Thread: Predictions for 5.3?

Still, it will certainly be a full circle if the price of saving everything from Zodiark for good is to become forgotten by everyone to a point that they can only remember a being of light once more but this time they will never regain their memories of what the WoL looks like thus why the stories preserved for future generations may always use Default Derplander to describe the Warrior of Light in their stories.

I really hope not. I don't know why but just the idea breaks my heart. That idea, while poetic and artistic, I rather quit the game than see that happen. It takes me all the way back to the first FF game. They did so much good but in the end were forgotten because it never happened? Not the same thing, I know, that all the good we did will survive but our faces and names disappear? I don't know about anyone else but that idea doesn't sit well with me at all.

Originally Posted by ClaireFaye

I really hope not. I don't know why but just the idea breaks my heart. That idea, while poetic and artistic, I rather quit the game than see that happen. It takes me all the way back to the first FF game. They did so much good but in the end were forgotten because it never happened? Not the same thing, I know, that all the good we did will survive but our faces and names disappear? I don't know about anyone else but that idea doesn't sit well with me at all.

Not all stories will end with a happy ending but sometimes that is the price that must be paid to protect those people care about or are at least worth protecting.

Still if it goes down that path it also opens up a addition to Season 2 plot to reforge a new relationship with the Scions in a Zodiark/Ascian free world. Though a part of me expect that the Scions may disband at the end of Season 1 so each character can pursue their own life now that the threat of Ascians and Zodiark are gone.

This also brings up another thing I have been thinking about being if Sharlayan is not part of 6.0 expansion then it would be a interesting choice for 7.0 Expansion being the first place we adventure into to begin our Season 2 Journey. A reasonable assumption because Sharlayan only remained isolationists due to the Garlean Empire but with the Garlean Empire's true defeat on 6.0 - 6.3 MSQ it is fitting for them to open their gates in 7.0.

It would also fit providing a MSQ reason why WoL reunites with specific members of the Scions that may have returned to Sharlyan after the Season 1 Finale and have them join WoL in Season 2 journey even if they don't remember WoL due to his/her sacrifice. Yet it may become a journey to bring about new memories and friendship that will this time stay.

Elidibus is using the WoLs he made as an army, over aspecting them with light (I incorrectly assumed crystals of darkness previously, but makes more sense with light thematically as a reflection to our new role) and will use them to kill us in an attempt to bring the plan back under control. Keeping his promise.

I suspect G'raha will open a rift to the thirteenth using the crystal tower, unleashing voidsent to help fight off or at least distract the rampaging WoLs across Norvrandt. He will die in this process, but he was already prepared to do so from the beginning. It was, after all, his original plan to use the void to combat the sin eater threat, dying in the process to allow the scions to return home with Thancred head patting Ryne one last time as he fades away.

One brings Shadow, One brings Light.


So as I see it, We get word from Y'shtola, we head to Amaurot and make our way to Anyder. We watch more recordings of Hydaelyn's summoners. As we are leaving, we get separated from the others and find ourselves speaking to Elidibus. After that we meet up with the Scions back at Eulmore to discuss where we go from here, only to be attacked by a random WoL. All hell breaks loose and we take a ride on an airship to get to the tower. The ship is brought down by another WoL and we crash land, getting separated in the process. The WoD ends up in Il Mheg, and makes a run to the Crystarium, que the dungeon. Meanwhile at the base of the tower, G'raha is attempting to help defend the city, only for Elidibus to attack him and seize control of the area. Eventually, everyone (with the various factions having marshaled their respective forces to make a stand, and possibly completed role quests npcs seen in passing) makes it back to the tower with a wounded, but not yet dead Exarch, with Lyna tending to him. The others stay behind to defend the people as you give chase. Being the bro he is, G'raha goes with you. As Elidibus summons even more WoLs, Shadowbringers begins playing, reflecting your battle with Hades. Just as it seems you are going to be overwhelmed, G'raha's wounds begin accelerating his crystallization. In a last ditch effort, he opens the rift. Darkness begins flooding the room, and you are joined by seven figures, the trial commences...

Becoming what we must.





The recent Gamespot interview with Yoshida has me focusing once more on Omega (eScape, I have already covered in a previous post was possibly a teaser about Shadowbringers) and Alexander. Specifically, the theme song "Locus" from which was used as recently as "A Long Fall" for The Twinning. A certain lyric always stood out for me.

Static tuned in to reason
Time in the aether deepens
Transmissions blink uncompleted
Seven two three two three...<send>

The numbers always threw me off until I read it as a date. 7/23/23. Which would align with the seventh expansion. Maybe nothing more than a catchy lyric, but it always struck me as funny. A raid series based on a time manipulating primal possibly warning us about a future event.

I think some people are overthinking the lines about the Warrior of Light forgetting. Rather than there being some kind of magical geas or blood price to be paid for saving the world and/or return the Scions to the First, I think it's just an acknowledgement that, someday, the Warrior of Light might well have forgotten their time in Norvrandt.

