FFXIV Spoiler thread

[ippollite]

If the WoL is a Viera this can definitelly happen during their lifetime. Since Vieras can live up to 300 years.

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Just to clarify, it was a convocation of 14. So it would be the other 13, not 12.

There goes my punchline... its 14, now 13... (random chat bubble)... confirmed by hy...thingy.

ETA: Theres now a 'vacancy'. Hythlodaeus (just rewatched the clip) said something along the lines that...hang on, im gonna re-read it: 'This is the kind of fate i might expect for one such as s/he [pc gender dependent]' (being split by hydaelyn im gonna assume... as a devote of hydaelyn im also gonna assume - since emet told us thats exactly what hydaelyn does/did in the ladder cut scene).

[Xilurm]

Vindication! :P Interview with Yoshi-P, 2021.09.03:

What’s Thancred and Minfilia true feeling for one another? What did Thancred actually say with his silent words?

Q: Things have been really hard for Thancred in SHB, he is constantly worrying about losing his family and the final result is far from great for him. What’s really going on in his mind?

Y: Thancred true feeling toward Minfilia is obviously not seeing her as a sister, but if that’s what Minfilia wanted, then no matter how much it pains him, he will respect it. However, it would be a lie to say Thancred hasn’t thought of the possibility of getting together with her. He constantly trying to reject himself from having these thoughts by always addressing her as "my sister". On the other hand, Minfilia believed that it was her mission and role to bring the light and people to posterity, her personal feelings and her own very life are something that she has to set aside. She thinks if Ryne could follow the journey with WoL and the others under her own will, then Ryne will be able to follow her heart and find her own happiness. That’s why when Ryne give Minfilia her response, she said: “You share that self-same hope as me ... That’s more than what I could have ever asked for, I could leave proud and pleased now”.

As hurt as Thancred is about Manfilia's passing, he knows he gets to have a few more moments with Manfilia before her departure, hence Thancred had little regrets. The same could not be said for F'lhaminn (Manfilia adopted mum). That’s why in my head, Thancred would not spare any details, he will tell F'lhaminn everything about Manfilia and her deed in the First. After his battle with Ranjit, Thancred was lying on the ground and you can see he was expressing all his feelings as Manfilia parted, I was very particular about that scene, I made sure the last scene he was lip-syncing when he made a silent voice with no subtitle. (To allow people to guess what he said)

Q: So, what did Thancred actually say in that scene?

Y: I won’t say it. But I can tell you it is something I will never want to hear from you (the interviewer) saying it (Laugh).

Is this properly translated somewhere?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Is this properly translated somewhere?

First part was translated on reddit.

[ippollite]

I hated thancred. I hated him because he was too distant to minfilia and couldnt once get past his relationship to the source minfilia (and continually judged her as an imperfect minfilia). I expressed this all the way through shadowbringers. I always sided with minfilia. It literally destroyed my trust in thancred.

Rich Campbell on the other hand kept saying 'what a good dad'.

Im not sure what point im making, but its definitely that the idea that our thancred and the first's seventh iteration (or however many it is) of minfilia are anything less than a burden upon one another (and would desire nothing more than to be free of the other), is nuts. This isnt romantic. Its brutal co-dependency.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I found a lot of Ryne's "he hates me!" melodrama to be... not founded in reality. Thancred had bitter feelings but he was never depicted as being a jerk towards Ryne. Felt more like Ryne was a teenager on a moodswing, or overexaggerating to seek attention. Maybe she learned that pouting would cause Urianger to dote on her, give her free stuff and headpats.

[ippollite]

If it helps, i have arrested development. So im siding with the moody teenager against her helicopter parents. Its not a factual reality (nor is anyone elses), its just how i felt about their relationship. I literally didnt get closure until her renaming ceremony, then i got annoyed that she didnt get to choose her own name but was given it like she was a pet. You'll have to just forgive me I hate dadcred. I am getting used to thancred again. Either way, if it was source minfilia pre 2.5, sure, i can see it. But this iteration? God no. Thancred needs to go spend some time on the source and minfilia needs her independence to grow. Maybe then dadcred will see her as a human being and not just an albatross around his neck.

