Thread by @amandaterasu

You know what, Let's have a twitter Thread on all my evidence as far as Emet-Selch's real plan in Shadowbringers, how I know he is alive and untempered, and what I believe his plan/role is in Endwalker. WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Everything. #FFXIV #ffxivspoilers 1/?

So, to start: Who, exactly, is Emet-Selch?

Emet-Selch is an Ascian. As we learn through the plot of SHB, Ascians are those souls who served on the Convocation of Fourteen in Amaurot *AND* agreed to + participated in the summoning of the First Primal, Zodiark. 2/?

Zodiark was summoned in an attempt to save Amaurot from a mysterious disaster referred to as both the "Final Days" and "the Sound." (Text from the quest "The End of a World") 3/?

Zodiark was a desperate solution to save Amaurot, requiring *HALF* of all living Amaurotines to give up their lives to summon him, but in the moment of His birth, the Ascians were also tempered. 4/?

The names of the Ascians (save Elidibus) come from the counterparts to the Scions of Darkness from Final Fantasy XII, most of whom show up as bosses in various raids throughout FFXIV. 5/?

Of the thirteen known Ascians, eleven of them have at least appeared on screen in at least *SOME* capacity or another. 6/?

Pashtarot and Altima only appear in gatherings of Ascians in the post-ARR cutscenes. 7/?

Emmerololth, who is part of the Eureka Storyline. 8/?

Mitron and Loghrif, who were mentioned in the MSQ but feature heavily in the Eden Raid Series. 9/?

Nabriales, Igeyorhm, and Fandaniel: Sundered Ascians who play major roles in the MSQ. 10/?

And of course, the three Unsundered - the only known survivors of Amaurot at this time: Elidibus, Lahabrea, and Emet-Selch. 11/?

Nothing concrete is known about the last two, Halmarut and Deudalaphon, but boy oh boy do I have some theories. ((WHY IS URIANGER THE ONLY SCION WE CAN CONFIRM IS GOING TO THE MOON???)) 13/?

The Ascians' stated goal is the rejoining of the Source and all of its Shards so that Zodiark may be resurrected, and then they can sacrifice the lives of everyone currently living to bring back those who sacrificed their lives to let them live. 14/?

Really missing the point of the initial sacrifices, but that's tempering! 15/?

Emet-Selch is one of these people, and has spent the intervening millenia (between the fall of Amaurot and 5.0) working towards the rejoining. He specifically mentions that his modus operandi is to create empires that create chaos. 16/?

He directly confirms that both Allag and Garlemald were his work, and there's strong evidence he had a hand in other empires as well. (Side Note: Lala-Emet in Belah'dia encouraging the worship of Azeyma?? ;) ) 17/?

But the purpose of this thread is to show he is both *ALIVE* and *UNTEMPERED*, so let's get into that, shall we? 18/?

So, how do you actually *KILL* an Ascian, since they're a bunch of body-hopping dark wizards? Thankfully Moenbryda laid out a plan for us in the quest "Let Us Cling Together" 19/?

Step 1: Force the Ascian out of the host body and into a vessel capable of containing the entirety of their soul. The most common vessel we use in this manner is White Auracite. 20/?

Step 2: Once they are confined in the vessel, destroy the vessel with a blast of aether - the "blade of light" we used to force Lahabrea out of Thancred's body at the end of 5.0. 21/?

We first use this method against Nabriales, and things are relatively textbook: We beat him in the Chrysalis, save Minfilia, return to the Rising Stones where he's been cast out of his body. 22/?

Moenbryda throws us the Auracite, Minfilia traps him within it, and we use Tupsimati and Moenbryda's life-force to summon the Aetheric Blast necessary to destroy it. 23/?

This is repeated with the next Ascian we kill, Igeyorhm. At the end of the Aetherochemical Research Facility, she forms a Prime with Lahabrea, and we beat their asses into submission, causing them to separate from each other and start to shuck their bodies. 24/?

They prepare to escape, but we throw another piece of White Auracite at Igeyorhm and capture her, then use Nidhogg's eye to obliterate it. 25/?

In both of these cases, once we hit them with the Aetheric Blade, that was *it.* They did not linger to offer parting words or appear again in any fashion.

(I'm writing up more, but twitter won't let me add more without posting these) 26/?

After this point, our Ascian-Slaying goes off-script, and I cannot say with 100% confidence that *ANY* of the Ascians slain after Igeyorhm are 100% dead, because something deviates from the known formula in each one. 27/?

In Lahabrea's case, Throdan traps him in Nidhogg's other eye and uses him to fuel his transformation into Primal Thordan. There is no attack on the aetheric construct that forms Lahabrea's soul. 28/?

