Gridania is the one that goes ignored the most in the lore and MSQ. Even in Stormblood, dealing with Gridania's other neighbors, and nothing. We're told Gridania has noble families but nope. Kan e senna's siblings just kind of show up in Endwalker with nothing prior. Same with Kan e's bodyguard who doesn't even get a name.
Kan-e-senna's siblings were in the white mage job quests but even there there wasn't all too much info. Though in general basically all the info on the padjali was from white mage job quests and that one EW role-quest. They were also in the HW msq for like a scene when bringing back Y'shtola but there they basically just randomly showed up. About Gridania there is a bunch more info in a lot of random blue and yellow quests with its main history being filled out in the encyclopaedia eorzean. The main story itself doesn't really elaborate on it at all though
As a keeper of the moon, I envy the duskwights. They at least have SOME fleshed out lore. My tribe's seclusion has more or less left them as a vague footnote in the scattered notes of Gridania's with no notable figures that I can point to for others to see.
Keeper of Entwined Serpents *is* the name of Kan-E's bodyguard. He abdicated his old name and completely gave himself to his role and title after she healed and took him in despite him serving under Garlemald in the past. He indebted himself to her - he considers his past name irrelevant and won't give it out to anyone but Kan-E.
@@sold0ut210 But that's so interesting! More focus on stuff like this would be amazing. There are stories to tell in Gridania, but they're just going untouched. I suspect this is to keep the Black Shroud relatively mysterious, but *come on* you can tease us while still giving us something to chew on.
We always knew that Hydaelyn's condition for Middy to be allowed to stay on the star was that he had to protect the lake. But we never knew why until the Endwalker Alliance Raids... he was obviously protecting the home of Venat's friends (The Twelve)
One of my biggest issues with ShB was how a bunch of soldiers had left Eulmore discontent with Ranjit's death. It should be a much bigger problem, seeing as how discontent soldiers leaderless and lacking any support base was a major problem in the Source, those soldiers after the age of strife becoming bandits and lawless mercenaries. It led to the creation of the Adventurer's guild to give these soldiers work. I would think the same thing would happen in the first, but it seemed to be nothing but a passing notice.
The short story "An Unpromised Tomorrow" is an interesting one with regard to Midgardsormr. It takes place in the splinter timeline post 8th calamity after G'Raha teleports the crystal tower away. The aether pulse generated by the tower warping out of reality awakened Midgardsormr and apparently awakened him fully. As far as the light/dark thing, that would take some gymnastics on the part of the writers. There is no way the researchers and mages in Allag, Sharlayan, Thavnair, Amdapoor and Mhach wouldn't have put a bunch of aether of one type together to observe stasis or activity. Unless it really is just as simple as a naming convention though I don't see how anyone would look at the void and say "Look at all of that light". Gridania wise, I would love to see more lore on Amdapoor and Gelmora. I don't have much of a problem with the elementals. They are blobs of semi sentient aether who don't see us the same way we do. To an elemental, we are smaller and less dense blobs of aether that occasionally damage and set fire to their habitat. At least they gave people a second chance. As for what I would like to know more on, the moogles origin story (I suspect they were pre-sundering creations of the ancients involved in the conflict prior to the creation of Hydaelyn and the sundering), more about the Onishishu and the group that survived the fourth calamity in Othard, and more about Nagxia and their resistance to the empire. Then, after that, written in gold dust and blessed by the space pope himself: What is under the damned Ilsabard fog?
You know, I think the ancient npc who created moogle is the female npc we met when we did the side quest about the creator of gaelicat and his creation in Elpis. By the end of our dialogue with the female npc, I think she said seeing the gaelicat motivated her to create something that equally as cute as gaelicat (at least if my memories haven't failed me yet).
In regards to Middy being able to just reincarnate at will, I feel like that power is just a more upgraded version of what Nidhogg did when Estinien picked up his eyes at the end of launch HW. We know that the bulk of a dragon's power dwells in their eyes, and so long as their eyes survive, the dragon, in theory, has a window of revitalization. Given how freakishly old Middy is, it'd make sense his ability to do that is further along than that of his brood - so long as his eyes are intact, of course, which we know they are because they both light up when he pierces the WoL. Plus (though this is merely speculation and fan-theorizing on my part) it could be that, since Middy was not born on this star, his soul is not woven into the star's lifestream. So maybe he isn't pulled there when he dies, he just loiters around and can hop in if he wants, but chooses not to. As for his deal with Hydaelyn, oh yeah, I am with you on that, that needs explaining.
We do learn in endwalker that there is also a celestial life-stream. However, I don't believe it's explained if non-native souls go to their original lifestream, if they go to the greater celestial, or if they go to the lifestream where they died.
See how easy it was for you to come up with something and yet a Multi billion dollar company can’t even fill in the blanks with cutscenes and books. How hard would it be to have an Anthropologist/Historian class, that allows you to explore all of Eorzea and uncover information, data and lore with quest lines, especially now that we uncovered The twelve
Regarding Midgardsormr, I think a brief glimpse into His deal or pact with Hydaelyn is hinted at in the Shadowbringers story. Not the MSQ or anything, but the short stories that were released on the website. In "TALES FROM THE SHADOWS: STORY #8 titled: AN UNPROMISED TOMORROW" you will see that Midgardsormr just rose back to life as though he were never really dead AT ALL. He was fully replenished and at maximum strength. I believe that Midgardsormr's pact with Hydaelyn was that if there were too many Rejoinings and She no longer had the power to help the Star (In this example when Her power waned too far when the 1st was rejoined with the Source which empowered Black Rose that killed scores of people), the pact was that He would take over as the Deity of the Star so that She could focus on sustaining Her leftover life force or even regaining Her strength from the insurmountable aether that pushed into the Aetherial Sea from the rejoining, or even so that She could focus on ferrying all of the billions of souls that were part of the 1st and help them find their way into the other parts of themselves so there's not as much chaos in the lifestream.
Midgardsomr was mentioned in the Shadowbringers side story "An unpromised Tomorrow" so we do know he is regenerating and sleeping, not actually dead. In it he comes to life as a result of the Crystal Tower jumping to the First. As to Sharlayan Scholars not making some stupid mistake regarding Umbral and Astral getting Light and Dark backwards... I must call out that when instructed by Hydaelyn to give information to the Loporrits to be ready for evacuation they never thought to send things like information on Races, Heights, Needs, Diets (Given how little they seem to care about food I can almost see this one) etc... Things like that which would be considered basic and important on any evacuation vessel being built, instead they seem to have used it as a backup library. I would like to know more about the people in the Fifth age, in order for the Ascians to manage to cause reflections to rejoin they must cause tilts in Aether, in every case we have seen this has needed something beyond their own ability to cause directly, otherwise they would not need to mess with mortals. So logically there MUST be some form of civilization that they could manipulate. What is more in all the known ones we are aware specifically they trigger it in Eorzea, The First and Second we know nothing of where the trigger civilization was, some lore indicates that the third was holy wars by corrupt churches, Thanalan's envoronment seems to be the result of them as it is suggested that the shroud or at least the some forestry covered it. The Fourth was the war between the Dragons and Allagans, the fifth we know nothing about it, and the Sixth Was due to a war between Black and White mages, the Scholars were involved but not really important in this disaster. Obviously the Seventh was Primal Bahamut and he awoke again in Eorzea. The Eighth in the aborted timeline was Garleans using Black Rose against... Eorzeans. So there should be some sign of a civilization for the Fifth Era and we do not see it, something is missing, and I suspect the Elements of the Shroud are hiding it. I would also like to know more about each race. As a Miqo'te main I especially want to know about them, from what I recall about the known canon history the Allagans took them as slaves from Meracydia, they were brought to Corvos. We know that in the Age of Endless Frost they migrated in mass to Eorzea as if they already knew it was a land of plenty, had this been just part of their population it could be figured that the species scattered, but this does not really seem to be the case, there were 26 tribes, and they ALL in some form came to Eorzea. Some like G tribe left some in Corvos, but we really do not see any in other parts of the world that did not originate from Eorzea. I see two main possibilities, first is that the Allagans took some of them to Eorzea temporarily first so they knew about it that way, second, they were in Eorzea originally and the Allagans chased them all the way to Meracydia (We know that the Allagans were very racist and displaced a lot of people) where they made the last stand with the people there and lost. Either way they would have past ancestral knowledge of the location. I would really like this expanded on. Side note, I find it amusing the Garleans claim to originate in Corvos and were displaced from there and now claim to be the successors to the Allagans, kinda sounds like the Garleans were another people brought to near extinction by the Allagans and left in the slave dumping ground of Corvos. By the way the Garleans tell it there were many people there that pushed them out. Could be interesting to learn more of Corvos history in that way.
But arent there still folks living there? Would the plot for that questline be that Gridania has decided to anex and gentrify the old city, and we must purge the remnant population?
@@HaddaClu Yes, but a lot of it is in ruins/infested with monsters like PotD/Tam-Tara/Toto-Rak. It could be us clearing a section of monsters to help the Elezen reclaim a portion of it. Or just a researcher/gleaner needs to do something and we are clearing a path for them. I just want more lore for that particular civilization I feel like it’s the least fleshed out.
Remember that big hole in 1.0 that was left derelict and filled in with earth and rock in the North Shroud? Wish THAT was left intact in 2.0 so we could send a crew down there!
Yeah I’ve wanted more Gelmorra lore ever since The Speakers Network covered it and with the introduction of V&C dungeons, I thought it would probably be covered by those at some point.
So I'm kinda pagany and while not very witchcrafty I do a bit of tarot which when you study it brings you to the idea of activity and passivity. Activity is initiative, passion, movement. This in embodied in The Magician, who has all the symbols of magic before him. Think of him like Louisoux of Emet-Selch. They're doers. Passivity is rest, relaxation, dreams, focus on the inner world, intuition. The High Priestess embodies this, but Kan-E-Senna or Urianger would be fairly apt comparisons. Activity can also be reckless and immature. It can be impatient and hasty. Passivity can lapse in attention, head buried in the clouds or books. It can get isolated or lazy. So neither are fully good or bad, but they have their merits. Then we have the light/dark stuff. Vauthry is aligned with light and innocence,bit he sure is bred to be evil. The Night's Blessed would likely be deemed disturbing, reclusive cult on the Source, rumored to be evil. But we know this cult to be fairly kind and altruistic. They believe in and worship a night they've seen. Then you have Sin Eaters and Voidsent. Light-aligned aether-starved zombies and Dark-aligned aether-starved vampires, basically. All of them are dangerous, but also victims of Ascians failed attempts at rejoining. Then we have Hydaelyn who has you as her agent, with most of her work done ages ago, and Zodiark who is really just a glorified cork to prevent the Final Days from being unbottled. Light and Dark are just prominent elements. Astral and Umbral just seem like what polarity they operate on. Light can drive growth, but also burn. Darkness can provide comfort and rest, but also create fear and be hard to navigate. Finally, ShB post game forced our heroic nations with their past misdeeds, to reflect and make peace. To create friends and allies. To bring life back to those deemed lost in the tempered. I don't think these are forces of good or evil, but differences that must reconcile or they never survive the coming of ultimate despair.
