Dynamis - Limit Breaks

[Cleretic]

In the battle against the Endsinger (Final Day), she straight up calls your use of the LB3 dynamis. I'm not sure why people are acting like that's meaningless other than being intentionally obtuse. If anything, it's even clearer in Japanese, where the line is "This is dynamis." Debate over. Period. The "entirety" of the evidence is simple the most irrevocable, clear-cut evidence possible that it is dynamis.

No it's not! I literally translated the line earlier this thread! Granted, machine translation is pretty shoddy, but there's definitely more words than 'this is dynamis'. Again, the translated line:

Now is the brilliance of dynamis...!

Without a more elegant translation it's hard to get a proper 'direction' out of the statement, whether she's talking about us, her techniques, or in generality (a lotta dynamis flying around in that fight), but she's not actually saying 'this is dynamis'.

[Jandor]

Given what Ultima Thule is, I could be convinced that literally everything we do there is fueled by dynamis. It's a place that doesn't even exist until given form by the characters emotions.

[kaynide]

Re: Dynamis during Endsinger

If we were going with the rule of cool, yeah, sure, LBs are Dynamis.

But if we're going hard on logic-ing it out, it could be a lot of things.

Remember, the game states that Dynamis is an energy that reacts strongly to emotion, not that it is emotion in of itself.

This means Endsinger could also be referring to:

A) an overwhelming desire to survive which happened while using LB3
B) The Endsinger detecting the Dynamis around us reacting to our emotions and/or the emotions of our companions.

I mean, sure, it's probably going to just go rule of cool because it's easy to write out, but like Cleritic said I find it hard to believe the MCH's satellite laser cannon is somehow created by the power of feelings.

[Dikatis]

Though about EE1, it's mentioned that dynamis is often mistaken for aether in the west. This explains the discrepancy between EE1 and the Endsinger's statement of "Dynamis!?"

Alphinaud: "You imply that it is distinct from aether?"

Nidhana: "Foreign scholars often conflate the two, but we see them as separate concepts."

[BaroLlyonesse]

In the battle against the Endsinger (Final Day), she straight up calls your use of the LB3 dynamis. I'm not sure why people are acting like that's meaningless other than being intentionally obtuse. If anything, it's even clearer in Japanese, where the line is "This is dynamis." Debate over. Period. The "entirety" of the evidence is simple the most irrevocable, clear-cut evidence possible that it is dynamis.

Nope. That's the problem. That does absolutely nothing to end the debate; it's what started the debate. There is a multitude of evidence to the contrary, and we don't have the power to retcon established canon because one haf-sentence of one fight seems cool if it is.

The conversation with the Alchemists does provide choices, the fight with Ultima doesn't really say anything, the power of Zenos kind of denies it, the EE says it's wrong, the implications of emotion means they might be, but only if you accept that Limit Breaks are emotional, which they might not be, because they don't show up when they should if they were.

Honestly, claiming ''Dynamis...?" proves anything either way is similar to the way people are claiming Hades took the seat of Azem once because of one line in Ultima where he says "I certainly did."

EDIT: To reiterate, I don't care either theory. My entire point is there needs to be either proof in the story or there needs to be direct comments from the storywriters before people be so absolute.

[CitronV]

I was wondering if it was any more or less clearly stated in other languages. In English I already find that the way she pronounces "Dynamis" alone indicates that she is in fact directly referring the the WoL's ability to withstand her attack.

In French, she goes "That glow !? Dynamis !" after the tank uses their LB3. Also in a very surprised tone, too.

[SeiyaSoiya]

Let's be honest, the devs are pushing very hard on the Dynamis = Power of the heart and friendship = limit break

you can hide it all you want in The Omega Protocol with "Run: ****mi*" but when Hello Distant World and Hello Near World gives you a stack of Dynamis, it's pretty clear what the asterisks word is

Not to mention in the final phase when you cast a limit break 3 it turns the 3 stacks of dynamis into radiant dynamis, then gives you back 3 bars of limit break, and you have to use 8 total limit breaks in the entire phase

[Cleretic]

Let's be honest, the devs are pushing very hard on the Dynamis = Power of the heart and friendship = limit break

you can hide it all you want in The Omega Protocol with "Run: ****mi*" but when Hello Distant World and Hello Near World gives you a stack of Dynamis, it's pretty clear what the asterisks word is

Not to mention in the final phase when you cast a limit break 3 it turns the 3 stacks of dynamis into radiant dynamis, then gives you back 3 bars of limit break, and you have to use 8 total limit breaks in the entire phase

And yet, we have explanations for every single limit break as of Stormblood in the Encyclopedia Eorzea, and very few of them are actually described in a way that suggests we're using dynamis at all. In fact, most of them are described in ways that point to an entirely different confirmed in-universe phenomena: the highly active aether of battlefields that's described in the Monk questline.

