So... Is Lahabrea REALLY dead-dead?

[atheistcanuck]

my theory is that we will die temporarily, do...something important within the Lifestream, and then get boosted back out by Emet-Selch.

[Cleretic]

Except we know that there is also rebirth after entering the lifestream. It's the same soul, lacking memories but those can be restored.

Minor reminder: Those probably can't be restored anymore. At least, not without immense difficulty. We trashed the soul crystals by throwing them into the First's Crystal Tower with Elidibus; whether that's salvageable or not is still an open question, but it's an open question that hasn't been asked in-universe, which leads me to assume we probably aren't meant to be asking it ourselves.

That leaves restoring it in the way Mitron did with Loghrif, but that seems considerably slower, as well as much more prone to interference by someone like the WoL. (And also much more painful for the target, but I don't think the Ascians care.)

EDIT: And it might also be worth noting: if we can trust the Eden questline, it takes roughly 80-something years for a soul to be reincarnated, without factoring in aging. So realistically, even if, say, Pashtarot wants to uplift Nabriales again, they're gonna be waiting a while.

[Veloran]

EDIT: And it might also be worth noting: if we can trust the Eden questline, it takes roughly 80-something years for a soul to be reincarnated, without factoring in aging. So realistically, even if, say, Pashtarot wants to uplift Nabriales again, they're gonna be waiting a while.

Gaia could have reincarnated multiple times in that period. Assuming that Ryne is a shard of Minfilia (as it is heavily implied), she reincarnated many times in that same span.

[Layte_Aeon]

Minfillia never reincarnated though. She possessed others, much like the Ascians do, until she eventually allowed herself to be subsumed into Ryne. Gaia however was dispersed into the lifestream to reincarnate naturally. Besides if Gaia did reincarnate other times it seems strange for Mitron to not mention so, given that he can communicate with her on some minor level, even while stuck as Eden.

[Veloran]

Minfillia never reincarnated though. She possessed others, much like the Ascians do, until she eventually allowed herself to be subsumed into Ryne. Gaia however was dispersed into the lifestream to reincarnate naturally. Besides if Gaia did reincarnate other times it seems strange for Mitron to not mention so, given that he can communicate with her on some minor level, even while stuck as Eden.

Minfilia, no. "The Minfilias", aka Ryne, seemingly so. It appears as though Minfilia only ever possessed the shard of herself as she was reborn, hence the girls being found as children and growing up as Minfilia. And then when she was "subsumed into Ryne", that was a rejoining, we can hardly consider it any other sort of mechanism.

As for Gaia, we neither know the way in which that was possible for Mitron nor if he even did. A lot changes on the First in the 5.0 storyline and we only interact with Mitron so much, him not mentioning something isn't evidence either way.

[WhiteArchmage]

I don't think "the Minfilias" were reincarnations, either. She just hopped to the next girl that was to be born. And when Minfilia gave her remaining powers to Ryne I don't think it was even implied to be a rejoining, either. If anything it was Minfilia entrusting whatever made her the "Oracle of Light", her connection to the Light, and dispersing her own aether and finally allowing herself to die properly. She mentions that the other option would be to remove Ryne's Ego and full on body-snatching her, which wouldn't be anything close to a rejoining.

[Veloran]

I don't think "the Minfilias" were reincarnations, either. She just hopped to the next girl that was to be born. And when Minfilia gave her remaining powers to Ryne I don't think it was even implied to be a rejoining, either. If anything it was Minfilia entrusting whatever made her the "Oracle of Light", her connection to the Light, and dispersing her own aether and finally allowing herself to die properly. She mentions that the other option would be to remove Ryne's Ego and full on body-snatching her, which wouldn't be anything close to a rejoining.

I mean Emet-Selch literally describes Ryne as a reincarnation and characterizes their conundrum as one needing to consume the other.

[Rosenstrauch]

Given that G'raha declares the WoL rejoining with Ardbert was impossible—while not so much as mentioning Minfilia or Ryne—I'm inclined to believe that they did not rejoin. Rather, that it's as Emet-Selch said: Ryne "consumed" Minfilia. Their relationship may be more akin to Hraesvelgr and Shiva, or Diabolos and Scathach, than the WoL and Ardbert's or Lohgrif and Gaia's.

[Veloran]

Given that G'raha declares the WoL rejoining with Ardbert was impossible—while not so much as mentioning Minfilia or Ryne—I'm inclined to believe that they did not rejoin. Rather, that it's as Emet-Selch said: Ryne "consumed" Minfilia. Their relationship may be more akin to Hraesvelgr and Shiva, or Diabolos and Scathach, than the WoL and Ardbert's or Lohgrif and Gaia's.

Clearly G'raha doesn't know everything, since it happened. Also Emet additionally says that Ryne and Minfilia must "become one, body and soul". In conjunction with calling her a reincarnation this seems quite clearcut as a rejoining.

I think the comment about "one consuming the other" was just a glib and insulting way of outlining the idea that only one of them could remain the true personality. The other one would basically die.

[Rosenstrauch]

Clearly G'raha doesn't know everything, since it happened.

This is irrelevant to the point I was making: That G'raha sees Minfilia and Ryne's shenanigans as fundamentally different from the WoL and Ardbert's.

In conjunction with calling her a reincarnation this seems quite clearcut as a rejoining.

This is a bit hard to unpack, but I interpreted Emet-Selch's words as follows:

He thought Ryne was a reincarnation of the Oracle of Light. He is surprised at how poorly she's performed under that metric. What he's just learned about her needing to awaken the true Oracle made him reexamine her, and he discovered that Minfilia's soul is actually laying dormant inside of Ryne, rather than being Ryne's soul.

In other words: He was mistaken about Ryne being a reincarnation.

As for being a rejoining, like I said... G'raha says nothing about it. He was there for Emet-Selch's breakdown of the matter. He's seen the results of Ryne's alleged rejoining. He's also seen the results of our rejoining with Ardbert. And his commentary on that matter is "well that should have been impossible". Not "I can't believe that happened twice". To me, that says he views Ryne's situation and ours as fundamentally different.

There's also the little matter of Ryne explicitly having never heard Hydaelyn's voice, despite being present for every single star shower we've witnessed on the First. This shouldn't be the case if she were Minfilia's reincarnation or a shard of the same soul, since Minfilia explicitly had the Echo.