Regarding the Light & Darkness/Astral & Umbral, it makes sense that scholars confused Light (being the hyperactive element) and Darkness (being the subdued element) because you think Light: fast and Darkness: slow. However, the ShB explanation dictated that the idea of Light (Astral) Dark (Umbral) were backwards because Light represents stasis (slow) and Dark represents chaotic (fast). This was elaborated on by Hydaelyn stating she "presides over the forces of stasis, tranquility and peace" which corresponds with the revelation in ShB about Light and Sin Eater aether being stagnant. It's also explained that Darkness (post Endwalker patches) the Voidsent have an insatiable need to consume aether to remain in essence, intact. Tbh, I didn't find any of the Light/Dark explanation confusing in the least. Excellent video though :)
Hmm I'm not sure what thr confusion with light and darkness is, this is the first time I hear of this, maybe there's something I'm missing but from what I thought of Uriange's explanation: I don't think the scholars got the "effects" of light and darkness confused, but just assigned opposite names due to differing philosophy and trying to tie the elements to the historical eras: assigning the "active" label of Astral to moments of progress (astral eras) gives a connotation of light and brightness while eras of stagnation (umbral) had negative, dark connotations. But that philosophy when they tried to attach it to history doesn't reflect actual aetherology: Where the polarity that incites movement of particles is associated with chaos, darkness, while the polarity of stasis, order and passivity has the light connotations. I think it's all naming convention really, it doesn't affect how the elemental wheel shows interactions between elements and polarity. We just mentally aligned light with umbral and darkness with astral. Change in nomenclature from what I understood. I might be missing something I'm not seeing On a side note I always wondered how it would feel to get hit by a magical attack with "light" or "dark" aspect. I imagined these kinds of spells would be like aetherial magnets either jolting your body to spasm with astral aether (like getting shocked by lightning but worse) or just giving your body this sluggish heaviness (the kind you feel after getting pounded by waves at the beach and are just EXHAUSTED) lol
The elemental's are supposed to be Divinities, like that of Nophica etc etc. Nophica even says they are in the Alliance Raids. I think she says something along the lines of "They're the voice of those who reside in the forest." which is double-speak for the animals, insects etc etc. But it stands to reason too that they're divinities because of their associations from the modern Gridanians linking them to Nophica directly.
It's been a long time, but by my memory, it was indicated that the understanding of light/dark, or the elements in general varies somewhat between the worlds, which you could say gives the writers more flexibility on the matter. Lore can be a double-edged book. There is value in mystery. Not really knowing, or not knowing all of the details anyway, is what allows people to enjoy the art of speculation, for example--which is why I feel mixed about definitive answers at times, such as with The Twelve's raid story.
To me I would have to ask about Ultima’s placement in the universe of XIV. We still have questions relating to the High Seraph before she became the Angel of Blood that I think could be answered within the future if not soon. What she truly is? Why was her influence here since the age of the Ancients? Why was she called to Ivalice? Are we truly done with her and the Heart of Sabik? Stuff like that.
In my experience Gridania has considerably more people in it than Ul'dah. There's a poll on reddit that suggest Gridania is the most popular starting zone (can't link). I often go back to hand in some gear to the GC and do some crafting. Side note, I wish Old Sharlayan was more popular. I'm not sure what SE's stance is on Gridania in terms of lore, or reasons for the WoL to give a damn about the place, but mine and many other peoples WoL's appreciate Gridania because that is where they started. I too would love some more lore though, including some on the old city states.
Gridania is my favorite starting zone by far. I enjoy the quests, starting jobs, most of the npc's, and I enjoy Lil Papalymo and Yda as our intro Scions much more than Thancred or Shtola. There's also the bit where the city map isnt nearly the maze the other locations are.
As the self-proclaimed Princess of Allag, I want to learn much more about the Allagan Empire's history. Some more about Amdapor and the War of the Magi would also be most welcome.
Oh man, I have Gridania as my home primarily because I love forest settings. I knew the lore was a bit... Sparse, but you really highlighted just how little there really is.
Keeper of the Moon lore! Between them and the Dusk, I don’t know who has been robbed more. Though if you at least see the Dusk and learn about them without needing to kill them. Most Keepers are aggressive mobs with one or two appearing in Gridania.
I look at Ishgard in Coerthas Central Highlands, and wonder where the Firmament is, as well as the 30 Wards and equal amount of Subdivisions of the Empyreum.
Great points, especially about Gridania! I wouldn't mind seeing some lore building about the Moon Keepers besides the initial blurbs you get in ARR. Also I really would like a return of the job quests in a "Where are they now?" sort of way. e.g. You're helping train and organise the next generation of white mages, or you're helping the Tonberries of Nym return to being a city state whilst ACTUALLY BEING A TACTICIAN, and the like. It's really disappointing that we're treated in the MSQ as little more than a beat stick when we've trained for so much more.
I do appreciate that about the monk quest line, in that your character actually becomes an instructor in the second half of the story arc instead of just getting a "congratulations you graduated now get outta here" ending or just remaining in a state of perpetual student-hood; it made way more sense, why would you let the best alumni in your class of sometimes MAYBE two or three people just... walk away? Monk felt like a complete arc.
@@M0ssP1glet You can kind of say the same for Summoner and Paladin for a bit too, when you get to "teach" (aka show yourself attacking a mob) some NPCs. Wish there was more for this, especially since it's much easier to introduce new characters and a new conflict when you also have a new situation that still has multiple angles of storytelling.
One idea regarding the aetherial wheel:Aether is fundamentally different depending on which Shard you are on. That's what I assumed when Urianger did that speech.
I wonder if Hideleyn accepted Midgardsormir to the star, because we as a person told her about dragon's, and let it slip about him to her. How he was at the star, how he helped us and maybe they had an unspoken contract. Because we did tell her how our world was like, but since our character doesn't "talk" in the normal sense, what we told her specifically is up for debate, or our imagination. But I feel that mommy knowing she let him and his children stay at the source, is one of the reasons he stayed there, since without us going to the past, our world would not be as it is. As weird as the whole time travel thing always is in games, it's "cannon" to us going back there and talking with her. Him being as powerful as he is, probably is because as said, he's from a time post sundering, as is his children, which could explain his power in particular, he's probably on par, if not even more powerful, than even the Ascians. Ascians in death have been shown to be amazingly powerful, but not as powerful as Midgardsormir. And his children has unique and strange abilities that could topple the Ascians themselves, like just the eyes have such immense potential, each unique it seems. However I think perhaps each child thereafter might've been powered down, from the source taking more aether as dragon's kept being born, making them less strong than their parents. Or perhaps it's just an age thing, the older the dragon is, the stronger they become, with maybe the Source being as shattered as it is, maybe powering them down nonetheless, but not as brutally to the older generation that is more "pure" from when coming to the source. How old daddy Mid is, we have no idea, he might be the first amongst his own kind for all we know, making him perhaps thousands, or close to a million years old. Making him near unto a god even for his own kind
One theory that I had heard is that the souls of dragon's and dragon kind don't return to the Aetherial Sea; but, they have their own "sea pf souls" apart from what is known to us. This person's theory was based on how dragons age and how they are "linked" to each other regardless of how far apart they are. I think what this person might be thinking is that dragons are "telepathically linked" in a way and they ability stems from this "unknown sea of souls" accessible only to dragons. Even on another plane (The Void) a dragon's voice/soul could still be heard/felt.
Gridania aside, I just want to see more expansive lore on each of the playable races in general, especially with us exploring more and more of the Realm. And we're still operating off of base Eorzean Miqo'te lore, etc. I would absolutely love a less direction-driven patch series where we kind of just dive into and tear apart the cultures, adding to them.
Honestly I hate how little we know of the origin points of the playable races. Specifically Aerslaent for me as I play a Roegadyn, we know it's a nation in the Northern Empty, and we know it fell to a tyrannical regime which lead to the creation of Limsa Lominsa after a failed rebellion... that's kinda it. Honestly if you aren't a Elezen, Au Ra, or Highlander your origins and "root" in the world is still really vague. Even Bozja is more about a (really good in my opinion) war story than it is exploring native Hrothgar culture. Viera are written in such a way that we'll likely never get more than a few scraps about their jungles. Corvus, Meracydia, the South Sea Isles (which got a Variant Dungeon but that barely touches on original Lalafellin culture), etc. are all just kind of footnotes which feels really weird to me. It's like I said in my own response to Morgaine's post, imagine knowing the answers of life and death, imagine knowing the truth about gods and divine powers, imagine knowing what lies beyond the stars... but you don't know ANYTHING about Scotland or Australia. Sounds kinda silly, doesn't it?
Whenever i think of what the origin places look like for the races we don't know, i just jokingly imagine it being filled with midlander hyurs for no apparent fcking reason. Pretty much every place revealed has had a notable population or hyur, no matter how little sense it makes.
the astral/umbral light/dark split reminds me a lot of the early history of electronics electrical current was discovered decades before we understood the electron's role in mediating it. as a result conventional current, that is, the current direction shown in diagrams flows positive to negative. Though we know now that the electrons actually flow negative to positive. Everything still works, and so decades later we still use conventional current when discussing electronics and refer to current as the movement of "positive charges", even though we know its "wrong"
A reason for the light and dark mix up could be that the orginal findings were so long ago and so well drilled that no one questioned if it could be wrong until going to the first. I knwo from my experince in academica it is far easier to find something new then question something old. The lack of alternative desgins of the chart shows that many would just see as unquestionable fact and assume it is correct and any findings that contradict it was wrong before the chart could be wrong. Not an answer but if you need to get some sleep with something plausable that seems very likly with what happens IRL.
That's what I was thinking, especially with the Umbral era/Astral era bits. Looking at that kind of shows how they thought of light/dark and umbral/astral, so kind of makes sense to me that it's probably been a belief that's been around for awhile
If I remember correctly, Nidhogg was suposed to inherit what Middy is doing now as he was the strongest of his brood but then the Dragonsong War happened and Nidhogg went insane with grief.
I'd really like to see a return to Dalmasca. The plot with the princess and whether or not its even considered a country anymore given that Rabanastre was basically bomb-shelled into ruins feels so open-ended, but I don't know that we'll ever see it given that it seems mostly consigned into being combined with Bozja ore outside of its alliance raids :(
My own question is what exactly happened when Midgardsormr destroyed the Agrius and broke whatever seal was in place at the bottom of Silvertear? The 1.0 cinematic showed us something but it could all be a dream.
Good point about Gridania. I think of that city and off the top of my head the only interesting thing that pops in my mind is that the leader of the Elder Seedseer's guard is an ex-Garlean soldier she saved during the battle of Carteneau. This place needs a Variant Dungeon or something. As for missing lore that bugs me personally, I actually tend to not notice that sort of thing until it's pointed out to me.
Regarding light and dark, according to that one cutscene during ShB, they specifically use the word "nomenclature" twice, once by Urianger and two screens later by Thancred, so light and dark are simply words for umbral and astral respectively, that's it, just other names for the same thing and there is no actual change whatsoever. Light and umbral are one and the same, just called something else, same with dark and astral. At least they didn't go back to alter the definitions of black mage skills to change astral fire and umbral ice into dark fire and light ice. It's still stupid how they decided to out of nowhere have the entire world change what they call the planet they live on, with no prompting or communication. And within the same expansion we then get the housing item Hydaelyn As We Know Her, which by it's name goes right against this newly established convention.
I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure only people who are "in the loop" so to speak call the planet Etheirys - the Scions, Sharlayan, the Loporrits, etc. Other people who wouldn't know about the old name still call it Hydaelyn as far as I recall.