[Katchii]

ShB spoilers/EW speculation. Hydaelyn rant. :P

Spoiler: 

I don't see how Hydaelyn isn't the villain even though I'll be surprised if the writers make her one. I suspect it'll be morally ambiguous at best since many like the idea of Hydaelyn being good and wouldn't be receptive to the WoL being a champion of wrongdoing at the least.

So many are hung up on genocide that I don't see much thought given to what a devastating act the sundering was. While we've yet to be given context as to how many Ancients were against the resummoning of Zodiark beyond "no small number" from the "Ere Our Curtain Falls" short story, even if we generously say 50% I cannot believe that they would have been on board with summoning Hydaelyn had they known the result. It's also why I get frustrated with people saying the Ancients ruined their world. This is solely on the shoulders of Venat and her followers, especially so as Hydaelyn was specifically given the ability to enervate her foes. A minority of Ancients effed it up for all living beings, not just themselves.

The question is also was this a "Minority Report" situation where Hydaelyn is summoned to stop Zodiark before he's even done anything? Because that's also awful. She would've had to have stopped him in the act to be even remotely justified and, even then, I'd strongly disagree. Fact of the matter is, whatever life was going to be sacrificed to him the third time pales in comparison to the life lost in rejoinings and calamaties.

I'm trying not to overthink EW too much, but with the information given in ShB I will be extremely disappointed if Hydaelyn isn't condemned. Given the JRPG penchant of making deities evil I've always been skeptical of her. Emet and Mitron make what happened sound absolutely horrific and I sincerely hope that's shown.

Anyway, the best solution I can think of is figuring out a way when sundered souls die on other shards they're transferred to the Source. This would eventually lead to everyone being whole again without obliterating the other shards and it would take longer than the WoL's lifespan to happen. It also presents the possibility that a civilization similar to the Ancients could be re-created some day. I think that's a good ending for that aspect of the story aside from the unsundered not being around to see it.

You seem to still be glossing over the fact that Zodiark would have continued to required sacrifices to do the job he was created for, it wasn't a one time thing. Hydaelyns only purpose was to stop Zodiark. She succeeded. And, in the long run, the world was saved and life was able to flourish across all 13 shards until the Ascians came meddling in things and started causing calamities. The calamites are not Hydaelyns fault, they're Zodiarks. Blaming Hydaelyn for all the deaths from the calamities would be like blaming the [insert heroic character here] for choosing not to give into the demands of a terrorist and then the terrorist kills someone.

They're BOTH bad. And I think that's set up quite nicely. But between the two of them, only one of them continues to advocate for and actively pursue death and destruction. Shadowbringers did a good job setting up the conflict as not so much a good vs evil, but two sides justified in their own right, but also completely at odds with each other.

And at this point in time, the rejoinings are a MUCH worse thing because every one results in the loss of ALL life on the shard that's destroyed as well as all the loss of life that occurs in the calamity on the Source.

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I found a lot of Ryne's "he hates me!" melodrama to be... not founded in reality. Thancred had bitter feelings but he was never depicted as being a jerk towards Ryne. Felt more like Ryne was a teenager on a moodswing, or overexaggerating to seek attention. Maybe she learned that pouting would cause Urianger to dote on her, give her free stuff and headpats.

A teenager raised essentially in a dungeon trained and then forced to go fight things like a tool, with no proper friends, parents, etc.... has mood swings and has difficulty reading other people's feelings? Especially those, like Thancred, who apparently have difficulty sharing real feelings with people?

Say it isn't so....

Regardless of it's founded in reality or not, this is a hugely overused trope (moody teenager/ emotionally stunted person can't read people and internally decides someone dislikes them and works hard to change that persons perception of them) in every form of media ever, and makes perfect sense in the context of the game.

[Lane]

The translations I copied & pasted from r/ffxiv should be disregarded. The post was deleted and threads have since popped up about someone from the SE English localization team saying that they were wildly inaccurate on Twitter. I don't do Twitter and when I tried to click on the links they wouldn't appear, so I don't know the whole story.

Supposedly Anonymoose has some alternate translations that confirm the brother/sister relationship between Thancred and Minfilia, but sadly nothing about the Emet portion. Apologies for posting something that turned out to be misinformation.

