[SPOILERS] The Fate of Ascians

[Jaywalker]

Don't keep reading unless you're down for Shadowbringers final quest spoilers.

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Naw but real talk, Lahabrea in his crowning act of idiocy got eaten by a primal who WoL managed to beat no problemo a few moments after. Emet-Selch as an unbroken Ascian just got straight up pierced by a blade of light. Nabriales, not an unbroken Ascian, also got pierced by a blade of light and died--while fully trapped on white auracite, whereas Emet-Selch managed to tear free.

Ascians do have souls confirmed, normally they don't experience the lifestream in the same way that other people do. When Emet-Selch dies, it looks like he disintegrates in pieces into the air. I would need to rewatch to check if there are any particular number of fragments within what disintegrates, but it doesn't seem to be getting presented as "utterly destroyed as in wiped from existence".

Maybe I'm wrong. My guess at this point is that Ascians felled by a blade of light would possibly split and return to the lifestream as per other living things for reincarnation. No memories (or limited idek, I have no idea if the number of splits influences this), basically brought down to a mortal level. Previously the process was described by angry Scions as a way to destroy Ascians, but especially in light of recent lore developments I have questions on whether a soul could be truly and completely erased.

I don't particularly expect to see Lahabrea again, or if we do he would be probably somewhat worse for the wear after being processed by primal Thordan. I'm just curious if anyone has a sense of logistically what happens to the souls of Ascians after being hit with the blade of light or chowed on by primals.

[SenorPatty]

I think you forgot an important detail: The auracite that was split in pieces by Thancred.

Now I could be wrong but this how I interpreted the scene: the auracite split and the pieces embedded themselves into Emet-Selch. Combined with the "blade of light" and the scions' own aether pushing those pieces real deep into Emet's core, the latter's soul was destroyed in the very same way that Ascian that got done in by the auracite that was brought by Moenbryda back in Mor Donah in ARR.

So in short, there's nothing left of Emet-Selch's soul.

[Granyala]

Pretty much, aye.
Emet is toast. He knows it too, which is why he asks that we remember them as his final request.

So Elidibus is basically the last unshattered one. It may be possible that there are a lot of the lower Ascians still out there though.

[SerLuke]

Eldibus confirmed Emet was dead

[Daralii]

Pretty much, aye.
Emet is toast. He knows it too, which is why he asks that we remember them as his final request.

So Elidibus is basically the last unshattered one. It may be possible that there are a lot of the lower Ascians still out there though.

It ultimately doesn't matter. Only the unbroken can raise those with a piece of a Convocation member's soul to being an Ascian, which means it becomes a fox hunt should Elidibus die.

[Jaywalker]

So in short, there's nothing left of Emet-Selch's soul.

Idk, he did break free of the auracite and was able to move, attack, and hold a conversation after breaking free of the auracite. If his soul was gone I'd figure that it would have been out before he could make his request to remember. I got the impression the auracite was mainly to keep an ascian still so the blade of light can hit?

I'm also unsure whether auracite functions as a soul-destroyer in the sense of "nothing is left of the soul, it has been erased from existence". I probably need to review the mechanics behind ascian-slaying, but imo it would be weird and extra for them to have nothing that could even return to the lifestream.

WoL we know has a split Ascian soul but no memories of who they were pre-sundering. I figure any slain Ascians have effectively lost their memories as Ascians, my question is more whether anything of them remains that could reincarnate in similar fashion to the WoL. Total destruction to the point of zero remains seems weird to me, although Lahabrea might have stepped in a big enough poo to do that to himself. No idea what happened with him metaphysically at this point.

EDIT: Just to clarify lol, I'm not going "but are they really dead" so much as "but does death for an Ascian mean no lifestream/are they just erased from existence beyond what any other living thing goes through". Personally I think it would be ironic, justice, and tbh mercy too if Emet-Selch's soul was split by our blade and after returning to the lifestream what fragments existed reincarnated as new people. Not reborn Emet-Selch, I mean the same way that Ascian-WoL predecessor became Ardbert and WoL among others. I'm just fuzzy on the metaphysics of Ascian death so trying to figure out if that is plausible or if some kind of weird is going. For all I know Ascian souls return to fragments of Zodiark or there's some exceptional process where they are just destroyed utterly.

[SerLuke]

Again Eldibus said Emet was dead, the most we might see of him is one of his Solus clones running around but it wouldn’t be him, who knows maybe Varis got himself an artificial echo too and moved himself into one of the Solus clones, that would be interesting.

[Jaywalker]

Again Eldibus said Emet was dead, the most we might see of him is one of his Solus clones running around but it wouldn’t be him, who knows maybe Varis got himself an artificial echo too and moved himself into one of the Solus clones, that would be interesting.

Lol I put in an edit, but again I'm not asking if he's really dead! XD We had a big thread a bit ago on what the afterlife of FFXIV is haha--I'm along those lines. I'm mainly asking if lifestream process applies to Ascians or if something else goes down.

I don't expect to see Emet-Selch as Emet-Selch, with his memories and desires, in anything more than flashbacks going forward. He ded. The most out there return I can imagine would be that the blade of light split his soul, part of that soul flew into a clone-body, but it's functionally speaking a newborn soul with no memory whatsoever of having been Emet-Selch. And that's me really stretching.

I'm differentiating between death in FFXIV and absolute destruction beyond the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

[SinSilverwing]

There seems to be a single fact people here are skipping over, Emit-Selch himself has said ascians view the inhabitants of the Source and the 13 shards as not being alive.

So it may entirely be possible that they get taken into the lifestream and split up to join Hydaelyn's order as new people. But yes the possibility also does exist that dead is dead.

The only one I can have some expectations of returning as he was is Lahabrea.

[Altbion]

I re-watched older cutscenes in JP and FR, and it seems to confirm that destroyed Ascians simply go to the lifestream, as "normal" people do when they are killed. So no, their soul as the core of their existence isn't destroyed/erased, but they cannot continue like before and are indeed dead. However, it's possible some might appear later as ghosts of sorts, much like Ardbert for example, since the soul acts as a core and is able to manifest even after death in some cases.