Revelations from Keynote II

[Iscah]

I think that exchange, the "What sayest thou, Master Matoya? We can accept our fate, or defy it, but we cannot deny it" is him basically going "What is it Master Matoya would/might say in situations like this?" and then referencing one such a Matoya-ism, to which Y'shtola responds.

(cross-posting to reply to this in both places)

I disagree. He's speaking directly to her, asking "what do you say?" - most likely referring to the prediction told by the fortune-telling cards he's holding up. (Lorebook 1, p.244 - a three-card spread is a common method of reading a person's fate.)

It doesn't particularly sound like something Matoya would say, and he hasn't been associated with her before (although it's possible he does know her). If anyone was going to 'quote' Matoya, I would expect it to be Y'shtola herself.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. Urianger's antiquate speech once again confusing me.

"What sayest thou?" = "What say you?" = "What do you say?"

I learned German at school, which has similar grammar to this slightly archaic English, so I think that helps. Unlike modern English, the verb is always the second word in the sentence, rather than always following the subject, and everything else fits in around it.

Verbs take on different endings depending on the subject. [I] ____, [you] ____st, [he/she] ____t, [they] ____en. I think the pattern is the same here.

And "thou" simply means "you" - but where we can use "you" to mean a single person or a group, originally "thou" was for addressing a single person and "you" (or "ye") was only for a group.

[Berethos]

(cross-posting to reply to this in both places)

I disagree. He's speaking directly to her, asking "what do you say?" - most likely referring to the prediction told by the fortune-telling cards he's holding up. (Lorebook 1, p.244 - a three-card spread is a common method of reading a person's fate.)

It doesn't particularly sound like something Matoya would say, and he hasn't been associated with her before (although it's possible he does know her). If anyone was going to 'quote' Matoya, I would expect it to be Y'shtola herself.

I think it sounds like exactly the kind of thing Matoya would say (a bit more politely than she might actually say it, to be fair), and there's little chance he didn't associate with her or wasn't taught by her at one point or another back when studying to become an Archon.

As for speaking directly to her (Matoya)? It wouldn't be the first time he's directly addressed an individual who was actually absent. Wouldn't even be the second. He did so with Moenbryda, then again toward Minfilia.

There's also the narrative element of Matoya deciding to possess her body, which feels very much out of left field for her, based on what we've seen of the character. Also, body swapping has generally required either being Resonant or the Echo - neither Y'shtola nor Matoya are gifted with the latter, and I don't see Matoya going through the process to attain the former within the space of the next MSQ patch.

It's certainly not impossible that it ends up playing out that way, but it feels like it's the least likely to occur.

[Iscah]

There's also the narrative element of Matoya deciding to possess her body, which feels very much out of left field for her, based on what we've seen of the character.

This is still very much an assumption.

For some reason he's addressing Y'shtola as "Matoya", that's all we know for sure.

EDIT: Or can't even be sure of that.

Additionally, even if he's "talked to someone who's absent" before, I still don't think he would walk up to someone and speak directly 'to' them but direct his words to someone else entirely, who isn't even there.

(But I've now run out of post allowances so I'm out of this until tomorrow.)

[Berethos]

This is still very much an assumption.

For some reason he's addressing Y'shtola as "Matoya", that's all we know for sure.

We don't even know that for sure, do we?

There's an even chance he's talking directly to the person in front of him and calling her Matoya (and if this is the case, possession is the least likely reason for it, based on what they've been hinting at), or that he's directly talking to Matoya as if she were there (not an unusual thing for him to do) while musing to himself and the person in front of him chooses to respond.

[zuzu-bq]

Cross refferences with the text in another languages and we might get more out of Urianger and Matoya's dialog really.