6.0 Predictions: Will it be Garlemald, Sharlayan, or Meracydia?

[Seraphor]

This makes sense when you consider Azem, but you're looking at it in the wrong direction. Its not important that the WOL becomes Azem reborn or repossess his talent, but the missing Ancient plot holes revolve around the WOL remembering what Azem did--so as to inform the WOL on what to do now.

I can't be the only one who finds it suspicious that Azem refused to side with the Hydaelyn faction and the Zodiark faction, yet somehow has been reincarnated as the champion of Hydaelyn? Furthermore, is the "blessing of light" just code for the WOL is tempered to Hydaelyn?

It could be that they simply disagreed with summoning another primal. Look what the first one did.

[Veloran]

The only right way to "regress" WoL's power is simply to send him somewhere new where people don't know him. The very nature of the game ensures that WoL will ultimately defeat any problems regardless, so just writing in a depowerment serves no real purpose.

[RyuDragnier]

The only right way to "regress" WoL's power is simply to send him somewhere new where people don't know him. The very nature of the game ensures that WoL will ultimately defeat any problems regardless, so just writing in a depowerment serves no real purpose.

Have us given a new recurring foe or main antagonist that's a tactician type, who is constantly planning for and around our personality and power on a global stage. The kind that plays us often, and is the master of the Xanatos Gambit. A foe who our power does nothing against simply because we're playing into their hands constantly. In other words, we need a charismatic pragmatic villain who is a skilled manipulator...and depending on what they do with the 4th Legion in Bozja, we MIGHT just get that.

[Rosenstrauch]

On a note related to tempering: I may be off about this, as my memory of 5.4's MSQ is just a little hazy right now, but I got the impression that the "cure" for tempering involves some degree of retrograde amnesia. The Kobold Priest seemed to have no recollection of what he was doing while tempered once he was cured. Even if this was attributed to the strength of his tempering and the length of time he was tempered—what would that mean for the WoL in the event that they really are tempered? As I understand, they've had Hydaelyn's Blessing from the very beginning of A Realm Reborn, if not even earlier for 1.0 players. If the WoL is tempered, and removing their tempering required rolling back their memories, just where would the buck stop?

And for that matter, how hard would it be to reconcile the WoL having any degree of amnesia with the fact that they're as much a self-insert for the player as they are their own character? It's not like we're going to forget, for example, who the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are.

[RyuDragnier]

On a note related to tempering: I may be off about this, as my memory of 5.4's MSQ is just a little hazy right now, but I got the impression that the "cure" for tempering involves some degree of retrograde amnesia. The Kobold Priest seemed to have no recollection of what he was doing while tempered once he was cured. Even if this was attributed to the strength of his tempering and the length of time he was tempered—what would that mean for the WoL in the event that they really are tempered? As I understand, they've had Hydaelyn's Blessing from the very beginning of A Realm Reborn, if not even earlier for 1.0 players. If the WoL is tempered, and removing their tempering required rolling back their memories, just where would the buck stop?

And for that matter, how hard would it be to reconcile the WoL having any degree of amnesia with the fact that they're as much a self-insert for the player as they are their own character? It's not like we're going to forget, for example, who the Scions of the Seventh Dawn are.

I think it's not retrograde amnesia so much as it's forcing another personality onto the individual that takes control and prevents the original personality from ever knowing what is going on (should their will not be strong enough). Removing the tempering is essentially strengthening the original personality to be stronger, overriding and forcing out the tempered one. Such a technique wouldn't likely work on people whose original personality was weak enough to be completely shattered by the tempering, or on people who had strong enough personalities to not be effected as much by the tempering process (such as Emet-Selch).

Hyadelyn could have simply chosen Azem's soul to be her Champion knowing full well it was the soul of the one whose job was to protect the world itself from the beginning. Plus being one of the most powerful people on the planet and formerly one of the Convocation, it makes perfect sense to make said person also the Champion to defeat the other Convocation members.

[Crushnight]

I think Hyadelyn just hit the proverbial jackpot when she gave us the blessing, and wasn't someone soul she specifically went out her way to try and give it too. Having it be a coincidence would be better than her actively choosing and falls in line with what Elidibus said in 5.2 that she is always calling out for anyone who listen, we just happen to have Azem's soul just like Ardbert did.

