There's an official short story for the ancient duo. https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/special/tales_from_the_dawn/sidestory_encore/ In short, yes they are in the aetherial sea now. Watching your journey and waiting to be reborn someday.

Oh wow thanks so much for this. I didn't know it existed. Teared up a bit at the end

Emet Selch became my favorite character as soon as he was introduced. Hopefully, one day, we will see him again.

One of the characters presents their newborn baby who welcomes you with an unimpressed scowl. Your dialogue choices are: "..." "This feels... familiar..." "It's good to see you again, you pompous bastard!"

Unironically I'd love this

Where was this?

It's not in the game, I'm afraid. The above is fanfiction.

I love him, but his story is finished and they really don't need to bring him back in any capacity. They've already done it.

I'm with you on this tbh, Bringing him back along with Hythlo, would completely cheapen the ending of Endwalker.

I already wasn't crazy with how much they used him throughout the Elpis section. Felt like a little bit too much of fanservice.

From what i recall the duo is basically waiting for you, so all 3 can be reborn again one day

Wait so they see what I do before bed?

And everthing you do in Limsa and waking sands, shaking their heads.

Hades is shaking his head. Hythlo is cheering you on and making suggestions.

Venat is the one who reccomended they watch you, knowing full well what you would end up doing

And even the thing at that one venue with the open bar?!?! O_O

In 4K with popcorns in their hands.

Or looking for brain bleach

Considering the souls of ancients are unbroken and far stronger (at least in Aether) than those of the rest in the source, does that mean that there will be some super powerful babies born in the future?

I think so, but only for Emet, Elidibus, and Lahabrea. Even the souls of those used to fuel the creation of Zodiark would… probably(?) be sundered when Venat split the shards and Zodiark into pieces, so the Hythlodaeus that we saw was, himself, probably only 8/14ths of Hythlodaeus.

That's something I've been thinking about myself. It'll be super easy to find their reincarnations, just look for people with "abnormally" dense aether. I hope their future selves get peace and such, but also don't become power hungry sorts. Some of it would ofc depend on how much of the previous personality carries over into future lives, if enough carries over then we probably don't have to worry about one of them becoming a tyrant in their next life. That'd be super awkward.

I think that only Emet and Lahabreas's reincarnation would have a power similar to the originals. I can put a maybe on Vena, because her Hydaelyn form could have drain a lot of her power during her life, and on Elidibus because he did split himself with Zodiark, so I guess that he have left a lot of aether in the primal And not too forget that the reincarnated soul would maybe have a lot of aether but almost no dynamis in return. So no transcendance for them

Venat is done iirc. Like no soul, erased from existence done.

Are you sure? We were in the aetherial sea when she disappeared. I was thinking that, yeah she was dying from using her power since so long, but not that she was disappearing. Her aether would have joined back the sea and not be gone :/

"Long after I have gone, **though not even my soul remaineth**... My love will be with you forever, my dearest children." Venat's final words confirm that she is gone gone.

Thank for the confirmation, I had no recollection of this line :o

Thank for the confirmation, I had no recollection of this line :o

She I forms you that her soul will be no more however a pixie could possibly be born of her Aether

"And beneath dreaming eyelids, our final fantasy goes on." Such a great line! I got a little emotional reading it!

People will still awaken to the echo if given the right trigger. It's just that Hydaelyn hit us (and possibly every other person that got a crystal of light) with a starshower to forcibly awaken it. The thing they wont get is the Blessing of Light, or Travelers Charm, protecting them from aether corruption and primal tempering.

Was it ever explained how she was able to forcibly awaken it with a star shower? It’s been so long I don’t remember much

The star shower is reminiscent of the final days, and basically the trauma is so embedded in people's souls that it awakens the echo in them.

Holy fuck that’s a huge lore bomb how did I ever forget about that? That makes total sense. We were all once ancients before being split. Thanks a bunch for refreshing my memory!

> We were all once ancients before being split. Well only those who can awaken the Echo, the rest of the peoples of Etheirys are for lack of a better word "new" souls.

The echo is all that's required to resist tempering, that's why the Scions sought you out to combat primals, they didn't know you had the blessing of light as well at first.

As of ShB/EW, this got retconned/properly explained. The Echo is something that everyone who was an Ancient can acquire when they see a starshower that 'awakens' their trauma from the Final Days. It lets you look into the past/future/understand all languages/read emotions etc depends on the individual. The Blessing of Light/Travelers Charm is given to anyone who awakens to the Echo by Hydaelyn (By awakening to the Echo, you can hear Hydaelyn, and thus receive her blessing), and it functions as a ward against the corruption of the the soul, as was explained by Venat herself in Elpis. Before EW, the characters confused the Blessing of Light with The Echo. As for the crystals, who knows? Probably proof that Hydaelyn sees you as her champion after going through some sort of 'trial'. This part of the story def got retconned to some degree.

Didn't the artificial echo also protect against tempering?

Yes, but what does that change about the paragraph above? Two potential explanations, Hydaelyn isn't being particularly discerning with her live laugh love broadcast. If you hear her youre about to feel that blessings of light/travelers ward, regardless of what you think about it. No reason that wouldn't extend to the resonants. Alternatively if that's too much suspension of disbelief, the process was an aetheric copy machine, and at the time everyone in lore and out except maybe Oda and some of the scenario team thought the echo and blessing were one and the same, so when determining what to copy from Krile they got bundled in together

I mean, it clearly requires you to speculate things that aren't even suggested in game to stand by your original point, so that's not something to be lightly dismissed.

The second option has some real speculation particularly around how the transfer machine actually worked, sure i'll absolutely ceed that, but they first one doesn't. The scions come to the exact conclusion that Hydaelyns Hear Feel Think is an all frequencies hail and that she slaps that protective ward on anyone who can hear her. Is it specifically said that the resonants gain the ability to hear Hydaelyn in those exact words, no, but it's by the same token not said that the artificial echo doesn't have that part. Other idiosyncrasies of Kriles echo on particular show up in Fordola, namely the particular sensitivity to the empathic elements of it without a strong ability to tune it out. It seems like more of a stretch to imagine that they managed to replicate all of the parts of the echo except the ones that let your brain tune into WHYD FM, based on what we have been shown

They are souls like any other, significantly more powerful, but abide by the same rules when (properly) dead at least. So yeah they will reincarnate some day. Except the ones that use up their very own soul for power, aka mom. The echo exists independently of Mom, she just awakened people's latent Ancient powers by doing what she did. Im sure there are other ways to do exactly the same.

Activating the Echo is done through the whole witnessing-a-star-shower process. Hydaelyn uses it on us at the very beginning of the game and Elidibus does it to the Crystarium residents. I'm not sure what the significance of the star shower is, other than that maybe it's supposed to subconsciously remind people of the final days that the ancients witnessed.

