Reinterpreting Answers after Shadowbringers

[FaerieAura]

So, Answers has always seemed like a pretty song with hidden meanings that we could never quite grasp. Now that we have an understanding of the nature of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, however, it starts to make a lot more sense, and I thought I would take a crack at interpreting the true meaning of the words of the song, the 'speakers' of various passages in the song. It's definitely open to debate, but once it came up to my YouTube autoplay and I realized what the song was actually saying in light of everything learned in Shadowbringers, I couldn't stop myself!

I close my eyes, tell us why must we suffer
Release your hands, for your will drags us under
My legs grow tired, tell us where must we wander
How can we carry on if redemption's beyond us?

Interpretation: The unsevered Ascians are questioning Hydaelyn - how can we carry on in this world where we are being forced to submit to your will? Why should we accept a shattered, broken world where our God has been forced under your will? We cannot be redeemed, our people cannot be made whole so long as your will drags our people under.

To all of my children in whom Life flows abundant
To all of my children to whom Death hath passed his judgement
The soul yearns for honor, and the flesh the hereafter
Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after

Shining is the Land's light of justice
Ever flows the Land's well of purpose
Walk free, walk free, walk free, believe...
The Land is alive, so believe…

Suffer (Feel) Promise (Think) Witness (Teach) Reason
(Hear) Follow (Feel) Wander (Think) Stumble (Teach) Listen
(Speak) Honor (Speak) Value (Tell) Whisper (Tell) Mention
(Hope) Ponder (Hope) Warrant (Wish) Cherish (Wish) Welcome
(Roam) Witness (Roam) Listen (Roam) Suffer (Roam) Sanction
(Sleep) Weather (Sleep) Wander (Sleep) Answer Sleep on

Interpretation: Hydaelyn’s first answer: Life continues to exist. Zodiark was going to continue to demand more and more, and his judgement was going to cost you more and more until there was nothing left. The past you remember may be gone, but your people remain - in a different form, perhaps, but you can lead them to a brighter future. (Maybe Hydaelyn intentionally left some Ascians unsevered for that very purpose?) The land remains alive, you are free - please, believe. You can still experience life - with the next paragraph being a list of things that the beings that remain in this new world are free to do without Zodiark’s influence forcing them to submit to His will.

Now open your eyes while our plight is repeated
Still deaf to our cries, lost in hope we lie defeated
Our souls have been torn, and our bodies forsaken
Bearing sins of the past, for our future is taken

War born of strife, these trials persuade us not
(Feel what? Learn what?)
Words without sound, these lies betray our thoughts
(See what? Hear what?)

Interpretation: The Ascians did not accept Hydaelyn’s first answer, and so they continued to work against Her will for their future. They continued to cry out for Zodiark, for the restoration of their people and for their torn souls. They want their future back - just as Emet-Selch demanded. So they create chaos - what can they feel, learn, see, or hear in this broken and destroyed world? Hydaelyn is giving them nothing but empty words, lies, and they will not accept them. So they will stop at nothing to bring the one True God back, despite Hydaelyn’s best efforts to answer them before.

Mired by a plague of doubt, the Land, she mourns
Judgement binds all we hold to a memory of scorn
Tell us why, given Life, we are meant to die, helpless in our cries?

Witness (Feel) Suffer (Think) Borrow (Teach) Reason
(Hear) Follow (Feel) Stumble (Think) Wander (Teach) Listen
(Blink) Whisper (Blink) Shoulder (Blink) Ponder (Blink) Weather
(Hear) Answer (Look) Answer (Think) Answer together

Thy Life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow
To listen, to suffer, to entrust unto tomorrow
In one fleeting moment, from the Land doth life flow
Yet in one fleeting moment, for anew it doth grow
In the same fleeting moment
Thou must live
Die
And know

Interpretation: To me, this is the final answer: the answer that Hydaelyn that is giving to the children of these new worlds. The Ascians, unable to accept that this new world is the only way to maintain a semblance of meaning in the face of Zodiark’s dominion over all life, continue to enforce His will over creation, creating strife. She mourns the constant chaos and conflict this causes, as Her children - the children of the Shards - question why they must be made to endure constant pain and sorrow and death.