@@Drewble789 May be wrong but personally I've not seen anyone call it Hydaelyn since the end of EW, even the beast tribe in Thavnair goes along with it.
@@Max44321 Do you remember when they used that name for it? Just went to talk to everyone at the hub for the Arkasodara quests and it doesn't come up, but obviously the dialogue changes as you go through. Not trying to doubt you, just curious to see it since I must have glossed over it.
@@Drewble789 I think during the more recent patch that has a follow-up to doing all three tribal quests, when the lopporrit comes to visit he refers to it and nobody questions it? The name at least feels like it pops up everywhere it shouldn't, I may be wrong but it feels like that
@@Max44321 eh, if a little rabbit dude came up to me and said "hey wanna go race hippos at the end of the universe?", the name he used for the planet would not be my first question lol
We know that the following races were on both the first and the source, Miqote, Roegadyn, Hrothgar, Hyur, lalafell, elezen, qitari and namazu. This would imply that they were in existence prior to the sundering. for races that are a mixture of animal and human. Why were they created for? What was their purpose?
the umbral/astral thing seems more like a nomenclature issue. a problem with naming conventions, not how astral/umbral work. think about this: why is north at the top of the map? world is a sphere, there's no rhyme or reason why north would be the upside, in fact there's maps from 1500s that are "sideways up", putting west at the bottom of the map and east up top; the reason why north is up top is simply because we all decided it is. as we all decided the alphabet will be in that particular order, as we all decided one side of the magnet is "positive" and the other "negative". we could have used a million words for that. as i understood it, it's not that the scholars in the source got it wrong, simply that they called stasis umbral and activity astral, the opposite of what we see in the first. no one's wrong, they just called things the opposite way.
Gridania is my favorite state. If I could start _every_ class there, I would! The elezen are gorgeous, the landscape is my kind of thing, the Padjal are so cool of a concept… ❤
Midgardsommr's eyes were still intact when he spoke to you at the end of his dungeon. So he was never "dead" in sense. His eyes were the source of his power. Which was a hint to other dragons such as Nidhogg and Hraesvalgr
I was just thinking about Scholars, and their possible connection to Vana'diel, the world of FFXI. Especially in light of the upcoming Dawntrail raid series; Echoes of Vana'diel.
I've been theorizing that the Scholar arts came from somewhere in the New World, and that there's an area where the barrier between Etheirys and Vana'diel is thin, as early Scholar/Arcanist job quests briefly invoke the name "Schultz". Possibly a reference to Gunther Schultz, founder of the Schultz School of Magical Theory
I agree with wanting to see more about Gridania come up on the foreground. There are lots about their current troubles and way of life that is a lot more subtle (for me) through side quests. I admit to being a little sick of people asking for it constantly, but I'm also one of those who want to know more of the history of Gelmorra, and the state of the Duskwight population. We've seen Nanamo and Merlwyb move forward with their people so I'd like to see Kan-E-Senna and Gridania grow as well, with a healthy explanation of why that's difficult
Something to keep in mind about light and dark is that on the First, light as an element is just naturally a lot stronger and therefore would be a lot easier to observe/measure, even before the flood. It's not hard to imagine that with light and dark being not as strong on the source, the association of "active = astral = bright, starry depictions" and "passive = umbral = dark, gloomy depictions" is just something that became 'common knowledge' long ago and science never really thought to question, whereas on the First where light is more tangible they have a better understanding of it. It's also possible imo that Sharlayan *did* learn about the true nature of light and dark...but only through their communications with Hydaelyn, which they were bound to secrecy on.
On Excalibur, there is a bunch of people who hang out by the Gridania anther eye. Bards play there at times. People chat. It may not be as full as Limsa, but it is noticeable. As for missing lore, I would really like to know about what Cid's ironworks does. Considering the resources that they have been shown to have (All those computers during a quest in MSQ) and things that they have done (Built a whole mech), they must be doing a lot. And I don't think that just airships alone would pay for all that.But we never really see all that much overall evidence of technical advancement in the world. And yet the little snippets we see imply that things are quite busy at the ironworks.
I personally would love to see sooo much more of Dalmasca region; Such as Nalbina, Lea Monde. And the other regions, too: Skatay Range, Greylic's Bend, Golmure, Valnain. With a lot more Viera background.
As far as the theories of Astral/Umbral energies, I think the lack of realization just came from like. . . Science "knowing" what was what. Naming the Astral after the light of the stars, the suns of the solar systems, etc. . . Umbral for shadow, darkness, a time of sleep, and restfulness. The "natural" understanding of how things act when light is a thing and when it's dark coloring the beliefs of the scholars. . . Actually makes sense. But I would definitely like to know more about how Urianger came to that conclusion. It's explained in MSQ, but not very deeply. And yeah, as a person playing a Half-Gridanian, I find that half of my boys backstory to be very vague other than "Gardening and flowers gud!" etc. I'd love to have more hooks for people playing Gridanian Elezen. I've gotten plenty of fodder for the Ishgardian half of his bloodline. Gimme more cottagecore elemental lore! (Though I really dislike Kan e Senna compared to the other leaders. She feels very flat and lacking in motivation and failings. Unless you count being flat a failing lol)
We Gridanians are NIMBY'S and proud of it. All the city slickers can stay in their overpopulated crowed cities. Jokes aside lore wise isn't Gridania the most xenophobic? Their controlled lifestyle that forcuses on sustainable living only fits well with very few. The xenophobia that is born from their protection of the land doesn't help either. I recall a scene where Merylweb and Kan-E-Senna discuss their cities and Kan-E chastises Merylweb for her expansion into other lands and Merylweb essentially says "Her people grow and need more space and they can't(nor would ever) be like Gridania, who essentially forces population control." Since Gridania is at peace relative to other city states(Limsa's "freedom" and Uldah's "invisible hand"). So, peace doesn't require change. Oh, and if some tries to change anything a nuke(the elementals) will be set off. I love the forest and I love Gridania, but there are in game reasons to avoid us taciturn woods folk. I would love to see some sort of uneasy compromise where the elementals have to compromise because their neighbors will only tolerate the "lack of freedom" that other nations enjoy for so long.
Im holding onto the belief that when we get an expansion that takes us to Mericydia we will get more details about Midgardsormr and the dragons. Maybe he will return and talk to us again after so long
11:55 So I just wanna say I used to use Limsa as my main city for the market board as well but I switched to Gridania when I changed Grand Companies and Ive noticed something. Limsa is definitely the best for easy access to market board, Gridania has the easiest access to the Inn and Grand Company, while Ul'dah... Well it has roughly the same access to GC as Gridania but thats kinda it. All of this of course assumes you wanna deal with minimal loading screens.
Missing lore that bugs me? Female Hrothgar naming convention. So, I had guessed back during Shadow bringers that male and female would share the same naming conventions. Well thanks to the lore book my guess was right. HOWEVER! That only covers Hrothgar who are followers and the Lost. There is still the matter of female Hrothgar who are queens or leaders. Queens are Helions, but as they are leaders and not followers, would they use lost surnames despite being Helions? I wish the lore book would have cleared that bit up while it covered Hrothgar.
Got a REALLY big question here: What the heck happened to the remnants of the IV Legion after their defeat at Bozja, especially now that the empire doesn’t really exist anymore?
That was roughly explained in the notes you get in the Bozja quests. TLDR, much of it was dissolved and surviving military leaders either vanished or were killed.
From what I remember, Light was always Astral and Dark was always Umbral, what they got wrong was that Light/Astral is Stasis and Dark/Umbral is Activity (instead of the other way around) which is further explained by Y'shtola in the 13th. The real issue is that everyone has always assumed that light is good and dark is evil. Even in the series as a whole (excluding FFIII) light is seen as good and dark as evil. Shadowbringers (and FFIII) main point is that Light isn't inherently good and Dark isn't inherently evil, and realizing the nature of Astral and Umbral is what brought us to that revelation. They wanted us to go into Endwalker without seeing things as black and white, because reality is a large spectrum of many shades of grey.
I do think the underground city under gridania would make for a great story to explore. maybe introduce some relic that will let you time travel like the wrist device in Titanfall 2's "Effect and Cause" but only in that lost city? also, for the elemental aether weirdness, my understanding is different to what you described. The six basic elements are ascribed like they are to Light and Dark, and then Light and Dark were then connected to the forces of Stability and Quickening. Kind of like how ying and yang have the dots inside each color, Light includes the highly energetic Air element and Dark includes the highly stable Ice element. Astral and Umbral affinities I thought were separate, more so connected to the Day/Night cycle than the element system I just described. Thus, the inconsistencies with past portrayals would be a combination of "we're just using light and dark in ignorance to describe morality" but also with vague allusions to stability/order vs chaos/anarchy. The bit about "scholars in the source didn't consider this" was the specifically part about light = stability and dark = quickening. Thaumaturgy and black magic, during the blackmage job questline, was always deeply connected in people's minds to voidsent and the evil corruption of power. those who practiced these things thought they were riding the line of moral-darkness rather than a balancing force to the stability of light. Conjury and white magic, in turn, was rooted in the Gridanian purity for preservation of the forest. Only historians specifically versed in the Mhachian war between white and black would be able to understand how white magic can be just as destructive as black, and how they are truly more alike than different. I THINK what Urianger was teaching us in the First was that Light & Dark is not Good Vs Evil but merely two Goods that must remain in balance and counteract each other. of course, I've not even held an Eorzean Encyclopedia in my hands or paid THAT close attention to side quests and the like, so I could be totally missing something. But that's my understanding.
Every time Gridania was a focus of a story/side story, was because Elementals "tried to fix something and turned out grrrrreat!" or we must fix the problem before Elementals decides to "fix" it themselves
I wanna know what the deal is with the dark Zodiark crystal. We see one cut-scene where the mother crystal turns dark purple for a sec, presumably meant to represent Zodiark. I had thought it was a metaphor, with the two crystals standing in for Hydaelyn and Zodiark. But then it turns out the Mothercrystal is an *actual* crystal that Hydaelyn keeps in the aetheric sea. So is the dark crystal still just a metaphor?
For selfish reasons, that being that I play a Duskwright Elezen with a GC in Gridania, I also want to see more of Gelmorra. Even if it's just a small side story with Valdeaulin where you get to meet some ofthe Gelmorran people in the Shroud. Also I saw on twitter people discussing 1.0 areas that don't exist in current xiv, and those would be fantastic to explore.
With Gridania, I feel like the more the game tells you about the place the worse it actually gets, especially with the WHM and EW Tank role quests. They STILL have that Duskwright being harrassed by those guards outside the Lancer Guild.
I would LOVE to learn more about where the Duskwight live! I doubt we're going to get much this expansion since it's dealing with the New World, but if we're lucky, maybe later?
For me the one piece of lore I wish they'd go into is the Hellsgaurd. What Hell are they guarding? It's the same kind of thing as Gridania and the duskwights, where it feels like an open question that the devs have no care in answering.
On the midgardsormr part. It is mentioned that nidhogg was taking midgardsormrs place as protector and midgardsormr was testing the wol. Could it not be implicated that the deal struck was "live on this star, protect this star"? That is, IF there was a deal at all. Pointing this out on the Light and dark part. we look to the lore more closely, we can find that the new belief about astral and umbral aether, has been present since before the begining. Just look at the eras and calamities. If i recall rightly, the calamities were always refered to as "umbral" while the times of balance between calamities has been refered to as "astral". Umbral periods of the calamities have always been full of change both aetherically and physically. But astral eras are times when the aetheric energies are not causing an incredible and or destructive outcome. Umbral is active energy while astral is static.