Nor is there any evidence anything has happened to him BEYOND trapping him in the Eye. The only thing we can say with confidence is that he was contained within the eye. (Let me just put on this tinfoil hat and look at Estinien for a minute.) 29/?

Anyway, we don't really interact much with the Ascians in Stormblood, though we see a lot of them behind the scenes, and do have our duel with Elidizenos at the end of the Ghimlyt Dark. 30/?

We see Eldibus and Emet-Selch's meddling in the Garlean Empire as cutscenes, setting the stage for Shadowbringers. 31/?

The similarities to Lahabrea's "death": Being trapped but not blasted with a massive aetheric charge are also, of note, why I believe Elidibus is still alive and conscious in the Crystal Tower on the First. 32/?

On the flip side of this, we have Mitron, who was both not trapped and not blasted with a massive aetheric charge then just hung around to chat with Gaia for a while before 'dissipating' after E12, so I don't think he's dead *AT ALL* 33/?

But this is getting off-topic. The point is, things get WACKY once we deviate from the formula for killing an Ascian established by Moenbryda in 2.4.

RIP QUEEN - gone too soon. 34/?

Now that we have a thorough grounding in the process, let's see how Emet-Selch's death lines up with all this. 35/?

We know we have the White Auracite from early in Il Mheg, when Urianger says he prepared some for us. How he got it and WHERE he got it is a question for another time (SERIOUSLY WHY IS HE THE ONLY ONE ON THE MOON) but the point is we knew 'killing' an Ascian was an option. 36/?

We had the tools, both the Auracite and the Light Energy we'd collected from the Lightwardens, so what went wrong?

In a word? THANCRED. 37/?

Because Thancred shattered the Auracite BEFORE Emet-Selch could be pulled into it, we were unable to trap him. Instead, the shards embedded themselves into his body, much like crystals we've seen Ascians use to escape before. (seriously, watch the post-ARF cutscene). 38/?

So now, we know that Emet-Selch was not trapped. He shattered the last piece of Aetherite in him. He *WILLINGLY* remianed, and goaded us for the final blow - overwhelming an Ascian tempered by Darkness with the Light Aether of an entire World. 39/?

But let's go back a few steps. Remember, all the Ascians are tempered. So what, exactly, is tempering? 40/?

In the patch 5.1 quest "Good for the Soul" we learn that the basic mechanics of tempering are virtually identical to the Light Corruption on the first. 41/?

Alisaie specifically says "Ga Bu's condition is virtually identical to Halric's, is it not? The only difference being that his soul was suffused with earth-aspected aether instead of Light." 42/?

In the 5.4 quest, "Reviving the Legacy", we get to hear the report on Tempering made by an Allagan researcher named Owen. Here's what it says directly: 43/?

I find it funny that it was AMON who deemed the research into a cure non-essential, given the going fan theory that Amon was Emet-Selch's incarnation at the end of the Allagan Empire. 44/?

As Emet-Selch is known to be a master of Soul Sight and the Lifestream/Underworld, it would not surprise me if he alread knew or had deduced how to cure tempering at that point, and merely shut it down because he didn't want the sundered to know how. 45/?

So given this, we know what Tempering is, but how is it actually cured?

Later in the same quest ("Reviving the Legacy") we speak to G'raha about curing tempering, and its relation to memory. For the cure Alisaie devises, they use a spell to keep the memories stable. 46/?

But the Ascians already had a solution to that problem, didn't they? 47/?

Overall, the cure for tempering is to blast the person with a ton of Aether of the element that overpowers whatever element they are tempered by. (Thank you to Urianger in Il Mheg and the Magia Board in Eureka for drilling this into our head.) 48/?

In the case of someone tempered by shadow, what would you use?

How about a blade of Aetheric Light? 49/?

So what we have here are the conditions for Emet-Selch to be cured of his tempering, and we are RIGHT on-script for how that's done in the 5.X patches, while being wildly off-script for how one would kill an Ascian as presented by Moenbryda and continued into 3.0. 50/?

After this point, we get tons of proof that he's alive, or at least as much alive as it matters to an immortal sorcerer who has mastered control of the Underworld. 51/? (taking a quick break for lunch, then I'll write more.)

So, we know how things played out, but I don't think some of you in the back understand how this was EMET-SELCH'S PLAN ALL ALONG. So we're going to go back and look over our actions and Emet-Selch's in a section I like to call: What we do in the Shadow(bringer)s. 52/?

