The questions I want EW to answer the most: WHY and HOW was the world sundered?

[Vyrerus]

I feel like FFXIV's writers are better than writing that sloppy.

They're only human.

I think you're sorta intentionally ignoring that one's senses can fail as well as the logic flow of the dialogue. Like, I can smell pie. I can't always smell pie though, even if a tasty pie is right there. Maybe he's so weak he's got aetherial congestion(Also we've only got 1 CoL, so maybe we've not got a very strong stench). More seriously though, the exactness of the line is that he can't smell us, so it must be what the Paragons(Ascians) told him. His sense of smell failed one explanation, so he asserts knowledge given to him by someone else. Secondhand knowledge.

I mean, Ifrit is great and all. I love his prior incarnations, and this one in XIV really wowed me on my first playthrough, but this is a verifiably very weak summoning of him. Nero says as much with his discount Dragon Radar Scouter. It's very compelling and serious for us at the time, because we're still in diapers Hero status wise, but later on it's a total joke. Regardless of what happens it will always do its job for new players, and that job is relating to the player that Tempering for the player can't be caused by the bad guys.

[Kesey]

What I can't square isn't the deep lore explanation of tempering, but the high odds the story beat has set up the WOL is tempered.

Currently, the WOL is Hydaelyn's chosen champion, but it doesn't fit with the Azem back story as we know it. Azem left the council of what would become the Ascians refusing to summon Zodiark and ALSO ignored the requests of Venat's group to summon Hydaelyn.

If Azem is Hydaelyn's champion then why didn't Azem side with summoning of Hydaelyn?

Now if Azem refused the idea of summoning either on purpose, then given all the story beats we've been handed up to this point, we can not rule out that Azem was tempered into her service. Even if the whole idea was to temper them to protect them from being tempered by Zodiark and not mind control them.

And when you think on this potential plot more, tempering Azem's soul fragment is the only way to ensure that Azem does the destiny Hydaelyn laid before them. Because with the echo there is the threat that Azem remembers the Ancient days and why they shouldn't be with Hydaelyn or Zodiark.

And this is further problematic with the existence of the Azem soulstone, because all of those Ancient soul stones are used to make former sundered Ascians remember their Ancient memories, the WOL is carrying around the answer of what happened to Azem in Ancient times in their pocket waiting for the right echo moment to trigger.

This, of course, is only conjecture, but again can't be ruled out yet.

[Vyrerus]

6.0: Tataru has joined forces with Rowena

6.1 We have to bring down their mercantile empire, economically. Very scary!

[Cleretic]

5.3+?: Zenos wants to play Planetary Rock'em Sock'em Robots, and he's called dibs on the purple one. (I seriously hope they don't do this.)

I'm not fond of it either (I'm not fond of any Zenos plot really, with the exception of watching him doing his own thing in 5.0, that had a nice 'Vegeta in early Namek Saga' vibe), and there's still room for them to swerve, but I wouldn't be looking for it. At this point it's in sort of a 'you were told you were getting fish for dinner, so don't get mad that it's not chicken' situation. Like how Stormblood was ultimately all about fighting the Empire, and never meaningfully changed from that for more than three minutes at a time, but also never once pretended it wouldn't be.

And this is further problematic with the existence of the Azem soulstone, because all of those Ancient soul stones are used to make former sundered Ascians remember their Ancient memories, the WOL is carrying around the answer of what happened to Azem in Ancient times in their pocket waiting for the right echo moment to trigger.

First of all: It is worth noting that the Azem stone is not an 'official' one in the same way as everything else. It was made in secret by Emet. It also doesn't seem to carry an actual memory of Azem like the others carried memories of the 'final' Convocation; remember that when we called on it like we did the others, we instead got Emet talking about them, and a spell either of Azem's or inspired by them. So even if the WoL does have part of Azem's soul (which itself is still not confirmed, but we're being led down that path very hard, so even if it's wrong the truth will be following from that assumption), that crystal isn't designed to do the job in the same way that, say, Deudalaphon's is.

There's also something to remember about the whole situation from Azem's presumed angle: since their last known presence, the Convocation have shifted into becoming planet-destroying genocidal monsters on an unfathomable scale, while Hydaelyn's been spending all that time trying to get them to knock it off. I think it's folly to assume that Azem wouldn't be realigning their expectations over the years, and if they had a say I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to look at Hydaelyn and go 'you know what, I didn't much like you, but the other guys went crazy, we need to get them to stop before anything else'.

[Vyrerus]

Speaking of the Azem Stone... my mind is a nursery for wild imaginings, and all this thinking about the Tempering and the Echo and the what not got me on a truly outrageous idea.

What if Hydaelyn's Blessing of Light is like the magical version of the Resonance?

What I mean by that is... what if she basically rewrote the waveform of our soul to match Azem's? Kind of like how the Resonance Procedure overwrites one's soul with the waveform of the Master Subject.

Truly wild and crazy, I know. But I think you've probably read enough of my posts to hash out that I'm like that, anyway.

[Cleretic]

Speaking of the Azem Stone... my mind is a nursery for wild imaginings, and all this thinking about the Tempering and the Echo and the what not got me on a truly outrageous idea.

What if Hydaelyn's Blessing of Light is like the magical version of the Resonance?

What I mean by that is... what if she basically rewrote the waveform of our soul to match Azem's? Kind of like how the Resonance Procedure overwrites one's soul with the waveform of the Master Subject.