I feel the light and dark aspects are sufficiently explained. And I think I have found out how the reflections have been sundered, and this is solely due to the 7th umbral calamity being purely astral in nature and having no element, and because it rejoined the seventh reflection which is depicted as the polar opposite from the source. The reflections that have been rejoined thus far has been rejoined with elements starting from Wind and goes clockwise around the elemental wheel. This was done to create balance between the elements. But we also have astral and umbral balance. Since the seventh reflection was rejoined with purely astral aether, you could argue that the reflections on either side are of a specific astral or umbral aspect. Seeing as the thirteenth was more sensitive to astral aether and the first was more sensitive to umbral aether, I suspect that the astral/umbral aspect of reflections 1 - 6 are skewed more against umbral aspect, while the astral/umbral aspect of reflections 8 - 13 are skewed more against astral aspect. Which is the reason why more of the reflections from 1 - 6 have been rejoined than the reflections 8 - 13. The seventh umbral calamity set out to balance the light that had been rejoined by the 1st - 6th calamity. Assuming this is true opens up a lot of doors for the story, but one becomes more clear to me, especially now that we have been foreshadowed what is planned between the Thirteenth and the First (which btw will definitively backfire, cause a huge disturbance in the barriers, overload the capacity of the crystal tower and perhaps cause an artificial rejoining that really fucks up a lot). The First and the Thirteenth were never supposed to be rejoined with purely umbral and astral aether. And if we are to follow the next rules of the elemental wheel about the three conquests and three submissions, I suspect the next calamities will be truly enormous rejoining three and three elements at a time. I believe this will be a couple of expansion packs in the future though as such a big disaster needs a lot of build up. Yes, I do understand that the reflections aren't spacially far apart as they are described in the ocular, but for visualizations sake it's easier to use the ocular representation of the reflections.
Wolfmen, they were a vital part of stormblood and always wanted to see their culture explored more/a race added, but like many things in stormblood, it dangles possibilities, but doesn’t fulfil
Thank you for mentioning the light/dark astral/umbral conundrum. I definitely agree it’s confusing based on how the interpreters address the translation, and it’s really been bothering me lately. Probably the biggest issue is that, when it comes to aether in XIV, it’s a subject that is both scientific (quantifiable, physical, measurable) and religio-cultural. The First has their reverse understanding of light/dark because of their history with the flood of light. But is that necessarily a correct “scientific” understanding of the topic, or merely a cultural understanding? What about the Source and EE1? Have aetherologists on the source been saying astral is active because of a scientific method or because that’s what they’ve grown up believing?
The best I can come up with is on a plot level is the energy of dynamus which is dark and active.makes up a large part of this universe, It can play on emotion. Perhaps that had some thing to do with the recent discovery?
My theory is that since middy isnt from this planet, and his planet isnt even around anymore, his soul has no lifestream to return to, so he just kinda loiters around
Regarding dragons, I have a theory that they’re like Jedi when they die, they have persist in spirit, but they’re aliens, the Atherial sea isn’t theirs to enter, maybe they had one on their planet, and they can’t acces it anymore, regardless, with shiva we see dead beings can merge and bond with dragons and their spirit can live on , I belive all the dragons (not ishgardians that were people and probably return to the star) the Aline ones: are capable of what midsgromar is, to an extent, but they don’t have as much stake or care about the doings of others, whereas midsgormr seems eager to talk to us on occasion. (Tldr maybe the dragons can’t go to the atherial sea, so their spirits just hangout, and only midsgramor feels like talking)
First, about the 3 points you brought: Midgarsomr... his backstory sure comes at a very slow pace, but at least we always get stuff here and there. I'm gald we had a sneak peek of the dragon star in Endwalker. Maybe we will even go fix that world in Dawntrail, with the crafter/gatherer new area. And I'm sure he will wake up at some point, when it will be story relevant... Light and darkness... it feels like Daoism, where yin and yang are kind of parallel to the 5 elements, but together at the same time. Since the script writers are Japanese, they probably have these kind of cultural feature in the background of their concept. But I hope they will take the time to put it all more clearly. Gridania... My impression is, the city is strongly inspired by Lord of the Rings's elven cities, Rivendell and Lothlórien. And... not much happened there in JRRT's story, so the Japanese script crew weren't sure what to do with it, more than being the elemental city. As for these spirits, I see them like cats: they need to be reassured, cozied up, and anything new or unexpected can make them fearful. And of course, they expect their humans to sort things out if something is not to their liking. But when they are happy, the forest is in full health and Gridania prospers. About my points: I guess I'll think it a bit more, nothing really clear comes to my mind, I guess I should be in bed already. xD
I want a history teacher at Sharlayan to whom I can request lecture on how every bits of lore fit together, plus some new spicy trivia. Many thanks to you, for sorting it all out, but it shouldn't be this patchy inside the game itself, not after 10+ years. I would like a name for that job with the big hammer. You'd think, with Nero having one all the way back to ARR, they would have mentioned it by now. They even added Gaia and all these dwarves in ShB, not a mention. It looks to be a kind of tank and that's about it. I would like to have more lore about the different jobs. It's a shame they don't do job quest anymore. Even the new jobs, they only have 10 lvl worth of quest. Although I understand, with always more jobs, making quest for everyone of them like in StB is quite ressources consuming, it would be nice to have a single job quest per expansion, unlocked when you both reach the last level and have complete the role quests. Something around the job lore. To think we finally reached Sharlayan and Thavnaire, I wish we would have had Astroligian and Dancer quests about it. T__T
So, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, which is entirely possible, when Midgardsormr traveled to Etheirys, his brood was yet unborn. To me this would tell me that since he isn't of Etheirys, he wouldn't return the aetherial sea when he dies. Unlike his children, who would have been born under the aetherial influence of Etheirys. So I would guess that Midgardsormr's aether can not return to the Dragon Star aetherial sea. This would allow him to remain as a disembodied soul. We've seen with Nidhogg that a dragon's aether is bound more to their eyes than their body, and their body dying is not necessarily the end to them. I'm speculating quite a bit and have very little evidence for this, so I could very well be wrong. As for the light and dark thing, I don't remember it being said that people had it backward, but I'm human with a squishy human brain that forgets things or simply zones out sometimes. And Gridania. I much prefer it to Limsa. I loathe Limsa. But anyway, I never got the impression that the Elementals were bad. Maybe that some had a negative opinion, but never that they were malicious in any way. And what Gridania lacks in lore, it makes up with having Good King Moggle Mog XII. And Odin, both as a trial and a world boss FATE. And Ramuh with his epic beard is pretty cool.
I literally just want more representation on Nym. I tried to make a Nym based scholar but couldn't imagine their flag, so couldn't choose their colors...When they started variant dungeons I thought they were going to take us to old civilizations like Nym, Gelmorra and etc, but alas, nope.
Yeah, all other dragons are born of Midgarsormr. They were born of Hydaelyn so they'd be made of her aether, when they die they go back to the lifestream, Midi is from idk space somewhere so their death isn't tied to the aether cycle we're use to. When it comes to the scholars of the source "miss-attributing" light to astral and dark to umbral it's brought up that application & intention shapes the dark/light nature of the elements. A tsunami that destroys a coastline would be an umbral application of water while the rain that brings life to crops would be astral. The whole point of Shadowbringers was to tell us our strict separation and classification of light & dark was far too simple a view point.
One thing that has bothered me again recently is the process of rejoining and the umbral calamities. There are thirteen reflections. We've had six elements, darkness in the void, unaspected astral (???) with Bahamut and light/umbral with the black rose. Assuming the void is lost and light/dark and umbral/astral are separate, that's still two reflections unaccounted for. It doesn't add up. What were the ascians planning to do next? Overflow a world with dynamis or something? We're definitely missing a piece here.
Spot on about Gridania being a bummer, which is a shame cause it's my starting city. If the elementals were meant to be viewed positively, the game has majorly dropped the ball on that. Gelmorra would make a great spot for a future variant dungeon!
I always wondered if Midgardsormr would even go to the aetherial sea. He’s from another world so would he even have a connection to it? All the other dragons were born on our world so maybe they can die and be reincarnated but maybe Middy just can’t?
I want to know what happened to the remaining garlean legions and what happened to the states that the empire annexed post Endwalker. We know Werlyt, Bozja, all of Othard and Gyr Abanaia is free but what happened to Corvis, Landis and Nhalmasque?
I feel like papa middy is better left an enigma. He's the god of dragons, he's the only being other than omega not actually born on the star, he's eras old, I think it's safe to say he's just allowed to be weird.
Honestly, for all the interesting things in Gridania, they shot themselves in the foot so hard with their introduction alone. You're telling me these intensely xenophobic people who think themselves superior to everyone they deem an outsider, or even just an 'other' (because Duskwights and Moon Keepers are natives as well mind you) who claim to answer to a higher power which you will acquiesce to or be damned show up and start preaching all about... Purity? ... And they live in a place obviously named in reference of the Black Forest. Which I don't want to use as part of what I legimately thought was going to be a plot point somewhere but Jesus do they code Gridania as fascists or worse in my interpretation of the beginning of ARR...
Would very much like to see more of Middie, still have them as my mount and minnion, and it would be fun being able to have him chime in with his offspring when you chat with them if they're your "pet" Also, as a keeper of the moon, it would be nice to get more lore on my own race, considering they've kinda been ignored since the blurb on the character creation screen.
Snyodic said "Duskwight Elezen" and my heart swole with pride 🥰
"Hell yeah, Dusker!"
-Totally a Duskwight Slang I Swear It's In The Third Eorzea Encyclopedia Trust Me Please Don't Check
Gridania is the one that goes ignored the most in the lore and MSQ. Even in Stormblood, dealing with Gridania's other neighbors, and nothing. We're told Gridania has noble families but nope. Kan e senna's siblings just kind of show up in Endwalker with nothing prior. Same with Kan e's bodyguard who doesn't even get a name.
Gridania is one of the longest running examples of wasted potential in FFXIV and it's a shame.
Kan-e-senna's siblings were in the white mage job quests but even there there wasn't all too much info. Though in general basically all the info on the padjali was from white mage job quests and that one EW role-quest. They were also in the HW msq for like a scene when bringing back Y'shtola but there they basically just randomly showed up.
About Gridania there is a bunch more info in a lot of random blue and yellow quests with its main history being filled out in the encyclopaedia eorzean. The main story itself doesn't really elaborate on it at all though
As a keeper of the moon, I envy the duskwights. They at least have SOME fleshed out lore. My tribe's seclusion has more or less left them as a vague footnote in the scattered notes of Gridania's with no notable figures that I can point to for others to see.
Keeper of Entwined Serpents *is* the name of Kan-E's bodyguard. He abdicated his old name and completely gave himself to his role and title after she healed and took him in despite him serving under Garlemald in the past.
He indebted himself to her - he considers his past name irrelevant and won't give it out to anyone but Kan-E.
@@sold0ut210 But that's so interesting! More focus on stuff like this would be amazing. There are stories to tell in Gridania, but they're just going untouched. I suspect this is to keep the Black Shroud relatively mysterious, but *come on* you can tease us while still giving us something to chew on.