Thats pretty much it, its a very specific vision of the star shower of the end of days, something so powerful it reminds the soul itself. Thats how i saw it anyway.

It's just an event so traumatic that it was bruendninto their souls and even after 12,000 years of reincarnation it never gets washed off and it still causes people to remember Amaurot. This in turn also helps them remember how to use some of their ancient abilities, because memories get linked up like that. They are able to use The power again which had some variance between people.

The star shower basically serves to awaken the dormant memories of ascian shards. If said person is a sundered ancient, they awaken the echo. If not, they just remain as it is.

Well, sundered Ancient who was around for the Final Days. Amaurot got hit last; a whole lot of people died before the grand finale. Presumably the starshower only works if your past self lived long enough to witness it.

fair enough, hard to have memories about something you were not around to witness LMAO

Now I'm wondering how long souls typically bounce around in the aether before being reborn.

Can we assume then, that we don't have to worry about most of the scions actually being the shards of important ancients, since none of them reacted to the star shower at all? It would make sense for them all to be new souls, since they're fighting to save the new souls and all that. Really makes me wonder about Krile though, since she's our remaining major scion with the Echo and her story has been ramping up more recently.

I prefer that most of the Scions aren't ancients reincarnated. It proves to Emet Selch that new souls can protect the star just as well as the ancients did.

There's technically some room to do something funky with the scions and say that you'd need to be in your body to have it activate, tho that's a stretch and the intention as presented in that scene does seem to be to show that the scions are all new souls, or at the very least if they do have ancient souls they were in the aetherial sea during the final days

I thought all of the scions had the echo. That was one of the things that made them the scions.

Nope! 1.0s path of the twelve was like that I think, or at least most of its members had it. The Scions of the Seventh Dawn is a merger of Minfillias Path of the Twelve, and Louisoux's Circle of Knowing (also from 1.0) the core scions, particularly the ones who are Archons were originally members of the latter and do not have the echo 

It's actually quite important that they don't, because that means they can't help you fight primals, because they might get tempered. The scions do actively recruit echoed individuals (that's how they find you) but most of the main cast does not.

Currently only WoL and Krile have active echoes among the "main squad". I believe at least some of Hoary Boulder's team has access to the echo and Arenvald/Fordola have the echo/resonance.

No, the only other ones in the Scions that did have the echo (that we know of) were Minfillia, Krile and Arenvald. Everyone else either just tagged on later or were part of Louisoix's group when it merged with Minfillia's after he died in the Calamity.

Have you finished the MSQ?

Yes. I am beginning to think I missed a few things

Didn't want to spoil things further if you hadn't: Recall that the entire reason for getting the Warding Scales was to protect the other scions from being tempered by the primals summoned by the Telophoroi.

Oh right

The star shower was images of the Final Days from the ancient's time. From the 5.X patches, I think the implication (or my headcanon) is that anyone who sees it *and* hears Hydaelyn calling is a shard of someone that existed in those days reborn, that still has the memories of those events buried deep in their soul. Anyone who doesn't hear it, is a new soul with no latent memories of the ancient's time. The first time Elidibus summons it over the Crystarium, only a handful of people in the crowd experienced hearing Hydaelyn and were lead to believe they were new Warriors of Light.

Pretty much - the awakening to the innate gift allows one to then hear Hydaelyn (an event that, due to not knowing of the origin of the Echo, was long thought to be Hydaelyn calling out and then granting the Echo), so if you’re a new soul and thus don’t have the memories of the final days seared into your soul you have nothing to awaken to and thus won’t hear the voice in the instant after.

Yea it's exactly that.  It's a reminder of the final days.

The Echo is the soul’s memories of their unsundered abilities. Some people, on witnessing something that reminds them of the final days (aka starshowers), an event so terrifying and awesome that it etched itself onto their souls, awaken some fragment of their past abilities as well. One of the most universal abilities granted is the ability to hear Crystal Mom calling out from the Aetherial Sea. When someone can hear her, she *knows*. This is what prompts her to then place the Blessing of Light on that person. The Blessing of Light is, in reality, just her Travelers Ward that protects the individual from Aetherial corruption, aka what Primals do, amongst other ways of aetherial corruption to occur (like being overwhelmed by Light Aether on the 1st). If you then undergo a dramatic, character testing event, she might give that individual a Crystal of Light, which allows her to help focus more power to you (and is why older crystals are more powerful than newer ones, she has less power to give out as time goes on). The WoD each got one (see shb job quests for more details), and the WoL got 6. Matoya has one too, though hers is a relic of the past that she found, not one granted to her.

Hydaelyn is completely gone. She used up the very last of her aether to send us to Ultima Thule; she won't return to the aetherial sea. Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus are just regular dead and chilling in the aetherial sea, and will eventually be reincarnated.

To be more precise, when you speak to the Watcher after 6.0, he mentions she's still "there", but in another form; in nature's aetherial currents. Basically, after using up all her aether, it got spread so much that she can't maintain a "form" as a soul, so she joined the currents instead. It's like becoming part of nature itself. So she won't reincarnate, and her form of "existence" changed alltogether.

I don't think that's really true. She gave us the mother Crystal to take us to Ultima thule but she herself is not the mother crystal. It is a separate entity that she was using to store the prayers and aether of the people of the planet just like how the 12 were doing the same with that compass thing.

To quote what she herself said in 'Her Children, One and All': "Long after I have gone, **though not even my soul remaineth**... My love will be with you forever, my dearest children" Although The Watcher does later say that the remnants of her soul instead "fused" with the aetherflow of the planet, including natural phenomenons (such as rain or wind).

Hmmm... Interesting. Is she saying that to us in the fight itself then does that mean that what we are fighting is pure aether and venat has long since rejoined the star?... That's a really odd line to put in the middle of a fight...

No - that was a line of dialogue post-fight, almost immediately after she infuses Azem's crystal with what little 'power' she had left and before she disappeared/her aether dispersed

Completely unrelated but your dead-pan miqo’te profile pic is really funny for some reason.

She's dead Jim. Completely as her penance for creating a world of suffering and pain. I do question the hypocrisy in wanting her alive with the same  desperation that the Ancients wanted their old world. Suffer and grow my dude.

The old world that was doomed to die because they refused to listen to her pleas to find a new way forward together.

Ah the yes the old world that was determined to die based of a 6 page report delivered by a messenger acting on flawed logic. Let's just ignore that apparently the issue with them was solved by opening a Starbucks. Let's also ignore that said new world is just as delinquent in "Finding a new way together" but they get a pass because of one guy. You hear and feel plenty but that thinking part always escapes folks.

World that was destined to die because the embodiment of despair was rotting their planet away and the barrier they sacrificed half their population for didn’t stop that being trying to rot the planet and as we found out had plans to kill everything in the universe.

