SPOILER TIME! | Answers of Elpis Endwalker FFXIV

[@dahZeee]

One aspect brought up by some people, is that Emet explains when you meet him at Ktisis, that the convocation has measures to be able to tell if you are lying. Meaning that during the tea scene, not only was he upset at the story, he was upset that he could tell you weren't lying.

[@0Fyrebrand0]

Oh, absolutely. He doesn't WANT to believe you, but he can't dismiss your story all the same. He wouldn't have gotten so upset if he thought you were actually talking nonsense.

[@ArthurOfThePond]

I love that when they are told what Emet had done with Amaurot Past-Emet was like "That's absurd, I would never do that!" but Moon-Hythlo was like "ehehe, Classic Emet!"

[@SuirenChannelVT]

Imagine Emet once all the memories come back, Hythlo: "You were saying something about never being a megalomaniac?" Emet: "Shut up Hythlodaeus!"

[@Phyrior]

@@SuirenChannelVTWe actually saw that in the cutscene leading up to the fight with Zodiark. But we only saw Hythlodaeus' side of the conversation...

[@zombies8cody]

They seem to never mention that this now answers why Emet appeared to save the WoL in The Seat of Sacrifice. He regained his memories when he died, and knew that it was his duty to keep us alive to make sure we would at least make it to the time loop in order for us to have even a chance of saving Etheirys.

[@alexjordan3830]

Personally, I disagree with that interpretation - the memories are revealed when the soul is being scoured in Aetherial Sea, but Emet's soul was ferried to the Aetherial Sea of the Source by Hydaelyn _after_ the events of 5.3. I reckon this means that Emet viewed aiding us as being the right thing to do for Elidibus, rather than it being to close the loop.

[@TheDeliciousMystery]

fun fact: they use a lot of Greek naming conventions and one of those is Kairos. In ancient greece they used two terms to describe time. Chronos for the regular linear passage of time but also Kairos for "the critical moment". So Elidibus sends you back via the Crystal Tower, a Chrono Trigger if you will, and then Hermes uses Kairos to preserve the critical moment so it is not changed by the former. Its almost like they had some throughline about two different forces effecting each other or something!

[@CaptainBrawnson]

The area you meet the researchers in Elpis is also called "Anagnorisis", which is greek for the uncovering of something, and in modern english is used to describe to point in a piece of media (typically a play) where the characters become aware of the true stakes of the conflict. You experience anagnorisis in anagnorisis.

[@scotty110]

probably would have been too on the nose if Elidibus repurposed the skyslipper from the Eden series for traveling through time. ;)

[@williamranzani9453]

also a fun fact about greek names used in elpis, theres a npc named "sappho in elpis and she tell us a poem when we talk to her. sappho is known for the reason we use the word lesbian for gay women. sappho lived in lesbos isles xD

[@Tenkuu-san]

Not to mention Lethe, the area where we're chasing Meteion: "a river in Hades whose waters cause drinkers to forget their past". And then we have this additional information about it from the Encyclopaedia Eorzea Volume III: "Following a process of exhaustive testing, a creation deemed unsuitable for release into the world is brought to this lake, where its life energies are magically unbound and allowed to dissipate. It is at once the most beautiful as well as the most sorrowful locale in Elpis."

[@TurinTurambar200]

Remember that one of the first dialogue options in this expansion was telling Venat on the boat "I can no longer trust you". Doubt in Hydelyn is not crazy theorizing. It's not even subtext, it's just text.

[@SpideyCU]

Yeah, this is why I don't get why anyone would mess with Kyle on his distrust. There's good reason for it.

[@kiriuxeosa8716]

There is a valid reason for doubting hydaelyn as were not in a position to know what an enthralled individual is meant to act like or think like. from the ananta to emmet they had rational trains of thought but still oriented around the idea of resurrecting their gods thats why many would try to discuss their positions of why their worship is sound even of it eventually led to force being used and we as the WoL would occasionally fight in hydaelyns name so we were made to believe the possibility existed that we were enthralled But mommy had our backs all along so I do feel bad people doubted her but we made up for it in the end

[@seekittycat]

For me Hermes story has always been about someone who's desperately lonely trying to find someone like him. He's surrounded by people he thinks are CRAZY but he can't exactly voice why he thinks they're crazy and... what if he's the crazy one? He's dissatisfied and it fcked up but why? Everyone tells him this is the natural order of things, everyone is happy, how can anything possibly be wrong, but it is. To me he didn't peer review because he doesn't think anyone else will understand unless he has something concrete to show them (like literal aliens living in different societies).

[@siyrean]

Azem punching a vulcano is a reference to the ShB short story taking place in Amaurot from the loadstone. That's also where people got Elidibus's age, Emets hair colour, and Hythlo turning down the Emet Selch post before EW came out

[@LamhirhAbriel]

And the volcano was over a bunch of square grapes. Using Ifrita, a concept of Lahabread's making, likely given to Azem by Hythbro. Imo it makes us fighting Ifrit *multiple times* much more narratively amusing...and then we make Lahabread toast.