She gives the same answer she gave to the Ascians, with one caveat - they must labor to find the answers together. Hydaelyn cannot give the beings of these new worlds the answers to life; to do so would make her no better than Zodiark, the creature she was created to oppose. Life must find its own way, chart its own course. But life has the ability to hear, to feel, to think. To entrust unto tomorrow. To look to those who walked before, to lead those who come after. And to continue to grow and learn. To drag the planet to the past, to sacrifice everything to Zodiark? That would be the ultimate tragedy, and that must never be allowed to happen.

[Anonymoose]

Usually I'm against trying to interpret Answers in light of new content...because it was written during a time when the game's story was completely different and refers (in part) to things that never manifested. But if there's one expansion that probably deliberately tries to echo and give new meaning to Answers, this is probably it, lol.

As soon as Shadowbringers said, "To this riddle all souls are tied." I was like, "Ah, nuts this is gonna require looking at Answers again, isn't it." lol.

[FaerieAura]

"To this riddle all souls are tied." I was like, "Ah, nuts this is gonna require looking at Answers again, isn't it." lol.

Yeeeessss. To be completely honest, I was just listening to the Shadowbringers soundtrack on Youtube as I was gathering, and Answers came up. When I heard the line "Our souls have been torn, and our bodies forsaken" I was like... wait. Let's go back and look at this whole thing through a new lens. When I did, I realized that a lot of this had to be coming from the Ascians perspective, at least in the post-ARR timeline we're in now. I agree that the song may not have originally intended to convey these meanings, but I definitely think the dev team took a look at the lyrics when they were thinking of the way the story was going to develop in the future, given the literal parallels between the events we've learned about in Shadowbringers and the lyrics of the song. I'm looking forward to learning more about Hydaelyn's intentions - all we've really gotten to see is the sort of vague glimpses of "Hydaelyn is good for vague reasons, Zodiark is sympathetic because He saved the world but for some reason He is bad and must be opposed!" Obviously, his servants are evil in our modern timeline, and we have glimpses of what Zodiark was doing that was bad, but there's no direct answer to the question of why he needed to be checked - and the Ascians obviously didn't believe he needed to be checked at all.

I want to know why Hydaelyn was created beyond just "Zodiark needed an opposing force." My best guess, as you can see through my lyric interpretation above, is that Zodiark was going to keep asking for more and more and more sacrifices, but also He was going to keep tempering more and more people as well. The Ascians had convinced themselves that they could sacrifice their 'lesser' creations to appease Him, but that wouldn't sustain His hunger for long. Zodiark did save the world, but at a cost - and that cost would be the future will of the inhabitants of the world, the domination of all things by Zodiark. Hydaelyn did break the world, but in so doing She freed it from an eternity of servitude to darkness. She represents the freedom to choose our destiny, our own fate, make our own choices and learn from our mistakes. That is why, even though She has 'claimed' us as Her champion, we are not bound to Her will in any real way - She merely protects us as we make our own choices. My current theory based on the lyrics to Answers, her actions in game, and the actions of our characters as Her champions, anyway.

[Remedi]

Tbh I think neither is right, I can't exactly condone what Hydaelyn did but I can't say that Zodiark was correct, the ancients summoned him as a desperate measure for survival, but the cost was becoming astronomical.

[FaerieAura]

Tbh I think neither is right, I can't exactly condone what Hydaelyn did but I can't say that Zodiark was correct, the ancients summoned him as a desperate measure for survival, but the cost was becoming astronomical.

To be fair, I don't think we have enough data to get into questions of right or wrong. I get the feeling that what Hydaelyn did as an act of desperation, not the first-choice. But we don't know! So many more questions to be answered.

