Fantasia Canonicity

[MrFluffyWolf]

So, I was wondering about how canon Fantasia's are, given the massive lore implications of being to just change your race/sex/appearance and everything overnight no less. I've tried looking stuff up, but there really isn't a whole lot of information out there.
The only thing I can find is a reddit post that said
"The official answer is that it doesn't actually change you, it just gives you the courage to be who you really always were on the inside.

The lore team explained this on a lore panel during one of the fanfests."
Aaand I haven't been able to locate the fanfest panel they're talking about, and I don't want to just take a random reddit post with no source at it's word. That'd be pretty silly.

So, do we know anything about fantasia's in lore?

[SannaR]

The one we got from Koji was to not really think too hard on it and that it's a glamor. You are still whatever you started out as for your race. Obviously a very very convincing glamor.

[Mimilu]

I can't remember where but, lore-wise, I read that Fantasias not only change you but change you retroactively, i.e. your character's history changes to that they were what they changed into.

[Anonymoose]

I'm going to hazard a guess that what's going on here is that everyone who reads the one statement we got on it reads it differently.

Fantasia works in a unique way. I can’t simply turn you into whoever you want, or people could get away with anything. Crime would be out of control. Even on Earth, people have the opportunity to change who they are – cut their hair, get a facelift, find a new career or a different spouse – but we often aren’t willing to make those drastic life changes. Fantasia gives you the courage to make the changes you’ve always wanted to make. Maybe you are Lalafell trapped in a Roegadyn’s body, it’s time to break out! And all you needed was that courage in a phial!

You can read that from "It doesn't really change you." to "It makes the power of confidence so strong it does change you." to "This is a game mechanic to make money and retain subscriptions, please don't ask me about this."

I'm inclined to believe the latter at this time, because not one single NPC in the entire game has ever mentioned Fantasia one time. If it's not acknowledged by any character of the game, is it "in the game" yet? A question for wise men with skinny arms. However it behooves the RP community to come up with workable in-group fanon for their circles to have a rule of thumb for addressing it, because people are using it. Every group has different "rules" for it.

[MrFluffyWolf]

The one we got from Koji was to not really think too hard on it and that it's a glamor. You are still whatever you started out as for your race. Obviously a very very convincing glamor.

This does make the most sense, probably is what the canon is. Do you know where I can find that answer from Koji?
I'm not trying to be a jerk about it, but a lot of different answers that conflict come from people saying "oh yeah it was said at a panel" or "it was stated by this writer" and no links are given so like, that kinda makes this hard to corroborate.

I can't remember where but, lore-wise, I read that Fantasias not only change you but change you retroactively, i.e. your character's history changes to that they were what they changed into.

The problem with that explanation is the retroactive part doesn't really work. Does it change your parents races retroactively? Their parents? Which homeland you come from? Because at that point, fantasias cause a butterfly effect of history changes where if only a few dozen people take fantasias massive swaths of history get changed. That'd be a nightmare to deal with

[MrFluffyWolf]

I'm going to hazard a guess that what's going on here is that everyone who reads the one statement we got on it reads it differently.



You can read that from "It doesn't really change you." to "It makes the power of confidence so strong it does change you." to "This is a game mechanic to make money and retain subscriptions, please don't ask me about this."

I'm inclined to believe the latter at this time, because not one single NPC in the entire game has ever mentioned Fantasia one time. If it's not acknowledged by any character of the game, is it "in the game" yet? A question for wise men with skinny arms. However it behooves the RP community to come up with workable in-group fanon for their circles to have a rule of thumb for addressing it, because people are using it. Every group has different "rules" for it.

Ah missed your post.
But yeah it really does come off as you said, "pls don't ask me this it's just so players can play around with looks, I know it doesn't make sense."
It really does kind of point to not being really "canon" if absolutely no in-game characters or text even refer to the existence of the item.

[Iscah]

I can't remember where but, lore-wise, I read that Fantasias not only change you but change you retroactively, i.e. your character's history changes to that they were what they changed into.

That's not what it does lore-wise, it's what it does functionally. If you rewatch early cutscenes after fantasiaing (or any sort of visual change to your character) you'll be as you are now, not as you were at the time, because cutscenes just have a big space marked "insert player character here".

If anything, that's proof that it isn't something that actually happens to your character but an out-of-canon game function.

[Theodric]

Personally I'm inclined to view it as non-canon. It's one of those things that I think really just cheapens the game/setting overall if it exists.

Call me old fashioned but I don't think every single element of a game needs a canon explanation.

If Fantasia exists, even if it's rare then one can't help but wonder why the antagonists just don't acquire one and go into hiding to evade being caught. Especially the wealthy and powerful ones who could, potentially, acquire one for themselves.

To me it's the equivalent of making the login screen a canon function.

[Enkidoh]

I'm inclined to agree with Theo, it's a gameplay mechanic with the barest of excuse lore to make it 'look right' in the menu but otherwise has no connection to the story or lore.

Having said that, a personal headcanon I have is that it is more like a form of glamour, as we know glamour magic (that change's something or someone's appearence) does exist in the lore - the sylphs have it as almost as an inate racial ability, and the big one was that iconic scene during Stormblood's story where the Ala Mhigan Resistance magically cast glamour on the giant Garlean flag in The Fringes to change it into the flag of the Resistance), so Fantasia would be a natural fit for that. Probably less so for glamour prisms and the glamour 'toilet', but then maybe I'm just overthinking this again.

[Iscah]

Probably less so for glamour prisms

Glamour prisms are specifically what M'naago uses to glamour the flag, and I feel like there was a technical explanation given at some point for how glamours work. Maybe in the Facet of Gathering quests, but I'm not certain.