[@siyrean]

@@LamhirhAbriel i find it hilarious that Squapes became this huge thing in fandom when canonically Azem was also a chaos demon over grapes. We the fandom are Azem confirmed.

[@cnkclark]

Borrowed an experimental Concept of fire to go punch a volcano into submission to save some really good grapes. Truly the most WoL shit ever.

[@Keira_Blackstone]

@@siyrean possibly my favorite answer to a dev question ever is when someone asked Ishikawa what Azem was doing during the final days, and she responded 'well, Azem is based off of the Warrior of Light, so if our metrics are anything to go by, he was fishing and playing Mahjong.'

[@Someone-dv7hw]

​@@Keira_Blackstone wow that is brilliant beyond words. Ishikawa goat

[@megaria]

@15:08 I love that you made this point, Kyle! Depression could have very easily equaled Bad Guy in this scenario if it was handled with less care , but I also always thought that one of the points they were making was how it wasn't Hermes' depression that caused the Final Days, it's how everyone made him feel so ALONE in those feelings - Meteion considered it a gift to show him how the WoL has also suffered with the flower, not because he's glad you suffered but because he could see for a moment that he wasn't a 'freak' for feeling anger or sadness or depression when everyone else kept going on and on about how perfect their society and star were. You mentioned he lacked peer-review but even more than that I felt like he didn't think he could go to anyone about any of it - he needed support and was not in a society that had any tools to help him, which is a very sympathetic and real problem people with mental health needs deal with constantly. Even outside of that direct analogy, especially playing this at the tail-end of COVID lockdowns, everyone had felt isolation so keenly and knew what it was to be desperate for someone somewhere out there to connect to. Hermes' origin story breaks my heart and I loved this take on it all and I too was SO relieved they treated the idea with such empathy. Love the videos, guys, can't WAIT to see the rest!

[@CybersteelEx]

It's like leaving your house after lockdown ended and finding out everyone outside has died.

[@SPERanger]

What kind of nightmare fuel thumbnail is this????!!!

[@deanbronz7157]

Right. Like if I didn't know better, I wouldn't even assume that this was a thumbnail for a video about final fantasy.

[@burtwonk]

It’s a masterpiece is what it is lmfao

[@Timboman2000]

It caught your attention, so I'd say it worked!

[@neotailz]

Animorphs style tagline: When you go to the past, your past comes to you....

[@Someone-dv7hw]

​@@Timboman2000... the first few seconds of the video would be a more effective ffxiv-fan-catcher thumbnail in that case 😂

[@MrDfrose]

Several videos ago, I commented how Kyle can be both incredibly insightful and ridiculously insane. Glad to see moving to Florida has not changed these things.

[@Rakka5]

Elpis is just a masterwork of storytelling. Bringing back fan favourite characters without being overly fan service, perfect work on the personality of the characters and their impact on the story, the twists lands and makes sense, the zone is beautiful, ACTUAL PERFECT TIME TRAVEL LOOP and Venat's walk is arguably one of the best video game cutscenes ever made.

[@oliverurbanik9647]

this. Agreed

[@gateauxq4604]

I am still amazed at how well they nailed time travel and the rules were all very clearly laid out but only at the end, just as it should be if you were stuck in a time loop.

[@HMNNO]

It's amazing they took tropes that are super hard to do well, they did it

[@greggreyes6869]

what i like was seeing them in the past wasnt the main point or the twist. but holy shit, venat cutscene was one of the greatest cutscene in the series

[@Qrczaqq]

17:18 Elidibus by that point in the story isn't actually dead. The memories hasn't been returned to him by the cleaning processes of the Aetherial Sea, but by your "unsolicited act" of giving him the convocation crystals you gathered in Amaurot

[@stitches1110]

19:25 so the “unsolicited act” Elidibus was speaking about that restored his memories wasn’t his death, after all, he was trapped in the tower, not released to the life stream where his soul could be cleansed. What he referred to was you giving him the memory crystals of the convocation members.

[@Torets13]

Also will add, that Elidibus, did not say "You should not..." or "You must not...". He says "You can't...". I read it as "regardless if you change anything or not, you still will return to realty which is consequence of final days"

[@Dhalin]

@@Torets13 He ALSO says "even should you manage to interact with others, you will be *unable* to effect meaningful change"

[@ArthurOfThePond]

@@Torets13 which makes sense, because we already know from ShB that when you mess with time you just create new timelines, like that timeline G'raha created when he left the old one to save us. Even had we changed anything it would just be a new timeline, not ours.

[@kaleiohulee6693]

@@ArthurOfThePond I read the warning as that if we create a new timeline we wouldn't return to the one we wanted to save. We might be fine but our world would be lost to ruin similar to what happened to Exarch's original timeline. They weren't trying to save their own world, they just wanted to hope for a world that could be saved.

