This is a very late post that should've gone up at some point during the 5.0 cycle. Unfortunately, I only barely began playing FF14 halfway through it, and diving into the Savage raids took so much time I forgot to get around it after playing through its final trial and dungeon. My apologies for that. But this topic has to be discussed, and an analysis of the Shadowbringers main theme has to exist, because it's brilliant and knowing what it's about only enhances a composition that's already a strong contender for best thing Masayoshi Soken ever wrote. So let's hop to it, shall we? I'll take this in sections.
WARNING: The following analysis contains heavy story spoilers. If you haven't played Shadowbringers yet, go play it instead!
Section 1: A Blasted Land
For whom weeps the storm,
Her tears on our skin
The days of our years gone,
Our souls soaked in sin
These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow
Who fights?
Who flies?
Who falls?
Every FF14 song has at least one character singing it. Everybody knows about Answers and Dragonsong being sung by Hydaelyn, but it extends beyond that too. Oblivion is sung by Shiva, Sunrise is sung by Suzaku, and so on and so forth. Shadowbringers is no exception, but it's unique in that it features several singers, including one that heavily stands out. The first one, thankfully, is very easy to identify: it's the people of the First. Note the contrast to the choir of Answers, which stands in for the people of Eorzea. Here, a lone opera singer wails her lament, and that's no coincidence -- the First is a broken land, all but spent and finished, and its people have suffered in kind. The very first line might incline you to think the singer is a stand-in for the ancient Amaurotines. After all, 'For whom weeps the storm?' immediately leads one to think of The Tempest, the final zone where the remnants of Amaurot are found. The next line, however, puts the lie to that interpretation. "Her tears on our skin" suggests the singer is not the storm, nor its contents. Thus, it must be the people beneath it...one could say its lessers, even. The identity of the first singer thus established, we can move on to the more interesting part of this opening stanza: her feelings.
At the start of Shadowbringers, both the First and its people are on the brink of giving up. "The days of our years gone, our souls soaked in sin" -- these words reflect the sacrifices of every single man and woman who has paid a bloody price to buy time for a future that may never come. It's hard on them. It's so hard to keep going. "These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow", sings the soprano, and we understand that she, and by extension, the characters she's portraying, struggle to get out of bed when the lost and the dead whisper in their ears. The people are clamoring for a hero, but the only hero they've known for centuries, the Oracle of Light, has fought and bled and died repeatedly for the sake of a stalemate, to hold back the inevitable rising of the tide of light. No one can be asked to save this world anymore. The weight is too great to bear. The question echoes in the air, unanswered for a brief, pregnant moment (more on this lyric later):
"Who fights? Who flies? Who falls?"
Things look bad, but they're not yet over. Help is on its way.
Section 2: Who Brings Shadow
One brings shadow, one brings light
Two-toned echoes tumbling through time
Threescore wasted, ten cast aside
Four-fold knowing, no end in sight
One brings shadow, one brings light
One dark future no one survives
On their shadows, away we fly
The electric guitar cuts through the orchestral prelude like a buzzsaw, as the question posed in the first verse finds its answer. We'll talk about the first line of this verse later, but first, I want to talk about the rest of the verse. In the second line, the storytelling is so clear it's almost palpable. "Two-toned echoes, tumbling through time"...innocent enough on first listen, and then one plays the expansion and it becomes patently obvious this is a reference to the Crystal Exarch, G'raha Tia, red-and-white-haired time traveler. Not only that, but there's also a further double meaning: remember how G'raha made his triumphant return? It was by dragging the Scions through time and space, with the echo of his summons. 'Throw wide the gates! Let expanse contract, eon become instant!'. Both the beginning and the ending of Shadowbringers find themselves represented in this pivotal line.
