The WOL and Mass Murder

[sidurgu-12]

No more proof of that then there is proof she did or did not tell anyone anything relevant. Fact of the matter is, we don't know for we were shown nothing of that time period. Don't quote the dev's "word" they'd end up like the Plenty either, when in-game evidence so clearly contradicts this is means far less and is practically worthless as WoG. Not all of us are so willing to just accept what we're told at face value. Ancients weren't given their chance to deal with Meteion, and they deserved it. As I said before, during our time in Elpis the Final Days yet loomed and nobody had been sacrificed yet. THAT was the time for Venat to attempt to convince people to "face suffering" not after the Apocalypse she withheld from them already arrived and and they went batshit, as desperate people are wont to do when blindsided completely by an End of Days scenario they'd literally COULDN'T have seen coming. As I've stated many a time, normal people in normal times don't just up and summon God. Those are the actions of the desperate to live, and they didn't have to be that way. The Ancients we see Venat fail to "convince" are precisely the kind of personalities the narrative needed them to be, hence their status as unfaithful caricatures.

its not even about the plenty. Its about the sundering. if you stop venat then the sundering wont happen which means every person born after no longer exists since not everyone is a fragment of an ancient. and even then they also cease to exist because despite being their reincarnation theyre not the same person.

[SentioftheHoukai]

its not even about the plenty. Its about the sundering. if you stop venat then the sundering wont happen which means every person born after no longer exists since not everyone is a fragment of an ancient. and even then they also cease to exist because despite being their reincarnation theyre not the same person.

I don't honestly see why this is an issue. The Scions and all the people we know existed as an Ancient in some form or other, even though we know not whose lives they were living. The Sundered do not have some preferential right to exist over the Unsundered, friend. This exact idea you're spouting is what so many took issue with in Endwalker, the way those who came before's lives are treated as dispensable or inevitable in their demises whilst the Sundered get every excuse in the book. Why are you so doggedly unwilling to offer them the same moral standards for life?

since not everyone is a fragment of an ancient.

Ah, just noticed this part. I assume it was our main beef, and I'm here to clarify that this isn't accurate. The "Amaurotines" were simply the denizens of a single city. The "Ancients" were a planetary existence, Star-wide.

[sidurgu-12]

I don't honestly see why this is an issue. The Scions and all the people we know existed as an Ancient in some form or other, even though we know not whose lives they were living. The Sundered do not have some preferential right to exist over the Unsundered, friend. This exact idea you're spouting is what so many took issue with in Endwalker, the way those who came before's lives are treated as dispensable or inevitable in their demises whilst the Sundered get every excuse in the book. Why are you so doggedly unwilling to offer them the same moral standards for life?

ok no, let me stop you right there. its not about who deserves to live or die. its not about preference, hell its not even about morality. all i said was if venat is stopped the present as it stands cease to be (in that timeline). thats all. thats it. thats the whole thing. (plus canonically only us and krile have the echo, so no not every scion had an ancient equivalent.)

[Cleretic]

(plus canonically only us and krile have the echo, so no not every scion had an ancient equivalent.)

This isn't even a 'probably don't' situation, to clarify: remember that every A-list Scion saw the starshower in the Crystarium, so if they had the capacity, they would've awakened to it.

Of course this is all just Senti trying to drag the same argument as always into yet another thread regardless of relevance. Funny how they were the one who tried to bring in the original OP from several years ago, only to forcibly re-litigate an argument that literally did not exist at that time.

[Rulakir]

It seems this bears repeating.

Alisaie: The starshower didn't awaken me to Hydaelyn's voice. But that vision of the Final Days, of Amaurot burning... It filled me with sadness to the very pit of my being. Things I once knew, people I once loved, promises I once made... It felt as though long-forgotten memories were dancing at the edges of my mind. But when I try to focus on them, they simply fade away. An effect of having a fractured soul, I shouldn't doubt.

Stunned Citizen: No, I didn't hear anything. But... Why do I feel so... Like I've lost something dear to me...

Not having the Echo does not mean that the person isn't a sundered Ancient. This was made abundantly clear, repeatedly, in the ShB patches. Like I said in another thread, a lot of y'all really need to replay ShB and not skip dialog/cutscenes.

[Cilia]

... because souls cycle through the Lifestream, get broken down and blended up with other souls to make "new" souls. So it follows that some people would have vestigial but not solid memories of the Final Days because all they have left are the baseline impressions.