[@danielj6897]

Came here to say this

[@SilverZephyr09]

Quick followup on that "unsolicited act" that Elidibus says restored to him some memories of the Convocation - he was talking about the memory crystals that you gave him right before the end. The gratitude he felt for you after you did that is the reason he helped you.

[@anaalvensleben789]

Honestly kind of makes Alexander more interesting, once you realize what the 'celestial noise detected' was. And the fact that Alexander calculated that it couldn't exist in the future it calculated was the best one. Because as a primal it soaks up aether, the same aether currently protecting the star, and is also unable to comprehend dynamis the same way Omega was unable to. But unlike Omega, reached the right conclusion a lot quicker. Which means the stupid cheese business actually made a better super advanced robot AI than an actual super advanced robot AI. And another fun fact, the Crystal Tower detected this same celestial noise too back in ARR. It's just in morse code.

[@Tioko]

The stupid cheese Illuminati didn’t make Alexander, though. It was a bunch of idealistic Au Ra.

[@anotherkenlon]

Do not fuck with the Gobbies. They are serious business.

[@Kritigri]

"Short people! Short little dude- short people EXIST Kyle!" Thank you for this moment of validation Garrett 😌

[@StarShadow9009]

Elidibis is lalafel? OwO?

[@muhash14]

The Elidibus-Warrior of Light form is explained by a much simpler thing: It's a primal. It's formed by the hopes and dreams of the people who wish for deliverance of the world, fueled by the champions from beyond the rift. And it's appearance is based on the form Elidibus took when he larped as the warrior of light in the early days of the first.

[@herebejamz]

Y'all really leaning into having an in person studio with multiple cameras and I'm lovin it.

[@kyulilitanako972]

When the Loporrits gave us the 12,000-year construction schedule, I had trouble reconciling it with Emet's "thousand thousand lives" line, but then I thought about how time flows differently on the First. If he spent some of those extra lives on other shards, where time was moving more quickly, then from his perspective, his descent into madness may have taken much, much longer than 12,000 years, which is just additional levels of horrifying.

[@andrewg319]

IMO he was exaggerating when he said “a thousand thousand lives”. I never took it literally.

[@davidjohnstone3846]

I always take the line figuratively but you do raise a good point about time flowing differently in the reflections.

[@anaalvensleben789]

I assumed it was a thousand thousand of *your* lives, given that he goes into the whole had children and died bit right after. An average lifespan of 80-100 years over 12 millennia seems to work just fine?

[@ShermTank7272]

Honestly, any time someone uses the phrase "a thousand thousand" outside of a maths question I always just assume it's either figurative or an exaggeration. But fair point about time flowing differently on the various shards.

[@kaleiohulee6693]

I always took the thousand/thousand as it felt like a million years to Emet. I get the feeling after so many thousands of years it's just really hard to keep track of time. I'm already at a point where I forget mine occasionally without math-ing.

[@serisothikos]

I've often found it useful to think of FFXIV as a stage play. What Elpis does is bring home the depth of the tragedy we've been watching: the mortal cost paid by those who died, who lived but forgot, and who lived to remember. edit: Hades is extremely suited to the seat of Emet-Selch, since that seat has the responsibility of tending the "Underworld" and is immersed in past lives.

[@ItISLupus]

It's so good to see that CBU3 subscribes to the same view of time travel as Douglas Adams. "There is no problem with changing the course of history-the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end."

[@stitches1110]

Very Steins gate as well, in so far that you have diverging points but unless those critical events are altered, the rest of the timeline is almost more like bullet points, ie. This person will die at this time. They may not necessarily die in the same way every time you go back to prevent it, but as the diverging point that dictates their survival or death has already occurred their ultimate end is now an immutable fact.

[@DanKojak]

Also Gargoyles. "Time is like a river, correcting its course against any change. History cannot be altered."

[@CybersteelEx]

​@@stitches1110unless there's another river a seperate tineline. Deceive yourself deceive the world

[@kiriuxeosa8716]

Like playdough

[@darkedge221]

And with the amount of Douglas Adams references in the game, it might be intentional. xD

[@GreenTeaLover12]

"not a vampire....not a vampire" that's exactly what a vampire would say :)

[@alcrestoncross9900]

Once he finished MSQ... oh he will be an emotional vampire

[@Krescentwolf]

All those who finish the msq MUST become emotional vampires... that's just how it works.

[@TarossBlackburn]

Except for Vlad. Vlad isn't a vampire.

[@donimmortal7692]

There is a short story on the lodestone about the timeline where the 8th Calamity did happened called "An Unpromised Tomorrow". You guys might want to check it out. In short, that timeline still exist as paradox timeline. So what Elidibus meant is even if you managed to stop the final day, you still return to your original timeline. I think there is a term for that, but I don't know.

