[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Xilurm]

Which, of course, explains why he reaches out when he sees Azem's shade during the WoL fight. Because he DOES recognize Azem as a member of the Convocation whom he respected to the utmost at that very moment. He couldn't recognize our sundered soul, because we are not whole, and he did not interact with Azem often - Only in passing. But when Azem's power was used to bring us back from the rift between worlds, in that moment did Elidibus finally recognize Azem.

That's not Azem, that's Emet-Selch. You know that because of his signature wave.

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I thought Graha'tia was Hythlodaeus?

We don't know who Hythlodaeus is, everything is a theory at this point.

[Katchii]

5.5 and 6.0 MSQ speculation

Spoiler: 

I've been thinking. I wonder if Fandaniel will be saved and convinced to join the Scions.

Thus far, it's been pretty sad that literally not one single Ascian has been saved thus far.

• Lahabrea: his grief drove him to become detached and insane, permakilled by Thordan.

• Nabriales: was permakilled by the Scions.

• Igeyorhm: permakilled by the WoL.

• Emmerololth: permakilled by Sharlayans.

• Emet-Selch: was a best friend of Azem, went mad with grief. Permakilled by the WoL and Scions.

• Elidibus: was a student of Azem, idolized him, and then was permakilled by the WoL, who he did not recgonize as his idol.

• Mitron: Died.

(technically Lohgrif is a sundered soul of a Convocation member who has survived, but it's not like she is burdened with traumatic memories of the final days and the loss of their home like the other uplifted and unsundered Ascians are, so she doesn't really count)

It's also sad how Alphinaud tried to convince Emet-Selch to join the Scions, only for Emet-Selch to reject it, too caught up in his self-pity and resentment to try to reach out for happiness.

I'm guessing Fandaniel is going to be revealed to have gone mad with grief as well, and can't bear the pain anymore, and doesn't want to reincarnate. But rather than just impaling himself onto the Crystal Tower, perhaps he somewhat resentful and wants to spite the rest of the world. The key thing is... Fandaniel hasn't actually killed anyone yet. The most he's done is torch a garden, which was mean but not super evil*. So maybe he'll be saved.

It'd just be really sad if none of the people who remember the Final Days survive, leaving the WoL has the sole living survivor of the Convocation and only knowing part of their story. Guess it'd feel like a really bitter message; "if you remember your home being destroyed, you'll be overcome with so much grief, you will become a genocidal maniac with no hope of being able to move on and find happiness again, and you will have to be killed." Oh, and you'll be forgotten too, because despite the WoL promising Emet that he would try to preserve the memory of their existence so far the WoL has... pretty much told people jack all, not even like writing a book to be put in a library or something.

There is also the "Zenos is Hythlodaeus" theory, which might be true, but Zenos is a mass murderer and there is no way the WoL/Scions would extend a hand to him. He's going to go.

I'll be fine if Fandaniel just remains the joker. I just think that this is going to be the last time we get an opportunity to save/redeem an Ascian and we've never done it before.

I think you're forgetting one pretty crucial piece for why the Ascians will likely never join us, even if they wanted to: They're tempered thralls of Zodiark, diametrically opposed to us and the Scions who are servants of Hydaelyn.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think you're forgetting one pretty crucial piece for why the Ascians will likely never join us, even if they wanted to: They're tempered thralls of Zodiark, diametrically opposed to us and the Scions who are servants of Hydaelyn.

Not sure about that one.

Gaia doesn't seem to be Tempered. I doubt that the effects of tempering persist after a soul is sundered. Plus we now have a cure for that anyway.

[KrayZ33]

... What? That's not even relatively true. That was Azem. His crystal is what brought him here. Emet-Selch is entirely obliterated at that point in the story, blasted away out of oblivion, from his unsundered self, leaving no sundered parts left to help us. Azem is not so - That's Azem who saved us.

I'm 99,999% sure it's Emet. It would be a stretch to believe something else.

[KrayZ33]

Then you're 99.999% wrong? I'm not sure what to say to that.

Emet-Selch does not have a sundered soul. He said so himself. When we killed him, he was destroyed, as Lahabrea was before him.

There is absolutely no reason to believe he left a crystal behind with a fragment of soul that would exist PURELY to free us from the rift between worlds. That makes absolutely no sense.

Azem was a known traveller of the world even pre-sundering, AND we know he has a fractured soul. It makes sense that his crystal would allow us to traverse the rift even presuming his crystal DIDN'T have a fragment of soul within it - And then it turns out it did, suggesting the soul within held some power over travel or the rift. Which further suggests Azem, and not Emet-Selch.

