Thread: 8.0 speculation

Originally Posted by Pimsan20

Then the question remain is where is this new dungeon located? And how is it related to the great winter? The structure look like it was made by Garlean hands at first glance. Could it be from the ninth shard? Or is it separate city that Garlean traitors made? Honestly it is kinda hard to tell. But if this is from the ninth, we need to ask ourselves how there is snow while the shard has thunderstorms 24/7?

Blunt, but yeah, there is no "great winter" that's been alluded to. The term "Winterers" hasn't been well explained yet, but the term refers to a group that goes to a more hospitable environment for a period while waiting for conditions in their normal range to improve (e.g. birds migrate southward to winter during the cold season a.k.a. winter).

Regarding the Clyteum's location... yeah, we just don't have enough information to make a solid guess right now. While it does appear to use Garlemald's typical concrete brutalist architecture, it doesn't look anything like we've seen out of them before and the lack of their iconic emblem is conspicuous, to say the least. It's easy to assume it's in Ilsabard and is a capital district, but if I remember right (big if, take it with about four grains of salt) Yoshi-P alluded that it may not actually be on the Source. We're just jumping to "obviously Garlemald" because of the architectural resonance and it was the last cold place we visited (other than the peak of Worqor Zormor, however briefly; or Zirgorteh the Open-Armed if you did the Yok Huy Allied Society, both of which use radically different architectural styles). One other thing to consider is that the Garleans are (were) known to contract with Voidsent... perhaps some worked out a way to cross into other worlds? Farfetched to be sure but without more information, it's all I've got because it's just too conspicuous. (Not to mention the name doesn't follow typical Garlean a.k.a. Latin; the best guess I have is that it seems to refer to the water nymph Clytie from Greek mythology).

We can be reasonably sure it's not the Ninth, though. We've been there already and yeah... no. Not unless continents further abroad suffer from different elemental imbalances; given the Ninth seems to be heavily patterned on the world of IX, it stands to reason there's also Outer, Forgotten, and Lost Continents in addition to the Mist Continent we briefly visited. I think that's an implausible explanation, but it's not outside of the realm of possibility.

tl;dr: Not enough information to make an educated guess, other than Ilsabard (Garlemald) somewhere because of the architectural resonance and icy climate.

Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

They don't always show the name of the trial the first time they mention it in a Letter from the Producer LIVE, especially since the Japanese titles of trials are just "[name of boss] showdown".

And incidentally, that's frequently the reason they hide the title for trials; to us 'The Ageless Necropolis' is kinda vague nonsense (albeit one with just enough context clues for us to figure out in that case), but to the Japanese audience it says 'Necron Showdown'*, and yeah, there's no ambiguity there. The only time they hid the name for a duty for our sake was actually Alzadaal's Legacy, and that one they were open about 'if we said what the name was, you'd get excited about the wrong thing'.

(*Well, it's 'Eternal Darkness Showdown', but 'Eternal Darkness' is Necron's Japanese name)

Giving Enuo's name like they did is unusual, but it might be because he's a more unusual trial. Like, perhaps he's not actually his own duty, but is himself a component of the North Horn.

The existence of the freeway, and the above ground rail system implies that there are nearby Garlean cities near the capital.

Won't be surprised if The Clyteum is like 'hey you're in the area, can you help us take this Garlean town back, and help us clear it of monsters.' Which would imply that the info we get about The Key sends us out from Tural in the direction of Ilsabard. The lack of Garlean flag in the Clyteum screenshots is weird though.

Originally Posted by Cleretic

I also think associating the Winterers with winter is, while an understandable mistake to make, undoubtedly a mistake.

I agree with this and have been saying it from the beginning, but...

Originally Posted by Cleretic

in fact given 'winterers' as a term are for things like hummingbirds that specifically aren't around for cold weather, we should just assume no coldness is related to the Winterers in turn.

Originally Posted by Cilia

The term "Winterers" hasn't been well explained yet, but the term refers to a group that goes to a more hospitable environment for a period while waiting for conditions in their normal range to improve (e.g. birds migrate southward to winter during the cold season a.k.a. winter).

This definition keeps getting passed around the fandom and I don't agree with it either.

While it is one potential meaning for the term, it is an incomplete picture and I think it is choosing the wrong implication.

winterer

Any person or animal (but especially a bird) that visits or resides in a specified location during the winter

Verb winter

1. To spend the winter (in a particular place).
Example 1: When they retired, they hoped to winter in Florida.
Example 2: 2022 December 27, “Ukraine war: Five ways conflict could go in 2023”, in BBC News‎[2]:
Those who seek to invade another country anywhere across the great Eurasian steppes are condemned eventually to winter in it.

2. To store something (for instance animals) somewhere over winter to protect it from cold.

overwinter

1. To keep or preserve for the winter.
It is best to overwinter tender plants indoors.

2. To spend the winter (in a particular place).
Insects may overwinter in fallen fruit if it is not removed.

None of these define that the location for spending the winter has to be a warm place, or far away from their usual location, or a pleasant place to be. It can mean bunkering down and surviving in a relatively safe spot within the inhospitable landscape, and it can mean keeping something safe and cared for during that period.

I think it's very likely the Winterers' implied "winter" is metaphorical in this case, but it doesn't have to mean they have fled from elsewhere or planning to flee elsewhere.