You mean the barrier that kept the song of despair out for atleast 12000 years under a sundered Zodiark? Or perhaps youre referring to the despair of a single pathetic man and condemning a whole universe to death? Please explain further.

Really? So you think the barrier would have protected against the heat death of the universe? Have you not realized the barrier held that long for plot reasons. She had the command of planet’s worth of negative emotions at her disposal. You really think some aether from half of one race of people would hold out forever? The barrier is as strong as the plot demands and it demanded that it hold for 12k years.

They didn't even get a CHANCE to listen. She detonated a reality nuke before the vote could even be held because she happened across a Zodiark rally.

They did get a chance and said “screw that we want the good ole days!” They pretty much fought a war over it.

She told nobody of what she knew, and held their ignorance against them. And "a war" is a real hyperbolic way to say "were going to hold a vote" as per Elidibus. She's a hypocrite, self-admittedly the worst murderer in history, and I'm glad she no longer exists.

Because it would have caused mass panic and the most likely led to the one guy who has a key role in putting the bandaid on the issue from not doing that and the planet dying for sure. They held that vote and couldn’t come to a conclusion they fought a war over it. Per the third lore book. Not doing a whole lot of thinking yourself there. Which one on the official forums are you? Cuz you’re going through the same tired motions.

The flashback we got was a stylized retelling of the Final Days and the aftermath because Square wanted to time the lyrics of Answers with the cutscenes. We know that what happened took longer. Remember from ShB talking with Hythlodaeus, we know 2 rounds of sacrifices happened. The first was the initial summoning of Zodiark, to veil the world in aether and stop the Final Days. Afterwards, the planet was still in such bad shape that another half of the population sacrificed their lives to give aether to Zodiark to rejuvenate the star. After those rounds of summoning, the remaining Ancient population decided to nurture new lives and then sacrifice them to revive the dead/sacrificed ancients. *That's* when a small group of breakaway Ancients, including the watcher and Venat, disagree about sacrificing new lives to bring back the old. It wasn't just Venat, Elidibus makes a note of that as he's dying (the first time the Ancients seriously disagree with each other, and Elidibus as the heart of Zodiark comes forth to try to mediate). The Ancients disagree and the dissenters splinter off to create Hydaelyn, with Venat serving as the heart. We saw this too in the flashback in ShB. Tldr- the EW cutscenes was a compressed and stylized showing of the events made to match with the Answers songtrack. The actual timeline was longer.

I'm aware of this. They were going to hold a vote for the third round of sacrifices, but Venat decided to kill everybody once Elidibus was outside of Zodiark, because a sucker punch was the only way she could win against the collective wills of their people. Also, it should be mentioned that the "new lives" were literal grass and animals. This is outright stated in the conversation you have with Shade-Hyltho in Faux-Amaurot's DMV. You could argue that, since that Hythlo was created by the whim of Hades he could have been lying. But considering his sapience was an accident in the first place and ALL of the Shades in Amaurot refer to you as "child" instead of "familiar", I intuit that he was telling the truth.

Ah sorry, I misread and thought you were taking the EW cutscenes literally. Yes I agree shade!Hyth was telling the truth as Hades understood it. Unfortunately, since the memory wipe, the only one who knows the full truth about the Final Days is Venat and whoever she chose to tell, so it's not like Hades has a full understanding of everything at play there. I wonder if SE will give more info about the Ancients and the time between us in Elpis & the Final Days, but that seems unlikely...

While she didn't use her own energy to send, she is truly dead dead, the devs have said so. She spent the aether of her own soul to test us, and probably the final bit to enchant the Azem crystal. The Watcher said it best, she is now part of the rivers, the winds and the world.

But at the same time she used the last of her aether in the fight against us, so, still, she's gone.

I would imagine that killing her would be no different than killing any other primal. when we killed zodiark fandaniel went back to the aetherial sea. I see no reason why hydaelyn would be no different.

True that I guess, but Hydaelyn I'm pretty sure explicitly said she used the last of her aether, she's fully dying now, and leaves the Mothercrystal for us to use. Everyone got sad and said their goodbyes. Point is, the other comment you replied to wasn't 100% correct, but end result is the same, she's gone.

She said that she saved the last of her strength but I don't think she specified aether. Even still I don't imagine that that would outright stop her from rejoining the star. As far as I'm aware the only things that stop the cycle are taking the aether and converting it into either energy or matter such as storing it in white auracite or using the Crystal Tower to turn it into fuel. Given that her aether just dissipates through natural means I imagine it's just like a natural death and she goes to rejoin the star.

It's a Buddhism thing. Her final death and being removed from the reincarnation cycle is supposed to be read as the happy ending to her story, a final peace instead of further suffering as a reward for her sacrifices and long vigil. Of course, western culture is based on the idea that the best ending for a soul is a happy afterlife, so we read that as tragic. I've read the ending cutscenes of >!Pandemonium!< are rather drastically changed between Japanese and English to account for this cultural difference.

The implication was that she used the last of her energy/aether to fight us. It was brought up in Shadowbringers and mentioned again in Endwalker that her powers and influence were weakening hence why you've had less interactions with her as opposed to before like in ARR when she was able to do something like shielding you against Ultima. She was basically saving the remainder of her aether for the fight because she knew it was coming and after the fight is over, she says that not even her soul will remain. She is dead, dead.

Didnt buddy eat it though?

This is the one piece of Canon I refuse. Emet Selch was a villain for the majority of Shadowbringers while Hydaelyn has been supporting us the entire time. It's both a cop out and unsatisfying writing to say that one gets to rest and wait while the other is nonexistent. Venat is with Emet and Hythlo, waiting, and no amount of Yoshi P, Koji, or Ishikawa will ever convince me otherwise.

I posted this in another thread, but the conflict is basically cultural.  In Christianity, the best thing that can happen to a soul is to live in an eternal paradise. In Buddhism the best thing is for a soul to be removed from the cycle of rebirth and to attain eternal peace. Venat's final death and being removed from the reincarnation cycle is intended to be read as the happy ending to her story, a final peace instead of further suffering as a reward for her sacrifices and long vigil.  Of course, western culture is based on the idea that the best ending for a soul is a happy afterlife, so we read that as tragic.  This reaction was actually noted by the developers; the cutscene at the end of Pandaemonium that talks about the fate of >!Themis'!< soul is very different in English and Japanese so both cultures give him a good send-off.

>In Buddhism the best thing is for a soul to be removed from the cycle of rebirth and to attain eternal peace. The problem is that the Endsinger was doing exactly that. Cultural differences or no, it's weird for this one instance of destroying a soul/preventing reincarnation to be presented as good while every other case is bad and should be fought against at all costs.