Meanwhile, we have nothing tying the shade to Emet, other than a wave that... doesn't look like Emet's wave... so...

It's far more likely that you are wrong though, first of all, Emet is confirmed to be in the lifestream and not "dead-dead" and even more importantly, he does *his* signature move. The only character in this game who does *that* specific move and on top of that, the Ancients are clothed in this manner to look like they are all the same... and you choose to ignore one of the very few visual clues we are given? Just why? Saying it doesn't look like it when it actually does (like 100% and not even remotely different, rofl?) is weird too.
And additionally, he wears a white mask. Not the black one Azem is wearing in one of the very few cutscenes where his character is being hinted at and shown.

On top of on top of on top of that all, Emet is a dear friend of Azem, and Azems power is to summon friends when in dire need, not sure why you choose to ignore all of that.

[Cattleya]

Then you're 99.999% wrong? I'm not sure what to say to that.

Emet-Selch does not have a sundered soul. He said so himself. When we killed him, he was destroyed, as Lahabrea was before him.

There is absolutely no reason to believe he left a crystal behind with a fragment of soul that would exist PURELY to free us from the rift between worlds. That makes absolutely no sense.

Azem was a known traveller of the world even pre-sundering, AND we know he has a fractured soul. It makes sense that his crystal would allow us to traverse the rift even presuming his crystal DIDN'T have a fragment of soul within it - And then it turns out it did, suggesting the soul within held some power over travel or the rift. Which further suggests Azem, and not Emet-Selch.

Meanwhile, we have nothing tying the shade to Emet, other than a wave that... doesn't look like Emet's wave... so...

It's literally the same finger-snap and handwave Emet-Selch does, not to mention the crystal you're using was one of the crystals you got in the city that Emet-Selch (re)created. I'm not gonna say it's 100% definitively Emet-Selch, but evidence points towards him a lot more than it does towards Azem

[KrayZ33]

You misunderstand - Being in the lifestream IS dead-dead.

All living things return to the lifestream upon death. I see no reason we'd believe the Ascians to be any different.

No. Y'shtola and Thancred both were in the lifestream too. And it is said that Hades can reappear out of the lifestream on a whim, if he so wishes and it was actually shown to us that he can do so and that he has immense control over it.

Emet doesn't have a signature move. A signature move would suggest something they do often, if not all the time. Emet MAYBE waved a singular time in his entire time in game.

If we ignore the other 50 times he did it or so.

Azem is an ancient, and looks exactly like every other ancient, as expected.

Yes and no, we've seen him with a blackish mask.
And as I mentioned it makes it even clearer that it's Emet because the gestures are the only point of identification we have.

And the Convocation is known to wear Red masks, and yet this Amaurotian doesn't wear a Red mask - They wear a white one. So how does that make it Emet-Selch more than Azem

Ascian (= tempered Ancients) wear red masks, Ancients wear white/black ones. And since Azem is also a member of the Convocation, he'd have a red mask too if you are correct, so what is it? I'd say it's likely that we are looking at a version of Emech here before they became Members of the Convocation

You'd first have to explain how Emet-Selch became our friend. He was certainly never mine.


I could argue I consider my past self, who has done nothing but fight for the same cause as me, a potential friend. But Emet-Selch? There's no arguing that Emet-Selch was our friend.

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How you personal see him doesn't matter, Azem was a friend to all the Ancients of the Convocation of Fourteen (at least). Azem was both a friend to Emet and Hythlodaeus, you were even told so by both of them as far as I remember. What I know for sure is that Hythlodaeus told us that Emet probably saw us (the WoL) as an old friend

[Xilurm]

... What? That's not even relatively true. That was Azem. His crystal is what brought him here. Emet-Selch is entirely obliterated at that point in the story, blasted away out of oblivion, from his unsundered self, leaving no sundered parts left to help us. Azem is not so - That's Azem who saved us.

Then you're 99.999% wrong? I'm not sure what to say to that.

Emet-Selch does not have a sundered soul. He said so himself. When we killed him, he was destroyed, as Lahabrea was before him.

There is absolutely no reason to believe he left a crystal behind with a fragment of soul that would exist PURELY to free us from the rift between worlds. That makes absolutely no sense.

Azem was a known traveller of the world even pre-sundering, AND we know he has a fractured soul. It makes sense that his crystal would allow us to traverse the rift even presuming his crystal DIDN'T have a fragment of soul within it - And then it turns out it did, suggesting the soul within held some power over travel or the rift. Which further suggests Azem, and not Emet-Selch.

