What all does the Echo actually do? [Spoilers]

[Xirean]

I've been going back through some of the previous expansion content and have been wondering what all the Echo actually does. There's multiple people who have it but the abilities it grants are not all consistent.

As far as I can tell the only major consistent ability is hearing Hadelyn's chant and having visions of the past. Other's are able to understand creatures that regular people can't (Kryle). It seems to be what allows the baddies to switch bodies and if you take gameplay as an example then it makes us progressively stronger, though I'm not sure that one counts.

Also is there a distinction between the blessing of light and the Echo? Kryle seems to refer to them as the same thing; yet when we met Midgardsormr and were effectively stripped, the Ascian was able to get into our stronghold while Minfilia was inside.

Also if anybody knows how to spoiler tag text let me know and I'll gladly edit this post. New here :P

[Enkidoh]

This question is more suitable for the Lore forum, but at a very basic level, to answer your question, (and spoilered),

it's basically 'jailbreaking' the soul - specifically, allowing your mind and soul to "go beyond the boundaries of the flesh", and allows you to interact and even manipulate others' minds and souls (hence why you can view others' memories and instinctively know foreign languages you had no physical knowledge of), and also allow your own soul to break out of it's own limits, and preventing such aetheric manipulation on yourself in kind (as in, it grants immunity to Primal tempering).

Mastery of the Echo basically allows you to become a being of pure aether that no longer requires a physical form to sustain and can thus overcome physical death (like how the Ascians do). Shadowbringers revealed the Echo is actually a fragment of the Creation Magic power the Ancients possessed naturally prior to the Terminus and the Sundering, so everyone that is 'awoken' to the Echo was once an Ancient soul 12000 years before and not a 'new' soul born after the Terminus rewrote the laws of nature (this is why the Ascians also possess it while simultaneously mocking it like Lahabrea did, to them it's a mere sliver of the almost divine power that it used to be)

As for the Blessing of Light, the two are connected but also seperate. The Blessing something specifically granted to you by Hydaelyn and is basically a direct 'hotline' to her, allowing her to more easily interact with you and also allows you to materialize Crystals of Light that further empower the mandala and strengthen it.

There is still a lot of unknowns about it however.

[ItMe]

The Echo was initially an umbrella term for a number of different powers (resistance to tempering was baseline; the WoL was able to see in the past, Minfillia could see the future, some would grow stronger the more they fought, etc.) but the failure of 1.0 and rush to the End of an Era content prevented them from fully fleshing it out. With ARR they dropped the idea that each echo-powered individual had their own unique ability… mostly. Minfilia could still see the future, in early storylines the writers played with the idea that Ascian body swapping was related to the echo, and Iceheart's ability to both manifest and control Shiva was definitely the Echo. Eventually, they went back on all of it again in 3.1. Krile mentions that the Echo manifests in everyone differently, while explaining her own powers granted by the Echo, and SQEX has stuck with this angle since.
For us players, a lot of this back and forth wasn’t apparent as we didn’t have a clear idea what The Echo was, but behind the scenes they were trying to nail it down even into Heavensward, and this is largely why it is so inconsistent and confusing.

[van_arn]

The Echo was initially an umbrella term for a number of different powers (resistance to tempering was baseline; the WoL was able to see in the past, Minfillia could see the future, some would grow stronger the more they fought, etc.) but the failure of 1.0 and rush to the End of an Era content prevented them from fully fleshing it out. With ARR they dropped the idea that each echo-powered individual had their own unique ability… mostly. Minfilia could still see the future, in early storylines the writers played with the idea that Ascian body swapping was related to the echo, and Iceheart's ability to both manifest and control Shiva was definitely the Echo. Eventually, they went back on all of it again in 3.1. Krile mentions that the Echo manifests in everyone differently, while explaining her own powers granted by the Echo, and SQEX has stuck with this angle since.
For us players, a lot of this back and forth wasn’t apparent as we didn’t have a clear idea what The Echo was, but behind the scenes they were trying to nail it down even into Heavensward, and this is largely why it is so inconsistent and confusing.