We always knew that Hydaelyn's condition for Middy to be allowed to stay on the star was that he had to protect the lake. But we never knew why until the Endwalker Alliance Raids... he was obviously protecting the home of Venat's friends (The Twelve)
I believe when we go to Meracydia, we will find out more about Midgardsormr's deal with Hydaelyn.
One of my biggest issues with ShB was how a bunch of soldiers had left Eulmore discontent with Ranjit's death. It should be a much bigger problem, seeing as how discontent soldiers leaderless and lacking any support base was a major problem in the Source, those soldiers after the age of strife becoming bandits and lawless mercenaries. It led to the creation of the Adventurer's guild to give these soldiers work. I would think the same thing would happen in the first, but it seemed to be nothing but a passing notice.
The short story "An Unpromised Tomorrow" is an interesting one with regard to Midgardsormr. It takes place in the splinter timeline post 8th calamity after G'Raha teleports the crystal tower away. The aether pulse generated by the tower warping out of reality awakened Midgardsormr and apparently awakened him fully.
As far as the light/dark thing, that would take some gymnastics on the part of the writers. There is no way the researchers and mages in Allag, Sharlayan, Thavnair, Amdapoor and Mhach wouldn't have put a bunch of aether of one type together to observe stasis or activity. Unless it really is just as simple as a naming convention though I don't see how anyone would look at the void and say "Look at all of that light".
Gridania wise, I would love to see more lore on Amdapoor and Gelmora. I don't have much of a problem with the elementals. They are blobs of semi sentient aether who don't see us the same way we do. To an elemental, we are smaller and less dense blobs of aether that occasionally damage and set fire to their habitat. At least they gave people a second chance.
As for what I would like to know more on, the moogles origin story (I suspect they were pre-sundering creations of the ancients involved in the conflict prior to the creation of Hydaelyn and the sundering), more about the Onishishu and the group that survived the fourth calamity in Othard, and more about Nagxia and their resistance to the empire. Then, after that, written in gold dust and blessed by the space pope himself: What is under the damned Ilsabard fog?
You know, I think the ancient npc who created moogle is the female npc we met when we did the side quest about the creator of gaelicat and his creation in Elpis. By the end of our dialogue with the female npc, I think she said seeing the gaelicat motivated her to create something that equally as cute as gaelicat (at least if my memories haven't failed me yet).
In regards to Middy being able to just reincarnate at will, I feel like that power is just a more upgraded version of what Nidhogg did when Estinien picked up his eyes at the end of launch HW. We know that the bulk of a dragon's power dwells in their eyes, and so long as their eyes survive, the dragon, in theory, has a window of revitalization. Given how freakishly old Middy is, it'd make sense his ability to do that is further along than that of his brood - so long as his eyes are intact, of course, which we know they are because they both light up when he pierces the WoL. Plus (though this is merely speculation and fan-theorizing on my part) it could be that, since Middy was not born on this star, his soul is not woven into the star's lifestream. So maybe he isn't pulled there when he dies, he just loiters around and can hop in if he wants, but chooses not to.
As for his deal with Hydaelyn, oh yeah, I am with you on that, that needs explaining.
We do learn in endwalker that there is also a celestial life-stream. However, I don't believe it's explained if non-native souls go to their original lifestream, if they go to the greater celestial, or if they go to the lifestream where they died.
See how easy it was for you to come up with something and yet a Multi billion dollar company can’t even fill in the blanks with cutscenes and books. How hard would it be to have an Anthropologist/Historian class, that allows you to explore all of Eorzea and uncover information, data and lore with quest lines, especially now that we uncovered The twelve
Regarding Midgardsormr, I think a brief glimpse into His deal or pact with Hydaelyn is hinted at in the Shadowbringers story. Not the MSQ or anything, but the short stories that were released on the website. In "TALES FROM THE SHADOWS: STORY #8 titled: AN UNPROMISED TOMORROW" you will see that Midgardsormr just rose back to life as though he were never really dead AT ALL. He was fully replenished and at maximum strength. I believe that Midgardsormr's pact with Hydaelyn was that if there were too many Rejoinings and She no longer had the power to help the Star (In this example when Her power waned too far when the 1st was rejoined with the Source which empowered Black Rose that killed scores of people), the pact was that He would take over as the Deity of the Star so that She could focus on sustaining Her leftover life force or even regaining Her strength from the insurmountable aether that pushed into the Aetherial Sea from the rejoining, or even so that She could focus on ferrying all of the billions of souls that were part of the 1st and help them find their way into the other parts of themselves so there's not as much chaos in the lifestream.
Midgardsomr was mentioned in the Shadowbringers side story "An unpromised Tomorrow" so we do know he is regenerating and sleeping, not actually dead. In it he comes to life as a result of the Crystal Tower jumping to the First. As to Sharlayan Scholars not making some stupid mistake regarding Umbral and Astral getting Light and Dark backwards... I must call out that when instructed by Hydaelyn to give information to the Loporrits to be ready for evacuation they never thought to send things like information on Races, Heights, Needs, Diets (Given how little they seem to care about food I can almost see this one) etc... Things like that which would be considered basic and important on any evacuation vessel being built, instead they seem to have used it as a backup library.
I would like to know more about the people in the Fifth age, in order for the Ascians to manage to cause reflections to rejoin they must cause tilts in Aether, in every case we have seen this has needed something beyond their own ability to cause directly, otherwise they would not need to mess with mortals. So logically there MUST be some form of civilization that they could manipulate. What is more in all the known ones we are aware specifically they trigger it in Eorzea, The First and Second we know nothing of where the trigger civilization was, some lore indicates that the third was holy wars by corrupt churches, Thanalan's envoronment seems to be the result of them as it is suggested that the shroud or at least the some forestry covered it. The Fourth was the war between the Dragons and Allagans, the fifth we know nothing about it, and the Sixth Was due to a war between Black and White mages, the Scholars were involved but not really important in this disaster. Obviously the Seventh was Primal Bahamut and he awoke again in Eorzea. The Eighth in the aborted timeline was Garleans using Black Rose against... Eorzeans. So there should be some sign of a civilization for the Fifth Era and we do not see it, something is missing, and I suspect the Elements of the Shroud are hiding it.
I would also like to know more about each race. As a Miqo'te main I especially want to know about them, from what I recall about the known canon history the Allagans took them as slaves from Meracydia, they were brought to Corvos. We know that in the Age of Endless Frost they migrated in mass to Eorzea as if they already knew it was a land of plenty, had this been just part of their population it could be figured that the species scattered, but this does not really seem to be the case, there were 26 tribes, and they ALL in some form came to Eorzea. Some like G tribe left some in Corvos, but we really do not see any in other parts of the world that did not originate from Eorzea. I see two main possibilities, first is that the Allagans took some of them to Eorzea temporarily first so they knew about it that way, second, they were in Eorzea originally and the Allagans chased them all the way to Meracydia (We know that the Allagans were very racist and displaced a lot of people) where they made the last stand with the people there and lost. Either way they would have past ancestral knowledge of the location. I would really like this expanded on.
Side note, I find it amusing the Garleans claim to originate in Corvos and were displaced from there and now claim to be the successors to the Allagans, kinda sounds like the Garleans were another people brought to near extinction by the Allagans and left in the slave dumping ground of Corvos. By the way the Garleans tell it there were many people there that pushed them out. Could be interesting to learn more of Corvos history in that way.
Gelmorra would make a great criterion dungeon location.
But arent there still folks living there? Would the plot for that questline be that Gridania has decided to anex and gentrify the old city, and we must purge the remnant population?
@@HaddaClu Yes, but a lot of it is in ruins/infested with monsters like PotD/Tam-Tara/Toto-Rak. It could be us clearing a section of monsters to help the Elezen reclaim a portion of it. Or just a researcher/gleaner needs to do something and we are clearing a path for them. I just want more lore for that particular civilization I feel like it’s the least fleshed out.
Remember that big hole in 1.0 that was left derelict and filled in with earth and rock in the North Shroud? Wish THAT was left intact in 2.0 so we could send a crew down there!
Yeah I’ve wanted more Gelmorra lore ever since The Speakers Network covered it and with the introduction of V&C dungeons, I thought it would probably be covered by those at some point.
So I'm kinda pagany and while not very witchcrafty I do a bit of tarot which when you study it brings you to the idea of activity and passivity.
Activity is initiative, passion, movement. This in embodied in The Magician, who has all the symbols of magic before him. Think of him like Louisoux of Emet-Selch. They're doers.
Passivity is rest, relaxation, dreams, focus on the inner world, intuition. The High Priestess embodies this, but Kan-E-Senna or Urianger would be fairly apt comparisons.
Activity can also be reckless and immature. It can be impatient and hasty. Passivity can lapse in attention, head buried in the clouds or books. It can get isolated or lazy.
So neither are fully good or bad, but they have their merits.
Then we have the light/dark stuff. Vauthry is aligned with light and innocence,bit he sure is bred to be evil.
The Night's Blessed would likely be deemed disturbing, reclusive cult on the Source, rumored to be evil. But we know this cult to be fairly kind and altruistic. They believe in and worship a night they've seen.
Then you have Sin Eaters and Voidsent. Light-aligned aether-starved zombies and Dark-aligned aether-starved vampires, basically. All of them are dangerous, but also victims of Ascians failed attempts at rejoining.
Then we have Hydaelyn who has you as her agent, with most of her work done ages ago, and Zodiark who is really just a glorified cork to prevent the Final Days from being unbottled.
Light and Dark are just prominent elements. Astral and Umbral just seem like what polarity they operate on.
Light can drive growth, but also burn. Darkness can provide comfort and rest, but also create fear and be hard to navigate.
Finally, ShB post game forced our heroic nations with their past misdeeds, to reflect and make peace. To create friends and allies. To bring life back to those deemed lost in the tempered.
I don't think these are forces of good or evil, but differences that must reconcile or they never survive the coming of ultimate despair.
What bothered me the most is they still haven't explained why the sun is missing on Mare Lemantorum.
Regarding the Light & Darkness/Astral & Umbral, it makes sense that scholars confused Light (being the hyperactive element) and Darkness (being the subdued element) because you think Light: fast and Darkness: slow. However, the ShB explanation dictated that the idea of Light (Astral) Dark (Umbral) were backwards because Light represents stasis (slow) and Dark represents chaotic (fast). This was elaborated on by Hydaelyn stating she "presides over the forces of stasis, tranquility and peace" which corresponds with the revelation in ShB about Light and Sin Eater aether being stagnant. It's also explained that Darkness (post Endwalker patches) the Voidsent have an insatiable need to consume aether to remain in essence, intact.
Tbh, I didn't find any of the Light/Dark explanation confusing in the least.
Excellent video though :)
Hmm I'm not sure what thr confusion with light and darkness is, this is the first time I hear of this, maybe there's something I'm missing but from what I thought of Uriange's explanation:
I don't think the scholars got the "effects" of light and darkness confused, but just assigned opposite names due to differing philosophy and trying to tie the elements to the historical eras: assigning the "active" label of Astral to moments of progress (astral eras) gives a connotation of light and brightness while eras of stagnation (umbral) had negative, dark connotations.
But that philosophy when they tried to attach it to history doesn't reflect actual aetherology:
Where the polarity that incites movement of particles is associated with chaos, darkness, while the polarity of stasis, order and passivity has the light connotations.