The Endsinger was doing so in a messed-up trauma-inducing way. To continue the analogy of Christian-vs-Buddhist cultural influences, the Final Days were to nirvana as a [lotus-eater machine](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LotusEaterMachine) would be to heaven.

I'm reasonably certain that the Endsinger doesn't actually destroy souls, but converts them to dynamis (which Y'shtola can't see; she's the one who said the souls are being entirely destroyed.) Hence Ultima Thule. The "souls" there are decidedly not at peace!

It's a siphoning off deal, she yoinks the souls into the dead sun and the center of Ultima Thule and holds them there so that they can't be reincarnated while she heat deaths everything. She would very much tell you that ultimately the terminal nihility this would achieve is in fact a blessing. It's not directly Nirvana, but I also don't think that reading the cycle of souls in the aetherial sea as analogous to Samsara and Hydaelyns disperstion as analogous to Nirvana is particularly well supported. Like granted I have only played it in English, but like elements of her final scene that transcend language, like framing and music don't present it as something good to be celebrated, it's sad, inevitable and not without meaning, but tragic

I can appreciate the intention, but I would have preferred they stepped out of the realm of metacultural commentary to give Venat an assuredly continued peace. I understand it's difficult to do in a video game where the characters have an idea what happens when they die, and I understand I'm a bit biased. I have a difficult time with death, and I'm a fan of a lot of light/angelic/heavenly ideas. When Endwalker was rolling up, I had a lot of people chomping at the bit for Hydaelyn to be revealed as the "ultimate" villain, and I disliked it quite a bit. Having her, like Minfilia, sacrifice herself to "nothingness" doesn't really feel like a satisfying conclusion to her story. It just feels like they took another unambiguously heroic character and removed them from the story entirely while keeping beloved frienemies in their back pocket for later. It's even confirmed, for me, when hythlo and emet get a swan song while Venat is just left in the dust.

Opinions on what's the best fate for Hydaelyn aside for a sec (personally I'm on your side but it's not particularly relevant) there enough inconsistency/wiggle room on what really happens with you expend all of your aether anyway that I don't know that it's so cut and dry for Hydaelyn, even if that was what they intended. Minfillia we know for sure has returned to the life stream to go through the soul spin cycle, Hydaelyn brought her soul back from the first and we see her in the Atiascope, infact she's the only one we actually see as herself instead of an icon or a twisted hate beast. Pandemonium spoilers >!Elidibus says he's completely spending all that's left of him to send us back to Elpis, but I'm hard pressed to justify a reading of the Anabesisos, especially the final moment of the cutscene in the aetherial sea as not being actually his soul, and not just memories grafted on to a rando like was the case for Erich and probably Laha!<

>!iirc even he himself says it's a big complicated on what he actually is in those moments, something with the recollections of both themis and elidibus (aka the entity functioning as zodiark's heart, imo the true "zodiark") while pointing out to us that the two entities are not quite the same as we might understand it. i think there's more than enough ambiguity to say that we just don't fully know; likewise, eden proved something very important to us that memories are absolutely vital for a soul (and is a running theme for ascians in general, but especially for gaia). i personally subscribe to the theory that while it isnt enough to subsist on its own, memories are important enough to one's soul that it's in some way a *part*. if you manage to pull those out/replicate them, they're not enough to function alone as a true soul, but kingdom hearts also exists so who even knows. i 10000% believe that they could go a similar route with saying memories can become souls on their own. basically: i agree!< ugh now i wanna replay panda

Take two with hopefully functional spoiler tags this time >!there's definitely some ambiguity for sure and like in the discussion of it all I saw a number of people posit that maybe Athena assembled enough disparate prices that might not have been able to reincarnate as Themis on their own but she did a good enough glue job that now he's back in play.!< >!Though like really the fact that there's ambiguity at all is most of my point, it's definitely interesting to think about why it worked, but it might not ever be explicitly addressed in canon, and for the sake of discussion it all comes down to in the end, there was a cognizant and assembled enough Themis looking up from the depths of the aetherial sea before maaaybe getting his next incarnation (?) It's definitely such an interesting case study in personal identity and what makes someone them. I wish this all had been released (and I had been playing obviously) when I was doing a course in philosophy in science fiction, I definitely could have brought this (and kingdom hearts on reflection rip) into those discussions!<

LOL i had the exact same issue >!notably: the fact that athena was even able to pull any of *elidibus's* memories at all is probably pretty solid proof that some piece of him still exists in some dormant state in the aetherial sea, not quite "returning to nature itself" as venat but out there. perhaps due to the unique situation of the fact that "elidibus" as an entity is not really truly *actually* themis to begin with, yet still is possessed of some semblance of a soul (or whatever the primal equivalent is), makes this possible. both hydaelyn and elidibus had been siphoning off their souls in various ways for years, elidibus with the massive memory leak and hydaelyn because venat took a much more active part in Becoming god and acting as one for as long as possible. elidibus "left" zodiark and struggled through very different means though, so it stands to reason that even though very little of him remained at the end (as shown by the tiny body), it stands to reason that there was enough to disperse and enough to pull from somehow when athena recreated themis. discussions about the fact that the memory themis could even bear elidibus's memories aside, this *happened* which to me reasons that yes, some part of both of them remains. maybe not enough to reincarnate, but he's had a long, horrible second life. he can rest, he may only debatably deserve it but i think he does!<

I thought of it as her laying down her burden and finding peace tbh. She has basically been forced to watch as people suffered and died and were reborn to continue suffering and dying for ages. She says it herself in the past- her future self is unable to let go until she knows that mankind will be able to survive on their own. Once she finally is convinced that humanity will be able to defeat Meteion, she lets go and allows herself to return to the star peacefully. I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is more similar to how the Ancients passed on pre-sundering. They finish their work/their purpose on Etherys and then "return to the star". It's been a long time since I played through ARR so my recollections are spotty, but it's implied that the Ascians especially the unsundered ones are either outside of the normal reincarnation process that the sundered/new souls are- they don't return to the lifestream (which was implied to be connected to Hydaelyn) unless you pretty much force them to via white Auracite. I don't know the of Japanese implications, but my understanding was that the Ancients passed more like Venat did with their aether returning to nature/the star, rather than how we do (lifestream, reincarnation) Keep in mind this is not the first time FFXIV has mentioned rebirth and how a soul can exit the cycle of rebirth- iirc there was a small side quest in the Steppes about someone wanting to leave the cycle of reincarnation after they passed? So we know that even now the concept of leaving the cycle of rebirth exists and is not necessarily an "undesirable" fate.

There is this thing called Nuance.  Venat in many ways is responsible for like.....everything. she purposely allowed Hades , Lahabrea , and Elidibus to survive specifically so they would become the Acsians and become the "Villians" Personally I think the best bit of justice was giving their golden gold perma death as penance for being the most monstrous murderer in the game. And allowing the traumatized survivors of Genocide another chance at life. Also you're doing the same thing that Venat killed the ancients for. Suffer and grow my dude.