[@TaurusVersant]

I want to take a moment to point out the use of the word "beautiful" in endwalker, in (in-game time) chronological order. Hythlodaeus explaining returning to the star "And it is beautiful, always". Hermes talking to you over the Elpis flowers about the fear of animals being consigned to death "and it is NOT beautiful" Meteion talking about bringing all life in the universe to an end "And it will be beautiful" and finally, Zodiark/Fandaniel's opening line "The end has come, and it will be beautiful"

[@WalkerRileyMC]

Something to consider...the Fandaniel of the present has Hermes' memories, but he never considered himself to be Hermes. He always thought of himself as Amon. And Amon, post Xande resurrection, has always wanted total oblivion.

[@Sprakenheit]

Omg that thumbnail is so terrifying and yet so AMAZING. I love it

[@keagian8115]

First off, that is an amazing title, secondly, hearing Garrett and Kyle going back and forth just having a fun discussion makes the good good chemicals in my brain happy.

[@greggreyes6869]

when meteion repeated the "i wish to her your words, share your feelings, know your thoughts" i think a second time i was like that dicaprio meme pointing at my screen when it finally me that it was HEAR FEEL THINK

[@Salt_Mage]

Re: Elidibus. He hadn’t returned to the Lifestream when you talk to him at the Crystal Tower. His essence is stuck in the tower, unable to return. The “unsolicited act” he talks about is returning the Convocation Crystals to him, so that he can remember his friends again.

[@natebroadus8474]

From the moment Answers started playing, I had chills. Everything came back full circle. We heard about the Sundering, and now we got to see it as a series of metaphors in vignette form. We see all the things Hydaelyn's actions caused: a world forced to endure abject misery and despair in order to learn how to deal with abject misery and despair. But we also saw why it had to be done. The Ancients weren't going to change. They were going to keep feeding souls to Zodiark trying to regain their "perfect paradise." Only it wasn't perfect, at all. Far from it. The Ancients were as flawed as the lower lifeforms they looked down on, just in a different way. They saw life as a series of trial and error experiments, where no lives but theirs and those they deemed worthy to exist were... well, worthy to exist. Imagine being Venat and knowing you're going to inflict that on your own people, but also on your dearest friend. Someone who is almost like your own child--someone you trusted enough to take your seat on the Convocation. Why? Because you know they're strong enough to take it, and that the world will need them again, someday. Elpis just blew me away. What a fantastic piece of storytelling it turned out to be.

[@greggreyes6869]

having listened to answers a lot of times thru the years, i knew it was coming. the foreboding chills i got was when i read the quest title "thou must live, die and know" but holy shit, i know it was a little bit or retcon or recontextualizing but it worked pretty well. the answer was there, we just learned what the question was all along also on the ancients sacrificing. remember when emet said if the unsundered will willingly sacrifice half their numbers. they wont. but the ancients would. so it might mean they would continue to sacrifice and sacrifice to "Save" their world

[@WeisseningBlitz]

I'm just glad to not see angsty rage about this portion of the story for a change. I don't know if I just have bad luck where I lurk, haters are devoid of that crucial mix of critical thinking and empathy, or if I somehow misinterpreted things at some point and just didn't realize it at the time. It's like they had Garrett's initial hesitation about Venat dialed up to 11, willfully ignored any and all rules of the time loop, and just jumped to the conclusion that Venat truly is evil because she escaped the memory wipe and actually didn't stop any of this (and by extension, basically murdering us and the game world we knew). Like, the joke about the ancients being one big DMV lives on, but they always seem to conveniently ignore that she isn't their governing body despite her past position of prestige, that they had their choices to make, and that she individually couldn't address the Dynamis problem, either. I'm not entirely big on making real-world parallels here given some look to XIV for escapism purposes, but when you factor the production of this during covid times and all the global turmoil that facilitated, I'll just say people in power making stupid decisions and their supporters agreeing with it is unfortunately realistic. No amount of Venat saying, "Don't do the thing!" alongside her adherents will inevitably change the fact the pro-Zodiark side still chose to do the thing. The sundering was then the reluctant consequences of their actions because they couldn't just keep eating their own to stall the encroachment forever. And as always, as per speculation and cooking predictions, :) :) :) :)

[@SkullM]

I think one of my favorite instances of "show don't tell" happens in this section, when Venat tells you about her traveller ward and what it does. Up until this point so many people thought that Hydaelyn tempered you, and that's what made the WoL immune to other Primals tempering, but no. She was legitimately protecting you the entire time. And they don't tell you that explicitly, you can have to put that together yourself from the new information given.

[@anotherkenlon]

I was really suspicious about Hydaelyn in the run-up to Endwalker, and finding out that no, she really *did* care and really *did* her very best to protect the world (and us) was so damn heartwarming it still makes me tear up thinking about it. Crystal Mom was always on our side.

[@DXDragon38]

The Emet Body Pillow can't be stopped😆

[@ShermTank7272]

Kairos, we missed one. Command: universal memory alteration; target area: the KZbin comment section...

[@marzblood]

What body pillow? I can't see any in the vid?

[@nslater1388]

Most people doubted Hydalyn by the end of Shadowbringers. You guys are basically proxies for people to chastise their past selves for thinking they way they did. When they say them want you to apologize, they really want to apologize themselves for every bad thing they assumed about Venat.

