. Particularly given her rather condescending tone of voice.

[Cilia]

Yotsuyu's line is actually very familiar to me. I remember an aphorism that was something like "trees are ripped up in hurricanes, but reeds bend," which is close enough to what she's saying. It's supposed to mean something along the lines of "accept change or you will be left in the past," which to her credit does seem to be what Yotsuyu is telling people. Only by embracing change can you find hope and freedom; clinging to the past results only in misery (see: Dragonsong War). The problem is that the kind of change Garlemald brings... isn't wholly good. (Other than technological advancement it's wholly bad, actually.) Being someone who has benefited from the change Garlemald brought to Doma, Yotsuyu would naturally try and push others to do so as well... or use it as an excuse to abuse her power and tyrannize the citizens.

Midgardsormr's comment on our strength... well, to be philosophical about it, he probably wasn't talking about our combat prowess, but our resilience and fortitude. Hydaelyn allowed him to seal away the Blessing for the express purpose of showing him why we are Her chosen, and the sheer amount of crap we went through from 2.55 to 3.0 (End) without losing our way did just that. Note that strength does not equate to power - while we might have more resilience and fortitude than anyone else, that doesn't mean we're the greatest fighter on Hydaelyn. From what we've seen so far Zenos appears to be superior to us, at least in terms of raw power, and we'll need to find a way to bridge that gap one way or another.

[EdwinLi]

----

Well as I said in a past post "There will always be someone stronger than you in the world even if you never meet that person"

The WoL is strong but the WoL is only able to perform certain feats because the WoL is protected from "corrupting" influences such as the Primal mindcontrols and ability to ignore magical protections on certain "enemies" that normally could not be pierced without such Protection the WoL has with the Blessing of Light.

The Blessing of Light does not make the WoL stronger in anyway but only protects and allows the WoL to resist and ignore outside influenced controls that the Boss normally use to give them absolute victory. When the WoL battles Primals, certain powerful Enemies, and etc it is out of the WoL pure strength, skill, and talent alone.

Blessing of Light is basically a "Anti-cheating" protection for the WoL so he or she can fight that certain enemy using their natural powers without that certain "Boss" cheating their way to victory.

Zenos on the other had is probably naturally stronger than WoL and if he had a type of blessing of Light protection he probably would be able to do the same thing as WoL, if not better, due to his strength.

The WoL view of the world has always been limited to Eorzea thus the WoL has never known anyone that may be stronger than him or her from outside of Eorzea.