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0:00 – Introduction
1:00 – QUEST: “The End of the World”
20:42 – QUEST: “A Greater Purpose”
25:08 – I have an idea…
26:22 – SIDE QUEST: “Community Cohesion”
34:43 – SIDE QUEST: “Responsible Creation”
42:06 – SIDE QUEST: “Debate and Discourse”
50:35 – QUEST: “A Greater Purpose” (continued)
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And stepping into Amaurot proper starts in some of my favorite parts of Shadowbringers. Including a particular favorite I’m not entirely sure will be this episode (especially bc surprise sidequests per the timestamps! Was not expecting that at all tbh). [EDIT: I spoke too soon! Hi dear old friend!] The city itself is very imposing overall, giving more clarity as to who the Ancients were in small and large ways. Such excellent storytelling both in words and environmental. Also, I still want to cosplay an Amaurot citizen one of these days. Some day! I know patterns exist across the interwebs so.
As for my own wol’s reaction, Gen was marveled by it, despite himself. A metropolis so very unlike not only anything in Eorzea but also his home, so very different than Midgar or Junon. And yet… a strange nostalgia was hitting he couldn’t explain. As urgent as getting to Emet Selch and G’raha is, he couldn’t help but wish to explore this recreation of an ancient city to understand why, if he could.
Amaurot was so well-done – the feeling of emptiness and paused time creates an intriguing place to explore. If anything, my only complaint was that there weren't more side quests!
31:59 CUBUSES MENTIONED! Time to copypaste THE MEME. 😀
emet selch: those are just the cubus everyone loves the cubus
wol: the cubus tried to kill me multiple times
emet selch: back in the days of PARADISE everyone loved getting attacked by cubuses on the street every day and it was an enjoyable part of all of our days
Neat
I'm so excited to see the end of the MSQ of shadowbringers!!!! 🙂
For those who may not be aware, most of the game's soundtracks are available on most streaming services. The ticking for this particular area is actually part of that soundtrack. 🙂
Also, this part of the story is normally where ShB starts to go from great to GOAT. This whole area is just so well-written and handled so well overall…it's amazing
Now even Urianger gets to see what it's like to be the short one
Wow. There's a lot to unpack here but I feel it best to wait for Friday's finale to try. Instead, while I eagerly await Friday, I'll just focus on some things that stood out to me (episode spoilers to follow):
I don't remember which episode but iirc Emet said something about a specific number of rejoinings for our Durmin WoL, so I'm pretty sure each time a Durmin reflection dies that causes a Durmin rejoining?
Hythlodaeus also has me wondering, I have a 5-20% feeling he might be Durmin alpha so to speak. It's either him or I'm assuming some third friend of Emet and Hythlodaeus, which I surmise might be the 14th seat that was currently absent. Rereading the line several times seems to point to the latter, but then I'm further wondering why Hythlodaeus is both aware of the situation, and can see Ardbert. What's his connection to Emet.
Also that line at the end by Alphinaud, it feels like it reflects the curse of the Ascians themselves to me.
Man this area is brilliant, I love it. I also really appreciate the decision to do the sidequests as they really enhanced the story.
Amaurot was definitely the moment for me where ShB went from "oh man this is Heavensward-good!" to "Oh…oh this is something much better." I do feel like not enough emphasis has been made on the fact that Emet-Selch brought all of this city into existence by himself, without seeming to meaningfully impact his power level. It's all an enchantment, not actually physically there, but that means he has wrought a city out of pure aether. It makes his earlier "effort" in bringing back Y'shtola seem like child's play.
Also, hello again, our new, old friend.
This and the next few episodes have a very high concentration of my favourite scenes in the game.
With all the art deco and underwater, the first thing I thought of was Rapture, obv not from Final Fantasy. But that was art deco taken to the extreme, this is "just" art deco. I really do like it.
Shadowbringers leans very heavily into classical Western literary references – sin eaters themselves being a reference, and obviously we had Titania and her attendants from Midsummer Night's Dream, the Lightwardens are drawn from the various Ancient Greek forms of love (and sharp-eyed viewers would have spotted that those loves also end up being themes of the zone stories).
