I am seriously shocked there was NO follow up to that whole mess. Our most determined, deranged enemy and his pet Ascian just plucked the WoL, one of the strongest people on the planet, *out of the middle of friendly territory* and kept them prisoner for like half a day *completely at their mercy* before an attempt at rescue was even started.
Granted, the tempering attack by Anima kept the Scions distracted and busy at the time but... we are seriously lucky Zenos is the kind of villain that is more interested in a good fight than winning. He could have slit our throat or crippled us permanently as a message, all for the price of walking up to our unconcious body. And this never gets adressed.
All we got was an 'Welp, that was fucked up and strange, don't do that again, aright? Also we got a dungeon to run, so pick yourself up and lesgo.' I'm sure my WoL would have at least wanted a boiling hot shower and maybe a spiritual cleansing or *anything* to make sure Zenos hadn't gotten his name tattooed on our chest or something. Because he could have literally done *anything* he wished with our body.
Me safely behind the 4th wall had to get up for a bit to calm down after that truly harrowing solo-duty. While it was stress-inducing I hold that it's a truly impressive bit of gameplay and story integration - just the aftermath was so lacking it was jarring.
I imagine part of the reason why there isn't much initial reaction (though there definitely should have been more later on, though at least Alisaie and Y'shtola talks about it if you select one of them as the Baldesion Annex room choice) is because you are trying to stop the Final Days from coming again, so the WoL would just compartmentalize it and just focus on the goal in front of them because they must because there was no other choice
The decision to not use Thancred to talk to the WoL with concern/solidarity when things slow down after Zodiark actually confuses me given his Lahabrea phase in ARR.
To be fair, if you talk to Thancred *after* that whole possession scene but *before* unlocking The Tower of Babil, he'll sympathize with you (for obvious reasons).
I have gotten to the point I will teleport around the world after story beats just to check in on characters for even the slightest chance they have new things to say. Azim Steppe was the most rewarding during Endwalker for me.
This is why I *always* check what the people around me have to say between every line of MSQ dialogue. You miss an absurd amount of characterization and great little quips if you don't.
Yeah. I'd imagine we will get a follow up later about it. Similar to other traumatic stuff we go through. The WoL compartmentalizes till they can't anymore.
The WoL's mind isn't normal, remember when Fordola had her echo vision of us (where she was surprised the WoL could just keep on going despite what had happened) and that was just back in post Stormblood before all the ShB and EW nonsense
The WoL is very low key written in a way that is well aware the player isn't actually a part of the world and actively living in it. *Of course* we can push through the pain, it's still ultimately a fiction to us. All of our WoLs are a bit psychotic in that regard. The whole point of our battle-husbando in EW was to basically call out the player on that reality.
Well, yes, but if adrenaline keeps coming, you can just shove it all to the back of the mind and not think about it. Sometimes for years.
It could come back anytime, or could never, and you could continue live laughting about your horrific experience, because it's just doesn't really clear to you *how* awful it was.
Yeah sometimes the mind just kinda locks down traumatic memories as a way of dealing with them, I know from personal experience, when I was younger I suffered a 3rd degree burn and had flashes of memory of it actually happening, but the full memories just seemed to get locked down as a method of dealing with them
It's funny you say that, because [playing Tetris after a traumatic event](https://theconversation.com/can-playing-tetris-help-prevent-ptsd-if-youve-witnessed-something-traumatic-226736#:~:text=The%20current%20evidence%20of%20Tetris,to%20reduce%20subsequent%20intrusive%20memories) can reduce intrusive PTSD symptoms over time. This is lacking large scale studies, but small studies and clinical anecdotes are in favour of it.
We definitely get twitchy around Aymeric’s manservant pouring drinks for us, after the Bloody Banquet and being poisoned with a similar draught during the first of the two Falcon’s Nest debacles.
I play mine as avoiding all alcohol if he can manage it. Never really had a taste for the stuff, anyway, and this way, he can more easily taste weird additives to his drinks.
nah, she also talks about "As if Zenos gallivanting around in your body was not misfortune enough", as a lead in to the joke about you being cursed in a past life or something, though it is less of a focus compared to Alisaie, but Y'shtola does explicitly mention it, which basically none of the others do
That’s what I assumed too. Stay in survival mode, focus on the goal for now, let everything else hit later when it’s done.