You seem to still be glossing over the fact that Zodiark would have continued to required sacrifices to do the job he was created for, it wasn't a one time thing.

They stopped the Final Days, restored the world, and the last part was bringing back the Ancients who sacrificed themselves to make it happen. While it's possible that they may have sought to re-summon Zodiark again if there were another disaster, I'm left to believe that the third time would've been the last. There wasn't a reason to bring him back after everything was returned to the way it was before the "sound".

[Katchii]

They stopped the Final Days, restored the world, and the last part was bringing back the Ancients who sacrificed themselves to make it happen. While it's possible that they may have sought to re-summon Zodiark again if there were another disaster, I'm left to believe that the third time would've been the last. There wasn't a reason to bring him back after everything was returned to the way it was before the "sound".

Primals require continuous offerings or consumption of aether. They accomplished what they set out to do, true, but he would have still required aether to continue existing.

Even if they were to "un-summon" him (which I'm not even sure is a thing), there was also no guarantee that without him the Sound would have stayed gone. They still have no idea what caused the sound.

I don't disagree that what happened at that time with the sundering was horrible, but the rejoinings are worse, since entire worlds have been lost 7 times now. Unless you're like Emet and don't see any of the life that existed as true lives and therefore none of the destruction affected any true "being," which is IMO a horrific take.

[Dakhath]

I found a lot of Ryne's "he hates me!" melodrama to be... not founded in reality. Thancred had bitter feelings but he was never depicted as being a jerk towards Ryne. Felt more like Ryne was a teenager on a moodswing, or overexaggerating to seek attention. Maybe she learned that pouting would cause Urianger to dote on her, give her free stuff and headpats.

To be fair, a lot of this could be handwaved away with stuff that happened offscreen while they traveled before the WoL arrived in the first. Not great storytelling, but she was definitely insecure and who wouldn't be with such a burden thrust upon them. All she saw was someone helping her because of who she reminded him of, out of a weird obligation, not any affection. Not initially at least.

[Tenjen]

To be fair, a lot of this could be handwaved away with stuff that happened offscreen while they traveled before the WoL arrived in the first. Not great storytelling, but she was definitely insecure and who wouldn't be with such a burden thrust upon them. All she saw was someone helping her because of who she reminded him of, out of a weird obligation, not any affection. Not initially at least.

there are already indications of how he treated her in the game itself and that he couldnt just SPEAK to her how he felt about her being Minfilia's reincarnation but not her. Without anything to fall on, Ryne's poor self esteem was crashing her and becoming worse. Its why the first thing Yshtola does is openly confront him about it right infront of her, because she hates stuff like that as much as she dislikes people keeping secrets.

[Lane]

I hated thancred. I hated him because he was too distant to minfilia and couldnt once get past his relationship to the source minfilia (and continually judged her as an imperfect minfilia). I expressed this all the way through shadowbringers. I always sided with minfilia. It literally destroyed my trust in thancred.

I wasn't pleased with the Thancred & Ryne storyline either. He doesn't talk to her at any point despite multiple people pressing him to do so. (Urianger was best dad.) He's too wrapped up in himself and his own emotions to offer Ryne any comfort, that bothered me a lot. I assume the hand on the head thing is a game limitation because that girl needed a hug and no one was giving her one.

I was glad when she chose her own destiny. I thought she was going to cave at the end and give herself to Minfilia because she felt useless and it would make Thancred happy.

There's no way she wouldn't have a complex. Everyone only cared about her (initially) because she was the reincarnation of Minfilia. It's why Ran'jit wanted her, it's why Thancred rescued her. No one could have ever lived up to Minfilia either, that much was made clear going all the way back to ARR.

I also find it interesting that I've seen people make parallels between Thancred's behavior and Ascians', but one isn't considered a villain and the others are.

[Thestrawman]

I also find it interesting that I've seen people make parallels between Thancred's behavior and Ascians', but one isn't considered a villain and the others are.

Please tell me when Thancred casually killed billions of people to bring back "his" Minfillia. What is with your hard on for the Ascians? Your posts are all about how everyone and everything is just as bad as they are no matter how nonsensical it is.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I assume the hand on the head thing is a game limitation because that girl needed a hug and no one was giving her one.