The next line is more interesting, though -- I believe it too serves a dual purpose. Three-score and ten is 70. 70 is the number of years G'raha lived in the ruined future helping Garlond Ironworks find a way to avert the calamity that ruined the Source, but it also is a meta joke. The number of levels players gain before starting Shadowbringers is 70 -- seventy levels of adventures, smiles, tears and experiences, all on the Source. But in another world, all of these things are meaningless. The First stands separate from the Source, alone. To travel there means to abandon all you've ever known. It is not possible to make the journey without casting every other worry aside.
The next line is probably the trickiest one in the entire song to unravel. 'Four-fold knowing' is something of a mystery. Many interpretations have been posed for it: we can take it as a meta joke referring the content patches (ARR, HW, SB, ShB = 4), as well as the four heads of Garlond Ironworks (Cid and the three Biggses), the four methods of scientific analysis, and even the four known survivors of the Amaurotine High Council (our various selves, Lahabrea, Emet-Selch and Elidibus), but none of these ring wholly true to me. This line took by far the longes time to crack, but eventually, a coincidental run of the Twinning made it clear. To send the Crystal Exarch back in time, the engineers of Garlond Ironworks had to bring to bear the combined powers of every last technological wonder they could find. Omega, the interstellar traveler; Alexander, the ineffable mystery, master of time; The Crystal Tower, with its lost remnants of the genius of High Allag; And last, but not least, their own wits, ingenuity, and mastery of the engineering craft. All of this and more was needed due to there being "no end in sight" to the Black Rose calamity. Given the context of what came beforehand, it becomes clear that what was at stake was nothing less than thwarting "one dark future no one survives". The final line, "on their shadows, away we fly", completes the scene-set. Remember that the boss of the Twinning possesses wings of time -- on the winds of these four knowings comes a dire warning, delivered swiftly enough and persistently enough to avert a disaster in the making. Seeking to avert this last, greatest calamity, the Source dispatches its finest agents: the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.
Section 3: Mounting Tension
The road that we walk
Is lost in the flood
Here proud angels bathe in
Their wages of blood
At this, the world's end, do we cast off tomorrow
This section diverges from the previous one due to a major shift in singing style. In the previous section, the singer whispers -- here, he belts cleanly and loudly. This section is a call of defiance, and the vocal performance conveys that too. Faced with a world on the brink of annihilation, beset on all sides by legions of mindless slaughtering angels, what are our beleaguered heroes to do? The answer is simple: inspire hope. Here is both a call-back to one of the lines of the first stanza, but also an answer to the first question posed by its last lines: Who fights for a world that is no longer worth saving? Who rises up to encourage the hopeless people of the First to engage in open rebellion?
Why, none other than Hydaelyn's vaunted champion, the great hope bringer: The Warrior of Light.
Section 4: This Is Your Story
One brings shadow, one brings light
To this riddle all souls are tied
Brief our moments, brazen and bright
Forged in fury, tempered in ice
Hindmost devils, early to rise
Sing come twilight, sleep when they die
Heaven's banquet leavened with lies
Sating honor, envy, and pride
One brings shadow, one brings light
Run from the light
Hoo boy. This is it. The piece de resistance. This section, coming hot on the heels of an initial spark of rebellion (Holminster Switch, anyone?), is nothing less than a lyrical masterclass in synthesis. What if I told you every single couplet recounts an entire expac? Sounds crazy, but it's true. In the span of ten lines, Michael Cristopher Koji-Fox manages to relieve the entire journey undertaken to reach this point, turning a recollection of past experiences that had previously been abandoned into a glorious battle boast. The strange whispering voice that has been singing up to this point isn't just any old person. It's you. Shadowbringers isn't just the theme song of the expansion, it's the Warrior of Light's theme song, and the lyrical contents of this stanza make that clear. Let's knock these couplets out, one by one.