[@Ryotsu2112]

And the game deliberately steered you down that path of doubt. Masterful storytelling.

[@canatsey]

Thank you Andrew for your departing chat line of "Kermit-Selch is now canon". That had me bust out laughing and now I am in need to some fan art!

[@midnightmiqo]

My brain is a rambling mess of compliments for this video. But quickly, that opening bit was absolutely amazing, loved the sound effects. I don't understand how you manage to not only capture the same feeling of the previous videos, and elevate it with the new "format." Okay, actually I can understand it, is that the chemistry of the bromance is so much more powerful in person, add on top of that level of talent and skill you both possess not only in video making, but in just presenting a compelling conversation that.... man you guys came back and hit the ground sprinting. Absolutely wonderful video.

[@DemonLordSparda]

I always knew Kyle was a time traveler from the 1840s. The clues were all there.

[@lilliannastar3208]

The biggest thing I took from Hermes was that, he was so against how their society did things, that he wanted to prove to anyone, himself especially, that other places did things differently and still flourished. So when Meteion came back and basically told him that everyone else that did things differently all fucking died, I can't imagine how soul crushing that was for him. To know that their world was the only one succeeding despite how much he absolutely hated it.

[@Drakesilon]

I always interpreted Elidibus’s warming as “you cant say anything cause if you do, you will branch the timeline and the world you came from will still fall to the Final Days” and we end up returning to an alternate reality. Now, as other comments have said, this is not an issue because its a closed loop, but Elidibus couldnt be sure.

[@OfMelodies]

I've been waiting sooo long for this video, and you guys did not disappoint. The Elpis arc is my favorite thing that has happened in FFXIV. It's SO rewarding from both a narrative and philosophic perspective. I'm a big fan of the relatability of exploring the human condition and I absolutely love what was introduced and touched on here, in the 11th hour of this story. Just magnificent.

[@LithiaDargon]

The KyleCam is cracking me up. Top-notch editing. :D :D

[@Tarrot]

To add on the time-travel talk: There are four instances of time-travel (going from the future to the past) in the game. Two mentioned here are the entire Elpis closed loop and the Alexander closed loop. A third instance is also time travel in a sense, and that's Mikoto's future visions in Bozja. What effectively happens is, we go to the future, see the instance of the future, go back to the past, and then armed with this knowledge that we can not change what happens, take actions that ultimately bring about those visions. This instance as well fits into the closed loop/FATE theory of time travel. The fourth instance, which doesn't fit, and is big, is G'raha going from a future with the WoL killed by Black Rose, traveling to the past, and arriving on the first and ultimately preventing the 1st's rejoining, which combined with Black Rose (Dark and Light) causing the 8th calamity. However, this has a built in explanation, that because of using Omega Tech, it caused a multiverse jump basically, since we know from the Omega raids that Omega can take people from other multiverses and pull them into our own. In addition, among the many short stories on the official website, one deals with Midgarsormor basically awakening to be the protector of that WoLess world, indicating that that world did not get erased, and instead still exists. So while not a closed loop, there is in-game lore to suggest G'raha didn't travel just backwards in time (like the 3 other instances), but across dimensions, which is why the rules are different between each instance. That this leaves a universe where the Ascians reform Zodiark, and Metion is not defeated, that's a whole lot of speculation for how/if that impacts the plot down the line. There is also in-game that, the people of the world do not know how Time Travel works. Venat is worried that staying too long will cause the timelines to merge, a Conjunction forming (and uses those terms later to echo her past words), but is wrong since we were always supposed to be back there and anything we did canonically happened. Elidibus' warnings to not fuck the coffee cup (Flash TV reference) at first later serve a double meaning potentially, as we break every time travel rule there, and it turns out we always have to go back to our timeline, and that we can't avert the Final Days in the past and must face it in the present. I do find it interesting how, in game, people don't get how this works, and only people on the outside looking in can really see how time travel does work in the universe.

[@BlackfangDragon]

Elpis loop canonically ties into the G’raha loop. The Crystal Tower even uses the same technology since it’s the same tower using Omega technology. For this to be a closed loop, it means there’s always another Universe G’raha who jumps back in time to the Firstfor the events to happen.

[@Reshapable]

Elidibus's warnings operate on some premises that are changed upon arrival (our aetheric state) but also are in regards to our mission. He isn't warning about the risks of time travel, he's explaining that we cannot impact our modern objective by meddling with the past and as such should avoid doing so as it compromises our fact finding. Elidibus is very mission oriented after all and encouraging us to focus was part of the assistance he provided. Also Venat wasn't worried about a conjunction forming but the opposite. Both in regards to staying overlong and in appreciation: too long = no conjunction and conjunction = good thing.

[@chiekokurokumo]

From what I understand, G'raha's time loop is "string theory". Another universe exists that spawned the current branch. The end of the short story implies that the other universe continued on, following its own history.