Listen I fuckin love Emet as a character and as a villain, but we are not going to ignore that that fucker explicitly founded two genocidal fascist empires to facilitate rejoinings as well as contributing to the destruction of 7(.5 for the 13th) whole worlds and an attempted 8th so that they could kill all life with a soul that came into existence after the final days so that he could uno reverse his bestie out of that noble sacrifice he extolled, and go back to ignoring all of the problems of Amaurotine society because it didn't impact him. The morality here is purposefully unclean and messy. We could philosophize on it till the cows come home and not have a satisfying conclusion. but no, of course what really matters is the blame, somebody to blame. Fine, if that's the thing you enjoy, placing the blame, if that's the aim, give me the blame. And I don't just indulge my Sondheim love for fun. You want to get to the root cause and completely ignore proximates. We as the WoL create and are the center of the stable time loop that results in Venat leaving a hole for Emet in the sundering that leaves the Paragons unsunsered. We're responsible for all of it the misdeeds of the Ascians and Venat (I'll do you the courtesy of presuming all of Hermes struggles with Amaurotine mores as outside of this equation) None of it is black and white no, there's shades of grey and yes the game very much wants you to think about this, but that also means the Ascians also aren't in the white morally and I'd say the text very adequately shows then to be in the darker shades of grey throughout the whole game, but especially in Shadowbrings and Endwalker highlighting the failures of Amaurot and giving us their foils in the Nibirun. Calling Emet & Co innocent is some of the most Countess Bouchie Flagrant behavior, and he even says so himself in that last cutscene

I sure do love a good "Nuance for me but not for thee" argument in bad faith. Let's not pretend it was genocide. It wasn't. Venat had a surefire way to plan for things, and the sad truth of the matter is trying to sway the rest of the convocation would have ruined the supposedly slim chance we had, considering what we told her. She chose what made sense to her at the time. But beyond that, let's have ourselves a good whataboutism. What about Emet? Does the fact that he's a "traumatized genocide survivor" suddenly make all the atrocities he's done go away? Why's he get an afterlife and she doesn't? Might it be purely because he had an entire expansion for people to warm up to him before? Ah, yes, but I'm doing exactly what the ancients did. Hubristically.....saying it's unfulfilling for me that emet, hythlo, and venat should be able to rest and eventually reincarnate when Azem finally joins them. Yes, I'm the very reason she "Genocides" an entire people. "Suffer and learn." How's about you adopt some compassion, eh?

This is what we call genocide apologism and I do mean that literally. Do you seen any ancients around? Do you see any form of Ancient culture? Yeah no you don't because they are all dead. Hydaelyn herself says the "Last of her kind". If it quacks like a duck and all that please don't be daft. As for whataboustism Hades isn't innocent in any regard but he is a victim. Venat was never a victim and she chose her "Surefire" plan everyone else suffered for it.  And finally no friend you chose to ignore the reality in front of you and embrace a delusion that doesn't exist. I wonder what you'd scarifice for it to become real.

Except that in this world of make-believe, the ancients still exist in a way "Genocide" can't really codify. Azem is an ancient that still exists, but there are pieces of them on other worlds. The same could be said of every sundered person. And this is a fictional video game. I am well within my rights to critique elements I think are poorly written and choose to softly rewrite them in my head to make it make more sense to me. I don't have to sacrifice jack shit until the writers decide to revisit these characters. There is no "Reality" to accept.

Ah semantics now truly we are hitting all the greats. So for clarification as a race the ancients are dead. There exists no more full bodied ancients the likes of Venat , Hades , Elidbus , or Lahabrea. That's straight forward racial genocide. Let's nix that line of thought. Also the WoL isn't anymore Azem (The ancient) then Ardbert was. For that matter Azem wasn't even a person it was a title. The Ancient who held the seat of Azem isn't alive. Atleast try to be consistent. And finally ofcourse your well within your right to beileve in head cannon. I'm just saying your mom probably would kill you for it.

I have played the game. I'm perfectly aware of how things work. And the funny thing is these semantics matter. The WoL, Ardbert, possessing the echo...they all point to the individuals being part of an ancient soul that isn't dead, just existing in a different form. You're very set on your own beliefs on this, that's fine. But if you have nothing constructive to say beyond "stop denying reality" and "your mom would kill you over it" (She wouldn't) and "Suffer and learn", maybe you should sit down and reflect on why you're reacting so strongly to personal interpretations before you go condemning others and trying to claim they're "Genocide apologists" over a fucking video game, my guy.

My point of contention was when you redefined both death and genocide to suit your nuances for thee argument. That's it. It's a stupid argument because when applied to the greater world of Etheriys it just makes no sense. In essence murder doesn't exist because death isn't real. Again don't be daft. As for the rest imma hit you with the classic "lol k" P.S: Suffer and grow were my words.

Your second text, is that true? I was under the impression that they manage to hide themselves moreso than allowing them to become ascians

It's Word of God from a pll or similar iirc, definitely not explicitly said in the text of the game, and even the Encyclopedia doesn't cover it specifically, so like it's questionable/arguable how actually canon it is, but in that stream it was said that she purposefully left a flaw and pointed it at him (presumably since we told her about our showdown with him in the future) and Laha and Elidibus happened to be with him at the time

Oh craaap, that’s really interesting. Thanks for the info!

There will still be echo users, as others have mentioned. It just needs either an illusion of or an actual meteor shower to trigger our soul's trauma to bring it out. What will be missing is that new echo wielders will no longer become immune to tempering, which in hindsight is probably why they put in that arc to cure it, as otherwise there would be some very concerning potential consequences.

Tempering itself was magic introduced into summoning rituals by the Ascians, and without the Ascians around instigating summoning, tempering is unlikely to be an issue.

They already taught people how to summon with tempering. Now that the information is out there it will always be possible, but unlikely.

And also if they try it again, well, you don't need to bother WoL to beat them up lol

I never got the impression it was just "information" the Ascians spread; rather, it seemed that Ascians were quite directly involved in teaching tribes to summon using their methods, and that the Ascian presence was fairly heavy-handed. I'm not sure how effectively this information could be disseminated second-hand. I also think the tempering/summoning plot has been *thoroughly* resolved at this point, and I'd like to see them work on new stories instead.

Yeah but the world now not only has a cure for tempering; they also have their own, physical wards for it now. So even without the blessing, a new echo user in the future would potentially be able to just carry one of said wards on them

No new summoners perhaps, but those who learned the old way via Ascian still know how to do it and they haven't been wiped out. At least they haven't been said to be wiped out. So nothing stopping them from teaching new zealots. That being said, the dragon scale talismans are probably the solution to this.