"One brings shadow, one brings light To this riddle all souls are tied"
There's a temptation to think that the second line refers to the first one, in a bit of simplistic wordplay, or even to the Artificial Enigma, the Tycoon, but things go way deeper than that here. Look back at the theme of ARR, Answers: "Thy life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow/To listen, to suffer, to entrust unto tomorrow". Pretty clear, isn't it? And yet, simultaneously, that seemingly simplistic initial idea is reinforced. This verse is about you, the player, and your character. 'Thy life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow' -- so yes, given that one brings shadow, and that same one brings the light, all souls are tied to the riddle that is your life. No one else can stop what's yet to come.
"Brief our moments, brazen and bright Forged in fury, tempered in ice"
Human life is impermanent, nothing but a fleeting moment. And who would know that better than a dragon? To them, our lives are a blink, which is what the third line references. The fourth is straightforward to the point of blatancy. Halone, the Fury, is the patron deity of Ishgard. In that icy northland, Heavensward, the first expansion to ARR, unfolds.
"Hindmost devils, early to rise Sing come twilight, sleep when they die"
The second most perplexing line of the song, easily. Hindmost devils? What could that mean? Unearthing the truth behind that half of the fourth line takes a bit of research. The Au Ra, seemingly so draconic...aren't. Instead, early on during previous, Naoki Yoshida indicated that their designs took cues from demons. And don't the Au Ra of the Azim Steppe look positively demonic, with their spiky, scary horns? Given this discovery, the back half of the line flows naturally: the sun rises in the east, and this line stands in for the liberation of Doma in Stormblood. And where there's Doma, of course there must be Gyr Abania. Look back at the Liberation of Ala Mhigo cutscene. What does everyone do? Sing a hymn as the sun goes down, having vanquished the longstanding Garlean invaders. Sing come twilight, sleep when they die. Thus we cover Stormblood.
"Heaven's banquet leavened with lies Sating honor, envy, and pride"
You don't need me to tell you this is about Eulmore. Every word is a dead giveaway. Moving on!
"One brings shadow, one brings light Run from the light"
This is subtle. One can think of it as running away from the Sin Eaters, but no -- it's a bit different. Vauthry is a Lightwarden, and the only enemy to harry the Scions consistently throughout Shadowbringers is Ran'jit, his general. Gotta keep moving forward to stay one step ahead of him. Run from the light!
In ancient times, warriors used to rattle off their history and achievements to build up credibility before engaging in battle. The WoL's cred firmly established, there's but one thing left to do: engage the final enemy in battle.
Section 5: Open Rebellion
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
*Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge
A reflection in the glass
Recollections of our past
Swift as darkness, cold as ash
Far beyond this dream of paradise lost
Amaurot disappeared many years ago, but memories of it linger still in the worlds the denizens of the fourteen Shards inhabit. After the cataclysm, naught remained but a shade of past perfections, and yet, mankind thrived and survived. These are the "Authors of our fate", who orchestrated their (and their soul shards') fall from grace. Humans are the poorest players on the stage, raging against the inevitable end decreed by the Ascians (represented by the sudden sonic attack that accompanies this verse, easily the harshest part of the theme) -- even if it puts everything in jeopardy. Though mocked as nothing more than grotesque pieces of people that once were, humans adapt, and grow, and live. They are not trapped within a maze of memories, and this is their greatest power: having so little, they do not fear risking everything, and can thus move on, "far beyond this dream of paradise lost" that is the conjured illusion of ancient Amaurot. And who can weave that illusion? Well, we've established who fights. We know also who flies (on wings of time -- I'll leave working that out to you). That only leaves one question unanswered:
Section 6: Who Falls
HOME
RIDING HOME
DYING HOPE
HOLD ONTO HOPE
OHHH...
HOME
RIDING HOME
HOME, RIDING HOME
HOPE, FINDING HOPE...
OHHH...