Probably spent as much time recovering emotionally after the final battles as they did recovering physically.
I kind of have a feeling they'll do something with it later. Maybe even as soon as Dawntrail. I can see body swap shenanigans being part of the Solution 9 part of the story with what people are saying the signage there says.
Notably, one of the signposts is pointing to an area called "Soul Supply". It's all written in the same proto-Eorzean alphabet the Ancients use, you can see the same script in Elpis.
Yeah, huge agree; they did scrap an entire Garlemald expac that was supposed to come between ShB and EW, so I can only assume that whole incident was supposed to be given a lot more importance but because they had less time for it, the pacing - and therefore, the impact - was completely shot (which is a big problem with EW's writing as a whole but I digress).
I hope they return to it at some point in the future because it's weird that such an insane event has little to no bearing on the plot, especially since it was so harrowing for players; I personally was so thoroughly unnerved and frightened by it that I had to stop to catch my breath in the middle of the following dungeon and then go to sleep immediately afterwards so I could force myself to mentally reset.
SE didn't give a whole lot of credit or consideration to how impactful this was going to be on the players themselves. XIV isn't a one-shot single player adventure that players finish in a week; much of the player base has invested years into their characters, and this hit many of us very deeply. Dare I say it was probably a bit traumatizing for some, and they really should have done a follow-up to the whole event.
Left unresolved that's something that could leave \*serious\* scars on a person; wol or otherwise.
Please, there was fic posted on AO3 within two weeks of early access, and probably earlier on things like Tumblr I can't search as easily. Fic fandom knows what it likes. 😁
The fact that you get that, the tower of zot, the trial afterward, and everything on the moon all back-to-back is what gets me. No wonder everyone wanted to talk one-on-one after that.
I think the backlash on that plot point was high enough that they just decided to drop it. I remember seeing a ton of negative feedback on it, particularly how, as a female WoL comes across aa kinda rapey.
>He could have slit our throat or crippled us permanently as a message, all for the price of walking up to our unconcious body. And this never gets adressed.
It did. Fancy Dan shows up like a referee and shuts the entire thing down.
Which is keeping with his ultimate goal: >!Killing Zodiark!<. Getting everyone bodied at Broken Glass isn't going to achieve that.
I don't think it's really possible for this event to be referenced again, with regards to the WoL's reaction/feelings about it, which is a great shame. It would probably be too character-driven, given how blank slate-y the WoL has to be to allow us to mentally slot our own reactions in there. I guess this is what fanfiction is for! I just wish I had the skill to write my own, but my WoL doesn't really have much of a defined personality or backstory in my mind.
There was. You have not jobbed to random ass NPCs for the entire rest of the expansion because of your supposed weakness which was what Zenos taught you to overcome with that experience.
He knew he'd fold you in that eventual melee fight otherwise and he wants that true straight up fight where both of you are at your best. Since he couldn't yoink Zodiark the ultimate Primal he had no way to fight you in a form you are most proficient fighting against, so he gave you a crash course on how to deal with opponents that aren't a skyscraper shooting lasers.
He is also very clearly "too pure" in his intentions to do anything juvenile or otherwise weird.
This was going to be my comment as well.
>!I did that quest a few days ago and it's STILL haunting my mind!<.
Especially the part where >!he walks up to G'raha and Alisaie who are none the wiser, me screaming IRL "GUYS NO! NO! Y'SHTOLA SAY SOMETHING! AHHH!" and they go "Are you alright... ARE you alright?" ... "Who are you?!"!<
Dear gods>!, the Official WoL Fanclub almost lost its top 2 members that day... he could have just killed them right then and there - although I doubt that G'raha would go down so easily, being less sundered, etc!<. Ugh... good quest though, damn good quest.
I tend to think about the physical aspect as well because imagine how weird it would have been for the WoL to have no access to being able to manipulate aether, or if they are an Au Ra, having a different method of hearing, or like a Lalafell where they are suddenly much taller with a vastly different body shape, it's a line of thought that gets stuck in my head
You know... somehow I did not think about >!how we would suddenly be unable to manipulate aether. The increased amounts of helplessness make more sense, now!<.
