First, a few concrete details to keep in mind:
With that in mind...
In Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch recreated Amaurot and its inhabitants from memory. Aetherial constructs, fashioned wholly by Ancient power and the exacting details of his own memory (albeit with a few unnecessary flourishes, he admits).
In the Stormblood section of the Dark Knight quest line, Myste reached into the memories of others and summoned forth aetherial constructs based upon them, and used the power within our Dark Knight soul crystal or the aether within nearby creatures (such as the chocobos of Rhalgr's Reach) and monsters of Gyr Abania to do so. In reflection of what we learn from the Resistance Weapons quest line, these constructs appear to be shaped by both implicit and explicit memory—they are framed by the remembered exacting detail of explicit memory, but also made whole with their own thoughts and emotions and feelings by implicit memory, helping put fears to rest, expressing regrets and affections for those left behind. The constructs do not simply parrot what they might have explicitly said in memory, they become more like "realized ghosts," speaking based on the kind of person both the Warrior of Light and the intended listener both remember and "felt."
At the end of that story, it turned out Myste was part of us, like Fray/Esteem, the incarnate avatar of our loss and grief and regret and survivor's guilt. He was using the Echo to see into others' memories in order to do what he was doing, and likely to make the constructs. In some cases, the constructs appeared to be impacted by the implicit memory Mikoto told us about, such as when Sidurgu's mentor was summoned and seemed stronger than Sidurgu actively remembered, but his memory of the mentor had always been framed as "stronger than me," from when he was a student.
In Amaurot, one of the Ancients we can do a quest for describes us as having a surprising incapability for creation, something they hadn't seen in any other Ancient before. Now... keeping in mind what we did via Myste in Stormblood, I propose a theory:
As Azem, before the Sundering, we intentionally buried our ability to create from the aether like other Ancients, cutting ourself off from that part of our Gift. In this way, any Ancient looking for creative potential in us would find none, but also: we wouldn't, couldn't, conjure horrors from our fears and wild thoughts and we could focus on confronting those horrors, and whatever was responsible for causing them. However, the ability still existed as part of our subconscious, manifesting later as Myste after the traumatic losses of Heavensward.
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- Natsuko Ishikawa wrote the story of Shadowbringers, the "starring job" of whom is the Dark Knight.
- Natsuko Ishikawa also wrote all of the Dark Knight quest line, from level 30 (when we pick it up) to level 80.
- In 5.3, we find out that we are the sundered fragment of Azem, who was the Fourteenth of the Convocation, and defected rather than take part in the sacrificial summoning of Zodiark or Hydaelyn.
- Amaurot was destroyed both by a starshower and monsters formed from the random, explosively-creative fears and panic of its Ancient inhabitants. Any Ancient that could create found their power triggered en masse by the cataclysm engulfing the city, unintentionally summoning forth monsters and horrors.
- Tangentially, on the subject of memory, in the Resistance Weapons quest line, we learn about the differences of implicit and explicit memory, how sometimes our mind alters things, remembering some things with perfect clarity, and others as distorted, impacted by our emotions and feelings for a subject within the memory.
- Myste of the Dark Knight quest line takes the form of a young elezen boy who mixes the features of both Haurchefant and Ysayle, two dear friends we lost during the Heavensward story.
With that in mind...
In Shadowbringers, Emet-Selch recreated Amaurot and its inhabitants from memory. Aetherial constructs, fashioned wholly by Ancient power and the exacting details of his own memory (albeit with a few unnecessary flourishes, he admits).
In the Stormblood section of the Dark Knight quest line, Myste reached into the memories of others and summoned forth aetherial constructs based upon them, and used the power within our Dark Knight soul crystal or the aether within nearby creatures (such as the chocobos of Rhalgr's Reach) and monsters of Gyr Abania to do so. In reflection of what we learn from the Resistance Weapons quest line, these constructs appear to be shaped by both implicit and explicit memory—they are framed by the remembered exacting detail of explicit memory, but also made whole with their own thoughts and emotions and feelings by implicit memory, helping put fears to rest, expressing regrets and affections for those left behind. The constructs do not simply parrot what they might have explicitly said in memory, they become more like "realized ghosts," speaking based on the kind of person both the Warrior of Light and the intended listener both remember and "felt."
At the end of that story, it turned out Myste was part of us, like Fray/Esteem, the incarnate avatar of our loss and grief and regret and survivor's guilt. He was using the Echo to see into others' memories in order to do what he was doing, and likely to make the constructs. In some cases, the constructs appeared to be impacted by the implicit memory Mikoto told us about, such as when Sidurgu's mentor was summoned and seemed stronger than Sidurgu actively remembered, but his memory of the mentor had always been framed as "stronger than me," from when he was a student.
In Amaurot, one of the Ancients we can do a quest for describes us as having a surprising incapability for creation, something they hadn't seen in any other Ancient before. Now... keeping in mind what we did via Myste in Stormblood, I propose a theory:
As Azem, before the Sundering, we intentionally buried our ability to create from the aether like other Ancients, cutting ourself off from that part of our Gift. In this way, any Ancient looking for creative potential in us would find none, but also: we wouldn't, couldn't, conjure horrors from our fears and wild thoughts and we could focus on confronting those horrors, and whatever was responsible for causing them. However, the ability still existed as part of our subconscious, manifesting later as Myste after the traumatic losses of Heavensward.
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...