Only one person still clings to the foolish hope of restoring things to the way once were, regardless of cost, regardless of how many lives must be spent in the process: Emet-Selch, the implacable Hades. Notice the difference in volume and power -- the Warrior of Light, fragmented shard of an ancient Amaurotine, is muffled in the mix, and can barely rise above a whisper for most of it. Emet-Selch's 'voice' booms, carried forward by a massive male choir. It sets up a stark contrast, which serves to prep an epic confrontation. In the end, the ancient Ascian goes home, clinging to a dim hope of reviving his race. It is futile, of course -- nothing can bring back the past. But he won't be swayed from his course, and thus, him and the Warrior of Light must battle.
Section 7: Eternal Wind
There are no lyrics to this section. It doesn't need them. Eternal Wind is a theme from FF3, used as the leitmotif of the Crystal Tower. Consequently, it recurs in the theme of the Crystarium, mankind's last bastion of hope in the First. That it reappears here, at the eleventh hour, is no coincidence -- it's a mirror to the world entire rallying to construct the Talos that allows the Warrior of Light to ascend to the heavens, confront Lord Vauthry, and bring an end to Norvrandt's peril. It stands in, too, for Ardbert's sacrifice that allows the WoL to control the Lightwarden's light within. The Warrior of Light stands above all other heroes, but unlike Emet-Selch, they don't stand alone.
Section 8: An End Without End
One brings shadow, one brings light
One more chapter we've yet to write
Want for nothing, nothing denied
Wand'ring ended, futures aligned
One brings shadow, one brings light
One brings shadow, one brings light
You are the light
We fall
We fall
We fall
We fall unto the end
One world's end
Our world's end
Our end
We won't end
I am shadow, I am the light
The final sections are a triumphant declaration, a final struggle, and a cry of victory. The past cannot stand in the way of the future. There's more to be done, more to be lived. There is still "one more chapter we've yet to write". With the Umbral Calamity averted, all that remains is endless possibility. Thus the WoL rises, and then falls, and falls, and falls...and then rises triumphant, with Emet-Selch's blessing, who accepts that it is time for the Amaurotines to fade into history, where they will forever be remembered. There won't be a revival of the ancient civilization, but it is not needed -- their descendants will carry on their work. It is the end, but it is an end without end.
Finally, we close with one final whisper, perfectly audible in the near-silence as the Warrior of Light becomes the Warrior of Darkness. "I am the shadow, I am the light".
submitted by /u/Kanzaris
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Continue reading...
WARNING: The following analysis contains heavy story spoilers. If you haven't played Shadowbringers yet, go play it instead!
Section 1: A Blasted Land
For whom weeps the storm,
Her tears on our skin
The days of our years gone,
Our souls soaked in sin
These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow
Who fights?
Who flies?
Who falls?
Every FF14 song has at least one character singing it. Everybody knows about Answers and Dragonsong being sung by Hydaelyn, but it extends beyond that too. Oblivion is sung by Shiva, Sunrise is sung by Suzaku, and so on and so forth. Shadowbringers is no exception, but it's unique in that it features several singers, including one that heavily stands out. The first one, thankfully, is very easy to identify: it's the people of the First. Note the contrast to the choir of Answers, which stands in for the people of Eorzea. Here, a lone opera singer wails her lament, and that's no coincidence -- the First is a broken land, all but spent and finished, and its people have suffered in kind. The very first line might incline you to think the singer is a stand-in for the ancient Amaurotines. After all, 'For whom weeps the storm?' immediately leads one to think of The Tempest, the final zone where the remnants of Amaurot are found. The next line, however, puts the lie to that interpretation. "Her tears on our skin" suggests the singer is not the storm, nor its contents. Thus, it must be the people beneath it...one could say its lessers, even. The identity of the first singer thus established, we can move on to the more interesting part of this opening stanza: her feelings.