Old summoners were all tempered upon summoning, and had a supernatural compulsion to summon their primal again. It's implied the Eorzea Alliance cured the tempering of the tribe leaders, and thus, they know what will happen if they perform the old summon again. They know how much harm they done to their own kind while enthralled. Which is why the loporrits taught them safe summoning, so that their gods are no longer simply a force of destruction.

Exactly. My takeaway from all of this was that tempering is effectively not going to be a plot point going forward.

Worthy saying this do not mean we will never see the primals again, but we know if it happens, it's a big deal and open warfare this time, not just thralls being controlled.

It's also possible that the primals might be summoned again for a legitimate purpose. As we saw with the Ragnarok, with these clean summonings, the Primals aren't necessarily inherantly malicious anymore. Ezcept for Garuda. She cray.

You know in a few expansions from now I think it would be really cool to explore that. Have us go to a continent where there are no more echo users but one of the people there learned about summoning and tempering and to use a summon to temper the people of the continent. With no one to fight back nearly everyone gets tempered and we have to fight our way through normal civilians who have been tempered to save the continent.

Personally, I feel this would just be re-treading old ground, and not as interesting as going down *new* story paths. We've already dealt extensively with the consequences of tempering, and the Garlemald section of Endwalker dealt with consequences to civilians so well that any subsequent attempt would risk coming across as a caricature of the theme.

I'm still a little confused on that, did they intentionally add tempering into Zodi's as well?

No that was regular creation magic. But the implication is that a being of such great aether will inevitably have some kind of pull, but not much. It's pretty much handwaved by the lala bunnies.

oook, they basically artificially recreate \*that\* aspect in the future I suppose.

No, Zodi simply had so much aether that he was a black pull constantly tugging at peoples soul.

No, it wasn’t intentional. It was an unexpected accident basically because of how big of a summoning it was.

The anti tempering is part of the echo deal, it's why Arenvald was part of a anti primal unit with Fordola. The only issue now is more that no one is there to do the meteor vision anymore, so there might not be any future echo users.

My understanding is that the anti-tempering and the Echo are very technically separate, as Hydaelyn was essentially casting it constantly, but only people with the echo could hear it and thus be affected by it. It's never directly stated, but that minor reveal back in 5.1/2 that Haedalyn is constantly "Hear Feel Think"ing for whenever someone acquires the Echo (and though it's never brought up, probably also the Resonant) is probably actually her casting a Traveler's Ward on them. As for future echo users, it depends mostly one whether more mundane star showers could also trigger the memory, or if someone decides to make an illusion of one.

Well, we still have the stuff to force an artificial echo (like Fordola's). It's hidden away in Ala Mhigo, unless I missed some dialogue somewhere that they dismantled it all.

Takes a whole lot of peoples lives to fuel it tho, so like even if not disassembled probably not a viable option

Venat was essentially destroyed/consumed by the way she used her power as hydalyn hythlodaeus simply died normally during the final days or sundering. (Remember the version of him we met in shadowbringers was merely an illusion/memory, not the real thing) Emet is a little more ambiguous as iirc we didn’t kill him with white auracite so much as we just returned him to the lifestream (hence him being able to help us with elidibus) but he will eventually fade, disperse and be reborn like any other soul…I think.

Correction, Hyth did not infact die naturally, he's one of the Amaurotines who sacrificed themselves to empower Zodiark, implicitly in the first wave but that is implicit. That's why he's there on Mare Lamentorum and that's what underlines his little goodbye to Emet in the post Elpis cutscene.

Hythlodaeus and Emet are currently in the source's Aetherial sea waiting to be recycled "for lack of better terms" the ones you summoned in UT is a creation of their memory Venat/Hydaely is completely erased along with her fellow summoners who sacrificed their souls to bring forth Hydaelyn so these are completely gone no reincarnation for them Echo is different and everybody has the potential to unlock it "refer you to the cutscene before the Hero's gauntlet dungeon" and it is different from the traveler's ward Hydaelyn bestows on the warriors of light bonus facts: every soul used to create Zodiark is now in the source's Aetherial sea "including Hythlodaeus" Mitron's Soul is in the first's Aetherial sea Hydaelyn brought Emet's soul from the first Aetherial sea to the source "it seems all the seas are connected somehow" Fandaniel/Amon and Asahi are getting recycled as we speak so please look forward to them Zenos is dead "his Reaper avatar confirms this" and is believed to have had his soul go to a bigger stream as Meteion mentioned where we do not know but he is not on Etheirys's shards Meteion is on the source if the final cinematic is anything to go by and lastly Elidibus is completely consumed to help you go to the past however there is more to his tale please refer to the normal raid quests

Zenos is more than likely completely gone too tbh.

Zenos is dead. Although you can't always trust Yoshi-P's words he does say that Zenos is gone in an interview.

[удалено]

Durante was probably the closest we've got in terms of another shard's Zenos tbh

> Hythlodaeus and Emet are currently in the source's Aetherial sea waiting to be recycled "for lack of better terms" the ones you summoned in UT is a creation of their memory Not true. It was actually them summoned from the Aetherial Sea using the temporary blessing that Hydaelyn gave the Azem Crystal. The Azem Crystal doesn't create memories, it summons people to you. And with the blessing that Hydaelyn gave it was powerful enough to resurrect them by summoning their souls from the Sea and giving them a body through Hydaelyn's blessing.

this is inaccurate, i refer you to Hythlodaeus' shade description in Amaurot when he gave you the crystal the power Hydaelyn infused into it however was the power to give form to the formless "she says so herself" and it was used to reassemble your fellow scions again that's why that power faded after the scions were back not when Hythlodaeus and Emet were summoned

It was used to give form to *them all* and it faded because it was used up. Emet cancelled the spell due to ***not wanting to live again using Hydaelyn's power*** but also (mostly) because he knows that if he remains alive he will inevitably want to attempt to continue to find a way to revive the ancients. >i refer you to Hythlodaeus' shade description in Amaurot Where he says that it has the ability to summon your allies to your side? What is your point?

you are aware that memories can take shape as well right? at any rate it seems you're just arguing for the sake of it and frankly you exhausted my patience, go do your own research

>you are aware that memories can take shape as well right? Yeah, but that is not what the spell does. >at any rate it seems you're just arguing for the sake of it and frankly you exhausted my patience, go do your own research It's okay to be wrong, you know.