[@fluoritaceles3144]

When one thought the quality of your videos was at its peak and you shatter our expectations with an even more amazing analysis video, can’t believe it 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 You two sharing a room while recording these videos only enhances the experience of your deep analysis, the synergy can be felt even on the other side of the screen. I wonder what the next video will be about 🤔

[@retolia]

Welp, those morphing faces are my new sleep paralysis demons and will haunt my nightmares. A+ for the WTF moment.... and the video hasn't even premiered yet.....

[@Scottoest]

Fandaniel wipes his own mind along with everyone else because he wants the test of man's fitness to exist to be fair. He's a man, therefore as a man along with everyone else he will oppose the oblivion she brings. He wants to subject man to the same test the ancients callously subject every other living thing to, because he sees the blinding hypocrisy at the heart of their "perfect" world. You'll note he shackles everyone after Emet says "who are you to decide we live or die" (paraphrased) to Meteion, because that statement is what reminds him how hypocritical their society is. And that hypocrisy is something the non-remembering Emet-Selch actually carries forward with him over the millennia to follow, in how he views humanity post-sundering.

[@MarcyNabors]

imo the "unsolicited act" that Elidibus refers to is actually when you give him all the constellation crystals containing the convocation members' memories! I think that's a really important detail

[@Avaene]

You two are having *way* too much fun with the camera angles. I'm here for it

[@1darkglass132]

The "unsolicited act" Elidibus was talking about was you offering up the Convocation Crystals to him after defeating him since they're essentially memory crystals, which is what restored some memories of the convocation to him.

[@gateauxq4604]

I saw a comic on Tweeter a couple years ago depicting Venat looking for her successor as Azem. Another Ancient keeps pointing out people doing very Ancienty things and she says no. They finally come across a dumpster with an Ancient fighting a wolf over a package of fries and Venat says ‘THAT ONE.’ That is canonically the WoL in my mind because the WoL was, has been, and always will be a chaos gremlin.

[@lampdevil]

"He got to choose how to return to the star" and so he chose to die alongside his old friend, oh my god I had never looked at it that way. Oh. Oh, my heart.

[@Raenas]

It's delightful how you both mug for the new camera angles. I'm so happy for you and your new setup. Thanks for all of the good times, and many more to come, I hope. ^^

[@BlumenCT]

I think Elidibus's phrasing is meant to be taken more like, you CAN change the past but if you truly do you'll create a new timeline, not the one you want to save, ie it's pointless don't do it. Because clearly you can change the past, Graha accomplished that, but a whole key thing there was those responsible knew they wouldn't save themselves.

[@cocotaem5101]

Loved this video so much I’ve rewatched it countless times! Love the gushing about The Talk and how in denial Emet was. I can’t believe I never connected the tradition of the Ancients passing on to Emet orchestrating his own end 💀 Of course he would be that dramatic, bringing his friend back to Amaurot one final time. It also retroactively elevates SHB’s story with more context-can’t wait to replay it with the 7.0 graphics!

[@KingdomOnslaught]

I love the talks of what may be coming up with the story. I love doing that with any game I'm playing like trying to see where it's going to go. I can't wait to see you both continue your journey through Endwalker!!!

[@SilverZephyr09]

I can't believe you turned Kyle into an Animorphs cover. How could you do this?

[@nastycrimeboi5085]

This thubmail is the result of Kyle being fed too many lore gummies from Elpis

[@Goodman_Grey]

Strong three wolf moon energy, except more cursed. 10/10 no notes.

[@trisharachfal6553]

So close to the end and still so much left to see. I’m super excited to see you both go through everything Endwalker has to offer

[@tinybee7780]

25:00 Now you guys know why Jesse is so adamant to call sharks as godless killing machines 😂 the ancients definitely had a wicked sense of humor. Story wise, I absolutely love that perfect sendoff for Elidibus - using whatever power he has left to send the WoL to the past to finally look for some answers that they can use to combat the present threat.

[@loupinconnu]

Every video you guys release I just get more excited by all your questions. I cant wait to see you get your answers

[@krysmphoenix6010]

For the Elidibus Rewind bit, i thought of it this way: if the player could time travel to stop the final days, why couldn't the Ascians? Elidibus basically tells us that they may have already tried exactly that and failed because of the stable time loop law of the universe. Which makes Graha's timeline altering plan utterly impossible, and why Emet-Selch was so invested in our travels in the First. If we could prevent the First's doom, could we help him prevent The Final Days? Perhaps why he capture Graha too to interrogate him rather than kill him outright. This makes the First a rare instance of the time loop breaking, yet mended by killing the final boss of The Twinning. ...made even nore mindboggling wild by the Elpis timeloop requiring the First's timeloop be broken in an organized manner.

[@WalkerRileyMC]

Elidibus' WoL form isn't his Ancient battle form. He explains in the post MSQ patch quests that it is the form of the very first WoL of the First. Even shows an image of it. He uses the hopes of the people of the first buoyed by his prancing around as Ardbert and powered by the CT to basically create a primal shell for himself.