Truly wild and crazy, I know. But I think you've probably read enough of my posts to hash out that I'm like that, anyway.

I don't mind that theory, in part because it does something productive with details currently in play without erasing anything, and actually would fix a problem I have with the whole Azem situation by simultaneously saying the WoL both is and isn't Azem. So if you want to say that's relevant to your interpretation of the WoL, there you go, but if you don't then you can just say 'well Fordola isn't meaningfully Krile so why would the WoL be meaningfully Azem' and move on.

Although I'd ask the question of 'why would she'. To the best of our knowledge, Azem is no more meaningfully relevant to Hydaelyn than the Ancient that asked us to make a murderous children's toy; they weren't part of the Convocation Venat was opposing, but they also weren't meaningfully standing anywhere relevant. Why would they bear enough value to be worth copying elements of?

[Vyrerus]

Although I'd ask the question of 'why would she'.

Obviously, this is nearly completely supposition, but it would be because Azem left the Convocation but was part of it. We get the implication that Azem was friends with Emet-selch and others in that leading body. The idea would be to use that against them, "A trick of the Light!" as it were. Their guard drops and false Azem slays them.

Of course, it pretty much falls apart because she'd be doing this to all of her champions with the Blessing... which would mean idk, we could get anyone with it and omnomnomnom on their soul and get sorta falsely rejoined or something or other.

Then also comes in the thing like... why would she have waited until now to do such a thing, if that is what the Blessing is. I can't really think of anything that really supports it, at all. Heh.

[kaynide]

As long as we are talking wild and crazy, some thoughts:

Wild Theory #1: Venat replaced Elidabus; Hydaeyln IS Zodiark, or rather a “reformatted” version.

It took a LOT of aether to create Zodiark and supposedly a smaller amount to create Hydaelyn…
Lahabrea rants that Hydaelyn is a parasite that needs to be removed.
(“Know you the root of this corruption? Hydaelyn! Like a parasite, she must be burned out if the planet is to recover. And naught but the return of the one true god will ensure complete excision.”)
Elidabus was removed from Zodiark, no longer acting as it’s heart.

Wild Theory #2: The Elidabus we killed was not actually Elidabus. Furthermore, I believe the Ancients can’t bring people back was their original intention.
In the same way the Bahamut Primal and Shiva Primal are not actually Bahamut or Shiva, Elidabus as we know him is just a summoned primal; a shade based on what the convocation believed “Elidabus” to be.
I believe anyone they would have brought back would have simply been an idealized shade-version, and not actually the people lost.

But yeaaah that’s just a wild theory. And I’ve been in my cups tonight…

[Vyrerus]

As long as we are talking wild and crazy, some thoughts:

Wild Theory #1: Venat replaced Elidabus; Hydaeyln IS Zodiark, or rather a “reformatted” version.

It took a LOT of aether to create Zodiark and supposedly a smaller amount to create Hydaelyn…
Lahabrea rants that Hydaelyn is a parasite that needs to be removed.
(“Know you the root of this corruption? Hydaelyn! Like a parasite, she must be burned out if the planet is to recover. And naught but the return of the one true god will ensure complete excision.”)
Elidabus was removed from Zodiark, no longer acting as it’s heart.

Wild Theory #2: The Elidabus we killed was not actually Elidabus. Furthermore, I believe the Ancients can’t bring people back was their original intention.
In the same way the Bahamut Primal and Shiva Primal are not actually Bahamut or Shiva, Elidabus as we know him is just a summoned primal; a shade based on what the convocation believed “Elidabus” to be.
I believe anyone they would have brought back would have simply been an idealized shade-version, and not actually the people lost.

But yeaaah that’s just a wild theory. And I’ve been in my cups tonight…

I'm at work, and the post is several hours old, but... *clinks coffee cup to your booze cup* Próst!

I like both of these ideas, as they've flitted through my head as well. Honestly I think my brain is just spun up with excitement that just starts pouring out this sort of stuff because it wants Endwalkies now. Plus, I like guessing at what comes next.

[Iscah]

I shouldn't need to tell you the reputation of JRPGs and killing the seemingly benevolent god at the end.

This is exactly why I don't want Hydaelyn to turn out evil. We've done that plot over and over.

It's far more interesting to do something else with the idea for once.

she forcibly sundered the entire world against the will of the majority of the Ancients. In particular with that last one, it shows a willingness to disregard people's lives for the sake of her mission.

We have no information about her intentions at this point. It could be deliberate or it could be a horrendous accident that happened when she was trying to sunder Zodiark alone but he was too intertwined with the world itself.

lShe compelled Ardbert to stay his blade when he attempted to attack Minfilia. If you would say that wasn't due to tempering, I would say her power to do that would be extremely inconsistent with her stated status of being too weak to lift a finger towards anything.

If we were out in the physical world in that scene and Minfilia was still just a human, then her inability to stop an axe with her bare hands would not be in question.

But at that point, there are other factors in play. We are in the aetherial sea and Minfilia is channeling the power of a powerful aetherial being. And from memory she halts the axe mid-swing – acting on the object directly rather than the mind of the wielder.

5.3+?: Zenos wants to play Planetary Rock'em Sock'em Robots, and he's called dibs on the purple one. (I seriously hope they don't do this.)

This made me laugh out loud.