Life is unfair, in this world more than most.
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Edited by Daniel Floyd
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________▼ CHAPTERS ▼_________
0:00 – Introduction
0:26 – QUEST: “Culling Their Ranks”
5:14 – QUEST: “A Purchase of Fruit”
16:27 – QUEST: “The Time Left to Us”
30:18 – QUEST: “Tears on the Sand”
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oh boy. this episode has that one scene doesn't it.
You remember how it was mentioned that the devs used the Hildebrand quests to test out facial animations? Well, now we see the fruits of their labor…in all their horrifying glory.
Hey there everyone, how was your weekend?
25:36 and there it is, the other main reason I recommend Allisae first: the stakes of this new world in sharp relief for the player to see. Utterly terrifying look into how this world operates before moving on to see how another part has responded to this horror. Still sends chills down my spine.
"Welcome back to the end of the world!" This game lets you say that far more often than you might think.
9:48 Following up on a comment I made from last episode, I imagined somewhere around here, my WoL and Alisaie had an exchange like this:
"…actually, once you get past the texture, the Glazed Wrigglers are actually pretty good."
"…wot?"
OOF. Those final lines do have me pondering about the lengths we'll go to to change the world. I have a sneaking suspicion that Ascians might be involved.
25:36 As the community likes to say, "Welcome to Shadowbringers"
The scene is an utter gut-punch, and a somber tone-setter. It's also great because it casts such a different light on Vauthry's reign in retrospect. It's a deft interplay between the two questlines
(sort-of-spoilers for this video)
I know that "Welcome to Shadowbringers!" is kind of a tired meme at this point but, like… the shock to the system really is the perfect introduction to how dire things really are, particularly if you go to Alphinaud second and let it sink in that things are grim even when the immediate lethality is past.
well… now i see why our fellow Ghost Roomate went with that title
& yep, that sure went from 0 to 100 real quick
Playfriends, today we're gonna be discussing some pretty heavy topics. I don't usually do this, but we're gonna put a small CW here. I do this even though it constitutes a spoiler.
CW: Today's episode has a discussion of euthanasia and body horror.
This is your lore comment.
3:23 – The comparison between voidsent and sin eaters is apt. They are, effectively, two sides of the same coin. Creatures hungering for aether, while soaked in a specific form: Dark or Light.
10:52 – Alisaie, that's not a "tribute". It's a bribe. And look how far you've come! Back at the start of Stormblood you were all against pirates, and now you're bribing guards!
11:40 – Interestingly, the barren lands beyond share a surprisingly similarity to The Burn. While The Burn was sapped of all aether, the lands beyond are suffused with Light. And to be clear, all biological process require aether. Aether is part of how life functions.
13:00 – Everyone, save Durmin, knows what the Inn at Journey's Head is for. The only care that they can offer is palliative. Due to the danger of someone being fully taken by Light's embrace, the final meal is part of the process. Arriving and choosing to stay at the Inn means consenting to euthanasia when the Light has taken everything from you.
20:15 – “What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?” ― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
25:03 – Like a siren's call, light will call to light. The sin eater knows that Halric is close to turning. It will hasten its brethren to be born from this small Drahn child.
25:35 – Welcome to Shadowbringers. You Are Not Safe Here. It is not enough to know that some sin eaters were once people. It's another to watch it happen.
Think of how many have seen this transformation occur before their very eyes. Their own family. Watching the Light spill from their bodies. Listening to the snap and tear of bones, ligaments, skin. Knowing that a new horror will be birthed from the body of your loved one. Halric cannot even express the horror of what he's watching. The child is trapped within his own body, forced to behold the woman who cared for him become a sin eater.
And so passes Tesleen Stoneplowe. Who cared for those afflicted by Light until the Warrior of Darkness took them. Who brought her own mother to the Inn at Journey's Head and stayed to offer solace to others like her. And the worst part? What's left of her now hunts for aether and may create more victims.
