Shadowbringers remixes and breaks down its lore, while providing tidbits for the upcoming Endwalker. All with quality raiding goodness. This is the Eden Report.
0:00 – Intro
5:24 – Eden’s Gate
11:40 – Eden’s Verse
21:44 – Eden’s Promise
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Came for the coffee biscuits. Stayed for the rainbow crystal.
Darn they did not realize during the Shiva fight all the massive Hydalynn stuff including her doing the stomp like depicted on the wall painting.
I am a sucker for the Gaia/Mitron story. Like the trope of Lovers/Friends to Enemies and one doesn't remember that they even know the other one…love it lol.
I'm so glad that we finally got a raid story that…mattered? Coils definitely mattered but that's it's own little thing over there. It felt like the HW and SB raid series just didn't really matter in the grand scheme of MSQ whereas Eden really felt like the perfect capstone to the ShB story.
The Cloud of Darkness was specifically modeled after one of the base versions of Dissidia's take on it. The minion you get for the Cloud from World of Darkness had also referenced this model despite the boss being based more on the FF3 version. After the time I put into Dissidia, I was pretty happy to see it get a cameo.
"Watching my shy teenage daughter awkwardly try to score a date with hot goth girlfriend" the raid is mandatory story true and real.
Spirits Within AND RahXephon references?! I luv u guys
It's never fully explained explicitly, but the difference between Nabriales being just defeated by the WoL in ARR 2.5 (in immediately reviving himself) and Loghrif being killed by Ardbert in the past (and being sent to the Aetherial Sea/Lifestream and reincarnated as a mortal nearly a century later) isn't because Nabriales faced us initially in a physical body of flesh but rather because Nabriales' soul was still able to retreat to The Rift (i.e. the purple spooky Ascian-space with the Zodiark statue we've seen the red-mask Asians have their meetings in and where Elidibus tried to banish the WoL to in the Seat of Sacrifice trial fight) and bounce back nearly instantaneously, while Loghrif (for whatever reason, maybe where Ardbert fought Mitron and Loghrif cut them off from accessing The Rift) was unable to have her soul retreat to The Rift and instead perished in a more conventional manner, with her soul being sent to the Aetherial Sea/Lifestream to be eventually reincarnated like a normal mortal soul.
If you guys ever finish Eureka in your spare time, there is some side-lore that states that Krile's grandfather Galuf Baldesion and his allies were able to achieve a similar victory against another sunderred-Ascian called Emmerololth (back when the Isle of Val suddenly disappeared), where Emmerololth got defeated in a manner where she wasn't able to retreat to The Rift to revive instantaneously and instead got sent to the Aetherial Sea/Lifestream upon their death.
Also while Gaia could potentially traverse The Rift to travel to The Source and different shards (aside from the 13th/World of Darkness) she would have to give up her current physical body like Emet-Selch, other Ascians, and Ardbert and the WoDs had to do in the past. Which Gaia isn't likely in any hurry to do soon.
One of the headcanons I have for why Eden Titan has a car phase is that during that conversation with Ryne about "Okay, tell me all about Titan!" the WoL mentions "Well, he hit like a truck" and Ryne, who's taking notes furiously jots down "…has a truck"
Eden is an AI trying to do art of the primals provided. So maybe WoL head got hit a few times but not that badly lol
In the ARR power point that Minfilia and Urianger give as for the need for White Auracite, they talk about how Ascians will escape their bodies into the rift when they are defeated. The White Auracite traps them long enough to hit them with enough aether to disperse their aether, effectively killing them and their aether is returned to the Aetheral Sea. However, we see that in Heavensward with GigaPope, he just blasts Lahabrea with enough aether from Nidhogg's eye to straight up kill him before he can escape after we weaken him with our fight. Similar to Emet with the Axe of Light that was formed from all the Lightwardens. So with Gaia, she was straight killed by Ardbert and crew's Blade of Light and returned to the Aetheral Sea to be reborn but Mitron was corrupted by it. Basically they blew away half of Ascian Prime and the other half was infected by the light and became Eden. At least that's how I interpreted it.
My theory as to what happened is this:
Beating an Ascian normally just pops their soul out of their body. They retreat to the Abyss and then return to possess another. This is part of the 'elevation' that the Unsundered can impart to them upon raising them to their former office.
Hitting them with a Blade of Light CAN be fatal… but only if they take the hit. With Lahabrea, he bailed back to the Abyss after the first hit popped him out of Thancred. The function of the White Auracite is to 'pin' the Ascian soul to force them to take the hit (Nabriales and Igeyorhm). Emet-Selch broke free of the Auracite, but rather than dodge he tried to overpower the Warrior of Light, and thus took the full force of all of the Lightwarden light to the face. With Mitron and Loghrif, I suspect they couldn't dodge in time (Given Ardbert's Blade of Light was more powerful, being empowered by FIVE Warriors of Light). Loghrif took the hit to protect Mitron and was destroyed and re-entered the pool of reincarnation, where Mitron survived but his body was warped into Eden, trapping him.
…and they were ROOMMATES
Also, randomly, one thing I don't think came across too well in the dialogue for the Shiva fight, but I believe part of the reason Ryne felt the need to become Shiva was because of how we described meeting Ysayle and how she became Shiva. And as Ysayle's misconceptions about Shiva colored her interpretation of the primal, Ryne's misconceptions of Shiva – and the relation between ice and light – did the same, which is why her white robes look like the cave paintings of Hydaelyn.
It was great to revisit Eden in this video!
