/r/ffxivdiscussion: What's Next? Theories and Speculation (DT Edition)

[Willemdarke]

The reason it felt dissatisfying to me was because she basically stopped being her own character once the Word of the Mother stuff happened.

I agree that was a weird choice.
It painted Hydaelyn as some sort of an unfeeling cosmic power that used our characters as chest pieces. Now that we've met her it seems even weirder, as in EW she was presented as deeply sympathetic, benevolent and self-sacrificing.

I don't mind what happened or how that story went, just how it was presented and the dialogue used. Yeah I think Minfilia should have remained herself and had the autonomy to sacrifice herself.

[Jeeqbit]

It painted Hydaelyn as some sort of an unfeeling cosmic power that used our characters as chest pieces.

Firstly, aside from having the aetherial strength of an Ascian, she was not actually as strong as, say, Zodiark without having sundered them. And perhaps the spell she had used to sunder everything taxed her when it was undone somehow (this is implied a lot throughout the MSQ, but not entirely clear why it's then fine for her to die). Either way, she was not quite as strong as she presented herself.

She could have used the aether from that mothercrystal, but her "deeply sympathetic, self-sacrificing" behaviour led her to leave that aether alone for the future.

In any case, she was weak enough from defending the WoL from Ultima that she needed more aether and Minfilia provided it. In order to release Minfilia, Urianger thought of a way to provide Hydaelyn with a boon of aether of the variety she needs - a complete set of elemental crystals like the ones we collect to form the blessing of light, or that we see in the trial and in the depiction of the elementally sundered shards.

Minfilia should have remained herself and had the autonomy to sacrifice herself.

She did. Hydaelyn needed help and Minfilia sacrificed herself immediately in ARR, since she knew Hydaelyn helped the WoL a lot.

After she was released by Hydaelyn, she was given a choice by Urianger to go to The First. But every single person there knew she would choose to go to The First willingly. So Urianger was a bit treacherous in forcing this choice on her, but it was completely within Minfilia's character to be self-sacrificing for the greater good anyway.

Since going to another shard the way she did requires shedding flesh, that made her like an Ascian but she could have continued living. She decided to sacrifice herself instead for real this time to help Ryne.

So she had this autonomy 3 times and sort of lived through it the first 2.

[Jeeqbit]

I think there's gonna be an Alexander comeback. That thing the Hotgo used to summon Alexander looked kinda like electrope.

Would be interesting if they did that overall, I just really thought it was going to happen in the 7.0 MSQ.

hope they don't completely ditch Wuk Lamat.

I don't think they will ditch her. But she is a city state leader now. We barely interact with those. We will most likely speak to them about as often as we speak with Lord Hien or the Elder Seedseer.

the game has this habit of removing characters from the story, even if they have potential, because the players are super negative about them

I don't think there is any evidence of that.

If you mean to compare her to Lyse like everyone else is, she seemed destined to become the leader of Ala Mhigo from the start. But she was always a fighter; even going back to ARR, her thing was punching people up. She wasn't really much of an actual confident leader or politician. So when she was provided with that chance, there was clearly someone who was confident with an Ala Mhigan background - Raubahn. If you actually go right to the beginning of Stormblood the seeds for this lack of confidence as a leader and politician were intentionally put there from the start.

But since she always was a passionate fighter, it made sense to just go back to overseeing their army at Rhalgr's Reach.

So from my point of view, Lyse was always going to go in this direction. I don't even remember any hate really until streamers started having a go at her long after that story arc finished.

People really hated Alphinaud too, but their view of him changed because the writers didn't kill him off in Heavensward.

I loved Alphinaud in ARR. I did not like what he became after that. I found him extremely relatable in ARR and I liked how he was being "smart" to everyone. Maybe the voice actor just conveyed his character to me better in ARR, I don't know. I liked the story arc for him in Heavensward, but after that I just didn't find his character believable.

Their plan was never to kill him off, ever. They saw Alphinaud and Alisaie as the future and I remember Yoshi-P saying he wanted Alisaie to eventually replace Minfilia (probably due to being a fighter and more relatable), which is most likely why we got that one-on-one conversation with her in Heavensward.

Meanwhile Minfilia's still seen as annoying because she got fridged before she could grow on the players and grow as a character.

I think they intended to kill off the characters they did anyway because they couldn't salvage them and make them interesting. They salvaged Y'shtola by making her blind and see aether which gave her a unique super power and they salvaged Thancred by making him have a unique weakness (inability to use magic) and they salvaged Yda with the mask reveal but I think they just couldn't think of a way to stop certain characters being bland and made them interesting after they died instead (Minfilia, Moenbryda, etc).

[Divinemights]

What if Azem is the true mastermind and WoL will experiencing internal self struggle and split into two?
WoL vs Azem as next arc
This not only makes story more interesting and also solving the power creeping problem

[FuturePastNow]

I definitely think Sphene will play a role in the DT post-patch story, the inclusion of a zoomed-in shot of her regulator crown (which supposedly houses her actual soul) in the post-credits sequence means something.

They're definitely going to do something with that crown. I have my own theory. You know how there were two of Otis- the "real" Otis soul and memories in the robot body, and the one in LM that I would call a "re-creation from memory." We know that the Sphene we interacted with was more like the latter- she was a being constructed from the memories of others. But in the dungeon Alexandria, one of the background NPCs shouts "They've done it! They've preserved the Queen's..." My theory is that the original Sphene's soul and memories were preserved in that crown too (and if they really want to take the story to a dark place, aware and unable to do anything but watch).

[StormChase]

I definitely think Sphene will play a role in the DT post-patch story, the inclusion of a zoomed-in shot of her regulator crown (which supposedly houses her actual soul) in the post-credits sequence means something.

I personally like the theory that she is our shard from the Ninth. Maybe if that's the case we'll have an Ardbert situation where we can see and interact with the real Sphene even though she's long dead, until we finally end up rejoining with her by the end of the patch story.

Long-term I think we're going to follow in Azem's footsteps and find out what they were doing during the Final Days and how the Key is connected to them. Ultima theorists are probably on to something.

My theory's that it's like the Amon clone situation. The Ascians took Sphene's soul so they could awaken it without her memories influencing her. Meanwhile the Endless Sphene was left behind. Maybe the Ascians thought Everkeep would eventually fall like Allag. Or maybe Everkeep was convenient for them somehow (Were they planning to gather up the souls from the Thirteenth?).

[honest_psycho]

I don't care where we are going as long as the current writers are replaced.

[Zelda206]

The next thing? "Speak to Wuk Lamat".

I might tear my hair out, but at least I'm braced for it this time.