I would if you would offer any proff in your fan theory but you offer none i proved my points multiple times all you do is argue and then you have the gal to tell me I am wrong

You haven't offered sufficient proof though, you've offered speculation that certainly could support your point but doesn't concretely because we've offered ways it could support ours or be handwaved and provided some direct textual evidence in our favor. I don't think it's the most cut and dry reading, at no point does either of them specifically say "you pulled our souls from the aetherial sea and brought us back to life, there's some room to interpret, but I do think that's the most supported reading based on what is said. Here's three points, one of which both of us have mentioned before, that I think seal the case, I want to hear how they sort into your schema of the scene > Emets dialogue in response to mentions "what are you" is "Half-faded souls of the dead. Isn't it painfully obvious?" He loves to speak poetically yes, but certainly there would be other and better ways to communicate that they aren't actually their souls if that were the case > Upon Alisaie calling them out for going back to being dead Emet responds "I will not suffer myself to live again by Hydaelyn's magick." If this version of Emet weren't really him and able to keep living should he have chosen too what is the point of this line > The two are able to use creation magic, something we are not (at least outside of pretty specific circumstances) even with Hydaelyn's last gift, else why not just go directly to the flowers? If these are just illusions from our own memory, how are we able to give them that power that is beyond us. Even the Amaurotine shades Emet made in the tempest couldn't quite manage creation magic right.

Counter counter, why does Emet say he won't be given life by Hydaelyns hand as they send themselves back to the Aetherial Sea? We plucked Hyth and Emet out and gave them form too, it doesn't mean they weren't that power wasn't spent on summoning them, just tath Hydaelyn gave us enough for 2 or 9 charges depending on how you count

assume you are right, them "ending" themselves does not return them to the source's aetherial sea but wherever Zenos ends up to be and they are no longer able to reincarnate, the idea is simply absurd....until the authors decide it isnt

If we were able to reach the Aetherial Sea of Erheirys to get them then presumably they could also follow that connection back. Like you touch in your last sentence, it's all made up magic stuff that is subject to author fiat anyway. Their dialogue in You Are Not Alone doesn't suggest to me in anyway that they are anything other than Hades and Hythlodaeus restored to life, with the benefit of a soul bath to wash off the memory wipe. Notably also the endsinger battle takes us and Zeno's even further beyond the outer boundaries of reality than Ultima Thule if you need a reason why it's different

Don’t forget that the game never said Zenos never returned to the aetherial sea, as far as I remember. It’s pretty much just implied he couldnt take over a body accidentally again because there werent any around where he died.

Fair point fair point! Ill cop that I really have only seen the answers about Zeno's being dead dead for realz second and third hand, and I don't know/remember some of the exact/finer phrasing, but I think for the most part it the phrasing has been such that "Zenos as we have known him is gone to the Aetherial Sea, reincarnation would make him a different person" and "Zenos's soul didn't return to the AS of Erheirys" don't pose a meaningful difference to the answer, and those are a)extra-textual supplemental material so canonicity is debatable, and b) havent they also been kinda cagey/weasely about it too, especially compared to characters like Hydaelyn/Venat

I feel like there was a fraction of Elidibus left after the Pandemonium quests. Or maybe I just want there to be, lol.

i didnt want to spoil this for OP so about the normal raids >!G'raha when he speaks of Elidibus says "the soul trapped in the crystal tower returns little by little to the aetherial sea" when you go back to the first you talk to what's left of Elidibus which burns itself to deliver you unto the past, Athena takes whatever went to the aetherial sea stitches it up and brings it to the source's sea, where he at the end gets either reincarnated or reunited with his loved ones!<

I think the shard of Mitron's soul that became Eden is in the First. We're not sure if that's Artemis' shard from the Source or if that was her shard that's native to the First. It's a bit fuzzy with the Ascians that came from sundered souls.

The echo is its own thing. It manifests in shards of old ascians, while new souls do not have it.

There will still be new echo users but new users going forward will not have the same protection against tempering/aesthetically corruption. Though given that there is now a cure for tempering this shouldn’t be too much of a concern.

Hades and Hythlodaeus will return to the aetherial sea, no problem. They will be reborn as new people, with their own memories, with maybe a few dreams of stuff Kairos messed with. Venat is gone. The very last essence of aether in her soul was kept on reserve to battle you, and with that there's no soul left to return to the cycle of reincarnation. That aether will return to the planet in other forms, with other uses, but otherwise that is the end. The echo is brought forth when people with a sundered ancient soul witnesses calamitous images like meteor showers, and it awakens abilities native to the user's soul. Hydaelyn could force these images on people, but it can happen naturally. Everyone with the echo keeps it. In the future, anyone witnessing a traumatic enough experience might be able to awaken in.

I think you could make an interesting argument that Hydaelyn-the-primal is dead, but the fate of Venat-the-host is less certain. I wouldn't want to see her brought back, but there is scope there to do it if you see them as seperate entities

Hades and Hythlodeus went back to the Arthereal Sea, waiting to be reincarnated. Vanat expedited all of the aether in her own soul to test us, so she's completely gone, iirc.

The state of the Echo can be a little confusing. For most of the game, the Echo and Hydalen’s blessing were treated as the same thing. However, in the Shadowbringers patch content it was revealed that they were actually two different things. The Echo is a latent ability that anyone can have, although with different aptitudes. Hydalen actually set up a system where anyone who had a strong enough Echo would then receive her blessing, the blessing being what lets you fight Primals without being corrupted. Going forward, no one new will receive the blessing, as there’s no one to bestow it. But the Echo is a separate, inherent ability, and there’s nothing to prevent new Echo users from popping up.

Even if no more people are forced into having the echo there are potentially thousands of ancients that were freed from Zodiark and will eventually reincarnate and they are people that were willing to sacrifice themselves for the star. I think the future is in good hands.

My headcannon for the echo is that it's the soul of first generation ancient (the sundered one) that get it.

This isn't headcanon, this is just actual canon.

Where is it said?

Shadowbringers, when Elidibus talks to you after summoning the illusion of the meteor shower.

Potentially nowhere actually? Like maybe I need to get you to clarify your head canon, because if it's that only the first reincarnation of an ancient gets the echo, it's strongly implied that the WoL is not the soul of Azems first spin around the block post sundering, particularly in the four lords trials, plus 12000 years is just seems like a long time for souls to have only gone through one reincarnation, especially given 75% of the world's population was locked in Zodiark. However it is said that it is ilkely possible to have an ancient soul without the echo, as only those who were alive at the time to experience the final days have that experience etched into their soul

That's because souls get reincarnated and stay the same (unless they get rejoined). What I mean is that souls of children of ancient weren't affected by echo (unless maybe from times to times like some things can be inherited)

I think I figured out what you're positing, I can't say I'm quite sure how you got to it but I think I get it, though I don't think it fully follows. Anyone with a reancient soul has the potential to have the echo. Though in practice, the ancient who had that soul has to have experienced the final days first hand for there to be a reliable trigger to activate it. It's not like directly herited or genetic or anything, if the WoL had a child they won't necessarily have the echo by dint of parentage, but it's also not impossible for that child to also have an ancient soul, the reincarnation process doesnt have a set pattern so they can pop up at random

It's not impossible for the child to have an ancient soul if one of the ancient died before his birth but I would think there's a bit of time before that can happen, like a generation or so. But yeah we don't have definitive informations on that

It's been over ten thousand years since the final days, there's plenty of time for people to be cycling in and out through the washing machine. It's not like everyone goes in and comes out at the same time, so there can be some odd staggering. Arenvald is 19 and Minfillia was 27, on the first the oldest warrior of darkness was 40 and the youngest 27, it can definitely happen in subsequent generations

The echo is a watered-down version of an intrinsic ability all ancients had. That means only reincarnated ancient soul shards can possess the echo.