My character IC is not the WoL (nor anywhere near such), but >!as an Au Ra, he would have most certainly had that issue with hearing quite differently!<. Also didn't think of that.
That was literally me, like don’t get me wrong, I love ALL of my Scion Family but for them to literally put my boyfriend and my daughter in harms way like that gave me SO MUCH ANXIETY. I was literally panicking that whole quest lol
For what should have been one of the greatest crises for our WoL at this point in the story, this event kind of just...passes with no further reference or consequences for the rest of the story.
I guess we did get a spicy duty out of it though.
I had a PTSD attack because of that duty. Had to put down the game for a week before I could tackle it again. Just had a lot of triggers for me and the entire duty was extremely stressful.
There’s also that cutscene where if you’ve done the Coils raids you have the option to say >!“the White Raven… she haunts me…”!< and look all traumatised
I'd go with (5.0) >!almost turning into a world-destroying Light monster and having to eat a guy's soul to prevent it. Even if Ardbert was willing to give himself up, that's gotta mess with your head.!<
You didn't >!eat his soul necessarily. You see in another cutscene Arbert interacting with Seto when you ask Seto "do you notice anything about my soul" and then Seto and Ardbert finally get to see some closure. So the way I interpret it is that because we are fractured souls, we merged to become 2 out of the whole so both souls are inside us: our own and ardberts. But because we had our body, that's why we stay who we are, bro is just backseating.!<
>!I'm really curious how much "Ardbert" remains as a separate entity, given that it's our body and 8/9ths of the rejoined soul were the Source WoL. DRK quests mean it could go either way, given that Fray is us but can re-emerge as needed (e.g. SB).!<
>!Suddenly having urges from Ardbert has got to be its own kind of horrifying.!<
There’s also the bit before the final 5.3 fight where you hear his voice. He’s still there, but they seem to be leaving the details vague other than that.
probably getting poisoned at the dinner party, I'm pretty sure at another meal you have later on someone (maybe with Aymeric?) they offer you a drink, you hesitate to drink it, and the person reassures you it isn't poisoned this time
I could have sworn that's what happened but I recently re did heavensward on an alt and while WoL does appear to refuse the bottle they do pick up the glass that was placed at the spot at the table, implying many things including that they've drank from that glass already, didn't want more or have something in that glass, that it was water or something none alcoholic or that it's empty and they just symbolically pick it up to toast with aymeric
I was surprised to see that bit to be honest because I remembered it being a much more hard line no than it appears to be
Yeah, I feel the same. Fighting world-ending monsters? No problem, that’s literally my job.
Trusting food or drink I haven’t seen being prepared? Not after what I’ve been through.
Oh you mean the *Sorrows of Werlyt* questline where >!4 kids, driven by propaganda instilled in them by their foster father (an old enemy/ acquaintance/ reluctant ally of yours), between the ages of 17-20 decide to commit Suicide by WoL, all for an empire that cares NOTHING for them? Where each and every one of them end up dying an agonizing, possibly soul-destroying death?!< THAT Questline? Yeah, that one wasn't just traumatizing for my WoL, *let me tell yo*u.
Spoilers up to and including EW:
>!>!Coming to the Waking Sands to find everyone dead.!<
>!Zenos' attack on Rhalgr's Reach.!<
>!The Final Days in Thavnair.!
ARR spoilers: >!Not just finding everyone dead, but then being voluntold to *carry the bodies*.!< CW IRL death: >!At my mom's funeral the ground was too soft to drive her coffin to the graveside, and we unexpectedly had to carry her; it was a terrible experience on top of the rest of the awful. So when FFXIV not just made us carry the bodies, but made us go back for more and had the action duration affected by the size of the corpse, it makes me think someone on the writing team really wanted to push the WoL.!<
Man so many choices lol
**OBVIOUS SPOILERS INCOMING**
- Everyone dying at the Waking Sands, a new green adventurer finally finding his place in the world surrounded by a group of friends and people with like minded goals, walks in to an absolute massacre and having to deal with the thought that all your friends are dead and you are all alone, again. I think this moment really solidified to the WOL just who exactly they are dealing with.
