This post gave me far to many ideas for me not to ramble on for a bit about things in FFXIV I’d love to see or learn more about. Shout out to Morgaine for the post! But tell me my friends. What parts of FFXIV lore do you think we could still learn more about? I’m interested to see what you hope might be elaborated on in the future as we move into Dawntrail!
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I always wondered if Midgardsormr would even go to the aetherial sea. He’s from another world so would he even have a connection to it? All the other dragons were born on our world so maybe they can die and be reincarnated but maybe Middy just can’t?
Honestly, for all the interesting things in Gridania, they shot themselves in the foot so hard with their introduction alone. You're telling me these intensely xenophobic people who think themselves superior to everyone they deem an outsider, or even just an 'other' (because Duskwights and Moon Keepers are natives as well mind you) who claim to answer to a higher power which you will acquiesce to or be damned show up and start preaching all about… Purity? … And they live in a place obviously named in reference of the Black Forest. Which I don't want to use as part of what I legimately thought was going to be a plot point somewhere but Jesus do they code Gridania as fascists or worse in my interpretation of the beginning of ARR…
I never found the whole umbral/astral thing to be confusing after Urianger explained it.
Either im missing something or people are reading too much into it.
Midgardsomr was mentioned in the Shadowbringers side story "An unpromised Tomorrow" so we do know he is regenerating and sleeping, not actually dead. In it he comes to life as a result of the Crystal Tower jumping to the First. As to Sharlayan Scholars not making some stupid mistake regarding Umbral and Astral getting Light and Dark backwards… I must call out that when instructed by Hydaelyn to give information to the Loporrits to be ready for evacuation they never thought to send things like information on Races, Heights, Needs, Diets (Given how little they seem to care about food I can almost see this one) etc… Things like that which would be considered basic and important on any evacuation vessel being built, instead they seem to have used it as a backup library.
I would like to know more about the people in the Fifth age, in order for the Ascians to manage to cause reflections to rejoin they must cause tilts in Aether, in every case we have seen this has needed something beyond their own ability to cause directly, otherwise they would not need to mess with mortals. So logically there MUST be some form of civilization that they could manipulate. What is more in all the known ones we are aware specifically they trigger it in Eorzea, The First and Second we know nothing of where the trigger civilization was, some lore indicates that the third was holy wars by corrupt churches, Thanalan's envoronment seems to be the result of them as it is suggested that the shroud or at least the some forestry covered it. The Fourth was the war between the Dragons and Allagans, the fifth we know nothing about it, and the Sixth Was due to a war between Black and White mages, the Scholars were involved but not really important in this disaster. Obviously the Seventh was Primal Bahamut and he awoke again in Eorzea. The Eighth in the aborted timeline was Garleans using Black Rose against… Eorzeans. So there should be some sign of a civilization for the Fifth Era and we do not see it, something is missing, and I suspect the Elements of the Shroud are hiding it.
I would also like to know more about each race. As a Miqo'te main I especially want to know about them, from what I recall about the known canon history the Allagans took them as slaves from Meracydia, they were brought to Corvos. We know that in the Age of Endless Frost they migrated in mass to Eorzea as if they already knew it was a land of plenty, had this been just part of their population it could be figured that the species scattered, but this does not really seem to be the case, there were 26 tribes, and they ALL in some form came to Eorzea. Some like G tribe left some in Corvos, but we really do not see any in other parts of the world that did not originate from Eorzea. I see two main possibilities, first is that the Allagans took some of them to Eorzea temporarily first so they knew about it that way, second, they were in Eorzea originally and the Allagans chased them all the way to Meracydia (We know that the Allagans were very racist and displaced a lot of people) where they made the last stand with the people there and lost. Either way they would have past ancestral knowledge of the location. I would really like this expanded on.
Side note, I find it amusing the Garleans claim to originate in Corvos and were displaced from there and now claim to be the successors to the Allagans, kinda sounds like the Garleans were another people brought to near extinction by the Allagans and left in the slave dumping ground of Corvos. By the way the Garleans tell it there were many people there that pushed them out. Could be interesting to learn more of Corvos history in that way.
I saw that message too somehow
On the midgardsormr part. It is mentioned that nidhogg was taking midgardsormrs place as protector and midgardsormr was testing the wol. Could it not be implicated that the deal struck was "live on this star, protect this star"? That is, IF there was a deal at all. Pointing this out on the Light and dark part. we look to the lore more closely, we can find that the new belief about astral and umbral aether, has been present since before the begining. Just look at the eras and calamities. If i recall rightly, the calamities were always refered to as "umbral" while the times of balance between calamities has been refered to as "astral". Umbral periods of the calamities have always been full of change both aetherically and physically. But astral eras are times when the aetheric energies are not causing an incredible and or destructive outcome. Umbral is active energy while astral is static.
With Gridania, I feel like the more the game tells you about the place the worse it actually gets, especially with the WHM and EW Tank role quests.
They STILL have that Duskwright being harrassed by those guards outside the Lancer Guild.
I wonder if Hideleyn accepted Midgardsormir to the star, because we as a person told her about dragon's, and let it slip about him to her. How he was at the star, how he helped us and maybe they had an unspoken contract. Because we did tell her how our world was like, but since our character doesn't "talk" in the normal sense, what we told her specifically is up for debate, or our imagination.
