Theory: We are Azem

[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.

[Iscah]

HOWEVER, you may find some clues about how his mask used to look like:

This has always felt like such a stretch. Why should Tataru have any idea what Azem's mask looked like, or that we should wear it? And the lines drawn over the spell circle seem only weakly connected to the pattern that is actually there, though it's harder to tell when they didn't provide an unaltered version to actually see what's there.

[RyuDragnier]

This has always felt like such a stretch. Why should Tataru have any idea what Azem's mask looked like, or that we should wear it? And the lines drawn over the spell circle seem only weakly connected to the pattern that is actually there, though it's harder to tell when they didn't provide an unaltered version to actually see what's there.

Because Tataru is Altima, the patron of the arts. /headcanon