And then there’s resonance

[DeaconMoore]

It's a MacGuffin

[Xirean]

The Echo was initially an umbrella term for a number of different powers (resistance to tempering was baseline; the WoL was able to see in the past, Minfillia could see the future, some would grow stronger the more they fought, etc.) but the failure of 1.0 and rush to the End of an Era content prevented them from fully fleshing it out. With ARR they dropped the idea that each echo-powered individual had their own unique ability… mostly. Minfilia could still see the future, in early storylines the writers played with the idea that Ascian body swapping was related to the echo, and Iceheart's ability to both manifest and control Shiva was definitely the Echo. Eventually, they went back on all of it again in 3.1. Krile mentions that the Echo manifests in everyone differently, while explaining her own powers granted by the Echo, and SQEX has stuck with this angle since.
For us players, a lot of this back and forth wasn’t apparent as we didn’t have a clear idea what The Echo was, but behind the scenes they were trying to nail it down even into Heavensward, and this is largely why it is so inconsistent and confusing.

So the tempering resistance seems to be a bit hit or miss after ShB. Emet Selch flat out states that he and some other Ascians are tempered by Zodiark. Also I've seen a theory floating around that the player character is tempered by Hadelyn. If the Echo does protect against tempering then it seems more likely that it's a door that we can open. Though I personally think that we are protected because we are already claimed.

[Iscah]

It's a MacGuffin

It's not a MacGuffin.

The term generally refers to an object that is important to the plot, but the object itself isn't important and the story wouldn't change if you substituted some other object in the same "role".

The Echo's specific psychic abilities aren't really something you can substitute.

There are a lot of MacGuffins in the game but they generally go in the Key Items tab.

[Ranaku]

1. The Echo allows you to understand (not read) other races even if they speak a different language or this one Xaela tribe using no words only gestures. Also it doesn't translate what they say basically, you just "understand" it.

2. The Echo prevents you from being tempered. This is a bit theorycrafting here but i think it's cause Hydaelyn tempered us back then in 1.0 with the starshower, in the first cutscene, and as we know a individual that is tempered already can't be tempered by another primal.

3. Krile can talk with animals, Kriles Echo is stronger when it comes to "understanding" other beings. This caused her also much pain, same as we see with fordola cause it's something you can't really control. You just hear all the thoughts of all the people around you which is why Krila was drawn to animals in the first place.

4. We can see the past by resonating with peoples souls. As we all know we can see the past through the Echo but it's also nothing that can be forced.

5. We can travel between worlds without losing our soul. It's basically the same power zenos uses to transfer his soul through the aether into other beings and the ascians also. We have the power to trancsend the boundaries of our bodies, we just don't use it.

6. This is a kinda silly one, as far as i remember the Dev Team/Lore Writers explained wipes back then also with the Echo, it's basically a dream of what happens in the future, you just try and "dream" as long as you need to to find the best outcome and then do it...xD

Sidenotes: Midgardsomr didn't stripped us of our Echo, only of the connection to hydaelyn and the crystals of light. We still had our Echo, tempering doesn't just vanish when you cut the connection to the primal. We were still immune against other primals and saw the past in some cases.

[Jeeqbit]

The nature of the Echo is a question answered by the story. It gets answered differently at different parts of the story as you learn more about it.

Spoilers

At first it's just something that allows you to see echos of the past. Then it's something that shields you from primals too. Then it's something that doesn't shield you from primals, but it means your influence is greater than the primal's so that you could even temper the primal and Zenos does just that with it to control Shinryu. Throughout the story there are a lot of references to how the echo comes about by having enough souls. In Shadowbringers you learn that having enough souls brings you back on par with the ancient ascians and their level of senses.

[Faafetai]

From what I understand throughout the game so far, and I may be wrong. It is also what allows us to re live a battle over and over again until we find the outcome of the future that allows us to succeed. So also a lore friendly way as to why we can 'die' multiple times within a trial or dungeon, but still complete it as if it were only our first try.

For Zenos, being he also had the echo it was similar to constantly playing a game of chess, but every other move each made was a check mate and we were locked in a stale mate

As stated above it does more than just that. What I do not believe it does is makes us 'Hydaelyn's chosen', she just chose people who possessed the echo to be her 'chosen'.