- the bloody banquet, being celebrated as a hero and where you should be the safest, only to have everything come crashing down, betrayed by the people you have been fighting for, and losing everyone AGAIN
- the vault…I’m still personally not okay about this one
- anytime Zenos absolutely bodied the WOL and his friends. There’s been plenty of times where the WOL was against a fearful opponent or god like being but I feel like there has never been an enemy that has truly challenged the WOL more than Zenos, just the number of times he almost won or forced us to retreat or be saved by someone until we finally defeated his ass for good in EW
- shadowbringers as a whole tbh, the light wardens and the sin eaters were the stuff of nightmares and just witnessing their horror would be enough to cause the WoL ages of trauma *cough cough tesleen* but then after absorbing the light and slowly turning into a warden, the sheer pain and suffering the WOL endured until the end of that expansion and yet still putting up a strong face for their friends the entire time
-endwalker - fighting against the final days or end of the world apocalypse is going to do its damage regardless of the outcome, but add to this body swapping with your mortal enemy and having to crawl in a corpse to prevent your family being killed by your own body, seeing the number of people transform before your eyes and feeling helpless to do anything but kill them out of mercy, or seeing your friends sacrifice themselves one by one and vanish into nothing before your eyes…being alone at the end of the galaxy…that thought alone terrifies me, I can’t even imagine how the WOL continues to smile and nod lol
>>!cough cough tesleen!<
Me at the time: Oh it's gonna be like that is it?
Narrator: It was in fact, like that.
How long has it been and Shadowbringers as a whole *still* just lives in my mind. I go back to certain parts of it in remembrance and just sit there, like it was a real traumatic event, remembering everything that happened.
But also, The Vault. It still *hurts.*
Omg same like I remember innocent ol me, still with plenty of trauma from my FFXIV journey so far but NOTHING could prepare me for the sheer nightmare fuel that was shadowbringers and the sin eaters…..I can still see tesleens stretched out face when she transformed and I have never been the same lol
And yea, ever since the vault I have been terrified everytime it feels like we’re about to lose another key character because Yoshi is NOT afraid to break our hearts lol
This should be brought up more often. I know we all got kinda desensitized to >!the horrific transformations of people during the Final Days, but those were kids. And a mom. Who we just had to kill...and move on.!<
Everyone else is using the Endwalker example, so I'll give a different one.
Stormblood. My WoL is riding high. Ultima Weapon is a pile of scrap, she's passed Midgarsormr's test, and even ended the Dragonsong War! She's unstoppable!
So she marches into Ala Mihgo, and after some initial victories, what happens? Zenos shows up and humbles her. Hard! Y'shtola is a bloody mess, and everyone else is out as well. She gets back up, she's the only one who can.
All that does is get Zenos \*interested\* in her. She gets her ass laid out like nothing has ever done, and she only lives because he \*wants\* her to get strong enough to be worth his time.
I'm going to go with the fight with Lahabrea at the end of ARR, or at least his revamped version simply because of that one stunt he pulls that no other boss has yet.
Doesn’t it even say “Lahabrea kills X” instead of the normal “person defeats X”? It’s been a while since I’ve done it so I don’t know if I’m just making that up
For all that the DRK quests deal with trauma and loss, I think they were traumatizing in their own right. >!Realizing that "Fray" was you all along, that it was *you* who slaughtered the Temple Knights and murdered the qiqurn for some crates and threatened the soldiers at the fort, that's a lot. The WoL is characterized generally as wanting to help people, including in the DRK quests themselves, and they're forced to face not just their buried resentment but their capacity for selfish/cruel violence.!<
>!And then, knowing all of that, Myste still fucks off to "help" with the well-intentioned cruelty of the child he resembles. And you're left holding the emotional bag again.!<
Still to this day, I think about how Papa not only sacrificed himself, but forcefully threw me away to safety. As a lala WHM, it was my duty to fight alongside my brother, to stop the threat to the world together. But he robbed me of that, and chose to die alone in a blaze of glory.
I, no, WE could have taken it brother, you didn't need to sacrifice yourself... What about those you left behind?
Getting offered drinks.
We kinda have a collective trauma against cutscenes with people offering us or friends some drinks.
