But are we actually to be considered 9/14 aether-wise?

[Eisi]

Hey guys!

Who hasn't heard it before - after rejoining with Ardbert the WoL is now a whopping eight times rejoined, making them a united 9 out of 14 shards and thus simply more powerful and aetherically dense than your average Source-dweller.

But is that actually technically true? You might say what a silly question that is, but hear me out:

When the Light we absorbed from the Lightwardens on the First began to fracture our soul it almost killed us. Ryne managed to buy us some time, but without the merger with Ardy Ardbert, we would have been overcome by Light.

After the battle with Emet-Selch is over we get two pieces of information:

-we spent the Light that we had absorbed to overcome the Ascian's Darkness.
-our soul has been restored.

The explanation we usually hear is that because our soul has been eight times rejoined we were powerful enough to expel the light and heal our soul - we are technically 9/14.

However, is there any reason not to assume that the light didn't actually destroy our soul to the degree that the merger with Ardy merely restored it to it's full 8/14 power? So that while we are on the one hand technically eight times rejoined we are on the other not at all at the aetheric density level of a person who would be eight times rejoined in the wake of a calamity but instead at the same level we used to be before the Light fractured our soul?

I wanna hear your opinions on this peepz! If you have conclusive evidence especially.

[JepMZ]

Since Light is just stasis polarity of the six elements, I don't think our soul would be destroyed, just corrupted to stillness.. Ardbert increasing our density would help dilute the stasis charge

[Eisi]

Since Light is just stasis polarity of the six elements, I don't think our soul would be destroyed, just corrupted to stillness.. Ardbert increasing our density would help dilute the stasis charge

Good argument! Didn't they literally say that our soul had begun to fracture under Light's assault though? Like the fracture that occurs with physical stasis like freezing as well, where material becomes so still that it easily breaks.

Check out what happens to this apple for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGf5Oar3H5I&t=44s

[Rannie]

Beq Lugg actually stated in the game itself that the WoL has the densest soul out of the scions. Its after they get them from the castle in 5.1

The quest is A Welcome Guest .

Also in one of the Live letter Q&As it was confirmed that everyone on the Source has their soul density increase when the Calamity happened.

[Eisi]

Beq Lugg actually stated in the game itself that the WoL has the densest soul out of the scions. Its after they get them from the castle in 5.1

The quest is A Welcome Guest .

Uwauwa, that confirms it then!

Do u have the exact quote mayhaps? :3 So I can spread it around.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Given there are people on the First like Ran'jit who can kick our teeth in at 1/14th, I don't think it matters. And I'm pretty sure we're gonna run into plenty of people in Tural who can also kick our teeth in even though they'll only be at 8/14ths. And the fact that 75% of the Ancient population is re-entering the lifestream and it won't impact our world because their species is gone, it's pretty clear soul density isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.

Good argument! Didn't they literally say that our soul had begun to fracture under Light's assault though? Like the fracture that occurs with physical stasis like freezing as well, where material becomes so still that it easily breaks.

Check out what happens to this apple for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGf5Oar3H5I&t=44s

If you play the fae storyline you discover

Tatiana has been reincarnated, so her soul wasn't destroyed by becoming a light warden, so there is no reason to believe ours would be either.

[RavLandslide]

And the fact that 75% of the Ancient population is re-entering the lifestream and it won't impact our world because their species is gone, it's pretty clear soul density isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.[/HB]

Not that it disproves your argument, but do remember that those Ancients were also sundered together with Zodiark. So there's moreso a bigger pool of souls to pick from than other souls being rejoined.

[Cleretic]

Not that it disproves your argument, but do remember that those Ancients were also sundered together with Zodiark. So there's moreso a bigger pool of souls to pick from than other souls being rejoined.

I still get the idea that the souls in Zodiark were actually fully intact, and just separated. Real Hythlodaeus seemed the same all three times we met him, after all. Those full Ancient souls--whether or not there's two or two billion--are basically a problem for outside of the game's scope, since it'll take by my estimation a good eighty years for them to get recycled (using Gaia as a sample-size-of-one example).

As for us, I've seen no evidence that us having more of a rejoined soul matters at all. If more soul equaled more better then Shadowbringers would've been an entire expansion of the experience of farming for monster mats in a low-level zone. Yeah, our soul is bigger, but it's not giving us a lot of benefit.

[RavLandslide]

I still get the idea that the souls in Zodiark were actually fully intact, and just separated. Real Hythlodaeus seemed the same all three times we met him, after all.

That's definitely something to consider, another thing that supports this is HOW Zodiark looks when we face him. He (supposedly) isn't smaller, he is physically missing some of his parts.
It just seems weird to me that Venat/Hydaelyn would choose to sunder him that way, seeing how she seemed to have control over it. But I mean who knows, I don't work for Squeenix.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Not that it disproves your argument, but do remember that those Ancients were also sundered together with Zodiark. So there's moreso a bigger pool of souls to pick from than other souls being rejoined.

I assumed that too, but it seems the souls were divided among the shards rather than the individual Ancient souls being sundered or that would have been addressed when asked about the Ancient souls entering the lifestream.