Theory: We are Azem

[DPZ2]

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)

Just to be clear, the answer was more along the lines of "Yes, Azem was doing something ... secret". The answer went on with something like "Imagine what your Warrior of Light would be doing, and that's probably what Azem was doing". They may never go there in-game. Link to relevant video + interpreted answer is below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd4R5cfhLwA

[Naoki34]

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.

Woaw...

So yes, but not completely, only 2/14 of her/his soul.

And it's still not the same person.

It's like how a person can be different depending on their experience. But it's still not quite the same person.
___
Ps: Is the reincarnation of a person the same person?

Ps':
And it is no longer a theory when Azem systematically has the same gender as our Avatar.

If your character is a man, he will be referred to as He/His.

If your character is a woman, she will be referred to as She/Her.

That's why in the Lodestone devs' stories, you can choose her/his gender.

[Cleretic]

That's why in the Lodestone devs' stories, you can choose her/his gender.

For clarification: only in certain languages. Specifically, German and French (and I can tell from your signature that you're French!). Every other language avoids gendering them, but in German and French they just couldn't construct it in a way that made sense without using some gendered pronouns.

It's still not evidence, the OP's theory is still effectively baseless, but I do find that part neat from a linguistic perspective.

[Enkidoh]

During the Elpis and Pandaemonium quests Azem is always referred to by the same gender pronouns as your character, but this is more clearer if you're playing a female character.

Additionally, unless you're playing as a lalafell, hrothgar or roegadyn (in other words, a more 'human' looking race), you're outright stated as being in "Azem's spitting image" (paraphrasing none other than Emet) - of course viera and miq'ote's animal ears are convienently ignored in that regard.

So it's pretty clear that Azem's canon appearence is truly meant to resemble your character, but naturally behind the scenes during development this means the 'true' default appearence of them would be a male midlander hyur (to resemble 'Derplander'/Ardbert) however.

Woaw...

So yes, but not completely, only 2/14 of her/his soul.

And it's still not the same person.

It's like how a person can be different depending on their experience. But it's still not quite the same person.
___
Ps: Is the reincarnation of a person the same person?

The process of reincarnation in the Lifestream ensures that when a soul is reborn their memories of their previous life are meant to be lost, but, some fragments can still linger, and we saw this with none other than Fandaniel - his last mortal form before his 'ascension' as the Ascian Fandaniel was the Allagan scientist Amon who, as the reincarnation of Hermes, inadvertently created a snake familiar with the same name as one Hermes did pre Sundering, without even knowing it (although he probably realized this belatedly after Emet raised him back to his office as an Ascian in the dying days of the Allag and thus restored his memories - arguably this is why Fandaniel ended up so unhinged).

After Fandaniel destroys himself and Zodiark his soul returns to the Lifestream, but it resets his very personality back to Amon (and he gleefully admits "of all the faces (he's), worn, this is his favourite!" just before fighting him as a spirit at the end of the Aitiascope), showing that a soul seems to accumulate memories with each reincarnation, and that it can affect the next incarnation in ways not known.

And on that particular point, is Azem's sense of altruism and wanderlust very much influenced the WoL's motives and drive even now, and even Emet basically tells the WoL to be more like his old friend and continue to explore the world, study other cultures and help people with their problems.... ironically pretty much what an adventurer does anyway.

[Naoki34]

For clarification: only in certain languages. Specifically, German and French (and I can tell from your signature that you're French!). Every other language avoids gendering them, but in German and French they just couldn't construct it in a way that made sense without using some gendered pronouns.

It's still not evidence, the OP's theory is still effectively baseless, but I do find that part neat from a linguistic perspective.

I'm no longer up to date, I'm at 5350 and it's still useless the recommendations.

How? You mean cultural differences related to a language and its way of speaking? Yes.

[Naoki34]

During the Elpis and Pandaemonium quests Azem is always referred to by the same gender pronouns as your character, but this is more clearer if you're playing a female character.

Additionally, unless you're playing as a lalafell, hrothgar or roegadyn (in other words, a more 'human' looking race), you're outright stated as being in "Azem's spitting image" (paraphrasing none other than Emet) - of course viera and miq'ote's animal ears are convienently ignored in that regard.

So it's pretty clear that Azem's canon appearence is truly meant to resemble your character, but naturally behind the scenes during development this means the 'true' default appearence of them would be a male midlander hyur (to resemble 'Derplander'/Ardbert) however.



The process of reincarnation in the Lifestream ensures that when a soul is reborn their memories of their previous life are meant to be lost, but, some fragments can still linger, and we saw this with none other than Fandaniel - his last mortal form before his 'ascension' as the Ascian Fandaniel was the Allagan scientist Amon who, as the reincarnation of Hermes, inadvertently created a snake familiar with the same name as one Hermes did pre Sundering, without even knowing it (although he probably realized this belatedly after Emet raised him back to his office as an Ascian in the dying days of the Allag and thus restored his memories - arguably this is why Fandaniel ended up so unhinged).

After Fandaniel destroys himself and Zodiark his soul returns to the Lifestream, but it resets his very personality back to Amon (and he gleefully admits "of all the faces (he's), worn, this is his favourite!" just before fighting him as a spirit at the end of the Aitiascope), showing that a soul seems to accumulate memories with each reincarnation, and that it can affect the next incarnation in ways not known.

And on that particular point, is Azem's sense of altruism and wanderlust very much influenced the WoL's motives and drive even now, and even Emet basically tells the WoL to be more like his old friend and continue to explore the world, study other cultures and help people with their problems.... ironically pretty much what an adventurer does anyway.

It's still sad to be reincarnated as a potato for a human from the old world.
It's like I'm getting as big as my toe.

[Cleretic]

I'm no longer up to date, I'm at 5350 and it's still useless the recommendations.

How? You mean cultural differences related to a language and its way of speaking? Yes.

Basically, yeah. It's mostly related to gendered pronouns; English was able to construct the Emet-Elidibus conversation without giving Azem a defined gender, and Japanese pronouns are so non-gendered that you actually have to go out of your way to gender someone (which famously caused problems with Nael Darnus), which would sound super weird. But German and French are such heavily gendered languages that it wasn't possible to construct the sentences about Azem without giving them a gender--so, they introduced the WoL gender switcher for those languages, but not the others. I believe Spanish and Italian would've had the same problem if there was official localization into those languages.

This isn't the only time it's come up; the Shadowbringers all-roles quest has Cylva gender Mitron only in the French version of the scene, and the Lodestone story from Omega's point of view only genders them in (I think) German. Both times going for gendering them as female, which starts interesting conversations with both!

[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.

[Kesey]

And as I think on this more, Azem could just appear in the typical Ancient robes and mask for everyone really making the appearance and race point, well pointless.

[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