The last fight of Eden's Promise made me cry. It was an incredibly heart breaking experience to go through, and it still makes me emotional running that fight. Part of it is the loss of identity that Gaia is experiencing with the destruction of her memories and part of it is the desperation that Ryne feels trying to save this person, who may be the third most important person in her life — even more so than you are, from self-destruction, identity loss, and removal of empathy. Ryne's desperation, Gaia's desperation in not wanting to lose her memories, and our desperation in trying to keep them safe just significantly amped the emotions of this fight. Kudos to the storywriters, the translation team, and the combat design team. If any of these elements had been any less contributing to the story, tone, and impact of the dungeon, the emotional response wouldn't have been quite so cathartic.
I think Gaia just died and was reincarnated like a normal person, she just for whatever reason didn't escape and try to find a new body. So:
OG Gaia is sundered -> the 14 shards of her soul enter the reincarnation cycle -> one of these shards is recruited by Emet and she has her memories restored -> She's defeated and killed around the time of the flood -> during the 100 years or so her soul is reincarnated on the first the same way any other soul is -> it's finally reincarnated into the Gaia we know.
I love the FF8 music. 8 is my favorite FF, or it was until I played Shadowbringers.
"Wait they're STARTING with Eden?!" NO BUT FOR REAL. That was my reaction precisely.
I mean, they touch hands and then it zooms out to a rainbow-coloured crystal, Yeah, they're in a relationship for sure!
a great summary of the raid series, which is one I see not remembered as fondly as it deserves, in my opinions. glad you both loved it!
Best raids hands down.
Spirit Within gave me nightmares lol
Was maining white mage until I got to the sringray portal fight. I just CANNOT work this one out, and you can't heal when you're dead, so I had to change to DPS because I can't handle the responsibility any more.
I saw a joke before where the Warrior of Light asks Urianger (I think) how many wheels Titan had and Urianger jokingly answers "four".
I'm really surprised neither of you mentioned that in the end Eden became a tree.
I've always thought it was a nice capstone to the inspiration they pulled from.
Crystal Tower was a mostly unimportant side story itself and took 3 expansions later to feel important. Other 8 and 24 man raids could definitely still become more significant in future MSQ or raids.
I mean, Gaia could've been just the latest rebirth of the soul that was Loghrif, either it took her 100-ish years to be reborn or she's been reborn several times and only this time she got into contact with Mitron as the latter got more of himself back, it's hard to tell exactly what Arbert and co used to completely kill Loghrif as the Ascian she was back then though.
Nabriales was only defeated first and came back at once, maybe all Ascians got some kind of anchor that keeps them connected to the rift and keeps them around even when they're defeated, or they just escape shortly before the real killing blow like a kind of… soul dodge🤔, Nabriales only stopped coming back after he was killed properly while stuck in the white auracite.
The summonings you perform through Eden are "true" summonings, but the term is erroneous: Eden, being a corrupted Ascian, has access to creation magicks! In these raids, you have a glimpse of how summoning came to be and what it truly is.
It's why they are VERY succeptible to whatever stray thought you may have while summoning.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but wasnt Eden required to complete 5.3 MSQ?
the wood oracle
I think it's interesting you guys didn't really comment on the Shiva-Hydaelyn connection. Her Hydaelyn form looks ripped straight from the cave paintings and she does "hop on pop" as Kyle would put it, plus attempts a flood of light, and even the lyrics of her theme tie in to her connection to Minfilia and Hydaelyn! Given how close that came to disaster, being like "ok next we summon Zodiark" is a…. it's an idea, alright.
I think the reason Ryne was so strong wasn't necessarily to do with Eden. You are out in the empty, an area flooded by light, and summon a primal with strong ties to light, through a character who is literally the oracle of light, imbued with the power of Hydaelyn. That was a spicy move!
Okay, I'm…stunned there was no talk about the Hydaelyn connections in the Ryne Shiva fight. O_O
Also in regards to Cloud of Darkness – the entire original crystal tower raid is an homage to FF3. I didn't play it (maybe I will someday), but my understanding is Cloud of Darkness was the final boss of FF3 and her concept art looks more like this version, though her in game sprite in FF3 more resembled the crystal tower boss (though realistically, if you could look behind the, well, cloud… I am sure the rest of her model would resemble this anyway).
The crystal tower, Xande, Doga, Unei and a bunch of the bosses and trash were all in FF3.
That famous phrase: "I won't play FF14" where did it came from? One of the podcasts or here on youtube?
Editing is on point like always, I hope they seriously make these quests mandatory since we may be seeing gaia in the msq sooner than later. Fingers crossed they give this raid the crystal tower treatment edit gaia being in msq speculation is not a spoiler btw! I just want her in msq lol one can only hope
Second favorite raid story (favorite being the latest one). Its a bomb on the lore, the fights are great and the music. OH THE MUSIC.
To this day I die a lot to the Daddy Issues boss tho never learnt it lmao.
Lol past Garret 😂
Someone may have told you guys this already, but the multi-breast thing on E12 is actually likely a reference to classical depictions of Artemis of Ephesus, the Anatolian goddess later co-opted into the Greek goddess Artemis, in sculpture–if you look up Artemis of Ephesus statues you'll see the resemblance. This obviously ties in with Mitron's true name, but also with Eden's whole FF8 theming in general, as the last boss of FF8, Ultimecia, is transliterated as アルティミシア in katakana, phonetically identical to how you would spell Artemisia, the queen of Halicarnassus named for Artemis, which arguably may have been the original intent prior to localization. Ultimecia's boss theme, The Extreme, even plays in the savage-only second phase of E12. It's a neat little art history nod in the boss's design.
Ryne wasn't just Shiva when she kicked our ass she was also channelling "Hydaelin" with the Light aspect in the fight as well. Represented by her outfit matching the mural, the 'Stomp' and the mini-Mothercrystals.
"we're echoing, lol". I agree, I laughed too.