The Nature of the WOL (Spoilers)

[Cirdan-Faust]

So the occurrences of the final cutscenes have been bugging me. Here are my thoughts. Can you guys discuss and correct me as needed?

- We learn from Emet Selch that all the people who lived on the source were sundered into parts during the sundering. He looks down on everyone as not being whole and hence justifies their murder.
- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?
- We learn from one of Emet Selch\\'s illusions that Ardbert is part of who the WOL was pre-sundering. I believe it is said that he is your other half.
- Emet Selch sees you differently after you combine with Ardbert. He sees you as a pre-sundering person, your true self, and is afraid. This is what I thought.
- Is this that Ardbert, your other half has recombined with you and now you are whole and can stand toe to toe with Emet Selch?
- Alternatively, I have heard people say that the reason Emet Selch was afraid and what he really saw was that you were a shard of the 14th member of his council. Presumably the dissenting member that initiated the summoning of Hydaelyn. He did not previously recognize you until you combined with Ardbert and became more whole. Which do you think it is?
- When fighting Hades you seem to use Ardbert\\'s axe as a means to attack Hades and unleash the stored up light aether from the light wardens.
- After the fight Ardbert\\'s axe disintegrates.
- After the fight Y\\'shtola sees your aether as it once was. I was rather disappointed by this. Does this mean your combination with Ardbert was temporary and he is gone now? I feel like the confrontation with Elidibus would be more impactful if he saw you as Emet Selch did.
- At the end you are referred to as both the warrior of light as dark. I\\'m unsure if that\\'s just because of your role in the first or if that implies that you are more whole now.

Would appreciate everyone\\'s thoughts and corrections to my interpretations.

[shinkin]

So the occurrences of the final cutscenes have been bugging me. Here are my thoughts. Can you guys discuss and correct me as needed?

- We learn from Emet Selch that all the people who lived on the source were sundered into parts during the sundering. He looks down on everyone as not being whole and hence justifies their murder.

Yep

- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?

Yeah, its the latter. The original surviving population was split into basically 14 lesser versions of their original selves

- We learn from one of Emet Selch\\'s illusions that Ardbert is part of who the WOL was pre-sundering. I believe it is said that he is your other half.

WoL and Ardbert make up 2/14 of the original being they were.

- Emet Selch sees you differently after you combine with Ardbert. He sees you as a pre-sundering person, your true self, and is afraid. This is what I thought.

- Is this that Ardbert, your other half has recombined with you and now you are whole and can stand toe to toe with Emet Selch?

- Alternatively, I have heard people say that the reason Emet Selch was afraid and what he really saw was that you were a shard of the 14th member of his council. Presumably the dissenting member that initiated the summoning of Hydaelyn. He did not previously recognize you until you combined with Ardbert and became more whole. Which do you think it is?

WoL is still no match for Emet Selch even after joining with Ardbert, that's why Exarch has to summon 7 other people with the echo to help you.
IIRC them originally being the 14th member is just speculation, but it sounds pretty plausible

- When fighting Hades you seem to use Ardbert\\'s axe as a means to attack Hades and unleash the stored up light aether from the light wardens.
- After the fight Ardbert\\'s axe disintegrates.
- After the fight Y\\'shtola sees your aether as it once was. I was rather disappointed by this. Does this mean your combination with Ardbert was temporary and he is gone now? I feel like the confrontation with Elidibus would be more impactful if he saw you as Emet Selch did.
- At the end you are referred to as both the warrior of light as dark. I\\'m unsure if that\\'s just because of your role in the first or if that implies that you are more whole now.

Ardbert is likely still a part of you. The light you spent was throughout the course of the fight and not just from forming the axe (I.E when hade chains you and everyone goes super saiyan, you flood the entire arena briefly in light - that's likely where most of it was used), and considering the WoL does similar things before (Usually when he kills Ascians, he just shoots a pure beam of light at them), I think the choice of it taking on the form of an axe was more symbolic than anything else

[Rannie]

If you go back and talk to the old lady mol in the steppe she comments on the fact that your light no longer has the shadow growing in it and it's a bit brighter. I'm seeing that as implying that ardbert is still one with our WoL. Also Emet had an idea already as to who the WoL was due to the color of their soul. Emet being able to see the color of the soul was already shown when he saved Y'shtola from the Lifestream after she got stuck a second time from casting flow.