Next time: If you wish to change the world, you must first get organized.
this is day… uh… at least 14 of me wanting to continue ShB but continuing to get pulled in other directions by other games. Yay!
25:36 – Welcome to Shadowbringers, as they say. It's more than likely only going to get worse from here.
What gets me is how Tesleen is reaching out for the Au Ra kid's face, and he just… stands there. Staring into what's left of her soul as it rapidly begins to fade, as seemingly indifferent to her death as the monster that just stabbed her in the back.
And we're stuck on the sideline, unable to realistically do anything – trying to attack the big one would likely only have served to put Alisaie in danger while practically guaranteeing Tesleen's demise.
Whatever is left of her body within that beast, may it meet a quick and painless end – whether by our hand, or by that of another.
(also the bit at around 26:50 gave me MAJOR "opening the Ark of the Covenant" vibes but I didn't know how to fit that into the rest of the spiel)
In the immortal words of Mikey Neumann:
JESUS CHRIST
I was not expecting the body horror of being turned into a Sin Eater.
That's really cool in the most disturbing way
It's taken me a good week or two to catch up, but now I'm finally in step with Durmin and loving his new, eerie light world adventure so far!
And just think, a lot of people did this one /first/
Spoilers here. Watch the full video and then read if you so desire.
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So, yeah. Alisaie really, really has the worst Elisabeth Swann esque luck in regards to relationships. A merchant in the side stories, Go Bu, here… And here it feels worse, probably with how close the two feel. Someone hug this girl!
I remember already being horrified by the caregivers' mercy, but then the sequence at 25:29 started…
Welcome to Shadowbringers.
💙
The thing that gets me about this, looking back, is: if Tesleen's still in there, somewhere, so is Halric.
18:58 It's amazing how much narrative weight a single fruit can hold. It's just sitting on the table, IMPLYING things. The fact that the player character obtained and was seen physically holding it when the context was first given probably multiplied that weight far more than if, for example, Alisaie just pulled it out of her bag and showed it to you.
There is a temptation, here, to resort to the (imo) extremely tired reaction of being a smug gatekeeper, a holder of forbidden knowledge who watches people new to the story stumble into the plot holes they already know, that they may smirk and say "Welcome to [Fill-in-the-name-here]"… but tell you what, I had a troubling, tiring day in which I still find myself feeling too ill to eat anything.
So how about we eat a tangerine together and cry at the misery and unfairness of it all. Of being trapped at the end of all things, with a Sisyphean task before you that might not even be possible.
💔
Yeah….this is why I was shocked Dan went with Alphinaud first. Everything about the Ahm Areng section is just such an emotional gut-punch that I feel it sets the tone for Shadowbringers extremely well. Don't get me wrong, Kholusia is horrifying in its own way but this….this is the stakes we're up against. This is why we're fighting. The Sin Eaters, the Empty, the patients at the Inn…
durmin still delivering snacks
8:42 As someone who frequently trips and says "flesh fruit"or "fresh flute", that would be hard to say.
13:43 How I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for that one.
19:26 I think she has, but this should be interesting.
21:34 Oh, so I gather a big one and its horde is coming.
23:06 I love it.
25:27 Yea… I kinda expected this to happen. Thought Halric was gonna do it, though.
27:45 This is giving me serious Claymore vibes.
And now the big question…Which twin's opening is more horiffic? On one side we have Alisaie and the true horror of the Sin Eater threat spanning a century. On the other side we have Alphinaud and that the "safest" place left is ruled by a totalitarian madman that feeds his most desperate people to his pet sin eaters. Both are just crushing. Yet, when taken together, these show what 'normal' is to the people of the First.
Such a good introduction to get you to understand the First. Welcome to Shadowbringers.
Merciful, Yevon! I was not prepared for the horrors that unfolded here.💀
So for me Alise was the one I went to go find first, I'd basically just lost her on the source and wanted to make sure she was ok. It was so nice to see she was doing well for herself, warning a reputation as hero herself. Then we'll… This episode happened, hitting us with some real full metal alchemist horror, and… I'm just glad she has us now.