New Year's Poem 2019

[Iscah]

I know desperate times call for desperate measures, but I still can't shake the feeling that despite the idea of 'taking darkness to escape utter destruction' is in fact still playing into the Ascians' hands and makes the whole thing nothing more than 'heads we win, tails you lose', that no matter what we do, it will still work in the Ascians' favour. I just hope FF precedent does prevail and a third option is presented, but I hope 'becoming the WoD' is not that third option. But we'll see (it will be interesting to look back at this a year from now to see how this went in any case.).

That's my feeling too. I think Darkness is being set up to look like our third option, the path out between two unwanted fates, but really? Up until now we've only had one option (Warrior of Light) and here we are with our supposed "only choice" being to abandon it and turn to the opposite half of a duality.

If we must take up the power of Darkness, let it be to take it alongside the Light and find the balance inbetween, the path that is our third option. "The road to dawn", as Kingdom Hearts put it, and that will be the hope in my mind as this plays out.

[KageTokage]

I feel like this might just be a "lesser of two evils" situation where the choices are to further the Ascians' schemes (Whether willfully or unintentionally) or let the world be destroyed with absolutely no hope of survival (It's suggested that the Rejoining won't necessarily eradicate all life...though it'll almost certainly end the world as we know it regardless).

I'd be surprised if Elidibus wasn't planning for things to play out in such a manner, since it would explain why he was saying we were key to Zodiark's revival.

Obviously there's going to be a way out of this mess in the end, though things are probably going to get much worse before they get better.

[Erendis]

Japanese
定められし運命　覆すは人に叶わずとも
A destiny decided　/　is not to be overturned by Man.

定められし歴史 　覆すは人の業と知れ
A history decided　/　can be overturned by Man and His knowledge.

枯れゆく大樹の枝葉　代えられゆく大樹に接ぎて
The foliage of a dying tree　/　grafted to the tree that replaces it.

我　闇を友として　今こそ運命に抗わん
For us　/　with Darkness as our companion　/　the time to meet our fate has come.

Found this kind of translation on reddit, although I can't be a judge on correctness...

JP version :

定められし運命 價すは人に叶わずとも
Men aren't the ones deciding fate

定められし歴史價すは人の業と知れ
But men are the ones deciding history

枯れゆく大樹の枝葉 代わられゆく大樹に接ぎて
From a rotten tree a branch is taken, to be given to it's successor.

我 闇を友として 今こそ 運命に抗わん
Thus we are now, among the dark, facing fate.

[Theodric]

The 'withered bark' bit makes me think of the Iifa Tree from IX. I'd love to see more things like that make their way into FFXIV. It'd make a pretty cool dungeon.

[SannaR]

Well, according to a more recent interview we're only 60% done with the Hydlyen/Zodiark arc.

Hmm, most of the time you only graft something onto another thing is to make the host better. So, I guess we would need to figure out what the host is then? To me there's only three things that would be needing to be healed the 1st and 13th Shard and Hydlyen. I'm not sure how you would fix the 13th with more darkness so the other two would be a better bet. I don't know how you make one better without causing a rejoining though unless we do go and jump to the 1st and become the darkness bringer since we don't know how well her voice is acting as a light vacuum.

[ChaoticCrimson]

I'm surprised no one's brought up the first lines of the poem in contrast to Varis, and his remark in 4.4 about how "man is the master of his own destiny". It's definitely enough to make me even more interested in the part he'll play in 4.5's events (and possibly beyond). As for the "withered bark" line, I'm hard pressed to decide whether this is going to end up being more of a metaphor for what's to come or if there's any degree of literal meaning to be applied to future events. All these speculations bring up lots of possibilities though. The final line I think is certainly relevant to the possibility of the WoL taking up the role of WoD for a time in Shadowbringers, but I also worry it could mean we may end up having to work with the Ascians at some point. I'm not too keen on that idea myself, but if that does end up being the case then that implies just how badly the balance gets skewed in favor of the Light. I really cannot wait until next week when the first part of 4.5 drops, but I have a feeling we'll have some things answered and a lot more questions afterward. Either way, a lot's about to change.

[Iscah]

An additional thought on Darkness not actually being where we are supposed to go (or at least end up) - a lot of people point to Arbert's claim that "Light, Dark, it doesn't matter" as proof that we don't need to stay allied to Light.

But how well-informed is Arbert? And where did he get the information from?

Unless he's had some kind of additional revelation on his own, it was Elidibus who 'helped' them to become the Warriors of Darkness, and is most likely their main information source. And I can see it being entirely possible that he neglected to give them some important pieces of information, or led them to draw incorrect conclusions.

[Wyssahtyn]

Ah, yes, the reins of history back in the hands of Man. Because that worked so well for Ivalice between XII and Tactics.

[Rosenoire]

I've heard it suggested that "stock of withered bark" could refer to a disreputable branch of a family tree, i.e. disinherited offspring. Seems like a bit of a complicated metaphor, though.

I had a similar thought that it's in reference to the Imperial royal family. "Stock of withered bark" = the founding father was an Ascian. "Healthy growth" = new blood for the Empire in some way? Perhaps we'll see Zenos' siblings mentioned in the second lore book?

[Rosenoire]

I just re-read the Rising 2018 song, and watched the end of the 4.5 trailer. I don't think it's time travel: I think we're about to go to the Mirror Shard.

The Rising song talks about everything the WoL has accomplished: "soar azure skies/wear crimson crest/shine Light" and then contrasts them with their opposite: "weave azure lie/crimson bleed/Darkness quench".

At the very end of the trailer, when Solus gives his line about "together we shall give the lie to this star's fraudulent existence" as a voice over, we see the WoL standing at the center of a ring of blue circles. At first it reminded me of Louisoux summoning the Twelve, but then I though of the Zodiac Braves symbols that appear before the Thunder God's ultimate. Then I counted the circles--there are 14. One for each shard plus the Source, perhaps? The WoL about to travel to another shard, where that Warrior of Light either couldn't or wouldn't do their job, so we have to oppose that shard's WoL by becoming their opposite--the Warrior of Darkness--in order to prevent the calamity on the Source.