I think it's all naming convention really, it doesn't affect how the elemental wheel shows interactions between elements and polarity. We just mentally aligned light with umbral and darkness with astral. Change in nomenclature from what I understood. I might be missing something I'm not seeing
On a side note I always wondered how it would feel to get hit by a magical attack with "light" or "dark" aspect. I imagined these kinds of spells would be like aetherial magnets either jolting your body to spasm with astral aether (like getting shocked by lightning but worse) or just giving your body this sluggish heaviness (the kind you feel after getting pounded by waves at the beach and are just EXHAUSTED) lol
The elemental's are supposed to be Divinities, like that of Nophica etc etc. Nophica even says they are in the Alliance Raids. I think she says something along the lines of "They're the voice of those who reside in the forest." which is double-speak for the animals, insects etc etc. But it stands to reason too that they're divinities because of their associations from the modern Gridanians linking them to Nophica directly.
It's been a long time, but by my memory, it was indicated that the understanding of light/dark, or the elements in general varies somewhat between the worlds, which you could say gives the writers more flexibility on the matter. Lore can be a double-edged book. There is value in mystery. Not really knowing, or not knowing all of the details anyway, is what allows people to enjoy the art of speculation, for example--which is why I feel mixed about definitive answers at times, such as with The Twelve's raid story.
To me I would have to ask about Ultima’s placement in the universe of XIV. We still have questions relating to the High Seraph before she became the Angel of Blood that I think could be answered within the future if not soon. What she truly is? Why was her influence here since the age of the Ancients? Why was she called to Ivalice? Are we truly done with her and the Heart of Sabik? Stuff like that.
I would definitely like to know more doman lore and hingashi lore
I cannot wait for the Hingashi expansion.😢
In my experience Gridania has considerably more people in it than Ul'dah. There's a poll on reddit that suggest Gridania is the most popular starting zone (can't link). I often go back to hand in some gear to the GC and do some crafting. Side note, I wish Old Sharlayan was more popular. I'm not sure what SE's stance is on Gridania in terms of lore, or reasons for the WoL to give a damn about the place, but mine and many other peoples WoL's appreciate Gridania because that is where they started. I too would love some more lore though, including some on the old city states.
Gridania is my favorite starting zone by far. I enjoy the quests, starting jobs, most of the npc's, and I enjoy Lil Papalymo and Yda as our intro Scions much more than Thancred or Shtola. There's also the bit where the city map isnt nearly the maze the other locations are.
As the self-proclaimed Princess of Allag, I want to learn much more about the Allagan Empire's history. Some more about Amdapor and the War of the Magi would also be most welcome.
Oh man, I have Gridania as my home primarily because I love forest settings. I knew the lore was a bit... Sparse, but you really highlighted just how little there really is.
Keeper of the Moon lore! Between them and the Dusk, I don’t know who has been robbed more. Though if you at least see the Dusk and learn about them without needing to kill them. Most Keepers are aggressive mobs with one or two appearing in Gridania.
I look at Ishgard in Coerthas Central Highlands, and wonder where the Firmament is, as well as the 30 Wards and equal amount of Subdivisions of the Empyreum.
I see a Scribe video I watch it immediately
Great points, especially about Gridania! I wouldn't mind seeing some lore building about the Moon Keepers besides the initial blurbs you get in ARR. Also I really would like a return of the job quests in a "Where are they now?" sort of way. e.g. You're helping train and organise the next generation of white mages, or you're helping the Tonberries of Nym return to being a city state whilst ACTUALLY BEING A TACTICIAN, and the like. It's really disappointing that we're treated in the MSQ as little more than a beat stick when we've trained for so much more.
very much so, if we're too powerful to be trained, then we should be training OTHERS, after all teaching is the best way to learn.
I do appreciate that about the monk quest line, in that your character actually becomes an instructor in the second half of the story arc instead of just getting a "congratulations you graduated now get outta here" ending or just remaining in a state of perpetual student-hood; it made way more sense, why would you let the best alumni in your class of sometimes MAYBE two or three people just... walk away? Monk felt like a complete arc.
@@M0ssP1glet You can kind of say the same for Summoner and Paladin for a bit too, when you get to "teach" (aka show yourself attacking a mob) some NPCs.
Wish there was more for this, especially since it's much easier to introduce new characters and a new conflict when you also have a new situation that still has multiple angles of storytelling.
One idea regarding the aetherial wheel:Aether is fundamentally different depending on which Shard you are on. That's what I assumed when Urianger did that speech.
I wonder if Hideleyn accepted Midgardsormir to the star, because we as a person told her about dragon's, and let it slip about him to her. How he was at the star, how he helped us and maybe they had an unspoken contract. Because we did tell her how our world was like, but since our character doesn't "talk" in the normal sense, what we told her specifically is up for debate, or our imagination.
But I feel that mommy knowing she let him and his children stay at the source, is one of the reasons he stayed there, since without us going to the past, our world would not be as it is. As weird as the whole time travel thing always is in games, it's "cannon" to us going back there and talking with her.
Him being as powerful as he is, probably is because as said, he's from a time post sundering, as is his children, which could explain his power in particular, he's probably on par, if not even more powerful, than even the Ascians. Ascians in death have been shown to be amazingly powerful, but not as powerful as Midgardsormir. And his children has unique and strange abilities that could topple the Ascians themselves, like just the eyes have such immense potential, each unique it seems.
However I think perhaps each child thereafter might've been powered down, from the source taking more aether as dragon's kept being born, making them less strong than their parents. Or perhaps it's just an age thing, the older the dragon is, the stronger they become, with maybe the Source being as shattered as it is, maybe powering them down nonetheless, but not as brutally to the older generation that is more "pure" from when coming to the source.
How old daddy Mid is, we have no idea, he might be the first amongst his own kind for all we know, making him perhaps thousands, or close to a million years old. Making him near unto a god even for his own kind
One theory that I had heard is that the souls of dragon's and dragon kind don't return to the Aetherial Sea; but, they have their own "sea pf souls" apart from what is known to us. This person's theory was based on how dragons age and how they are "linked" to each other regardless of how far apart they are. I think what this person might be thinking is that dragons are "telepathically linked" in a way and they ability stems from this "unknown sea of souls" accessible only to dragons. Even on another plane (The Void) a dragon's voice/soul could still be heard/felt.
Gridania aside, I just want to see more expansive lore on each of the playable races in general, especially with us exploring more and more of the Realm. And we're still operating off of base Eorzean Miqo'te lore, etc. I would absolutely love a less direction-driven patch series where we kind of just dive into and tear apart the cultures, adding to them.
Honestly I hate how little we know of the origin points of the playable races. Specifically Aerslaent for me as I play a Roegadyn, we know it's a nation in the Northern Empty, and we know it fell to a tyrannical regime which lead to the creation of Limsa Lominsa after a failed rebellion... that's kinda it.
Honestly if you aren't a Elezen, Au Ra, or Highlander your origins and "root" in the world is still really vague. Even Bozja is more about a (really good in my opinion) war story than it is exploring native Hrothgar culture. Viera are written in such a way that we'll likely never get more than a few scraps about their jungles. Corvus, Meracydia, the South Sea Isles (which got a Variant Dungeon but that barely touches on original Lalafellin culture), etc. are all just kind of footnotes which feels really weird to me.
It's like I said in my own response to Morgaine's post, imagine knowing the answers of life and death, imagine knowing the truth about gods and divine powers, imagine knowing what lies beyond the stars... but you don't know ANYTHING about Scotland or Australia. Sounds kinda silly, doesn't it?
Whenever i think of what the origin places look like for the races we don't know, i just jokingly imagine it being filled with midlander hyurs for no apparent fcking reason.
Pretty much every place revealed has had a notable population or hyur, no matter how little sense it makes.
the astral/umbral light/dark split reminds me a lot of the early history of electronics
electrical current was discovered decades before we understood the electron's role in mediating it.
as a result conventional current, that is, the current direction shown in diagrams flows positive to negative. Though we know now that the electrons actually flow negative to positive.
Everything still works, and so decades later we still use conventional current when discussing electronics and refer to current as the movement of "positive charges", even though we know its "wrong"
A reason for the light and dark mix up could be that the orginal findings were so long ago and so well drilled that no one questioned if it could be wrong until going to the first. I knwo from my experince in academica it is far easier to find something new then question something old. The lack of alternative desgins of the chart shows that many would just see as unquestionable fact and assume it is correct and any findings that contradict it was wrong before the chart could be wrong.
Not an answer but if you need to get some sleep with something plausable that seems very likly with what happens IRL.
That's what I was thinking, especially with the Umbral era/Astral era bits. Looking at that kind of shows how they thought of light/dark and umbral/astral, so kind of makes sense to me that it's probably been a belief that's been around for awhile
If I remember correctly, Nidhogg was suposed to inherit what Middy is doing now as he was the strongest of his brood but then the Dragonsong War happened and Nidhogg went insane with grief.
I'd really like to see a return to Dalmasca. The plot with the princess and whether or not its even considered a country anymore given that Rabanastre was basically bomb-shelled into ruins feels so open-ended, but I don't know that we'll ever see it given that it seems mostly consigned into being combined with Bozja ore outside of its alliance raids :(
My own question is what exactly happened when Midgardsormr destroyed the Agrius and broke whatever seal was in place at the bottom of Silvertear? The 1.0 cinematic showed us something but it could all be a dream.
Good point about Gridania. I think of that city and off the top of my head the only interesting thing that pops in my mind is that the leader of the Elder Seedseer's guard is an ex-Garlean soldier she saved during the battle of Carteneau. This place needs a Variant Dungeon or something.
As for missing lore that bugs me personally, I actually tend to not notice that sort of thing until it's pointed out to me.
Regarding light and dark, according to that one cutscene during ShB, they specifically use the word "nomenclature" twice, once by Urianger and two screens later by Thancred, so light and dark are simply words for umbral and astral respectively, that's it, just other names for the same thing and there is no actual change whatsoever. Light and umbral are one and the same, just called something else, same with dark and astral. At least they didn't go back to alter the definitions of black mage skills to change astral fire and umbral ice into dark fire and light ice.
It's still stupid how they decided to out of nowhere have the entire world change what they call the planet they live on, with no prompting or communication. And within the same expansion we then get the housing item Hydaelyn As We Know Her, which by it's name goes right against this newly established convention.
I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure only people who are "in the loop" so to speak call the planet Etheirys - the Scions, Sharlayan, the Loporrits, etc. Other people who wouldn't know about the old name still call it Hydaelyn as far as I recall.
@@Drewble789 May be wrong but personally I've not seen anyone call it Hydaelyn since the end of EW, even the beast tribe in Thavnair goes along with it.
@@Max44321 Do you remember when they used that name for it? Just went to talk to everyone at the hub for the Arkasodara quests and it doesn't come up, but obviously the dialogue changes as you go through. Not trying to doubt you, just curious to see it since I must have glossed over it.
@@Drewble789 I think during the more recent patch that has a follow-up to doing all three tribal quests, when the lopporrit comes to visit he refers to it and nobody questions it? The name at least feels like it pops up everywhere it shouldn't, I may be wrong but it feels like that
@@Max44321 eh, if a little rabbit dude came up to me and said "hey wanna go race hippos at the end of the universe?", the name he used for the planet would not be my first question lol
You know you can still call it Twitter right?