Now all this talk has me wanting to ask Venat/Hyadelyn another question, did she want us to kill the Ascians or just stop them?

[Kesey]

I think Hyadelyn just hit the proverbial jackpot when she gave us the blessing, and wasn't someone soul she specifically went out her way to try and give it too. Having it be a coincidence would be better than her actively choosing and falls in line with what Elidibus said in 5.2 that she is always calling out for anyone who listen, we just happen to have Azem's soul just like Ardbert did.

Now all this talk has me wanting to ask Venat/Hyadelyn another question, did she want us to kill the Ascians or just stop them?

I'm sure she wants them gone. No more Ascians, no more summoning Zodiark? But that then puts situations like Gaia's where she is an Ascian at risk, (running around with Hydaelyn's oracle too nonetheless) and even if Gaia possess no threat, should she be eliminated?

See its issues like this that Hydaelyn's duplicity comes to the forefront. Why not tell us the whole story about the Ancients? Those bits of information have lead us to dialogue questions if putting Emet and Elidibus to the sword was the right thing to do. Hydaelyn can't be okay with the WOL saying those kinds of things.

[Mimilu]

My new crack-theory:
Fandaniel is going to reveal that the original world wasn't as good for those outside of Amaurot, maybe even extremely similar to the Source, with Amaurot being their version of Sharlayan.
From what we hear from about Amaurot, they had a similar policy as Sharlayan: observing events without getting involved, even if they could prevent them or help afterwards.
In one story we hear about Azem, they went against the Convocation's decision to just observe and record a volcano that would destroy an island and that observing and recording events, indifferently, was the norm.
I also think the Fandaniel we know is actually a spy/infiltrator from an outside faction who passed on information like Amaurot's creation magic, which they used to create (either accidentally or purposely) the end of the world.

[Lauront]

I'm not so sure - it seems like he has little memory of the ancient world. Also, Amaurot did not necessarily take a non-interventionist stance. That was a point of debate in the reconstruction of the city, but the Convocation acted in the end to devise a solution to the problem. It wasn't the default stance of the city. They still acted to rescue the villagers in the short story, just not the island, which is the respect in which Azem acted against their decision. The very fact that they had Azem travelling around the world to help focus their attention on matters suggests the very opposite. However, it doesn't sound like they were heavy-handed in so doing given that the ancients seemed to value autonomy.

I also don't think the other cities would need a spy to study creation magics, given that this, by all accounts, was an ubiquitous trait of the ancients. Hence their surprise when the MC is unable to manifest it in ways they'd consider even suited to a child, and why they treat this as an aberration (albeit one they're not unfamiliar with) rather than something specific to non-Amaurotines. I believe this is further added to, when explaining the sundering in the Crystarium, Emet stresses that all men were once immortal, and Elidibus in 5.2 stresses that the Echo is a fraction of the power that all men in their completeness possessed.

The sound preceding the loss of control over creation magics was a keening noise with a subterranean origin, which to me points to something originating in the Underworld (=Aetherial Sea.) I think if Fandaniel had some role in the ancient world, it may have been to sow discord between Venat's faction and the Convocation. If there is some creature feature behind the sound, perhaps he or ancient Zenos had something to do with it or collaborated with it.

I do think Sharlayan is inspired from Amaurot, as its ruins possibly lie more or less where it was built, but its current political stance is a deviation from what it used to be, and I'm sure as with Amaurot, is the product of debates inside Sharlayan, and is therefore fluid.

[Kesey]

I do think Sharlayan is inspired from Amaurot, as its ruins possibly lie more or less where it was built, but its current political stance is a deviation from what it used to be, and I'm sure as with Amaurot, is the product of debates inside Sharlayan, and is therefore fluid.

Although I feel Sharlayan and Amaurot cultures are linked as there is plenty of evidence due to stress on Greek naming conventions, overlapping conch symbols, and cultural tendencies, I'm fairly confident they aren't the same location.

Amaurot's ruins seem to lie south of Kholusia which is the equivalent of Limsa on the source. Sharlayan exists on an island north of Dravania and Idyllshire. These are roughly opposite directions of each other.

Now there is one mention of other "cities" in a side quest in Amaurot and Sharalayan can very well be one of those cities.

It could also be an Amaurot sister city as they potentially are on the same line latitudinally, but not longitudinally.