At the start of Shadowbringers, both the First and its people are on the brink of giving up. "The days of our years gone, our souls soaked in sin" -- these words reflect the sacrifices of every single man and woman who has paid a bloody price to buy time for a future that may never come. It's hard on them. It's so hard to keep going. "These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow", sings the soprano, and we understand that she, and by extension, the characters she's portraying, struggle to get out of bed when the lost and the dead whisper in their ears. The people are clamoring for a hero, but the only hero they've known for centuries, the Oracle of Light, has fought and bled and died repeatedly for the sake of a stalemate, to hold back the inevitable rising of the tide of light. No one can be asked to save this world anymore. The weight is too great to bear. The question echoes in the air, unanswered for a brief, pregnant moment (more on this lyric later):
"Who fights? Who flies? Who falls?"
Things look bad, but they're not yet over. Help is on its way.
Section 2: Who Brings Shadow
One brings shadow, one brings light
Two-toned echoes tumbling through time
Threescore wasted, ten cast aside
Four-fold knowing, no end in sight
One brings shadow, one brings light
One dark future no one survives
On their shadows, away we fly
The electric guitar cuts through the orchestral prelude like a buzzsaw, as the question posed in the first verse finds its answer. We'll talk about the first line of this verse later, but first, I want to talk about the rest of the verse. In the second line, the storytelling is so clear it's almost palpable. "Two-toned echoes, tumbling through time"...innocent enough on first listen, and then one plays the expansion and it becomes patently obvious this is a reference to the Crystal Exarch, G'raha Tia, red-and-white-haired time traveler. Not only that, but there's also a further double meaning: remember how G'raha made his triumphant return? It was by dragging the Scions through time and space, with the echo of his summons. 'Throw wide the gates! Let expanse contract, eon become instant!'. Both the beginning and the ending of Shadowbringers find themselves represented in this pivotal line.
The next line is more interesting, though -- I believe it too serves a dual purpose. Three-score and ten is 70. 70 is the number of years G'raha lived in the ruined future helping Garlond Ironworks find a way to avert the calamity that ruined the Source, but it also is a meta joke. The number of levels players gain before starting Shadowbringers is 70 -- seventy levels of adventures, smiles, tears and experiences, all on the Source. But in another world, all of these things are meaningless. The First stands separate from the Source, alone. To travel there means to abandon all you've ever known. It is not possible to make the journey without casting every other worry aside.
The next line is probably the trickiest one in the entire song to unravel. 'Four-fold knowing' is something of a mystery. Many interpretations have been posed for it: we can take it as a meta joke referring the content patches (ARR, HW, SB, ShB = 4), as well as the four heads of Garlond Ironworks (Cid and the three Biggses), the four methods of scientific analysis, and even the four known survivors of the Amaurotine High Council (our various selves, Lahabrea, Emet-Selch and Elidibus), but none of these ring wholly true to me. This line took by far the longes time to crack, but eventually, a coincidental run of the Twinning made it clear. To send the Crystal Exarch back in time, the engineers of Garlond Ironworks had to bring to bear the combined powers of every last technological wonder they could find. Omega, the interstellar traveler; Alexander, the ineffable mystery, master of time; The Crystal Tower, with its lost remnants of the genius of High Allag; And last, but not least, their own wits, ingenuity, and mastery of the engineering craft. All of this and more was needed due to there being "no end in sight" to the Black Rose calamity. Given the context of what came beforehand, it becomes clear that what was at stake was nothing less than thwarting "one dark future no one survives". The final line, "on their shadows, away we fly", completes the scene-set. Remember that the boss of the Twinning possesses wings of time -- on the winds of these four knowings comes a dire warning, delivered swiftly enough and persistently enough to avert a disaster in the making. Seeking to avert this last, greatest calamity, the Source dispatches its finest agents: the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.
Section 3: Mounting Tension
The road that we walk
Is lost in the flood
Here proud angels bathe in
Their wages of blood
At this, the world's end, do we cast off tomorrow
This section diverges from the previous one due to a major shift in singing style. In the previous section, the singer whispers -- here, he belts cleanly and loudly. This section is a call of defiance, and the vocal performance conveys that too. Faced with a world on the brink of annihilation, beset on all sides by legions of mindless slaughtering angels, what are our beleaguered heroes to do? The answer is simple: inspire hope. Here is both a call-back to one of the lines of the first stanza, but also an answer to the first question posed by its last lines: Who fights for a world that is no longer worth saving? Who rises up to encourage the hopeless people of the First to engage in open rebellion?