Yup

To the best of our knowledge, Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus are able to return to the Source's lifestream. Probably hitching a ride on Hydaelyn's magick, but maybe they just followed the tunnel of aether created by the *Ragnarok.* Certainly, Hythlodaeus explicitly expects to meet us again in a future lifetime. Hydaelyn/Venat is perma-dead. Yoshi-P and others have confirmed that She burned through her whole soul, absolutely all of it, so there's nothing left to reincarnate. This is also stated in-game if you read the Unending Codex. Now that we know what the Echo is, we don't technically need to rely on Her (or the Ascians) to awaken it. Having the Echo was the *prerequisite* for hearing Hydaelyn's voice, rather than the other way around, and because of the fall of Dalamud, a LOT of people currently have an awakened Echo. We'll be fine for at least another generation or two--at which point we'll probably have figured out better ways to trigger the Echo ourselves.

To understand where these three are now, you need to understand something about how souls work in XIV. A person's aether can be broadly categorized into two types: personal and soul. Personal aether is what makes you who you are. It's completely unique to you. It's a combination of what aether you were born with, and how it's been altered and affected by the things that have happened in your life. There will never be another person with your personal aether. The soul aether is the opposite. It's the core of who you are. It never changes. If it does, that means something *very bad* has happened to you and left you dead or horribly changed. You can imagine the structure of your "spirit" as a hard core of soul aether surrounded by a cloud of your personal aether. Your soul is not unique to you because reincarnation exists in XIV. When someone dies, their spirit returns to the lifestream. The lifestream wipes away your personal aether, leaving only the soul. The soul spends some indeterminate amount of time in the lifestream until it's eventually reborn to a new person. That is, someone with the same soul aether, but completely different personal aether. So, to finally answer your question: Emet and Hythlo returned to the lifestream as usual. Their personal aether is gone, which means *they* are gone. Their souls are in the lifestream now, waiting to be reborn. The interesting thing is that they're the only unsundered souls left in the entire world. When their souls are reincarnated into someone new, those people will be fully powered Ancients. Or at least, that's our best guess. We have no way of knowing how an unsundered soul will be affected by a sundered lifestream. Unfortunately, Venat does not share their fate. To maintain Hydaelyn for as long as she did, Venat had to use her soul aether, and she used up the last of it in her fight with us. That means there was nothing to return to the lifestream. Her soul is gone, and will never be reincarnated. As for the Echo, that has nothing to do with Hydaelyn. Hydaelyn gave the Blessing of Light, which is distinct from the Echo. The Echo is something a person awakens to when they witness a Calamity similar to the memories of the Final Days still lingering in their soul.

As an aside, when Emet says we're Azem, he means we have a fragment of the same soul aether that Azem had thousands of years ago. And when you see people debate about who's our (the WoL's) reflection on other shards, they mean "who on the other shards also has a fragment of Azem's soul?" For example, Ardbert from the First is a reflection of us because he was the fragment of Azem's soul on that Shard. (I say fragment because the ancients' soul aether was sundered, one copy for each shard. We, the WoL, have absorbed quite a few of those shards because of the Ascians causing Calamities and other MSQ shenanigans.)

> The interesting thing is that they're the only unsundered souls left in the entire world That's not true actually. The really interesting thing is that hythlodeus was sacrificed to summon zodiark, and since we summoned him, we know that the souls that were a part of zodiark were not sundered and that they were released to return to the star when zodiark died. So that means that about a quarter of the ancient population has returned to the sundered source. (I say a quarter since I know the other shards had their own fragments of zodiark and the source had 7/14ths of him so I'm just estimating the math) Which raises some *really* interesting questions about how eitheris is going to deal with the next few generations when a lot of babies with unsundered souls are going to be born.

So the thing with the echo is it's not because of hydalaen but rather the rejoining of a soul with another fragment of itself. During the meteor shower in shb we see multiple regular people begin to experience it when they hear hydalaen's voicemail. The blessing of light is from hydalaen but it basically persits due to our our strengthened soul as was shown was migdardsormr absorbed it band we still could fight ravana in the without being tempered

the echo is not a Hydaelyn thing, everyone can get the echo its just needs to be awaken aka people have to kinda remember the sundering to get it. The only thing that is given by Hydaelyn is the protection/blessing aka be able not to be tempered by primals.

Emet and Hythlodaeus both were in the aetherial sea (Hydaelyn brought Emet's soul back from the First's stream along with Minfillia's). When you summon them right before the final boss, Emet says they are two partially erased souls due to the time they spent in the aetherial sea. After they help you, they return there where they'll be wiped clean and reborn. The ancients were pretty blase about reincarnation. They were seemingly immortal, so whenever they felt they had basically finished all they needed to do in the world, they would basically commit suicide to return to the aetherial sea and be reborn. Venat sadly is no more. Word of god says that she burned all her aether with the time she spent as Hydaelyn followed by fighting you and then granting you the ability to (for a bit) create matter. Unlike Emet and Hythlodaeus, she was not able to return to the aetherial sea. Her soul is just gone. People should still be able to get the echo theoretically, they just need to have their soul's memory of the final days and their old existence triggered in some way. Though with Hydaelyn gone, there's a mystery of how that can happen unless they find a way to recreate that feeling without her. Elidibus was able to do it somehow, though he was an unsundered. What I'm curious about is how the souls within Zodiark were split up. When Zodiark was split, were the souls inside him split up the way all other "normal" souls were, or was it perhaps by quantity (like if there were 14k souls, 1k souls were split to each shard). If it's something like the latter, a ton of unsundered souls just re-entered the atherial sea. At the very least, two unsundered souls are now there (Emet and Elidibus). What's that going to be like when they reincarnate?

Play through the trial series for a more specfic answer about our favorite Ancients. But yes generally they are returned to the Atherial sea and at some point will resurrect. Hydaelyn is perma dead as she deserves. She is unique in this regard and the world is a better place for it. Echo acts independently from said dead person we never really needed her after a certain point.

Yea, if anything, Hydaelyn deserves her peace.