[Remedi]

desperation doesn't absolve what happened for both sides. Especially if this leads to us being unable to stop another calmity because we are not strong enough anymore

[FaerieAura]

desperation doesn't absolve what happened for both sides. Especially if this leads to us being unable to stop another calmity because we are not strong enough anymore

Fair, though I would counter that some of the information we have seems to indicate that the Calamity that threatened the Ascians' civilization was due, in part, to the unchecked power they had over creation itself. Because they had absolute control, once they began to give in to their fears and doubts, those fears and doubts given form were able to wreak havoc upon the world, thus fueling the fears and doubts that the populace had even more. This just spawned deeper and darker horrors, which eventually required the imposition of a will - Zodiark - to impose order upon the world. The unchecked ability to create, without limit, may very well have been what gave rise to the nightmares that caused the end of civilization. The Ascians speak of their civilization as if it is a dream, without realizing that it is by its very nature a dream that may be doomed from the start. Requiring Zodiark, a being that seems to necessitate sacrifice after sacrifice, in order to maintain order on such a world does not seem worth the cost, at least to me. Perhaps that is why the Ascians that remained untouched by Zodiark realized that another solution was needed - that the vain attempt to hold on to the order of the world that existed before Zodiark wasn't worth the cost he demanded - blood, aether, and death.

Every Calamity that has since occurred has simply been an echo of the first - the fear of oblivion, of death, leading to demands for sacrifice and aether, leading to constant turmoil and strife. Emet-Selch accuses the Warrior of Light and her companions of only seeing the problems in front of their noses, but the Ascians are so solely focused on their goal that they fail to see that they are merely repeating the same cycles of history, over and over again, in a vain attempt to regain what was lost. The Ascians are the ones who continue the cycle of pain and loss that has existed since the first Calamity - since the first pangs of fear began to appear in their civilization. They still are fighting against the fear of loss, the fear of oblivion. And until they realize that, Hydaelyn will have to continue spending all of her energy fighting them, rather than allowing life to flourish, which was Her original intention. Again, my theory, but I think the text supports it to a degree at this point. I can't wait to find out more about Her background and creation.

[Zohar_Lahar]

This is conjecture, but one implication I suspected was that the sundering wasn't just to seal Zodiark, but also to prevent a recurrence of the Terminus.

[FaerieAura]

This is conjecture, but one implication I suspected was that the sundering wasn't just to seal Zodiark, but also to prevent a recurrence of the Terminus.

To me, this makes a lot of sense. All of the current text points to the idea that runaway creation magicks were what led to the Terminus in the first place - a world where they continue to be possible, without limit, means a world where such an event can recur.

[Anvaire]

I think for me I reserve judgement on whether what Hydealyn did was the right thing. There is an assumption that Zodiark is "evil" because he is darkness, but as we learned during Shadbowbringers, Light aspect is static and sterility, whereas Darkness aspect is growth and change. The question remains unanswered as to whether Ascians were Darkness Aspected due to their ability to create or if this was simply due to their tempering by Zodiark. We are told that Zodiark is evil because he wishes to cause the rejoining, and he consumed half the lives of the ascian civilisation to summon. However, as seen in the second dungeon, the Ascians seemed willing to give up their lives to bring forth their creations.

My interpretation on the Ardor is that the Ascians, Lahabrea, Elidibus and Emet Selch only wanted the Ardor to restore the souls of their people who had been spent to create Zodiark. I have never seen any direct reference that Zodiark itself wants the Ardor, or indeed that he couldn't be woken up without it. While I am not averse to Zodiark being 'evil' I don't think that is likely. We know that a primal's essence, will and personality reflect the nature of their summoners, what then would the combined will of half the ascian population have spawned?

We know Hydealyn was created to balance and limit the chaotic nature of Zodiark's influence. But What she has wrought isn't really balanced at all. For me, I think that until we actually meet and speak with Zodiark, it is difficult to surmise the motives of both Primals. There is the added question of where Zodiark actually is. If he is the manifestation of the star's will, that would make him the planet itself. Which therefore begs the question. Where is Hydealyn? and what is she exactly?

I am certainly looking forward to the patch MSQ's - hopefully - if Yshtola's hint is anything to go by, more will be revealed.