Throughout 5.0, our priority is to save the First from the corruption of light, and thereby prevent the 8th Umbral Calamity. The first 5 zones of the expansion *roughly* follow the same formula. 53/?

We go to a zone, find a Scion, learn about the locals, earn their trust, find the Lightwarden, kill it, and go back to the Crystal Catboy. 54/?

Parts of this are subverted; we find the scions in Kholusia and Amh Araeng LONG before we go back and deal with the Lightwarden, and in Lakeland we kill the Light Warden right *before* we find the Scion, but overall, this is how it's done. 55/?

Though we *FEEL* like Emet-Selch is along for the whole journey, he's actually surprisingly absent from the perspective of the WOL. He doesn't appear in Il Mheg or Amh Araeng at all, nor are we aware of his appearances in Lakeland or Early Kholusia. 56/?

The only zones where we interact with him prior to Mt. Gulg are the Crystarium, Rak'tika, and the return to Kholusia. 57/?

He is content to let us proceed in whatever manner we choose, reacting with bemusement when we return to the Crystarium. It is only once we have slain all 5 lightwardens, and gained all the light of a dying world, that he turns against us. 58/?

He tells us about the Tempest, tells us to meet him there, and even takes the Exarch with him, both for his knowledge and as assurance we will follow. 59/?

So, what were the options we had going into the Tempest? What options had Emet-Selch offered us, and what might result from them? It can all be reduced down to 2 variables. Will we work with Emet-Selch, and Can we contain the Light? 60/?

Path A - We do not work with Emet-Selch, and we cannot contain the Light. This is what happened in Shadowbringers. I'm relatively sure that this is why Emet-Selch pulled us into the shadowy plane alone with him, that Thancred and the others were only able to breach - 61/?

by shattering the White Auracite with Ryne's bullet. We ended up being forced to use that Light Aether to stop Emet-Selch. (At the goading of Urianger who NEEDS TO EXPLAIN WHAT HE'S DOING ON THE MOON?) 62/?

Path B - We do work with Emet-Selch, and we cannot contain the Light. This is any one of the thousand "bad end" fics people have written or daydreamed, but I think there's a simple solution here: He will kill us, and the light aether that pours out of us would cure him. 63/?

Path C - We do not work with Emet-Selch, and we *can* contain the Light. This would also work Similarly to Shadowbringers, as he would force us to a standstill, and make us use the light to kill him (as our normal attacks couldn't actually do that lore-wise). 64/?

Path D - We do work with Emet-Selch, and we *can* contain the light. I think this path would have been terribly romantic, because I think in this instance he would have convinced us to form a prime with him, and our aether would have balanced each other out, and... 65/?

But in reality, on this path, regardless of what happened, we would be willingly cooperating with him so he could inundate himself in the Light Aether. 66/?

All of these end the same way: Emet-Selch's tempering is cured, which I 100% believe was his plan from the moment he realized we were on the First. He could not go and slay the Lightwardens himself; that would violate the tempering he had that pushes for the rejoining. 67/?

But allowing us to kill the lightwardens and possibly become a "mega-lightwarden" does not necessarily break from Zodiark's latent push to bring Him back and save the Star. 68/?

So, now that I've (hopefully) convinced you that Emet-Selch is a fucking genius and the best and definitely alive and untempered, what does that mean for Endwalker? 69 (nice)/?

First, we know Emet-Selch is the Narrator. Since 2.0 (i can't vouch for 1.0) we have not had an expansion without dealing with the Narrator in some way. 2.0 was Louisoix who we spoke with in Coils. 3.0 was Edmont. 4.0 was Lyse. 5.0 was Ardbert/G'raha. 70/?

So, it stands to reason we WILL speak with Emet-Selch at some point. If not in the narrative, then in Pandaemonium, as the first section is called Asphodelus, which anyone who is passingly familiar with Greek myths or the game Hades can tell you is part of the Underworld. 71/?

This is purely conjecture, but I feel (with Emet-Selch's love of drama) that he will be waiting for us, with the answers he could not give us before (because tempering) in Mare Lamentorum. 72/?

And I think after Endwalker, Emet-Selch will take up the role Urianger once had: the wise sorcerer who stays back and we go to when we have questions. Especially as the narrative moves beyond the Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga, he will not "know everything" like he does now. 73/?

He will just be an ancient, powerful sorcerer, the classic "wise man on the mountain (or moon)" that we go visit for advice. And all of us Emet-Kissers will set our home point to the nearest Aetheryte and never leave. 74/74

To those of you who read the whole thing, thank you! I have a meeting for work in a few minutes but if you have questions I'll happily answer/theorycraft after I get done! I hope you enjoyed the thread!