Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.3

Originally Posted by Hikari_Kishimoto

Elidibus, Hades and Varis have been talking about preserving the balance between light and darkness (so that neither a flood of light or darkness was to happen and to destroy the shard/source). As we know, this is what happened to the 13th. (And the reason why it was not possible to rejoin it with the source)

So, why was Hades trying to cause a flood of light on the 1st shard? Wouldn't that have turned it into a smiliar zone like the 13th? (Therefore, unable to be rejoined?)

This was gone into in 5.0. To cause a Rejoining to happen, a world has to be brought to the brink of a Flood, but not actually Flood. The Rejoining has to happen before the pressure gets too much. Our going around killing Lightwardens is bringing the 1st Shard back from the brink of a Flood, but also back from the high light energy needed to cause a Rejoining. Which would making the Ascian's efforts on the 1st Shard go to waste.

Hythlodaeus hints that what race/gender/etc. a being is has... very little to do with what makes a specific soul and specific soul. What makes us and Ardbert similar (and compatible for a soul melding) has nothing to do with the fact that Ardbert is a male Hyur. We were part of the same soul at one point. The same soul that genuinely liked traveling around the world and helping people out.

Part of why our friendship with Ardbert works so well in Shadowbringers is because we can connect with him about everything we were both doing on our own shards. We're connecting with him over random fetch-quests we did, the group of people we met up with and partied with, our faithful animal companions who carried us around everywhere, how neither of use wanted to be heroes but found ourselves in the role anyway, etc. It's because of all of those things that Ardbert tells us in the Tempest that he'll be with us to the end. And then makes good on that promise by willingly melding his soul with ours so our soul can contain the aether of the Lightwardens. We see each other as the kind of person we want to be with because we are soulmates in the most literal way possible.

It's also confirmed as canon that the Lifestream doesn't really change the souls that are in it. Azem's soul has the desires of Azem's soul even when it's split up across different Shards or is reborn into the bodies of very different beings than an Ancient.

Originally Posted by EdwinLi

SPOILER below

Yep this is certainly the part most people seem to be confused with being that our character and the other fragments of the original soul are not exact copies of who and what Azem looked like. The only similarities that are carried from the original soul into the fragmented soul, revealed in 5.3 MSQ, is the desire to explore the world and help others. The appearance, species, personality, interests, and gender will all be completely different from each other. Heck, if I remember right, the only reason why Emet recognized our character was because he looked into our soul's color since our character's appearance is completely different from what the Original Soul looked like.

This actually brings up more questions into who IS the Original Soul Azem and it appears from what we have seen in 5.3 that next part of the storyline may also focus on exploring into who Azem is and potentially finally revealed what Azem looked like before he was sundered into our character and the other sundered fragments.

I wouldn't hold out hope for getting anything other than a robed figure regarding Azem's looks. I mean, the gender they're referred to by changes based on the PC in question. I have a feeling their physical attributes will remain hidden.

All that stuff about Lahabrea is why I wish the developers had taken a mulligan on him instead of committing so heavily to him being gone. Speaking of which, how many of the Ascians are actually left by now?

By my reckoning it's three, but I'm not entirely sure on that count.

Nabriales is the first to die on screen, with Emmerololth being revealed to have died during the disappearance of the Isle of Val once the Eureka storyline was underway. The latter, from what I've heard, resulted in a minor plot hole in that the dead Ascian made an appearance after the disappearance of the Isle of Val. This could be explained away by the position being refilled, but we've not seen them since and none of the other positions have been refilled (as far as we know).

Then there's Igeyorhm and Lahabrea, followed by Mitron and Loghrif off-screen on the First. Gaius is revealed to have killed two offscreen as well once he reappears in Stormblood, judging by his collection. Then we kill Emet-Selch and, finally, Elidibus.

This leaves Fandaniel, and any two of the following: Pashtarot, Altima, Halmarut, and Deudalaphon. My money is on Pashtarot and Altima being the survivors.

Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

All that stuff about Lahabrea is why I wish the developers had taken a mulligan on him instead of committing so heavily to him being gone. Speaking of which, how many of the Ascians are actually left by now?

By my reckoning it's three, but I'm not entirely sure on that count.

Nabriales is the first to die on screen, with Emmerololth being revealed to have died during the disappearance of the Isle of Val once the Eureka storyline was underway. The latter, from what I've heard, resulted in a minor plot hole in that the dead Ascian made an appearance after the disappearance of the Isle of Val. This could be explained away by the position being refilled, but we've not seen them since and none of the other positions have been refilled (as far as we know).

Then there's Igeyorhm and Lahabrea, followed by Mitron and Loghrif off-screen on the First. Gaius is revealed to have killed two offscreen as well once he reappears in Stormblood, judging by his collection. Then we kill Emet-Selch and, finally, Elidibus.

This leaves Fandaniel, and any two of the following: Pashtarot, Altima, Halmarut, and Deudalaphon. My money is on Pashtarot and Altima being the survivors.

Moose did mention this in the OP, too: "the Ascian Overlord math in cutscenes has to be in TATTERS." And I totally agree, because of everything mentioned there and here.

Also Nabriales was supposed to be the first to die a True Death (which in the sundered Ascians' case, probably means "we have to take the trouble to raise another shard"), given that was apparently the "first time" it happened according to Elidibus in 2.5, and a serious point of consideration to be careful of mortals. Which loses a lot of its impact if Emmerololth was the first instead, and got another shard raised up; Nabriales's death would then be "yet another" Ascian Overlord slain, rather than "the first".

The writing could be twisted to speculate that maybe Nabriales had used up all his shard-lives and now there is none left of the original Nabriales, but that has no supporting evidence other than "it helps make the other contradictions come a little closer to making sense".

So I do agree that it's all the result of an attempt to tell a long overarching story that ran into the problems of real life and scheduling changing too many details.

Honestly I wouldn't count most of those. On-screen deaths or nothing else. And even that may not be true with the shoebill theory floating around. Given we know it takes a lot of effort to kill off the red masks most of those probably wouldn't have worked anyways.

Oh, jeez, I just went and read that bit in the OP.

I didn't even realize there was an erroneous headcount—or rather, that there were more red masks from the start and that the current headcount of 13 was a retcon. And even with that retcon, given how many of named Ascians died off screen, it seems to me that they greatly overestimated how much space they'd have to write such a large organization.

It actually reminds me a bit of Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts—which had a similar problem, iirc.

all I want is an explanation for Lahabrea and Elidibus being the only unsundered Ascians