Here, we're seeing references to Thomas Moore's Utopia, in which a man named Hythlodaeus speaks of the perfect society that he visited. The name Amaurot, and the various regions of the city, are all taken from place names from that story.
It’s hard to tell through YouTube but I wonder if this was recorded after the big graphics update
💙
What, I wonder, does it say about a man who created an entire city under the ocean, expecting no one but Durmin to even show up, if that… and yet populates it with people who not only notice other people, but have no trouble talking to them, being more open and amiable than Emet Selch ever was to us? (Well, I suppose he answered what questions Durmin had, but he always had a way of making it like pulling teeth.) What deep sadness is this indicative of, what bitter loneliness? Even if everyone (or near everyone) seems to treat you like a child?
(Btw, I am astonished by Durmin's grace here, lord knows I wouldn't be able to gloat about how all the other scions get to feel how I feel all the time- that is, getting called short and adorable!)
And hey, thanks for showing us sidequests! The ones around here are great, and say a lot about the society that Emet Selch came from…
1:00:48 Oh my god, lore accurate verbal calling of Durmin’s name, exactly as we have all imagined it!
That is one heck of an episode description, but it seems quite apt.
Lalafel in Shadowbringers: yay! a whole village full of my height of people and a place where only i can fit!
also Lalafel in Shadowbringers: HOW DID YOU MAKE ME FEEL EVEN TINIER!? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
This whole section is one of the most impactful in the entire game, for obvious reasons, but one of the parts that's stuck with me for years now is at about the 1 hour mark. Suddenly a walking animation we've seen the entire game, which has conveyed the message that Emet-Selch has given up on caring about anything and just slouches through life, is entirely recontextualized. Now it shows that he's carrying the weight of his entire civilization on his shoulders and is desperately lonely.
It's such a brilliant little touch, and one of the things that most impressed me in ShB just for how small, yet powerful, it is.
Not only the fact that it is a metropolis and there's a lot of water is reminiscent of Zanarkand, I had those thoughts and said it as a joke as soon as I saw it, but then Y'shtola says (let me paraphrase) "we are actually looking at the same thing, this is a massive spell", and then I yelled "IT'S ZANARKAND!"
I mean (spoilers), it is a reconstruction of a city from ancient times, populated by ghosts or "dreams" unaware of the fate of the world.
Okay, so, that quest about the robes?
I want you all to notice one thing: You get a Lightning Cluster from it!
Do you know what those clusters are used in? Crafting! In fact, you use Lightning Clusters to make high-level gear on Weaver!
(spoilers for the end of this video ahead)
Everything from here straight to the end of 5.0 is peak, and my proof is that they managed to make waiting at the fantasy DMV one of the most enrapturing plot points of the entire expansion. New old friend indeed.
5:05 Oh gods, it's a super market elevator.
7:01 Aliems.
7:08 Giant Aliems.
7:20 They even make stereotypical "alien noises", I'm very amused.
10:58 Giant, ghost aliens.
11:43 I'm not sure they serve drinks here, so I couldn't mingle.
15:46 If normal height races are "children", Lalas must look like premies.
18:29 So Zodiark was created with a spell, eh? Sounds like the creation of primals is a vestige of that knowledge.
20:16 Easy, he's making you guys experience what he did so that you think of his genocidal intentions as "correct" and "justified".
24:27 It is possibly my favourite design so far.
36:34 Yea, you're only missing secret police.
37:26 That's almost a Netch.
38:22 Hmm, I wonder what that other questgiver would say about personal pride?
40:49 I would say: Not for children.
49:03 There is a part of me that loves debate. "Unheated" debate, specifically, calm dissections of concepts, ideas, situations. Such occurrences are rare, in my experience.
49:54 Being a part of such societies is great… until discussion devolves into little more than personal attacks or shouting matches.
53:32 Of course they are, they're basically communists. If not literally.
56:45 I can see that they're masks, but they really do just look like "aliens".
1:07:52 Oh, it's possible, Ryne. It'd be one hell of a fight, but it is technically possible.
I've been waiting to see tiny durmin at that counter for months, ever since my femroe was too short couldn't wait to see our favorite popoto here.
This area reminds me of a level in the Legend of Dragoon called the ancient city I think. It was all bureaucracy and expansive too.