Why, none other than Hydaelyn's vaunted champion, the great hope bringer: The Warrior of Light.
Section 4: This Is Your Story
One brings shadow, one brings light
To this riddle all souls are tied
Brief our moments, brazen and bright
Forged in fury, tempered in ice
Hindmost devils, early to rise
Sing come twilight, sleep when they die
Heaven's banquet leavened with lies
Sating honor, envy, and pride
One brings shadow, one brings light
Run from the light
Hoo boy. This is it. The piece de resistance. This section, coming hot on the heels of an initial spark of rebellion (Holminster Switch, anyone?), is nothing less than a lyrical masterclass in synthesis. What if I told you every single couplet recounts an entire expac? Sounds crazy, but it's true. In the span of ten lines, Michael Cristopher Koji-Fox manages to relieve the entire journey undertaken to reach this point, turning a recollection of past experiences that had previously been abandoned into a glorious battle boast. The strange whispering voice that has been singing up to this point isn't just any old person. It's you. Shadowbringers isn't just the theme song of the expansion, it's the Warrior of Light's theme song, and the lyrical contents of this stanza make that clear. Let's knock these couplets out, one by one.
"One brings shadow, one brings light To this riddle all souls are tied"
There's a temptation to think that the second line refers to the first one, in a bit of simplistic wordplay, or even to the Artificial Enigma, the Tycoon, but things go way deeper than that here. Look back at the theme of ARR, Answers: "Thy life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow/To listen, to suffer, to entrust unto tomorrow". Pretty clear, isn't it? And yet, simultaneously, that seemingly simplistic initial idea is reinforced. This verse is about you, the player, and your character. 'Thy life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow' -- so yes, given that one brings shadow, and that same one brings the light, all souls are tied to the riddle that is your life. No one else can stop what's yet to come.
"Brief our moments, brazen and bright Forged in fury, tempered in ice"
Human life is impermanent, nothing but a fleeting moment. And who would know that better than a dragon? To them, our lives are a blink, which is what the third line references. The fourth is straightforward to the point of blatancy. Halone, the Fury, is the patron deity of Ishgard. In that icy northland, Heavensward, the first expansion to ARR, unfolds.
"Hindmost devils, early to rise Sing come twilight, sleep when they die"
The second most perplexing line of the song, easily. Hindmost devils? What could that mean? Unearthing the truth behind that half of the fourth line takes a bit of research. The Au Ra, seemingly so draconic...aren't. Instead, early on during previous, Naoki Yoshida indicated that their designs took cues from demons. And don't the Au Ra of the Azim Steppe look positively demonic, with their spiky, scary horns? Given this discovery, the back half of the line flows naturally: the sun rises in the east, and this line stands in for the liberation of Doma in Stormblood. And where there's Doma, of course there must be Gyr Abania. Look back at the Liberation of Ala Mhigo cutscene. What does everyone do? Sing a hymn as the sun goes down, having vanquished the longstanding Garlean invaders. Sing come twilight, sleep when they die. Thus we cover Stormblood.
"Heaven's banquet leavened with lies Sating honor, envy, and pride"
You don't need me to tell you this is about Eulmore. Every word is a dead giveaway. Moving on!
"One brings shadow, one brings light Run from the light"
This is subtle. One can think of it as running away from the Sin Eaters, but no -- it's a bit different. Vauthry is a Lightwarden, and the only enemy to harry the Scions consistently throughout Shadowbringers is Ran'jit, his general. Gotta keep moving forward to stay one step ahead of him. Run from the light!