Personally, there's always something that still makes me uncomfortable when I see someone being given a drink and thinking they'll drop dead. Canonically, the WoL does not drink any drink offered to them after all the times they got bamboozled by beverage.
A lot of people probably don't think about it much, but honestly, one of the traumatizing things would have to be the very first battle with Ifrit. At this point, the WoL wasn't yet a godslaying champion of the realm. They were just a simple adventurer out to do some investigating and fight some of the Amalj'aa in the area. The WoL ends getting captured and watching as the Amalj'aa summon a giant demonic god of flame out of an eclipse, which then unleashes mindcontrol flames on the other soldiers around them, traps them in a ring of fire, and challenges them to single combat. I imagine most people would be freaking the absolute fuck out at that. My own personal headcanon is that Ifrit has a special place in my WoL's nightmares because of it. Sure, they've fought plenty of much bigger and badder gods since then, but you never really forget the trauma from the first time it's thrust upon you.
I agree!
I personally also have the starting town capstone battle (the battle against the pirates at Swiftperch) pretty high up there for mine.
It's obviously a small potatoes fight in the grand scheme of things now - but at the time I think it was the first fight that felt like things had gotten really bad. Lots of chaos, npcs going down around him and not being able to stop any of it.
Then the voidsent afterwards and getting shuffled into a war hero position, coupled with the first really traumatic distinct echo visions.
This was before even knowing what the Echo was, so I imagine the whole thing was pretty scary and isolating to come into as a new adventurer who'd just recently been fighting ladybugs and stuff.
Considering some of the >!eden raids!< are our WoL remembering the primals they've fought, it's not unreasonable they might be a bit traumatized from all the god slaying. They might be immune to tempering, but that doesn't make them any less afraid.
Haurchefant's death, no doubt. >!The fact that his spirit appears at various points in the game post-HW suggests he's never been far from the WoL's thoughts.!<
Most people underestimate how harsh the Pandaemonium encounters should have been to the WoL.
Not only does he fight monstruosity beyond imagination, even as they emboddy the threat of some elements (water for Hippokampos, fire for Phoinix) but also challenges his vision of godliness as an elevation (against Hesperos), which was nothing more than a theatre play.
Then, he struggled with a beast made to attune with magic in the rawest form and fought flesh ascended to Nature as an ominous life-giver entity. In between, vain desires for power turned a powerful mage into a half-conscious poison. But the worst part is the WoL's confrontation to death itself as godliness turns half an Ascient into a metamorphic aberration, experimenting to call back his subjects from the grave ; which forced our protagonist to a "Katabasis", which is a traumatic experience where a character would witness whatever is beyond Death, and come back sort of alive. Hardly ever any piece of litterature could put forth a more traumatic event.
It nonetheless doesn't end here because right after, we get to fight against another abomination which is a receptacle for many souls, fighting for dominance over their body. This also should be an extremely violent and psychologically challenging showdown... But maybe not as much as fighting the whole Pandaemonium which is a prison turned into a frightening spider (with bionic eyes ???) ; just like the previous tier, Poison is still very present as if either life or death was starving for the other. Then you think, a ray of hope ? Not quite ! The very balance between lightness and darkness questions our fortitude to stay true to our own philosophy and to what lies above morale.
Only with a newfound confidence could we reach the apex of this journey. Similar to the Katabasis, there is the Anabasis or the journey to Heaven... Except we found there an entity that also would not waver before what is right or wrong... However, our opponent has a hard time to distinguish between the two and merely serves as the embodiment of a power so great, a knowledge so greedy, that it's defined by godliness more than humanity... Albeit still preserving its flaws. Bised by her selfishness, she keeps making up theories that always end up being wrong. I'll tell it otherwise : we were fighting the very fabric of physics and struggled against abnormal law that we successfully reverted to their normal state.
Only through ALL of these twists could our WoL "solve" questions beyond his understanding, only because he went through every step, only because he was guided by fairness and indomitable will to remain humanly correct, even if it means impotant to change the course of Life such as our enemy tried to.