Also during the part where he sees the original form it was not fear it was shock and denial. In the english version he calls it a trick of the light (from when we were about to be devoured by the nascent primordial light we absorbed combined with Ardbert fusing with us. He also in that same text bubble goes out of the way to call us a broken husk.

We're only called the Warrior of Darkness on the first and solely due to the fact that we brought night back to the world.

Its speculation at this point as to whom our WoL was back in the days of Amaurot. I myself am of the opinion that we are Hythlodaeus and that he/she was the 14th member of the conclave that walked out before Zodiark was originally summoned. However, it has not been out right said who our pc had been.

I, myself, have been wondering which way to take how our PC started to answer that kid at the end with the finger to the lips. I at first got a Xellos type of vibe but now I'm wondering if it was more like a shhhh I'll tell you but dont let anyone else know...

[MrThinker]

So the occurrences of the final cutscenes have been bugging me. Here are my thoughts. Can you guys discuss and correct me as needed?

Okay let's do this point by point, but don't take this as 100% true, since my understanding may be different to others.

- We learn from Emet Selch that all the who lived on the source were sundered into parts during the sundering. He looks down on everyone as not being whole and hence justifies their murder.

Yes, exactly right. He says this in the Ocular after saving Amh Araeng.

- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?

Hydaelyn struck a blow on Zodiark, and the star, and subsequently all life on it. When Emet visualises this on the model in the Ocular, it is a 7-fold strike, each blow in quick succession, on the original "whole" world, and thus it, and the souls on it, were split into 14.

- We learn from one of Emet Selch's illusions that Ardbert is part of who the WOL was pre-sundering. I believe it is said that he is your other half.

Rather than "other half", Hythlodaeus (the shade) says our souls were once one. Remember, it is likely that our soul at the time had 7 other shards rejoined onto it as well.

- Emet Selch sees you differently after you combine with Ardbert. He sees you as a pre-sundering person, your true self, and is afraid. This is what I thought. Is this that Ardbert, your other half has recombined with you and now you are whole and can stand toe to toe with Emet Selch?
- Alternatively, I have heard people say that the reason Emet Selch was afraid and what he really saw was that you were a shard of the 14th member of his council. Presumably the dissenting member that initiated the summoning of Hydaelyn. He did not previously recognize you until you combined with Ardbert and became more whole. Which do you think it is?

I do believe that image of us as an ancient was brought about by Ardbert rejoining us, but rather than Emet being afraid, it is better to say that he is shocked instead. Hythlodaeus implies that Emet knew our original and, depending on language, was quite close to them as well.
The theory that we are the 14th comes from the fact that the info is revealed around the same time we discover that we are the (now 9/14) shard of an Ancient that Emet, a member of that same group, once knew well.

- When fighting Hades you seem to use Ardbert's axe as a means to attack Hades and unleash the stored up light aether from the light wardens.
- After the fight Ardbert's axe disintegrates.
- After the fight Y'shtola sees your aether as it once was. I was rather disappointed by this. Does this mean your combination with Ardbert was temporary and he is gone now? I feel like the confrontation with Elidibus would be more impactful if he saw you as Emet Selch did.
- At the end you are referred to as both the warrior of light as dark. I'm unsure if that's just because of your role in the first or if that implies that you are more whole now.

In regards to Ardbert rejoining us being temporary, no I believe that is permanent, it's just that when you add blue and blue together, you end up with blue which is why Y'shtola said it was back to normal. At the same time I also believe "Ardbert" as a person is indeed gone.
As for the WoL/D thing, those are most definitely roles ascribed to us by other people, rather than it being any reference to our completeness.

[Cilia]

• It isn't specified how many parts everything was divided into when Hydaelyn sundered the planet; presumably they were all split into 14 like the planet itself, but given three Ascians were somehow able to escape it's not unfeasible that not everything was divided so evenly. However, unless we are told otherwise it is best to assume that yes, other than the three Source Ascians (Lahabrea, Elidibus, and Emet-Selch) everything was diluted to 1/14th of its original aetheric volume (including the PC's soul).
• If the PC's soul was evenly split into fourteen, Ardbert rejoining with them would not make them compleat again.
• This act serves mostly to repair the PC's soul, which was in danger of collapsing due to the primordial Light they'd absorbed from the Lightwardens throughout Shadowbringers. There may have been something of a power boost, but it would not be enough to fully close the gap between you and Emet-Selch / Hades.
• The rejoining was likely permanent, and was almost certainly the entire reason Minfilia denied letting Ardbert help halt the Flood of Light.
• Emet-Selch seeing the PC as an Ancient is probably meant to bring to mind that, to him, they are beginning to echo the power of eld (at 8/14 soul fragments, they are likely the most compleat individual the Ascians have seen in eons outside their own group).
• The PC being a reincarnation of the fourteenth member of Amaurot's governing Conclave hasn't been confirmed, nor has that fourteenth member been confirmed as one of Hydaelyn's summoners. These are just popular theories.
• Referring to the PC as the Warrior of [Light / Darkness] is probably not particularly meaningful outside of denoting their particular role in that territory (the PC is the Warrior of Light on the Source because s/he needs to drive back the dark, while the First needs (or at least needed) someone to rise up against the Light).

