Quote Originally Posted by Anonymoose View Post
This is going a tad off the rails in terms of claims without evidence; we don't want to get FFWiki levels of {{citation needed}}.
Sorry if I was ever misleading. I have to do most of my posting away from home at the moment due to holiday shenanigans, which makes it hard to access resources like the Lorebook or Garlond Tools. Thank you very much for the quotes! I haven't done that storyline in maybe 2 years now. I guess my memory of him talking sadly about how he's probably possessing a body here might have been a false one. That happens from time to time unfortunately. I'm still of the belief that the Scions had their souls/minds taken to another shard though. Unukalhai (of the strangely hard to spell name) could definitely appear in the next expansion, but I just feel a little skeptical he'll be terribly important since absolutely nothing from the Warring Triad plotline has actually been mentioned again. Sure Gaius came back up again, but he was mentioned a lot since his 'death', even during Stormblood itself. We'll see though.

Quote Originally Posted by Anonymoose View Post
On one hand, Gaius survived two large explosions from the Ultima weapon (one which threw him out of the cockpit and one right on top of his face) before the camera cut away from a third explosion while he was still standing - and that Gaius, Regula, and Varis have all shown us that a Garlean can be lifted into a passing transport in seconds (1.0 in Mor Dhona, 1.23 at the Halone's stone, 3.0 in the Sea of Clouds).
Hm...I'd be a little skeptical of reading too much into those sorts of capabilities. Villain escapes are one of those things that happen for more narrative reasons than in fiction ones. If they aren't supposed to die at this point in the plot, then teleportation or other methods work, and if they are supposed to die then they don't. Thordan slowly walking onto an airship is equivalent in a narrative sense to Garlean Magitek transport capabilities since both are just tools to get Villain A to Point B, and to make sure we can't kill them in that moment. It's the same reason that Stormtroopers in Star Wars are supposedly well trained enough for Old Ben Kenobi to recognize and mention it, but never hit the heroes. Narrative trumps in-universe logic in most works, FFXIV included.

That being said, 'airship escape' would be a fairly logical answer for how he managed to survive. They'll probably have some explanation...or just be coy/make a joke about it. Maybe he'll jump into a lead lined fridge to survive the blast...