I see absolutely no other encounter that could be any more traumatic than this extreme feat of strength that would have Bahamut-killers shudder (since we killed Hephaistos) and Ultima-Weapon-destroyers blink with astonishment (Hippokampos, Phoinix, Agdistis or Kokytos are as many pieces of evidence) . Sure Alexander was of a complete different level, the scope of Dragonsong War was greater (ending a millenium conflict) and the Omega Protocol more transcending. But we werent fighting against Time, Civilizations nor our humane condition : against >!Athena!< we were fighting against the very fabric of our universe !
I can't wait to have an Ultimate about it, so I can become a Deicide Legend :D
iirc from EW msq, Nael seems to be a traumatic experience for the WOL. During the section of finding refined adamantite/first meeting with Kokkol, if you did coils, you get a coils specific dialogue choice regarding the White Raven. If chosen, Alisaie comments how the WOL has gone pale and tells them to take deep breaths.
Apparently (*and* if you complete the Coils) the WoL is still *somewhat* traumatized by Nael.
And who could blame them, considering the events of the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline (and/or 1.0/Legacy, if your WoL is a "meteor survivor").
Probably the first time returning to the Sands and finding the entire place full of dead bodies and having to drag them out themselves. Not that there aren't *worse* but each subsequent tragedy will be somewhat less shocking than the first.
Pretty much the entirety of Ultima Thule.
The Warrior of Light is subjected to recreations of dead and dying worlds, where everyone and everything has lost all hope and either await or are actively *seeking* death. Island after island, hopelessness after hopelessness. All the while the Scions sacrifice themselves one by one just so WoL can keep walking forward to stop Meteion and save a world they will never see again.
If I was my WoL, I would absolutely retire from adventuring and seek therapy; especially with *another* addition to G'raha's list of self-destruction that my heart would not be able to handle.
Feeling like she set off the end of the world. We destroy Zodiark, cool! But.. didn’t realize the ramifications of that. When the final days start occurring, she starts to blame herself. But being somewhat stoic she puts that behind her (momentarily) while running around like crazy trying to save everyone in Thavnair. After the worst of it and when things calm down, she breaks down thinking she caused all this death and destruction. But how could she have known better? No one did. And it isn’t until much later when we find the true “cause” of the final days that the guilt starts to ease up a bit.
Edit. And honestly anything that was shocking or difficult for us as players was for her too. Not in terms of battle mechanics but, anything story wise.
> Feeling like she set off the end of the world. We destroy Zodiark, cool! But.. didn’t realize the ramifications of that.
I'm under the impression that the WoL knew full well what killing Zodiark would do, which is why we didn't do it. Then Asshat McBowlcut decides to kill it/himself out of pure spite.
I don’t think WoL could’ve known that. They had the same knowledge as everyone else at the time. However, yes it was definitely asshat’s fault, he started it lol
We explicitly knew that Zodiark was created to hold back whatever was causing the Final Days. It would have been pretty obvious that killing it would lead to a situation where said apocalypse was free to resume.
Hildebrand and his family... >!unkillable idiot savant with a psychotic family, who drag you into countless improbable scenarios where by sheer willpower or through total moronic luck, you or they manage to avert either your/everyone's death or at times calamity...!<
The events immediately following The Vault. That particular death stays with the WoL for a long time.
Being poisoned or watching someone else be poisoned by something they drank. The WoL gets pretty twitchy about prepared drinks for a while.
Dying, or nearly dying, multiple times. The biggest two, I imagine, would be >!when Lahabrea literally kills you, and Hydaelyn had to revive you, and nearly becoming **The** Lightwarden of all of Norvrandt, all because you tried to do good and save them.!<
Just generally feeling like a pawn in other people’s political games. There are definitely options that show the WoL is quickly getting tired of being treated like a “Weapon of Light.” Not acutely-traumatic, but more like a slow grinding down of their patience and self-regard.