But I feel that mommy knowing she let him and his children stay at the source, is one of the reasons he stayed there, since without us going to the past, our world would not be as it is. As weird as the whole time travel thing always is in games, it's "cannon" to us going back there and talking with her.
Him being as powerful as he is, probably is because as said, he's from a time post sundering, as is his children, which could explain his power in particular, he's probably on par, if not even more powerful, than even the Ascians. Ascians in death have been shown to be amazingly powerful, but not as powerful as Midgardsormir. And his children has unique and strange abilities that could topple the Ascians themselves, like just the eyes have such immense potential, each unique it seems.
However I think perhaps each child thereafter might've been powered down, from the source taking more aether as dragon's kept being born, making them less strong than their parents. Or perhaps it's just an age thing, the older the dragon is, the stronger they become, with maybe the Source being as shattered as it is, maybe powering them down nonetheless, but not as brutally to the older generation that is more "pure" from when coming to the source.
How old daddy Mid is, we have no idea, he might be the first amongst his own kind for all we know, making him perhaps thousands, or close to a million years old. Making him near unto a god even for his own kind
I literally just want more representation on Nym. I tried to make a Nym based scholar but couldn't imagine their flag, so couldn't choose their colors…When they started variant dungeons I thought they were going to take us to old civilizations like Nym, Gelmorra and etc, but alas, nope.
I feel like papa middy is better left an enigma. He's the god of dragons, he's the only being other than omega not actually born on the star, he's eras old, I think it's safe to say he's just allowed to be weird.
For me the one piece of lore I wish they'd go into is the Hellsgaurd. What Hell are they guarding? It's the same kind of thing as Gridania and the duskwights, where it feels like an open question that the devs have no care in answering.
preach scribe, preach. The gridania/gelmorra issue drives me insane. i hate how wasted it all is
I'm not disagreeing with your point on midgardormr being asleep, but we do know when he wakes up, don't we? Isn't it like in 100 years? Or am I misremembering the short story and that was yet another special circumstance due to the 8th calamity.
I agree with wanting to see more about Gridania come up on the foreground. There are lots about their current troubles and way of life that is a lot more subtle (for me) through side quests. I admit to being a little sick of people asking for it constantly, but I'm also one of those who want to know more of the history of Gelmorra, and the state of the Duskwight population. We've seen Nanamo and Merlwyb move forward with their people so I'd like to see Kan-E-Senna and Gridania grow as well, with a healthy explanation of why that's difficult
im hoping Gelmorra at least becomes a varient/criterion dungeon we need more information on it and we got one for Sil'dihn so come on SE please?
“That place with the Xenophobic idiots who listen to evil spirits” is EXACTLY how it comes off.
the elements pretty much lost all of their power after the Calamity.
Now they are just scary boogieman.
The question is, how many of these questions are answered in Other FF games?
Good point about Gridania. I think of that city and off the top of my head the only interesting thing that pops in my mind is that the leader of the Elder Seedseer's guard is an ex-Garlean soldier she saved during the battle of Carteneau. This place needs a Variant Dungeon or something.
As for missing lore that bugs me personally, I actually tend to not notice that sort of thing until it's pointed out to me.
Here’s just one person’s thoughts
1. It was my understanding that Middie didn’t die at all, he just came within 1 ilm of his life. It’s also been established that dragons can have grievous wounds and literally sleep them off. A great dragon like Middie coming with a ilm of his life will probably sleep for centuries to recover. And the deal was that Middie had to protect Silvertear. But I agree that we need to know more about the deal. And why Silvertear specifically? What was so important to Hydalen that she traded safe haven for a whole species? That’s what I wanna know.
2. Sharlyan researchers could be wrong. Look at our history. Researchers would take previously “known facts” and base their research off of them. I mean, how many researchers thought Galileo was an idiot for questioning our place among the stars? I’m just saying, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
3. Even a tiny side quest that shows how the elementals pick up the trash would be enough, but you’re absolutely right.
Ok my turn. I started playing about three years ago, right after Endwalker was announced. I knew nothing about 1.0 and as a new player, I didn’t know anything about Carteneau or Louisoux or why it was so important. I was just told it was important. But none of the backstory made sense. For 1.0 players, it makes sense to just allude to it, but a brand new player has no idea what happened, why it was so important, or why we should care so much. Idk what the devs can do about it now, but I’d almost like a blue quest where we can relive 1.0 in a way. Not all of it of course, but something that doesn’t leave me scrambling on YouTube for information
It'd be funny if we run into one of those missing Ascians in another shard, he tells us this insane plan and acts all mysterious only for us to tell him "bro… shit's over two expacs ago.." and he would be all like "…oh, I see…. huh, funny… mind if I just tag along for now, then?"
Regarding the researchers in the Source naming the poles wrong, Thancred does point out that the Source named them after their effects while the First named them after their source, so it's not so much "wrong" as it is a different perspective. Consider this: what color do you get if you mix all the colors together? Some might say black, while others say white, and both are correct depending on your point of view. If you mix all colors of pigment together, you get black; if you mix all colors of light together, you get white. Maybe I'm overthinking this though.