Meanwhile, we have nothing tying the shade to Emet, other than a wave that... doesn't look like Emet's wave... so...

You misunderstand - Being in the lifestream IS dead-dead.

All living things return to the lifestream upon death. I see no reason we'd believe the Ascians to be any different.



Emet doesn't have a signature move. A signature move would suggest something they do often, if not all the time. Emet MAYBE waved a singular time in his entire time in game.



Azem is an ancient, and looks exactly like every other ancient, as expected.



And the Convocation is known to wear Red masks, and yet this Amaurotian doesn't wear a Red mask - They wear a white one. So how does that make it Emet-Selch more than Azem?

This, to me, suggests that regardless of who it was, they renounced their membership to the Convocation, or perhaps didn't want to be recognized at all. I could see the latter be an explanation for Emet, but the former still makes more sense as Azem, seeing as Emet-Selch stuck with the Convocation till his dying breath.

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You'd first have to explain how Emet-Selch became our friend. He was certainly never mine.

I could argue I consider my past self, who has done nothing but fight for the same cause as me, a potential friend. But Emet-Selch? There's no arguing that Emet-Selch was our friend.

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You got the crystal from a shade that Emet had no control over, though, and didn't realize he had no control over.

He most certainly didn't tell Hythlodaeus to give you the crystal, because Hythlodaeus didn't believe Emet knew he was a sentient being. Hythlodaeus wouldn't believe that if Emet had given him a direct order to speak with and give you the crystal after his death. So it wasn't some plan of Emet Selch to give you a soul crystal just in case you end up in the rift - It was coincidence.

And it could be equally coincidence that Hythlodaeus happened upon the crystal somewhere in the Tempest. Yes, it'd be a bad explanation, but so far we don't have ANY explanation as to how Hythlodaeus got the crystal in the first place since Emet never saw him as sentient.

My guess is along the line of: Emet had the crystal the whole time, but had no way to use it. It's not his station, and is tied to Azem's sundered soul. Hence why WE could use it - We ARE part of Azem's sundered soul. With Emet's death, Hythlodaeus has all the time in the world to explore all of the Amaurot that Emet built in the Tempest - Giving him the chance to find the crystal and deliver it to us.

But that brings up the response I sent before: Why would Azem's crystal, which summons friends in dire need, summon Emet Selch to us? Emet Selch was not our friend - At the VERY best case, we could call him a rival, but that's a stretch considering he was fully ready to let us die.

At the very least we could pretend we consider Azem our friend since he's technically just us, from the past - but Emet Selch? There's no arguing that Emet Selch is our friend, and since WE used the crystal and it summoned OUR friends to us, we have to presume the people summoned are OUR FRIENDS. (And even if we don't consider Azem our friend, we could say it's a residual effect of using the crystal that Azem himself appears. Who knows? But that explanation would not work for Emet Selch, who's crystal it wasn't.)

Fleugen, please. Literally everyone in the FFXIV community knows it's Emet. Go back and look at his signature wave, it's him there's no doubt about it.

Secondly? You do realize Azem is "us" right? So we can't summon ourselves when we're already split into 14, more than 10k years ago.

And third of all, Hythlodaeus himself says that Emet might have thought that he would be sentient enough to realize what's going on. So he definitelly left the crystals with him in the chance that he would give them to us. He didn't just happen to find them randomly.

[Granyala]

Hmm... I start to feel as if I am browsing a Covert Ops report...

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New Yoshida interview is out.

• 5.0 MSQ ending The Azem twist wasn't thought up of until 5.0 was nearly finished being written (we know in prior interviews that they didn't begin writing 5.0 until after 4.0 released, and 5.0 went through a few drafts. The first draft didn't even have Emet)

• 5.3 MSQ They didn't start writing the Elidibus arc until after 5.0 released. They vaguely knew they were going to fight him in 5.3 and that was it.

• The G-Warrior instance was not deliberate, but instead improvised because for 5.3 the battle team were working on the Elidibus fight, so the Werylt questline couldn't get a trial for that patch. No promises we will get to pilot the G-Warrior again (awww. Too bad).

(The impression I'm getting here is that they can make up stuff very quickly)

• Vaguely promises that they're going to try to get more people to do Bozja.