For example: Recall our attempts to ingratiate ourselves with the Ala Mhigan resistance, and how they brought us to Quarrymill. We had to provide the refugees there with materials to make medicine in order to get their recommendation, and that was the last we'd ever seen of them... until 3.3, when we ended up talking to one of the Griffin's doubles and had no idea who he was. Even after he explained what we'd done for him in the past, how many of us were actually able to put a name to that lack of a face? And given the reveal in the level 68 DRK quest, how many of us actually picked the right name to begin with? Probably no one.

From there, I'm also gonna take a stab at what context they could be in. If I had to guess, they're part of a speech structured like this: First, the Exarch starts with the line about having a request. The lines about us possibly forgetting go next. The next set of lines may then be a reversal of those—we might forget, but the people whose lives we've touched will never forget us, for example. Finally, this is capped off with his actual request, which has been withheld from us thus far.

EDIT: Also, rather than overwriting G'raha Tia's memory with the Exarch's own, which to me comes uncomfortably close to Sorrow of Werlyt Weapons and their pilots, I'm thinking the Exarch may create a "Job Crystal" from his own consciousness, so our G'raha Tia can use it himself.

I think the Exarch is going to die but not stay dead.

Given how the last couple patches have been about research into the soul and developing of special Auracite so that the Scions could be safely returned to their vessels, to turn around and say "just kidding, the Exarch dies and that's it, that's how we solve it, moving on now~" would be a massive slap in the face for the past year and a half of distractions if that research goes unused. Particularly since everything after the climax of Shadowbringers has been "How do we save the Exarch?"

But we do know that the soul infusion process they were going to use would be the same as what Unei and Doga used on G'raha to transfer control over the Tower, and that the Exarch was experimenting with that same process himself with the auracite. And that whatever he did to extend his life with the Tower, he's only got a matter of time even if Elidibus doesn't kill him.

My theory is that the Crystal Exarch is going to die on the First, which will allow the Scions to be returned, but -- given how much importance has been placed on the ties between memory and soul this expansion (including us surfing memories in the Bozjan storyline, the memory of Amaurot, etc), and the emphasis on "memory" in the trailer -- that he will have infused enough of his soul into the auracite that it can be used as a vessel for his own memories to be transferred into another vessel, and that he will give us a means to re-awaken the Crystal Tower to get inside.
Then we'll go back to the Source and give the auracite to G'raha so that we can have a pseudo-Exarch who lives on through him without having to make the same sacrifices. Then G'raha will be honorarily inducted into the Scions and have his own arc about coming to terms with having two lives, maybe even having a bit of a bond with his other soul like we did with Ardbert or Ryne did with Minfilia.

(Something else worth considering is that reawakening the Tower could then lead to an expansion about Meracydia, including what we learned of it during the Warring Triad story. Food for thought.)

Originally Posted by Archwizard

I think the Exarch is going to die but not stay dead.

Given how the last couple patches have been about research into the soul and developing of special Auracite so that the Scions could be safely returned to their vessels, to turn around and say "just kidding, the Exarch dies and that's it, that's how we solve it, moving on now~" would be a massive slap in the face for the past year and a half of distractions if that research goes unused. Particularly since everything after the climax of Shadowbringers has been "How do we save the Exarch?"

But we do know that the soul infusion process they were going to use would be the same as what Unei and Doga used on G'raha to transfer control over the Tower, and that the Exarch was experimenting with that same process himself with the auracite. And that whatever he did to extend his life with the Tower, he's only got a matter of time even if Elidibus doesn't kill him.

My theory is that the Crystal Exarch is going to die on the First, which will allow the Scions to be returned, but -- given how much importance has been placed on the ties between memory and soul this expansion (including us surfing memories in the Bozjan storyline, the memory of Amaurot, etc), and the emphasis on "memory" in the trailer -- that he will have infused enough of his soul into the auracite that it can be used as a vessel for his own memories to be transferred into another vessel, and that he will give us a means to re-awaken the Crystal Tower to get inside.
Then we'll go back to the Source and give the auracite to G'raha so that we can have a pseudo-Exarch who lives on through him without having to make the same sacrifices. Then G'raha will be honorarily inducted into the Scions and have his own arc about coming to terms with having two lives, maybe even having a bit of a bond with his other soul like we did with Ardbert.

(Something else worth considering is that reawakening the Tower could then lead to an expansion about Meracydia, including what we learned of it during the Warring Triad story. Food for thought.)

I hope this is what happens.

Also regarding memory, just want to add something I thought of in general discussion: Eternal Wind is basically G'raha's theme song at this point. It plays during pivotal scenes for him in CT, he mentions flying on the eternal wind to us before Vauthry, it plays for the final scenes of ShB as he narrates (and I think one can argue the expansion the song is closing out is his expansion). The Stand Tall song (which plays in the Crystarium and also when he shows up post-Dying Gasp) mentions eternal winds, too, as the vessels by which the singer's memory will be carried on. Which not only lends thematically to the idea of his memories being carried onwards, but it occurs to me that the Exarch is really the only way the memories of those who sacrificed in the 8th umbral future can be carried on as well.

Originally Posted by Elidibus, Patch 2.1

Je n'arrive pas à prendre possession de son corps... La protection qu'Elle accorde à ses enfants est plus forte que je ne l'imaginais.
I cannot take possession of her body... The protection that She affords Her children is stronger than I imagined.