Not having the Echo doesn't mean someone isn't a sundered Ancient, but some people just won't be affected by Starshowers - either through awakening to the Echo or via "the feels" - period. Ergo, between that and the way the cycle of souls works, not everybody being a sundered Ancient is an entirely reasonable conclusion.

[Rannie]

I wonder about the souls mixing to make the new souls bit. If that was the case then why is our soul still the Same soul (color and all as Hytholodaeus has pointed out multiple times). If they did that wouldn't the "new souls" as you call them become different colors and no longer be the Reborn soul of that previous person? Wouldn't it also make it hard for Emet to find the sundered members of the Convocation to give them the memory crystals?

[sidurgu-12]

I wonder about the souls mixing to make the new souls bit. If that was the case then why is our soul still the Same soul (color and all as Hytholodaeus has pointed out multiple times). If they did that wouldn't the "new souls" as you call them become different colors and no longer be the Reborn soul of that previous person? Wouldn't it also make it hard for Emet to find the sundered members of the Convocation to give them the memory crystals?

ffxiv is a blend of ffvii reincarnation and normal reincarnation so iirc theres two things that can happen. either a soul is strong enough to remain intact during the cleansing phase and gets reincarnated whole or if its too weak it dissolves and mixes with the lifestream until bits of what remain form something new.

[Enkidoh]

ffxiv is a blend of ffvii reincarnation and normal reincarnation so iirc theres two things that can happen. either a soul is strong enough to remain intact during the cleansing phase and gets reincarnated whole or if its too weak it dissolves and mixes with the lifestream until bits of what remain form something new.

The problem is, the explaination about what the soul really is in the context of FFXIV's lore is... constantly changing and often contradictory, so this is where the confusion is coming from. For the longest time it was mentioned and assumed that the soul was just entirelly aether, that it indeed returns to the Lifestream after physical death and assimilates back into the mass of aether that constitutes it to be "reborn" in a new form at physical birth, (indeed like how the Lifestream works in FFVII)... but Alphinaud's explaination in ShB about the fae changes things.

Namely there is a second inner layer to the soul in addition to the aforementioned outer layer of aether; a seperate 'core' of aether within it, that appears to be what consitutes a person's memories and personality (with the outer aether layer simply life energy), and which seems to live on in the Lifestream, and this is what more or less remains when reincarnated in a new form (this is where the fae come from - due to the First's leaning to Light and thus stasis, there is a tendency for these soul cores on the First to linger and naturally coalesce on the surface in ambient aether into a fae, rather than pass onto the Lifestream and reincarnate normally). This would also explain things like ghosts and spirits as well taking the form of who they were in life as well.

This would explain neatly how memories are erased too, the process of reincarnation would probably partially 'reform' this core to wipe it clean like chalk on a slate, but some lingering fragments may still remain, which is how the Echo is awoken - by drawing out those lingering traces of pre-Sundering life restores it.

[sidurgu-12]

The problem is, the expanation about what the soul really is in the context of FFXIV's lore is... constantly changing and often contradictory, so this is where the confusion is coming from. For the longest time it was mentioned and assumed that the soul was just entirelly aether, that it indeed returns to the Lifestream after physical death and assimilates back into the mass of aether that constitues it to be "reborn" in a new form at physical birth, (indeed like how the Lifestream works in FFVII)... but Alphinaud's explanation in ShB about the fae changes things.

Namely there is a second inner layer to the soul in addition to the aforementioned outer layer of aether, there is also a seperate 'core' of aether within it, that appears to be what consitutes a person's memories and personality (with the outer aether layer simply life energy), and which seems to live on in the Lifestream, and this is what is reincarnated in a new form (this is where the fae come from - due to the First's leaning to Light and thus stasis, there is a tendency for these soul cores on the First to linger and naturally coalesce on the surface in ambient aether into a fae, rather than pass onto the Lifestream and reincarnate normally).

This would explain neatly how memories are erased too, the process of reincarnation would probably 'reform' this core to wipe it clean like chalk on a slate, but some lingering fragments may still remain, which is how the Echo is awoken - by drawing out those lingering traces of pre-Sundering life restores it.

honestly i just stick with my headcanon- aether reincarnates, dynamis (or akasha) goes to an afterlife.