The artist formerly known as Twitter
Nope, that's dead and gone
We know that the following races were on both the first and the source, Miqote, Roegadyn, Hrothgar, Hyur, lalafell, elezen, qitari and namazu. This would imply that they were in existence prior to the sundering. for races that are a mixture of animal and human. Why were they created for? What was their purpose?
Speaking light and darkness. When Rine chooses to invoke the ice element because it is closest to light element threw me off
the umbral/astral thing seems more like a nomenclature issue. a problem with naming conventions, not how astral/umbral work. think about this: why is north at the top of the map? world is a sphere, there's no rhyme or reason why north would be the upside, in fact there's maps from 1500s that are "sideways up", putting west at the bottom of the map and east up top; the reason why north is up top is simply because we all decided it is. as we all decided the alphabet will be in that particular order, as we all decided one side of the magnet is "positive" and the other "negative". we could have used a million words for that.
as i understood it, it's not that the scholars in the source got it wrong, simply that they called stasis umbral and activity astral, the opposite of what we see in the first. no one's wrong, they just called things the opposite way.
Gridania is my favorite state. If I could start _every_ class there, I would! The elezen are gorgeous, the landscape is my kind of thing, the Padjal are so cool of a concept… ❤
Midgardsommr's eyes were still intact when he spoke to you at the end of his dungeon.
So he was never "dead" in sense. His eyes were the source of his power. Which was a hint to other dragons such as Nidhogg and Hraesvalgr
I was just thinking about Scholars, and their possible connection to Vana'diel, the world of FFXI. Especially in light of the upcoming Dawntrail raid series; Echoes of Vana'diel.
I've been theorizing that the Scholar arts came from somewhere in the New World, and that there's an area where the barrier between Etheirys and Vana'diel is thin, as early Scholar/Arcanist job quests briefly invoke the name "Schultz". Possibly a reference to Gunther Schultz, founder of the Schultz School of Magical Theory
Would love to see more on Meracydia someday
I agree with wanting to see more about Gridania come up on the foreground. There are lots about their current troubles and way of life that is a lot more subtle (for me) through side quests. I admit to being a little sick of people asking for it constantly, but I'm also one of those who want to know more of the history of Gelmorra, and the state of the Duskwight population. We've seen Nanamo and Merlwyb move forward with their people so I'd like to see Kan-E-Senna and Gridania grow as well, with a healthy explanation of why that's difficult
Something to keep in mind about light and dark is that on the First, light as an element is just naturally a lot stronger and therefore would be a lot easier to observe/measure, even before the flood. It's not hard to imagine that with light and dark being not as strong on the source, the association of "active = astral = bright, starry depictions" and "passive = umbral = dark, gloomy depictions" is just something that became 'common knowledge' long ago and science never really thought to question, whereas on the First where light is more tangible they have a better understanding of it. It's also possible imo that Sharlayan *did* learn about the true nature of light and dark...but only through their communications with Hydaelyn, which they were bound to secrecy on.
On Excalibur, there is a bunch of people who hang out by the Gridania anther eye. Bards play there at times. People chat. It may not be as full as Limsa, but it is noticeable.
As for missing lore, I would really like to know about what Cid's ironworks does. Considering the resources that they have been shown to have (All those computers during a quest in MSQ) and things that they have done (Built a whole mech), they must be doing a lot. And I don't think that just airships alone would pay for all that.But we never really see all that much overall evidence of technical advancement in the world. And yet the little snippets we see imply that things are quite busy at the ironworks.
On EU servers it's also traditionally where bands go to play. It's nice and relaxing. Ul'dah is usually pretty empty outside of the Market boards.
I personally would love to see sooo much more of Dalmasca region; Such as Nalbina, Lea Monde. And the other regions, too: Skatay Range, Greylic's Bend, Golmure, Valnain. With a lot more Viera background.
I feel like you could have allowed yourself a short "UNCLOUD ILSABARD!!!" somewhere in the video. I feel like it works as a short running gag, heh
As far as the theories of Astral/Umbral energies, I think the lack of realization just came from like. . . Science "knowing" what was what. Naming the Astral after the light of the stars, the suns of the solar systems, etc. . . Umbral for shadow, darkness, a time of sleep, and restfulness. The "natural" understanding of how things act when light is a thing and when it's dark coloring the beliefs of the scholars. . . Actually makes sense. But I would definitely like to know more about how Urianger came to that conclusion. It's explained in MSQ, but not very deeply.
And yeah, as a person playing a Half-Gridanian, I find that half of my boys backstory to be very vague other than "Gardening and flowers gud!" etc. I'd love to have more hooks for people playing Gridanian Elezen. I've gotten plenty of fodder for the Ishgardian half of his bloodline. Gimme more cottagecore elemental lore! (Though I really dislike Kan e Senna compared to the other leaders. She feels very flat and lacking in motivation and failings. Unless you count being flat a failing lol)
This is an excellent video! I really enjoy learning about the lore of XIV, of Hydaelyn and its peoples.
WHY IS EVERY NUNH IN GAME THE TRIBAL LEADER
WHERE ARE THE MATRIARCHAL KEEPER TRIBES????
We Gridanians are NIMBY'S and proud of it. All the city slickers can stay in their overpopulated crowed cities.
Jokes aside lore wise isn't Gridania the most xenophobic? Their controlled lifestyle that forcuses on sustainable living only fits well with very few. The xenophobia that is born from their protection of the land doesn't help either.
I recall a scene where Merylweb and Kan-E-Senna discuss their cities and Kan-E chastises Merylweb for her expansion into other lands and Merylweb essentially says "Her people grow and need more space and they can't(nor would ever) be like Gridania, who essentially forces population control."
Since Gridania is at peace relative to other city states(Limsa's "freedom" and Uldah's "invisible hand"). So, peace doesn't require change. Oh, and if some tries to change anything a nuke(the elementals) will be set off.
I love the forest and I love Gridania, but there are in game reasons to avoid us taciturn woods folk. I would love to see some sort of uneasy compromise where the elementals have to compromise because their neighbors will only tolerate the "lack of freedom" that other nations enjoy for so long.
Take a drink if he says Dynamis :-)
Prepare to be sober.
@@SynodicScribe fair enough. There are larger lore things to worry about. Nicely done video sir scribe
West Shroud, and Gelmorra.
HUGE gaps here!
Im holding onto the belief that when we get an expansion that takes us to Mericydia we will get more details about Midgardsormr and the dragons. Maybe he will return and talk to us again after so long
11:55
So I just wanna say I used to use Limsa as my main city for the market board as well but I switched to Gridania when I changed Grand Companies and Ive noticed something.
Limsa is definitely the best for easy access to market board, Gridania has the easiest access to the Inn and Grand Company, while Ul'dah... Well it has roughly the same access to GC as Gridania but thats kinda it. All of this of course assumes you wanna deal with minimal loading screens.
Missing lore that bugs me?
Female Hrothgar naming convention.
So, I had guessed back during Shadow bringers that male and female would share the same naming conventions. Well thanks to the lore book my guess was right.
HOWEVER! That only covers Hrothgar who are followers and the Lost. There is still the matter of female Hrothgar who are queens or leaders.
Queens are Helions, but as they are leaders and not followers, would they use lost surnames despite being Helions?
I wish the lore book would have cleared that bit up while it covered Hrothgar.
Got a REALLY big question here:
What the heck happened to the remnants of the IV Legion after their defeat at Bozja, especially now that the empire doesn’t really exist anymore?
That was roughly explained in the notes you get in the Bozja quests. TLDR, much of it was dissolved and surviving military leaders either vanished or were killed.
From what I remember, Light was always Astral and Dark was always Umbral, what they got wrong was that Light/Astral is Stasis and Dark/Umbral is Activity (instead of the other way around) which is further explained by Y'shtola in the 13th. The real issue is that everyone has always assumed that light is good and dark is evil. Even in the series as a whole (excluding FFIII) light is seen as good and dark as evil. Shadowbringers (and FFIII) main point is that Light isn't inherently good and Dark isn't inherently evil, and realizing the nature of Astral and Umbral is what brought us to that revelation. They wanted us to go into Endwalker without seeing things as black and white, because reality is a large spectrum of many shades of grey.
I do think the underground city under gridania would make for a great story to explore. maybe introduce some relic that will let you time travel like the wrist device in Titanfall 2's "Effect and Cause" but only in that lost city?
also, for the elemental aether weirdness, my understanding is different to what you described. The six basic elements are ascribed like they are to Light and Dark, and then Light and Dark were then connected to the forces of Stability and Quickening. Kind of like how ying and yang have the dots inside each color, Light includes the highly energetic Air element and Dark includes the highly stable Ice element. Astral and Umbral affinities I thought were separate, more so connected to the Day/Night cycle than the element system I just described.
Thus, the inconsistencies with past portrayals would be a combination of "we're just using light and dark in ignorance to describe morality" but also with vague allusions to stability/order vs chaos/anarchy. The bit about "scholars in the source didn't consider this" was the specifically part about light = stability and dark = quickening.
Thaumaturgy and black magic, during the blackmage job questline, was always deeply connected in people's minds to voidsent and the evil corruption of power. those who practiced these things thought they were riding the line of moral-darkness rather than a balancing force to the stability of light. Conjury and white magic, in turn, was rooted in the Gridanian purity for preservation of the forest. Only historians specifically versed in the Mhachian war between white and black would be able to understand how white magic can be just as destructive as black, and how they are truly more alike than different.
I THINK what Urianger was teaching us in the First was that Light & Dark is not Good Vs Evil but merely two Goods that must remain in balance and counteract each other. of course, I've not even held an Eorzean Encyclopedia in my hands or paid THAT close attention to side quests and the like, so I could be totally missing something. But that's my understanding.
Every time Gridania was a focus of a story/side story,
was because Elementals "tried to fix something and turned out grrrrreat!" or we must fix the problem before Elementals decides to "fix" it themselves
One of my issues with the lore is shinryu where did he come from is he part of midgardsormrs brood or a different one entirely
I wanna know what the deal is with the dark Zodiark crystal. We see one cut-scene where the mother crystal turns dark purple for a sec, presumably meant to represent Zodiark. I had thought it was a metaphor, with the two crystals standing in for Hydaelyn and Zodiark. But then it turns out the Mothercrystal is an *actual* crystal that Hydaelyn keeps in the aetheric sea. So is the dark crystal still just a metaphor?
For selfish reasons, that being that I play a Duskwright Elezen with a GC in Gridania, I also want to see more of Gelmorra. Even if it's just a small side story with Valdeaulin where you get to meet some ofthe Gelmorran people in the Shroud. Also I saw on twitter people discussing 1.0 areas that don't exist in current xiv, and those would be fantastic to explore.
With Gridania, I feel like the more the game tells you about the place the worse it actually gets, especially with the WHM and EW Tank role quests.
They STILL have that Duskwright being harrassed by those guards outside the Lancer Guild.
I would LOVE to learn more about where the Duskwight live! I doubt we're going to get much this expansion since it's dealing with the New World, but if we're lucky, maybe later?
For me the one piece of lore I wish they'd go into is the Hellsgaurd. What Hell are they guarding? It's the same kind of thing as Gridania and the duskwights, where it feels like an open question that the devs have no care in answering.
I feel when they focus a future expansion on the Void, we might know more of Gridania.