• When they were planning the Eden storyline, they didn't want the final boss to be another remix of a prior FF game. Nor did they want the final antagonist to be obvious. When you did Coils or Alexander, the story culminated in a fight against... Bahamut and Alexander, aka just old FF stuff you've seen before. And the story was predictable in that you knew you were going to fight the titular being at the end. So for Eden they wanted to do an FFXIV original boss, and make it so that the story wasn't predictable. They hade Eden be the first boss so people wouldn't know what happened next after the elements were restored.

• 5.4 MSQ Yoshida suggests that Fandaniel's black towers might not be temporary (perhaps they deactivate after we deal with them, but the dormant towers are still left there in the background?)

• The Feburary 5th announcement will be big. The digital Fanfest in May will go into details (about the next expansion, presumably).

[Xilurm]

Hmm... I start to feel as if I am browsing a Covert Ops report...

Yeah I'm not sure we need all these spoiler tags tbh.

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Nice, now I'm even more hyped about next week.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

5.45 comes Tuesday, February 2nd, bringing the savage difficulty Bozja instance and raises Blue Mage cap to 70.

[confety]

There is literally no other npc in the entire game that uses both emotes than Emet.
Azem was an adventurer, the story says that Azem wandered the world helping its people by "gathered friends and allies from the local area to assist them".
The ancients had the power of creation, so it makes sense that his crystal can use creation magic to bring Emet's soul back for a moment, to assist us.

The game implies that emet left the crystals there as a mechanism to help us if he falls fighting us.

Us summonig his soul with Azem's crystal to defeat Elidibus was Emet's plan B since the beggining.

[Katchii]

Not sure about that one.

Gaia doesn't seem to be Tempered. I doubt that the effects of tempering persist after a soul is sundered. Plus we now have a cure for that anyway.

True, the only ones we know for sure were tempered were the ones actively involved in the summoning of Zodiark. Forgot about that one.

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I don't get what's so "signature" about the wave. It's just a lazy wave. Seriously, you people harp on it like it's impossible for anyone to copy. (Or, more importantly, for him to have copied it from his "dear friend" whom he missed so much.)

The fact that he's literally the only person in the entire game who ever uses it, MANY times.

Being able to emulate it doesn't mean it's NOT his signature move. Signature moves aren't exactly super complicated or impossible to emulate, they're just simple moves and emotes a particular person uses consistently enough for people to recognize who it is.

The fact that the shade uses the signature Emet lazy wave that has only ever been used by Emet, shown many many times, means it's Emet.

[KrayZ33]

Emet Selch was not our ally, and every other ally summoned by Azem was our ally. There's no reason to believe the Crystal would pick from Azem's allies for one summoning, and only ours for every other. But if we presume the Ancient was not summoned, but simply a shade projected by the crystal, that isn't an issue - As it didn't summon that Ancient, it doesn't need to be an ally of ours.

"every other ally"?
What do mean, we summoned *one* ancient, who grabbed us all out of the rift and disappeared after that.

[Xilurm]

I don't get what's so "signature" about the wave. It's just a lazy wave. Seriously, you people harp on it like it's impossible for anyone to copy. (Or, more importantly, for him to have copied it from his "dear friend" whom he missed so much.)

Regardless, it wouldn't be the first time the community was wrong about something before, and I certainly didn't get the impression from in-game that it couldn't possibly be anyone but Emet-Selch like everyone seems to be posting here. Quite the opposite - I got NO impression it could potentially be Emet-Selch.



Good thing what we see isn't Azem then. It's a shade. A shade projected by the crystal which housed his power. (Hence why it didn't teleport away - It faded, like shades do.) Which we know crystals can do, and would perfectly explain how someone who doesn't exist would appear suddenly without warning, without running into the "wait, but we just killed that guy" problem that Emet-Selch would run into.



Hythlodaeus himself tells us he has no idea how we chanced upon the stones before handing us Azem's stone, and then tells us these crystals were created so they could restore those of the Convocation to status should they ever fail in their mission. Hence why it contains Azem's shade, and not Emet-Selch's, as the stone was crafted to restore Azem to power.

If we were holding Emet-Selch's constellation stone, we could say the shade was Emet-Selch. But we weren't.

It's that very conversation that he tells us the stone was crafted by "a dear friend" (Emet-Selch was the obvious presumption) because Azem's stone wasn't supposed to exist, after they sided with Hydaelen and broke from the Convocation.

No, it's Emet. Jesus. Did you actually pay any sort of attention to anything in Shadowbringers? Everyone can't be wrong on something SO OBVIOUS while you're the only one who is right.

