Yda and Moenbryda questions [spoilers]

[Fatestorm]

In Dreams of Ice, when Moenbryda is introduced, we see this exchange.

Yda: Moen! Gods, it's been ages!
Moenbryda: Oh, longer, sister!
Y'shtola: A joyous reunion indeed.
Yda: Well, of course it is! Moen and I are like twin sisters!
Papalymo: ...Save in appearance and aptitude.

We now know that Yda, while being the same woman we have been acquainted with throughout Final Fantasy XIV, is actually Lyse, and her older sister is the former archon Yda. So, this leads me to ask some questions.

1) Are Lyse and Moenbryda both 'in' on her secret here, and they are both genuine old friends, presumably from while Lyse was in Sharlayan, where Moenbryda was?

2) Is Moenbryda *not* in on Lyse's secret, and yet they somehow spent time to become close friends--"like twin sisters"--sometime in the past six years or so since Lyse has taken up her sister's identity?

3) Is Moenbryda *not* in on Lyse's secret, and Lyse is simply lying through her teeth about being Moenbryda's friend, perhaps coached by Papalymo beforehand, having learned that Moenbryda and Yda were old friends?

4) Was it 3 or 4 seconds of thought that S-E's lore team gave to the coherence of their own story before green-lighting a "Yda is Lyse" twist purely for the sake of expansion hype?

What say you, Lore Onemind?

[Cilia]

Lyse had taken on Yda's identity, and to my knowledge nobody but Papalymo was aware of that. Ergo... Moenbryda was not in on the ruse, but because Lyse had done such a good job of impersonating her sister couldn't tell the difference. One must remember that Lyse was with Yda when she was still alive - to include her time in Sharlayan - and so was probably quite familiar with Moenbryda as well. Having observed their interactions, and having taken on Yda's identity, I... guess she could have fooled Moenbryda. I mean, she had practically fooled herself...

If Moenbryda was in on the secret, she took it to her grave, so it's kind of a moot point... that's what I think, anyway.

Was Moenbryda something the writers took into account when coming up with the Yda / Lyse twist? Dunno. If you want my personal guess no, it was not, but that's just my guess.

[Maiandra]

According to Y'shtola, they all knew and were just humoring her because they understood that she still needed her sister. It isn't specified who "all" includes, but if Moenbryda was that close, then she would've recognized, too. Still, Lyse was with Yda when she joined the Archons, so they both could've been just as close.

"We all recognized you at once. 'Twas Papalymo that persuaded us to maintain the charade."

Regardless, I've also wondered if the writers "knew" who she was all along, or if it was just something they came up with later, when they decided to write the character off.

[Maiandra]

I'm most curious about the original main scenario, although that didn't necessarily happen exactly as it was presented anymore (since they scrapped and rewrote the original game). The original main scenario occurred five years ago, after Lyse stepped in, but The Echo flashbacks occurred 10 years prior to that, when she was still Yda. Of course, the answer would just be that we were seeing Papalymo's memory, so it wouldn't matter that Yda was two different people. That could even be the reason they chose to have two people for the Gridania story, where the other two nations only have one each.

[Anonymoose]

I'm with Cilia in suspecting that the conversion from Yda to Lyse was just made rather late. It only works as well as it does because Yda experienced so little character development since the fall of Midagardsormr and joining the Circle of Knowing. It feels like an attempt to de-age her character to have the young, reckless, revenge-driven youth for Stormblood without utterly disrespecting the Yda That Was.

Another scene like this, when you first meet the pair in A Realm Reborn, Lyse goes off on a tangent about how they crashed their airship into the forest and woke the woodsin in 1562 and it was all Papalymo's fault, of course, but he'd sooner swallow his own staff than admit that he was wrong ... as if she was even there for it, lol.

Claiming that everyone knew she was over-compensating is a quick and dirty way to write off the ditziness that was inherent to her character and any possible lines that would otherwise need to be retconned.

[Belhi]

Yeah, its a bit retcony but close enough that a reasonable explanation can be figured out. Lyse did seem really upset at Moenbryda's death so my guess would be that one way or another Lyse was close to Moenbryda herself. If Moenbryda and Yda were close friends to the point of even joking about being sisters, it wouldn't be hard for Moenbryda to see Lyse as like a little sister.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

My main gripe is that there was no reason for all the name trickery - why not make Yda the younger one, and have her emulating the style of a beloved older sister? The rest could remain the same: the older sister could have been a hero of the Circle of Knowing that died while evacuating refugees, Yda could have decided to wear a mask as she did (and have it still be a metaphorical one of her not being her own person), Papalymo could have fudged her tattoo/membership out of pity, and she could still have been granted clarity and newfound identity within his final words.

The only scenario where the identity stuff has any sort of purpose is if there was a propaganda reason for an older, more experienced Yda to be seen as alive that now doesn't matter so much, so I'm hoping we get a few more details on this whole business in Stormblood.

[Cilia]

Ah yeah, that's right... now that my memory's been yogged, everyone did know about Lyse impersonating Yda (except you, of course).

Did Moenbryda? Well short of becoming a necromancer and raising her to ask yourself... I'm going to wager probably. Word of the real Yda's death likely reached Moen, who would have to be confused and skeptical when Yda shows up hale and healthy while her little sister is nowhere to be seen. Really, the only reason we didn't know is that we weren't privy to inside information about Yda - why the Scions wouldn't trust us with this information, I can't say.

I'm going to agree with senpai and say no, the Yda / Lyse twist wasn't planned when Moenbryda was around. It feels like it was brought up suddenly in 3.4 so we'd have a new protagonist for 4.0. Everyone knows we aren't the real protagonist, right? Even so, at ~24 Lyse is older than the average JRPG protagonist... so I'm going to give the writers the benefit of the doubt and argue that it wasn't just to have the protagonist be more youthful. We don't know enough about Lyse as her own self to get a good read on her character yet either, so I'm going to wait and reserve judgment.

5 gil says the girl the real Yda died trying to save ends up being Fordola.

Also, make sure to get your Stormblood cup from Carl's Jr.® Hardee's® while it's available! Conquer your thirst with the grandeur of a Garlean!

[dynus]

Regardless, I've also wondered if the writers "knew" who she was all along, or if it was just something they came up with later, when they decided to write the character off.

Actually, there is some evidence that the Yda/Lyse thing was planned as far back as the 2.3 patch.



I mean, take it with a grain of salt, but to me, that seems pretty clear that the plan was there for a while.

I'm of the opinion that Moenbryda did know the truth, and was perhaps the only one save Papalymo that Lyse told. If they were as close as Lyse said they were I see no reason for her not to tell Moen.

Though truth be told, I have been wondering for some time if the team that took over from the 1.0 writers/staff have been slowly pushing out characters that weren't theirs and replacing them with their own. Minfillia is more or less gone, replaced by Alphinaud mostly (and Y'shtola, as the two of them more or less share leadership), Papalymo's gone as well. Thancred and Y'shtola are popular but have undergone major design changes. And Yda was made to have never been Yda at all.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

I kinda think it was Thancred saying he was confused at the line of questioning, and then making a jab at Yda's airheadedness, so I don't think it's as clear-cut as all that. It can certainly be read in a way that supports what we now know, though.