Theory: We are Azem

[Eisi]

Yo, my theory is that we will one day travel back in time as completed beings and become Azem.

Evidence: We have the same gender as Azem unlike Ardbert neccessarily who is always male, yet still a soul fragment of Azem's.

That means there is no reason for Azem to have our gender at all, since Ardbert would also share it if it was a requirement for shards to have the same gender as their originals.

Maybe Azem is us from a different timeline in which the Ascians succeeded in merging all the shards, so they traveled back in time and created the timeline we are now in.

[Elissar]

We won't take our original form back. Yoshi P said that we will never see how Azem looked like. We are supposed to assume that he/she looked like our characters.

When an Ascian soul is sundered, they scatter in multiple fragments ("shards"). Gender doens't matter, they made it dynamic to increase our immersion. In our world, Tenzen was one previous reincarnation of our current character. On Ardbert's world, he was our old shard. To recover our form we would need to reunite all of our shards (i guess). FFXIV development time won't last that long lol

[Cleretic]

The Ascians rejoining the shards would by necessity lead to whatever 'Azem' that results not being us by any worthwhile metrics, because them doing so would've taken more than enough time for any playable race, including viera, to die of old age even if we survived any of the Calamities. (Which we wouldn't have, we did die in the Eighth Calamity.)

So at that point it just feels like an extra twist for twists' sake, what does this do if 'an Azem from an aborted far future that isn't literally exactly us' is true that 'Azem is our many-years-before predecessor that also isn't literally exactly us' doesn't?

[Eisi]

We won't take our original form back. Yoshi P said that we will never see how Azem looked like. We are supposed to assume that he/she looked like our characters.

But why would they look like our characters?

When an Ascian soul is sundered, they scatter in multiple fragments ("shards"). Gender doens't matter, they made it dynamic to increase our immersion. In our world, Tenzen was one previous reincarnation of our current character. On Ardbert's world, he was our old shard. To recover our form we would need to reunite all of our shards (i guess). FFXIV development time won't last that long lol

If gender didn't matter, why does Azem share our gender, but not the other shards'?



I like how you didn't disagree with my theory at all, I see what you did there ♥

[Eisi]

(...)what does this do if 'an Azem from an aborted far future that isn't literally exactly us' is true that 'Azem is our many-years-before predecessor that also isn't literally exactly us' doesn't?

Then why didn't they make Azem have their own defined gender, like Ardbert?

Because we are supposed to identify with Azem. Because we are Azem.

[Hurlstone]

Hmmm... whilst I do hope the Azem aspect is still explored, I do not really want time travel to be involved. Lets leave that plot device alone for a while after Endwalker haha.

Because we are supposed to identify with Azem. Because we are Azem.

I think it was done purely for the identify aspect, so they could hammer in to the player that Azem was part of our character. I really like how our Azem is made up of shards with diffrent gender and races. Makes sense with games themes and Azems title as an explorer.

[Cleretic]

Then why didn't they make Azem have their own defined gender, like Ardbert?

Because we are supposed to identify with Azem. Because we are Azem.

Nix your third sentence, because your second sentence is correct.

Consider Ardbert. Even before Shadowbringers, Ardbert's design was already communicating 'this is a version of you' by way of having the same design as ARR Trailer WoL. That's a really solid, metatextual way of communicating that to us, so when they were more explicit with that in Shadowbringers, they actually didn't need to do much extra to sell that he was the direct fragment of our soul; the design nods had already gotten him there.

Azem has to reach the same conclusion in an entirely different context; Azem doesn't appear in person, and either never has their 'this is you'-ness take center-stage or has taken so long to reach that point that at this point we still haven't gotten it. This means they instead have to sell 'this is a version of you' entirely by actions and non-physical descriptions. They manage this by having characters point out physical/aetheric similarities, describing their personality in a way that (hopefully) matches how you read the WoL themselves, and... yeah, matching the pronouns. All this evidence is considerably more subjective than the ones working in Ardbert's favor, so they all have to be as strong as possible. Because if Azem was set in stone to be male, then it's all the more possible for someone playing a female character to just go 'oh that's a new, unrelated character' and ignore all the evidence, thus misreading Azem entirely.

Basically: Azem matches our pronouns because they need to communicate who they are as clearly as possible for the people in the cheap seats.

[Elissar]

But why would they look like our characters?
If gender didn't matter, why does Azem share our gender, but not the other shards'?
I like how you didn't disagree with my theory at all, I see what you did there ♥

I don't disagree with your theory because i thought the same thing for a few days! Last week a dear friend of mine asked the same thing. For some reason, FFXIV writing mess with our heads in the same way lol

1 - Just because the authors want it. This is the easiest answer. Even if Azem appears, he would appear as a shade just like happened in the end of 5.0. HOWEVER, you may find some clues about how his mask used to look like:


2 - Our gender matters because you are the protagonist. Other shards has their own lives, mostly of the time they don't know what is happening, just like Ardbert. An Ascian shard compose your soul but it's not your whole soul, you have your own memories and life. If you see it like DNA and heritage, is the same concept. You are who you are, you are not your parents, however, you share a little of both.

Plus: in Stormblood, an old lady tells you about a prophecy.
https://youtu.be/xF7DP62JYAs?t=11764
So...as you see.. gender belongs to the physical realm. It's irrelevant to the tale.

[RyuDragnier]

There are easy ways to add Azem without showing themselves, and while making them match the player. This includes having them take the form of the player because "I thought the form looked interesting, so I felt I should try it out," and having dialogue options where you choose one, but then Azem is the one saying it, a "we think alike" type deal.

[Kesey]

I'm sure when they get around to whatever Azem is supposed be doing (this was hinted in the live letter Q&A that followed Endwalker that Azem is doing something plot relevant), that we will see them choose a specific form that represents Azem or they will make Azem look like your player character (share gender and race).

Also this latter point is already set up in the lore, as the previous Rising Event had a short story that spoke about Venat and how she chose Azem from among people who weren't from Amaurot that she discovered in her travels. Clearly implying Azem could be any race.