[@matthewmay6806]

What in the Animorph cover art am I looking at right now

[@eorzeanECM]

I appreciate the cooking and synopsis of Elpis gentlemen. Another good video. Happy ValandTuna Day to you both.

[@pariahdark1176]

Man loved the bit at the beginning, hilarious 😂

[@worse9347]

This just makes me want you two to level gatherers for the beast tribe quests that is in Endwalker. It is wonderfully done and its hard to sell it without spoiling but i think you both will enjoy them a lot and its progression. And no you dont know who they are in the story yet. Edit:plus IMO top 5 coolest mounts in game

[@sweetpanic705]

Soooo good to see you both back and what a video!! Thank you for the high energy and top tier discussion on such an emotional and personal journey for many of us ethical vampires❤🎉😅

[@Norex7777777]

you know its kind of interesting how the ancients surrounding zodiark, a force of motion, are for preserving the past, while the ancients surrounding hydaelyn, a force of stasis, are for moving on and forging a new future

[@patrickc.3823]

Really wish they'd included the artwork drawn up during the stream with Venat's "Are you from the future?" line. It was absolute genius. And can you imagine if Beaker has been promising us sweet despairing deaths all this time? Never going to watch the Muppets the same way again!

[@hackysax0079]

In my headcannon: I swear that Emit is in love with OUR Azem, presundering. I think Emit loves her, and it’s why he’s so… over the top when he’s talking about how much of a handful we are. And why he’s so attached to us when he meets us face to face in Shadowbringers. I think he wants us to defeat him, and he wants us to prove it to him that we deserve to be Azem. And that’s how he chooses to return to the Star

[@marcieconrad9413]

The thumbnail is insane I love it 😂 Really enjoyed your cooking session on Elpis. It was hands down my favorite part of Endwalker and my love for Emet reached obsessed proportions. I need that body pillow. I would stare at it all day.

[@nslater1388]

Has anyone pointed out the direct thematic parallels between Ysayle/Shiva and Venat/Hydalyn? Leaders going against the established order for the sake of the greater good, causing pain as a necessity, putting their own lives on the line for the cause? This applies to Ryne and Minfilia as well to a lesser extent.

[@noctisfatehart]

Everything leads back to animorphs.

[@psymar]

The unsolicited act that restored Elidibus' memories wasn't killing him, because he didn't actually die, just was weakened enough to be stored in the crystal tower. The unsolicited act was showing him all the Ascian crystals after the fight.

[@edwardnowakowski5990]

I just want to point out, not only did FFXIV pull off a time travel plot, but also introduced a “twist villain that was behind it the whole time” without players being taken out of the experience

[@EhowPDX]

Love the side camera angles in this format!

[@jt1973]

More than any other expansion, Endwalker had me going back and realizing all the many little seeds, questions answered, and threads uncovered there were AFTER i had finished it. It was great while doing it, and I got through it in about 4 days, but the week after I finished it sunk in how amazing it really was as I was constantly making new connections, etc. Now, I like it as much as Shadowbringers, but it took a bit. I hope you have a similar experience!

[@kaleiohulee6693]

So many great details throughout Elpis, it really benefits from multiple viewings. It added so much more texture to the events of Shadowbringers. One of my favorite examples being Emet's embarrassment over creating Amourot when he got called out on it.

[@gabgano8101]

Time Kyle is not real. He can’t hurt us. Time Kyle:

[@WayTooLateTV]

I kinda skimmed the video in the background when it came out, now I'm giving it a good watching. Just wanna say, Garrett needs "hashtag: NotAVampire!" flashing on screen at 11:35 or something just to be perfect. 😂 I love these videos, any damn near everything you and your team do. Keep it up as long as you feel the spark.

[@WayTooLateTV]

35:39 -- There's that line from just before The Dying Gasp... "the victor shall be the hero and the victim shall be the villain" -- I think Garrett may be right.

[@k2k4]

That cutscene, and the trust before it, were the things i wanted to see you play in endwalker. Of course I'm still excited for you to finish 6.0, but I'll never forget how that cutscene changed how i saw our crystal mommy. What a tragedy.

[@baatargharl8905]

Welp, I have no idea if the boys have been accused of copying thumbnails before; if that is an accusation people throw around anymore, but no one can accuse them with this one.

[@willanrac]

LOL the body pillow, im dead. ALSO he made a model train set.. omfg man. @31:40

[@kelathos]

These boys cooking so hard, there is barely anything left to spoil. Good job! Glad you see you nearing the end of this amazing story arc.

[@MaggieBer]

and this, kid, is what fatherhood does to you. 😅

[@wavypavy4059]

Endwalker's best feature is definitely giving new layers of meaning to everything before it. It absolutely doesn't complete with ShB for my favourite expension, but it doesn't need to because it makes ShB even better.

[@keithfilibeck2390]

Confirming the Fermi Paradox and just.. GOING with it, is wild, that Etheriys is just the youngest of all civilized planets, and that its all over is one of the darkest twists in videogaming, no matter the plot or events of the game, nothing can really undo that bombshell, and they never do.