The only thing Azem's crystal does is call warriors from other shards to help us. Same way the Crystal Exarch did when we fought Emet. Azem is the shepherd. (hence Azem's symbol being the sun).

Emet always had a deep connection to the Lifestream, even more reason to believe it's him.

[Merie]

G'raha Tia isn't an ancient. He didn't awaken the echo when viewing the starshower at the Crystarium.

I thought everyone was an ancient? (or a shard of one anyway)

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Abstract thought: I think it was a mistake for all the convocation stones to vanish at the end of 5.3 considering they contain all the memories of the Convocation. It seems like the WoL (or Graha or Urianger etc) should have studied all of them and formed a cohesive thesis to compile into a book like how Heavensward ended as the WoL promised Hades that their people would be remembered.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I thought everyone was an ancient? (or a shard of one anyway)

Remember, less than 25% of Amaurotine souls are still in circulation today. 75% of Amaurotine souls were sacrificed to Zodiark and are presumably still trapped as Zodiark's essence, not yet released back to the Lifestream and reincarnating as new beings.

There was also the new life that emerged after Zodiark saved the world. Emet and Elidibus call the Scions "malformed creatures" so presumably the current human races - Hyur, Roegadyn, Elezen, Lalafell, Miq'ote, etc - are the new life. I assume that their souls were created after the Terminus event and their souls did not begin as reincarnations of Ancient Amaurotines (though it is possible for an Ancient Amaurotine soul to reincarnate as the human races). This new life emerged before the Sundering happened, so it is possible that the new life that aren't reincarnations of Amaurotines to still have counterpart shards on other worlds, such as Gerolt and Grenolt (but that might be a non-canon joke). But the 5.1 MSQ seems to imply that this is so, as Beq-Lugg can see the Scion's souls, and says that the WoL's is a little more aetherically dense than the others. If the WoL is 9/14ths of a complete soul, then Beq-Lugg wouldn't say that if the other scions were 1/14ths. So they are 8/14ths, and have fragments of their soul on other shards, I think.

[KrayZ33]

Remember, less than 25% of Amaurotine souls are still in circulation today. 75% of Amaurotine souls were sacrificed to Zodiark and are presumably still trapped as Zodiark's essence, not yet released back to the Lifestream and reincarnating as new beings.

There was also the new life that emerged after Zodiark saved the world. Emet and Elidibus call the Scions "malformed creatures" so presumably the current human races - Hyur, Roegadyn, Elezen, Lalafell, Miq'ote, etc - are the new life. I assume that their souls were created after the Terminus event and their souls did not begin as reincarnations of Ancient Amaurotines (though it is possible for an Ancient Amaurotine soul to reincarnate as the human races). This new life emerged before the Sundering happened, so it is possible that the new life that aren't reincarnations of Amaurotines to still have counterpart shards on other worlds, such as Gerolt and Grenolt (but that might be a non-canon joke). But the 5.1 MSQ seems to imply that this is so, as Beq-Lugg can see the Scion's souls, and says that the WoL's is a little more aetherically dense than the others. If the WoL is 9/14ths of a complete soul, then Beq-Lugg wouldn't say that if the other scions were 1/14ths. So they are 8/14ths, and have fragments of their soul on other shards, I think.

Well... the scions are from the Source, so obviously they are X+N/14.
Everyone else on the First is 1/14 and they are "capped" at 1/14 because after a calamity, the "soul-splitters" travel exclusively to the Source and their parts don't distribute equally among the remaining world-shards.
Didn't Elidibus awaken the Echo in every single inhabitant of the Crystarium after we deleted Hades? The Echo is *proof* that they are Ancients. Or was is just some kind of trick? The whole "everyone is a WoL/WoD"-stuff hower seems to imply the first though... or at least, I'm pretty sure he kinda implied that he awakened the Echo of all the people present.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Well... the scions are from the Source, so obviously they are X+N/14.
Everyone else on the First is 1/14 and they are "capped" at 1/14 because after a calamity, the "soul-splitters" travel exclusively to the Source and their parts don't distribute equally among the remaining world-shards.
Didn't Elidibus awaken the Echo in every single inhabitant of the Crystarium after we deleted Hades? The Echo is *proof* that they are Ancients. Or was is just some kind of trick? The whole "everyone is a WoL/WoD"-stuff hower seems to imply the first though... or at least, I'm pretty sure he kinda implied that he awakened the Echo of all the people present.

No, only a small handful of people awakened the Echo. You also see this at Eulmore in 5.3, where only 2 guys watching on the balcony awakened the Echo.