Historically video games struggle to do lots of physical connections like that. Most clothes in games aren't rigged to deform like that so either you get clipping, or the characters have to be awkwardly posed to prevent it, both options usually look bad. Physics on clothes usually bugs out and ruins the moment or requires too much processing power. Only the biggest AAA studios that make movie games like Naughty Dog can afford to have their animators spend so much time on a little detail like that. Similar reason why most swords in games don't have sheathes, and so on.

There is at least one hug scene off of the top of my head in FFXIV (Scholar 80 quest). FFXIV cutscenes generally have a lot of clipping (not to mention that the animations usually aren't mindblowing. The stiffness is an acquired taste) so it's not like they couldn't have him hug her. And the animators created a second model for the Exarch that is only seen for a couple seconds for the two cutscenes where his hood comes on/off, so the animators could have bent over backwards to make a hug scene look really good if they wanted to. So I doubt technical limitations were at play here; they just wrote it so he gave her a headpat.

I also find it interesting that I've seen people make parallels between Thancred's behavior and Ascians', but one isn't considered a villain and the others are.

Please tell me when Thancred casually killed billions of people to bring back "his" Minfillia. What is with your hard on for the Ascians? Your posts are all about how everyone and everything is just as bad as they are no matter how nonsensical it is.

Thancred to Ascians isn't comparable. Crystal Exarch to Ascians absolutely is, though. The heroes were hypocrites for lecturing on Emet-Selch about how "destroying a world you don't like to save the one you do like isn't okay!" considering that a few hours before, Urianger told them about the timeline shenagains. G'raha Tia was trying to do the exact same thing: kill the people of the present he came from the resurrect the people of a past that he deemed better than the present. Mind as well just be honest and say "Nothing personal, I'm just going to kill you to save the folks I like more".

As far as G'raha Tia and the Ironworks knew, they would all cease to exist if they succeeded. The creation of an alternate timeline, rather than simply changing the past, was unexpected. G'raha Tia jumped into the past intending to kill the present he came from in order to bring back the past that he loved. Just as how Emet-Selch intends to kill the present day populace in order to bring back the past people he loved.

Then again, the heroes have been hypocrites quite a few times throughout the story.

[Lane]

Thancred to Ascians isn't comparable.

I thought Thancred and Mitron were similar. They both refused to give up on trying to bring back the person they loved.

[Thestrawman]

-snip-

In theory perhaps but not in practice. At least in my opinion. Also given how bad things went with the 8th calamity G'raha more then likely saved more lives then "killed" by going back and changing history.

[ippollite]

Am i being dumb again, or is Beq Lugg teaching Alisaie something not akin to the same invocation magic that underlines the idea of 'concepts'? Perhaps im reading too much into it and this is just standard conjuration. Why wouldnt it be? This is a magical fantasy setting. But she did say something when she was calling her pig grotesque. And that bit about how the magic is empowered by her desire and connection (clarity of focus), and that poem for the incantation (i only remember the last two lines): What was once a fantasy, i call into reality. I mean, i dont think its plot significant or anything, but now i understand where magic comes from, i think?

[ippollite]

Which sort of ties into what the exarch did. It genuinely bothers me because im a good deontologist. So i cant just say it was all for a better purpose in the ultimate calculus of happiness/suffering. Rights are trumps. He erased them. And this puts him in my mind closer to emet selch than he thinks or believes.

[Katchii]

Which sort of ties into what the exarch did. It genuinely bothers me because im a good deontologist. So i cant just say it was all for a better purpose in the ultimate calculus of happiness/suffering. Rights are trumps. He erased them. And this puts him in my mind closer to emet selch than he thinks or believes.

What specifically are you talking about that the Exarch did?

He's done a lot of things, lol.

[ippollite]

Reversed time and evaporated the existence of those on the first born before/after his reversal. I know theyre doomed. But they at least had a life, had joys, desires, goals. Even some of them would have died a natural death. He erased them and their existence (that had actually happened) for a better world. This is exactly how emet thinks.

Given your question though, im wondering if im mistaken...

ETA: 'Lost' is a beautiful way to describe them.