I think this easily-debunked assurance of 'all LBs are dynamis because it's cool' isn't just really frustrating when it comes to discussing concrete facts, because it ignores them and introduces multiple plot holes (namely, the Ktisis Trusts and Seat of Sacrifice boss being capable of LBs despite explicitly not being able to manipulate dynamis), it also poisons the well of discussing the other things that legitimately do seem like they could be dynamis, but are less flashy. Manawall's Encyclopedia Eorzea description makes it a prime contender to me, but we're not going to get to that point until people stop ignoring all non-circumstantial evidence to claim that Meteor is, because that sounds cool!

The one thing I'd give is that a couple times, there are LBs that seem to be jacked up with dynamis. Specifically:
1. That one LB in the Endsinger fight, but it's in a space where basically everything is dynamis-powered, so it's not exactly special. (This may debatably mean that all LBs in the Stigma Dreamscape count too if you really want them.)
2. Rhitatyn's post-revamp attack buff, maybe. He might just be really mad.

TOP cannot be admitted into evidence, because it's in-universe what-if fanfiction written by the Wandering Minstrel, a man who has no real credibility on the subject. It's fake even in-universe, it'd be like arguing real-world scientific theory based on an Avengers movie.

[RyuDragnier]

And yet, we have explanations for every single limit break as of Stormblood in the Encyclopedia Eorzea, and very few of them are actually described in a way that suggests we're using dynamis at all. In fact, most of them are described in ways that point to an entirely different confirmed in-universe phenomena: the highly active aether of battlefields that's described in the Monk questline.

Wasn't it mentioned by the devs themselves that the EE are basically written as if they were in the game itself, using information that the scholars who wrote it would have access to? That's mostly just to clarify that the EE can and is modified as need be. As for the aether of battlefields, said battlefields also cause surges in emotions, which also make dynamis a factor. Note that I say factor, because it's not the only thing.

[Lyth]

I'm sure that classical physicists carried the same sorts of objections to quantum mechanics and relativity. 'But according to Newton's Principia...'

Remember that the EE v.1 has Warriors manipulating the aether of their teammates to crystalize it into a wall during Land Waker, bringing the full magical acumen of a single digit INT score to bear. And then there's the Endsinger fight, where Land Waker is one of the four ways that you can mitigate Oblivion/Ultimate Fate and get that 'Dynamis?' line. Could it be aether augmented by dynamis? Perhaps, but as far as we know, large amounts of aether interferes with the manifestation of dynamis. So for the time being, I think it's more likely to be a manifestation of one or the other. In the case of the tanks, at least, I can see how their various limit breaks could be dynamis mediated effects when pushed to the brink.

You do have to evaluate individual effects on a case by case basis and keep an open mind. The alarum at Kitisis generates a magical damping field that suppresses anyone present who is not staff at the facility to a fraction of their ability. It's a plot convenience to explain the gameplay, but could that dampening field unlock a potential dynamis effect? Or perhaps some limit breaks are dynamis and some are aether (Emet does use the voiceline 'Mine is the Aether!' on occasion when activating Skyshard).

When Elidibus unmerged from Zodiark, did he still have the same aetheric constitution of an Amaurotine, or was he functionally closer to a hemitheos? If it's the latter, could it explain the various limit breaks? He's fairly good at reproducing magical techniques that he's observed before without knowing the specifics, as we've seen from his interactions with both Eric and G'raha, so perhaps he's using aetheric methods to attempt to replicate an observed dynamis effect. It's hard to say for definite without more information.

Ultimately, though, I do think you have to treat the EE as if it was written from the perspective of an in-universe entity with human knowledge, rather than as a divine text. And until recently, we were all under the mistaken belief that aether was responsible for all natural phenomena.