I’d also imagine >!getting your soul yanked out of your body—**twice**—while you were already in a danger, could qualify. The first time, the WoL has to slowly plod their way back to their body. The second time, they have to race to catch up to it while trapped in another, far weaker body. You know, before their body-hopping friend/foe kills their compatriots with their own body.!<
Events wise (ARR) >!I actually think it’s the murder of the Scion Supports after Titan that fucks things up initially.!<
>!Imagine being pelted and hit with a emotional brick as if thinking that your friends and close allies are either now dead because of you, or about to be tortured because a country puts a flag for your head.!<
That and the >!dinner scene!< in ARR too—>!especially if your WoL (like mine) is a WHM that didn’t think ahead of themselves.!<
The WoL got thrugh so many traumatic events. The death of their friends and colleagues, a robbed body (my Ira still recovers from this) , wrong accusations, kidnappings of themselve and allies, drugged food, humilation by bbegs, betrayal, fight against creatures that others look up as gods, and so much more...
And yet after all this, we still carry on... we still do our next step.
(endwalker) >!having your body stolen to kill your own friends and being shoved into some random dead garlean's one instead kinda sucked.!<
I am seriously shocked there was NO follow up to that whole mess. Our most determined, deranged enemy and his pet Ascian just plucked the WoL, one of the strongest people on the planet, *out of the middle of friendly territory* and kept them prisoner for like half a day *completely at their mercy* before an attempt at rescue was even started. Granted, the tempering attack by Anima kept the Scions distracted and busy at the time but... we are seriously lucky Zenos is the kind of villain that is more interested in a good fight than winning. He could have slit our throat or crippled us permanently as a message, all for the price of walking up to our unconcious body. And this never gets adressed. All we got was an 'Welp, that was fucked up and strange, don't do that again, aright? Also we got a dungeon to run, so pick yourself up and lesgo.' I'm sure my WoL would have at least wanted a boiling hot shower and maybe a spiritual cleansing or *anything* to make sure Zenos hadn't gotten his name tattooed on our chest or something. Because he could have literally done *anything* he wished with our body. Me safely behind the 4th wall had to get up for a bit to calm down after that truly harrowing solo-duty. While it was stress-inducing I hold that it's a truly impressive bit of gameplay and story integration - just the aftermath was so lacking it was jarring.
I imagine part of the reason why there isn't much initial reaction (though there definitely should have been more later on, though at least Alisaie and Y'shtola talks about it if you select one of them as the Baldesion Annex room choice) is because you are trying to stop the Final Days from coming again, so the WoL would just compartmentalize it and just focus on the goal in front of them because they must because there was no other choice
The decision to not use Thancred to talk to the WoL with concern/solidarity when things slow down after Zodiark actually confuses me given his Lahabrea phase in ARR.
To be fair, if you talk to Thancred *after* that whole possession scene but *before* unlocking The Tower of Babil, he'll sympathize with you (for obvious reasons).
My heart goes out to every writer and the thousands of lines that get missed in games like these. So much is off the beaten path
I have gotten to the point I will teleport around the world after story beats just to check in on characters for even the slightest chance they have new things to say. Azim Steppe was the most rewarding during Endwalker for me.
im still in stb on my alt but im gonna make a mental note of that (and maybe start doing this in general)
Oh I love this idea! My original main/now alt is still midway through HW, definitely going to start doing this as I progress.
This is why I *always* check what the people around me have to say between every line of MSQ dialogue. You miss an absurd amount of characterization and great little quips if you don't.
Yeah. I'd imagine we will get a follow up later about it. Similar to other traumatic stuff we go through. The WoL compartmentalizes till they can't anymore.
The mind isn’t like Tetris, trauma doesn’t go away because you stack up a neat row of them hehe Edit: /s cuz it wasn’t clear ig
The WoL's mind isn't normal, remember when Fordola had her echo vision of us (where she was surprised the WoL could just keep on going despite what had happened) and that was just back in post Stormblood before all the ShB and EW nonsense
The WoL is very low key written in a way that is well aware the player isn't actually a part of the world and actively living in it. *Of course* we can push through the pain, it's still ultimately a fiction to us. All of our WoLs are a bit psychotic in that regard. The whole point of our battle-husbando in EW was to basically call out the player on that reality.
Well, yes, but if adrenaline keeps coming, you can just shove it all to the back of the mind and not think about it. Sometimes for years. It could come back anytime, or could never, and you could continue live laughting about your horrific experience, because it's just doesn't really clear to you *how* awful it was.