[Cirdan-Faust]

Hey thanks for the responses guys. But as a follow up why are you all saying 8/14 or 9/14 of a complete soul? Are you saying that us plus our 7 buds for every fight are canonically shards of the WOL? Or are you saying that because of the rejoinings that have happened in thus far?

On that note, I hadn't considered that each rejoining would change everyone the way Ardbert changed us. After each rejoining everyone becomes more whole.

Now if that is true doesn't that throw into question Emet Selch's plan for restoring those ancients lost to summon Zodiark? He says once the rejoinings are complete he would sacrifice the lesser people of the source to Zodiark to restore the ancients consumed to summon him. But if we are taking about after the final rejoining wouldn't the denizens of the source be restored ancients? Even after all rejoinings he would still see them as lesser? Is that because the 13th was lost? Or just because he is a dick?

[MrThinker]

Hey thanks for the responses guys. But as a follow up why are you all saying 8/14 or 9/14 of a complete soul? Are you saying that us plus our 7 buds for every fight are canonically shards of the WOL? Or are you saying that because of the rejoinings that have happened in thus far?

On that note, I hadn't considered that each rejoining would change everyone the way Ardbert changed us. After each rejoining everyone becomes more whole.

Now if that is true doesn't that throw into question Emet Selch's plan for restoring those ancients lost to summon Zodiark? He says once the rejoinings are complete he would sacrifice the lesser people of the source to Zodiark to restore the ancients consumed to summon him. But if we are taking about after the final rejoining wouldn't the denizens of the source be restored ancients? Even after all rejoinings he would still see them as lesser? Is that because the 13th was lost? Or just because he is a dick?

I myself am saying that because of the Rejoinings.

When we are waiting for the Ladder to be fixed in Kholusia, Emet claims that the Rejoinings benefit the peoples on the Source, by saying that the survivors of the last Rejoining would have souls and existences equal to himself.
As for the whole sacrifice the survivors plan... we are still unsure if the current races existed at the time of the sundering... and if by completing the rejoinings they'd automatically turn into ancients, but either way, tempering seems to be the likely explanation.

The 13th being a void is hopefully something the story team will address.

[Rannie]

There have been 7 rejoining plus our portion then add in ardbert willingly fusing with us

[Shofie]

Possible spicy opinion but I actually think Hythlodaeus is us, we were Hythlodaeus. Literally no one else can see Ardbert, except us, until Hythlodaeus confirms they can see him too, albeit faintly, commenting on how recognizable the hue of our soul is. Emet-Selch acts astonished to see an Ascian before him when we rejoin with Ardbert, briefly seeing us as our fully "restored" self.

[Iscah]

- I thought Emet Selch said people were split in half but is it more that people are split into 14 parts?

When he was demonstrating the basic concept of what Hydaelyn did, he 'split' Ryne in two - which is perhaps what you're thinking of. Making thirteen copies would just be messy.

Possible spicy opinion but I actually think Hythlodaeus is us, we were Hythlodaeus. Literally no one else can see Ardbert, except us, until Hythlodaeus confirms they can see him too, albeit faintly, commenting on how recognizable the hue of our soul is. Emet-Selch acts astonished to see an Ascian before him when we rejoin with Ardbert, briefly seeing us as our fully "restored" self.

I don't think he can be us. He makes a cryptic reference to Emet recognising "her/him" in us (depending on character gender) - and unless he's making a distinction between his* real self and this illusion of himself, then it doesn't make sense to refer to himself like that.

* I don't think we actually know their gender but everyone has assumed 'he'.


It's also suggested that Hythlodaeus is particularly perceptive anyway - which is why Emet thought he'd work out the truth of being a shade, and thus he did. Or perhaps that quirk of creation has left the shade even more likely to notice Ardbert's soul.