In ancient times, warriors used to rattle off their history and achievements to build up credibility before engaging in battle. The WoL's cred firmly established, there's but one thing left to do: engage the final enemy in battle.
Section 5: Open Rebellion
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
*Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge
A reflection in the glass
Recollections of our past
Swift as darkness, cold as ash
Far beyond this dream of paradise lost
Amaurot disappeared many years ago, but memories of it linger still in the worlds the denizens of the fourteen Shards inhabit. After the cataclysm, naught remained but a shade of past perfections, and yet, mankind thrived and survived. These are the "Authors of our fate", who orchestrated their (and their soul shards') fall from grace. Humans are the poorest players on the stage, raging against the inevitable end decreed by the Ascians (represented by the sudden sonic attack that accompanies this verse, easily the harshest part of the theme) -- even if it puts everything in jeopardy. Though mocked as nothing more than grotesque pieces of people that once were, humans adapt, and grow, and live. They are not trapped within a maze of memories, and this is their greatest power: having so little, they do not fear risking everything, and can thus move on, "far beyond this dream of paradise lost" that is the conjured illusion of ancient Amaurot. And who can weave that illusion? Well, we've established who fights. We know also who flies (on wings of time -- I'll leave working that out to you). That only leaves one question unanswered:
Section 6: Who Falls
HOME
RIDING HOME
DYING HOPE
HOLD ONTO HOPE
OHHH...
HOME
RIDING HOME
HOME, RIDING HOME
HOPE, FINDING HOPE...
OHHH...
Only one person still clings to the foolish hope of restoring things to the way once were, regardless of cost, regardless of how many lives must be spent in the process: Emet-Selch, the implacable Hades. Notice the difference in volume and power -- the Warrior of Light, fragmented shard of an ancient Amaurotine, is muffled in the mix, and can barely rise above a whisper for most of it. Emet-Selch's 'voice' booms, carried forward by a massive male choir. It sets up a stark contrast, which serves to prep an epic confrontation. In the end, the ancient Ascian goes home, clinging to a dim hope of reviving his race. It is futile, of course -- nothing can bring back the past. But he won't be swayed from his course, and thus, him and the Warrior of Light must battle.
Section 7: Eternal Wind
There are no lyrics to this section. It doesn't need them. Eternal Wind is a theme from FF3, used as the leitmotif of the Crystal Tower. Consequently, it recurs in the theme of the Crystarium, mankind's last bastion of hope in the First. That it reappears here, at the eleventh hour, is no coincidence -- it's a mirror to the world entire rallying to construct the Talos that allows the Warrior of Light to ascend to the heavens, confront Lord Vauthry, and bring an end to Norvrandt's peril. It stands in, too, for Ardbert's sacrifice that allows the WoL to control the Lightwarden's light within. The Warrior of Light stands above all other heroes, but unlike Emet-Selch, they don't stand alone.
Section 8: An End Without End
One brings shadow, one brings light
One more chapter we've yet to write
Want for nothing, nothing denied
Wand'ring ended, futures aligned
One brings shadow, one brings light
One brings shadow, one brings light
You are the light
We fall
We fall
We fall
We fall unto the end
One world's end
Our world's end
Our end
We won't end
I am shadow, I am the light
The final sections are a triumphant declaration, a final struggle, and a cry of victory. The past cannot stand in the way of the future. There's more to be done, more to be lived. There is still "one more chapter we've yet to write". With the Umbral Calamity averted, all that remains is endless possibility. Thus the WoL rises, and then falls, and falls, and falls...and then rises triumphant, with Emet-Selch's blessing, who accepts that it is time for the Amaurotines to fade into history, where they will forever be remembered. There won't be a revival of the ancient civilization, but it is not needed -- their descendants will carry on their work. It is the end, but it is an end without end.
Finally, we close with one final whisper, perfectly audible in the near-silence as the Warrior of Light becomes the Warrior of Darkness. "I am the shadow, I am the light".
submitted by /u/Kanzaris
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Continue reading...