[@iridium6714]

3:45 If only there wasn't the damn timeline the Exarch came from. It ruins the time loop. The existence of that timeline where the world is pretty much over and destroyed and where the WoL canonically DIES just ruins the time loop, because in that timeline, no one goes back to elpis, and no one talks to Venat, and yadda yadda, but Hydealin is confirmed to exist in that timeline which implies that the event of Elpis SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED since the creation of Hydealin is supposedly a response to our explaining the situation to Venat. "But they could have thought of it themselves !" I hear you cry, except NO because in the other timeline, the WoL is still the hero of eorzea, and STILL defeated Ultima, and is still blessed by the light which implies Hydealin should be able to recognize them AND YET IN THAT TIMELINE THE WoL DIES AND IT IS CANON, IT HAS HAPPENED. So basically, no timeloop, just devs who reaaaaaaaaally wanted us to get to know the ancients before the asciens. I loved it but knowing that ruins it for me.

[@LeafStranger]

26:46: There's a short story you might enjoy about the volcano incident. It also sheds a little more light on Elidibus.

[@Corva7]

That thumbnail is so unhinged, I love it

[@keithfilibeck2390]

Venat is one of the most badass Neutral good characters I've ever seen, the sheer willpower and dedication to her course is an impossible feat, even though she's a Primal and a mortal, I think she still deserves to be called, Godly, truly, very few FF Gods ever live up to it, she exceeds expectations.

[@samueljacques9381]

See this is interesting because I took the time travel to be the exact opposite. My understanding below: It's not that you cannot change events. It's that if you do, this time line will go to a different place than your present (in the same sense that Graha's mind won't ever go to a future where Black Rose happened ). Venat, understanding this, ensures that through the events of the questline + her own meddling , it's a closed loop, ALLOWING your presence in the past to be connected to your present (and thius meaning that her GPS beacon is a thing that exists within your present). When Elidibus tells you that warning he's saying you can't stop the calamity from happening, you can't unsunder the world, and you can't, because even if you did your present day would still have that lived past happen.

[@Zakjuh]

Pretty much how I feel about it. Venat could've chosen to do things differently, and you could've done something to affect the past, except it would just lead to a G'raha situation where you create a new timeline and the old one continues or is stranded somehow. And under such circumstances, there's no telling what may happen to the WoL. They may as well find themselves in a new future not their own, while the one they come from is both without a WoL and without the knowledge the WoL went to Elpis to get, and now they have no way to get that knowledge again, so... effectively doomed. But since nothing was fundamentally altered in terms of events, time resumed unimpeded to the present our WoLs are used to.

[@guitalex2005]

The unsolicited act was you giving him the stones. He later says the stones only hold memories of the convocation members' time in the convocation.

[@Lhunuial]

You guys really should read the short stories they released during each expansion. Especially the ones released during Shadowbringers. They will answer some of your questions, about Elidibus, about the volcano. Perhaps your mod team could link them to you? Might be nice for a video!

[@idleeidolon]

"There has always been suffering. No civilization, however great, can eliminate it." - Venat It seems like, ~~~They didn't start the fire~~~

[@Cyraneth]

In reference to Kyle’s theories: It very much seems like the Nutkin Theory is Kyle’s Eat the Moon Theory for the upcoming expansion. I wouldn’t put it beyond him to be oddly right for all the wrong reasons.

[@adelinefae]

Well I'm definitely excited (though also a bit sad) to see you guys get to the end of 6.0. Loving the theories!

[@wanderingsavior]

Every time Kyle turned to the camera, it really gave me "Steve" from "Blue's Clues" energy lol.

[@rythiancross]

A side tangent but if you go back and listen to the lyrics of metal they mention that a celestial noise was detected, delirium unsuspected. Perhaps a reference to metion, Harpe girls.

[@BrawlVeteren5Ike]

If he's not a vampire then he's secretly a time lord. GET HIM DALEK'S

[@anotherkenlon]

I was pretty sure at the end of ShB/beginning of Endwalker that Hydaelyn was going to turn out to be an antagonist in the end. Maybe a well intentioned one, but there was no way that a primal would be what we had thought she was. The scene on the boat made me think I might have been wrong, and then Elpis completely shattered that. Crystal Mom always loved us. Just thinking about her waiting and watching for us, hoping after every Calamity that maybe this time it would be over soon and we'd arrive. . . You did completely miss the point of what Elidibus was saying - he wasn't saying you shouldn't change things, he was saying you can't. You *always* had gone back to the past and did what you did. It was the state of the world from the beginning. (Also the whole shark thing in Elpis was it's own special genius, because it immediately drove home that the Ancients were just people. Powerful, sure, but not fundamentally different than their descendants.) EDIT: I could reply to every single one of your Endwalker videos with ". . . and you ain't seen nothing yet!" and be *completely* *fucking* *accurate*. God DAMN they killed it in EW.