On the midgardsormr part. It is mentioned that nidhogg was taking midgardsormrs place as protector and midgardsormr was testing the wol. Could it not be implicated that the deal struck was "live on this star, protect this star"? That is, IF there was a deal at all. Pointing this out on the Light and dark part. we look to the lore more closely, we can find that the new belief about astral and umbral aether, has been present since before the begining. Just look at the eras and calamities. If i recall rightly, the calamities were always refered to as "umbral" while the times of balance between calamities has been refered to as "astral". Umbral periods of the calamities have always been full of change both aetherically and physically. But astral eras are times when the aetheric energies are not causing an incredible and or destructive outcome. Umbral is active energy while astral is static.
I feel the light and dark aspects are sufficiently explained.
And I think I have found out how the reflections have been sundered, and this is solely due to the 7th umbral calamity being purely astral in nature and having no element, and because it rejoined the seventh reflection which is depicted as the polar opposite from the source.
The reflections that have been rejoined thus far has been rejoined with elements starting from Wind and goes clockwise around the elemental wheel. This was done to create balance between the elements.
But we also have astral and umbral balance.
Since the seventh reflection was rejoined with purely astral aether, you could argue that the reflections on either side are of a specific astral or umbral aspect.
Seeing as the thirteenth was more sensitive to astral aether and the first was more sensitive to umbral aether, I suspect that the astral/umbral aspect of reflections 1 - 6 are skewed more against umbral aspect, while the astral/umbral aspect of reflections 8 - 13 are skewed more against astral aspect.
Which is the reason why more of the reflections from 1 - 6 have been rejoined than the reflections 8 - 13. The seventh umbral calamity set out to balance the light that had been rejoined by the 1st - 6th calamity.
Assuming this is true opens up a lot of doors for the story, but one becomes more clear to me, especially now that we have been foreshadowed what is planned between the Thirteenth and the First (which btw will definitively backfire, cause a huge disturbance in the barriers, overload the capacity of the crystal tower and perhaps cause an artificial rejoining that really fucks up a lot).
The First and the Thirteenth were never supposed to be rejoined with purely umbral and astral aether.
And if we are to follow the next rules of the elemental wheel about the three conquests and three submissions, I suspect the next calamities will be truly enormous rejoining three and three elements at a time.
I believe this will be a couple of expansion packs in the future though as such a big disaster needs a lot of build up.
Yes, I do understand that the reflections aren't spacially far apart as they are described in the ocular, but for visualizations sake it's easier to use the ocular representation of the reflections.
i just kindof assumed the light and dark triangles in the middle were already representing light and dark? iunno?!
Wolfmen, they were a vital part of stormblood and always wanted to see their culture explored more/a race added, but like many things in stormblood, it dangles possibilities, but doesn’t fulfil
preach scribe, preach. The gridania/gelmorra issue drives me insane. i hate how wasted it all is
Thank you for mentioning the light/dark astral/umbral conundrum. I definitely agree it’s confusing based on how the interpreters address the translation, and it’s really been bothering me lately. Probably the biggest issue is that, when it comes to aether in XIV, it’s a subject that is both scientific (quantifiable, physical, measurable) and religio-cultural. The First has their reverse understanding of light/dark because of their history with the flood of light. But is that necessarily a correct “scientific” understanding of the topic, or merely a cultural understanding? What about the Source and EE1? Have aetherologists on the source been saying astral is active because of a scientific method or because that’s what they’ve grown up believing?
The best I can come up with is on a plot level is the energy of dynamus which is dark and active.makes up a large part of this universe, It can play on emotion. Perhaps that had some thing to do with the recent discovery?
I need a new aetherial chart, more data, and more Gridania. Gridania is the stage and setting for Dad of Light. it deserves love.
My theory is that since middy isnt from this planet, and his planet isnt even around anymore, his soul has no lifestream to return to, so he just kinda loiters around
Regarding dragons, I have a theory that they’re like Jedi when they die, they have persist in spirit, but they’re aliens, the Atherial sea isn’t theirs to enter, maybe they had one on their planet, and they can’t acces it anymore, regardless, with shiva we see dead beings can merge and bond with dragons and their spirit can live on , I belive all the dragons (not ishgardians that were people and probably return to the star) the Aline ones: are capable of what midsgromar is, to an extent, but they don’t have as much stake or care about the doings of others, whereas midsgormr seems eager to talk to us on occasion. (Tldr maybe the dragons can’t go to the atherial sea, so their spirits just hangout, and only midsgramor feels like talking)
I’ve been dying to know more about middy it felt like his story just stopped and I want it to be told
I am a big fan 😅
Thank you for information and have good days 🍻👍
I yearn for Duskwight lore.. Even a little, I'm saddened we have so little of it.
First, about the 3 points you brought:
Midgarsomr... his backstory sure comes at a very slow pace, but at least we always get stuff here and there. I'm gald we had a sneak peek of the dragon star in Endwalker. Maybe we will even go fix that world in Dawntrail, with the crafter/gatherer new area. And I'm sure he will wake up at some point, when it will be story relevant...
Light and darkness... it feels like Daoism, where yin and yang are kind of parallel to the 5 elements, but together at the same time. Since the script writers are Japanese, they probably have these kind of cultural feature in the background of their concept. But I hope they will take the time to put it all more clearly.
Gridania... My impression is, the city is strongly inspired by Lord of the Rings's elven cities, Rivendell and Lothlórien. And... not much happened there in JRRT's story, so the Japanese script crew weren't sure what to do with it, more than being the elemental city. As for these spirits, I see them like cats: they need to be reassured, cozied up, and anything new or unexpected can make them fearful. And of course, they expect their humans to sort things out if something is not to their liking. But when they are happy, the forest is in full health and Gridania prospers.
About my points: I guess I'll think it a bit more, nothing really clear comes to my mind, I guess I should be in bed already. xD
I want a history teacher at Sharlayan to whom I can request lecture on how every bits of lore fit together, plus some new spicy trivia. Many thanks to you, for sorting it all out, but it shouldn't be this patchy inside the game itself, not after 10+ years.
I would like a name for that job with the big hammer. You'd think, with Nero having one all the way back to ARR, they would have mentioned it by now. They even added Gaia and all these dwarves in ShB, not a mention. It looks to be a kind of tank and that's about it.
I would like to have more lore about the different jobs. It's a shame they don't do job quest anymore. Even the new jobs, they only have 10 lvl worth of quest. Although I understand, with always more jobs, making quest for everyone of them like in StB is quite ressources consuming, it would be nice to have a single job quest per expansion, unlocked when you both reach the last level and have complete the role quests. Something around the job lore. To think we finally reached Sharlayan and Thavnaire, I wish we would have had Astroligian and Dancer quests about it. T__T
So, unless I'm remembering incorrectly, which is entirely possible, when Midgardsormr traveled to Etheirys, his brood was yet unborn. To me this would tell me that since he isn't of Etheirys, he wouldn't return the aetherial sea when he dies. Unlike his children, who would have been born under the aetherial influence of Etheirys. So I would guess that Midgardsormr's aether can not return to the Dragon Star aetherial sea. This would allow him to remain as a disembodied soul. We've seen with Nidhogg that a dragon's aether is bound more to their eyes than their body, and their body dying is not necessarily the end to them.
I'm speculating quite a bit and have very little evidence for this, so I could very well be wrong.
As for the light and dark thing, I don't remember it being said that people had it backward, but I'm human with a squishy human brain that forgets things or simply zones out sometimes.
And Gridania. I much prefer it to Limsa. I loathe Limsa. But anyway, I never got the impression that the Elementals were bad. Maybe that some had a negative opinion, but never that they were malicious in any way. And what Gridania lacks in lore, it makes up with having Good King Moggle Mog XII. And Odin, both as a trial and a world boss FATE. And Ramuh with his epic beard is pretty cool.
I literally just want more representation on Nym. I tried to make a Nym based scholar but couldn't imagine their flag, so couldn't choose their colors...When they started variant dungeons I thought they were going to take us to old civilizations like Nym, Gelmorra and etc, but alas, nope.
Yeah, all other dragons are born of Midgarsormr. They were born of Hydaelyn so they'd be made of her aether, when they die they go back to the lifestream, Midi is from idk space somewhere so their death isn't tied to the aether cycle we're use to.
When it comes to the scholars of the source "miss-attributing" light to astral and dark to umbral it's brought up that application & intention shapes the dark/light nature of the elements. A tsunami that destroys a coastline would be an umbral application of water while the rain that brings life to crops would be astral. The whole point of Shadowbringers was to tell us our strict separation and classification of light & dark was far too simple a view point.
What, no 'UNSHROUD ILSABARD'?
:)
Oh that isn't missing lore. It's an obvious Developer choice with no in world reasons for existing. haha
One thing that has bothered me again recently is the process of rejoining and the umbral calamities. There are thirteen reflections. We've had six elements, darkness in the void, unaspected astral (???) with Bahamut and light/umbral with the black rose.
Assuming the void is lost and light/dark and umbral/astral are separate, that's still two reflections unaccounted for. It doesn't add up. What were the ascians planning to do next? Overflow a world with dynamis or something? We're definitely missing a piece here.
Spot on about Gridania being a bummer, which is a shame cause it's my starting city. If the elementals were meant to be viewed positively, the game has majorly dropped the ball on that. Gelmorra would make a great spot for a future variant dungeon!
I always wondered if Midgardsormr would even go to the aetherial sea. He’s from another world so would he even have a connection to it? All the other dragons were born on our world so maybe they can die and be reincarnated but maybe Middy just can’t?
I want to know what happened to the remaining garlean legions and what happened to the states that the empire annexed post Endwalker. We know Werlyt, Bozja, all of Othard and Gyr Abanaia is free but what happened to Corvis, Landis and Nhalmasque?
I feel like papa middy is better left an enigma. He's the god of dragons, he's the only being other than omega not actually born on the star, he's eras old, I think it's safe to say he's just allowed to be weird.
We got a Sil'dih variant dungeon but not a Gelmorran one :(. One more missing lore: What was Azem doing during the Final Days?
How much time passed between the events in Elpis in Endwalker, and the Final Days? With the lifespans of the Ancients, many years could have passed.
Dragon dad only needs a little nap. All the family drama wore him out. Hes past his thousandth year after all
The answer is pretty simple: a wizard did it
those sneaky wizards...
Honestly, for all the interesting things in Gridania, they shot themselves in the foot so hard with their introduction alone. You're telling me these intensely xenophobic people who think themselves superior to everyone they deem an outsider, or even just an 'other' (because Duskwights and Moon Keepers are natives as well mind you) who claim to answer to a higher power which you will acquiesce to or be damned show up and start preaching all about... Purity? ... And they live in a place obviously named in reference of the Black Forest. Which I don't want to use as part of what I legimately thought was going to be a plot point somewhere but Jesus do they code Gridania as fascists or worse in my interpretation of the beginning of ARR...
the elements pretty much lost all of their power after the Calamity.
Now they are just scary boogieman.
Would very much like to see more of Middie, still have them as my mount and minnion, and it would be fun being able to have him chime in with his offspring when you chat with them if they're your "pet"
Also, as a keeper of the moon, it would be nice to get more lore on my own race, considering they've kinda been ignored since the blurb on the character creation screen.
On the light umbral dark astral thing. I figure this discrepancy is part of the evidence Emet-Selch has for why people post sundering aren't as smart.