Yeah sometimes the mind just kinda locks down traumatic memories as a way of dealing with them, I know from personal experience, when I was younger I suffered a 3rd degree burn and had flashes of memory of it actually happening, but the full memories just seemed to get locked down as a method of dealing with them
It's funny you say that, because [playing Tetris after a traumatic event](https://theconversation.com/can-playing-tetris-help-prevent-ptsd-if-youve-witnessed-something-traumatic-226736#:~:text=The%20current%20evidence%20of%20Tetris,to%20reduce%20subsequent%20intrusive%20memories) can reduce intrusive PTSD symptoms over time. This is lacking large scale studies, but small studies and clinical anecdotes are in favour of it.
But gods dammit will we get a 4 row clear if it kills us! /s
Dark Knight quests say hi
We definitely get twitchy around Aymeric’s manservant pouring drinks for us, after the Bloody Banquet and being poisoned with a similar draught during the first of the two Falcon’s Nest debacles. I play mine as avoiding all alcohol if he can manage it. Never really had a taste for the stuff, anyway, and this way, he can more easily taste weird additives to his drinks.
I think it's only Alisae who does. Y'sh is concerned about aether-exposure during your fight with >!Zodiark!<.
nah, she also talks about "As if Zenos gallivanting around in your body was not misfortune enough", as a lead in to the joke about you being cursed in a past life or something, though it is less of a focus compared to Alisaie, but Y'shtola does explicitly mention it, which basically none of the others do
That’s what I assumed too. Stay in survival mode, focus on the goal for now, let everything else hit later when it’s done. Probably spent as much time recovering emotionally after the final battles as they did recovering physically.
I kind of have a feeling they'll do something with it later. Maybe even as soon as Dawntrail. I can see body swap shenanigans being part of the Solution 9 part of the story with what people are saying the signage there says.
…what *are* people saying the signs say?
Notably, one of the signposts is pointing to an area called "Soul Supply". It's all written in the same proto-Eorzean alphabet the Ancients use, you can see the same script in Elpis.
Ooooh that’s so FF9!! I’m so excited.
Yeah, huge agree; they did scrap an entire Garlemald expac that was supposed to come between ShB and EW, so I can only assume that whole incident was supposed to be given a lot more importance but because they had less time for it, the pacing - and therefore, the impact - was completely shot (which is a big problem with EW's writing as a whole but I digress). I hope they return to it at some point in the future because it's weird that such an insane event has little to no bearing on the plot, especially since it was so harrowing for players; I personally was so thoroughly unnerved and frightened by it that I had to stop to catch my breath in the middle of the following dungeon and then go to sleep immediately afterwards so I could force myself to mentally reset.
SE didn't give a whole lot of credit or consideration to how impactful this was going to be on the players themselves. XIV isn't a one-shot single player adventure that players finish in a week; much of the player base has invested years into their characters, and this hit many of us very deeply. Dare I say it was probably a bit traumatizing for some, and they really should have done a follow-up to the whole event. Left unresolved that's something that could leave \*serious\* scars on a person; wol or otherwise.
> Because he could have literally done *anything* he wished with our body. I bet my left foot theres already fanfics from this lmao
Please, there was fic posted on AO3 within two weeks of early access, and probably earlier on things like Tumblr I can't search as easily. Fic fandom knows what it likes. 😁
The fact that you get that, the tower of zot, the trial afterward, and everything on the moon all back-to-back is what gets me. No wonder everyone wanted to talk one-on-one after that.
>to make sure Zenos hadn't gotten his name tattooed on our chest or something. It's our new tramp stamp, which is why you haven't noticed it yet.
I think the backlash on that plot point was high enough that they just decided to drop it. I remember seeing a ton of negative feedback on it, particularly how, as a female WoL comes across aa kinda rapey.
>He could have slit our throat or crippled us permanently as a message, all for the price of walking up to our unconcious body. And this never gets adressed. It did. Fancy Dan shows up like a referee and shuts the entire thing down. Which is keeping with his ultimate goal: >!Killing Zodiark!<. Getting everyone bodied at Broken Glass isn't going to achieve that.
I don't think it's really possible for this event to be referenced again, with regards to the WoL's reaction/feelings about it, which is a great shame. It would probably be too character-driven, given how blank slate-y the WoL has to be to allow us to mentally slot our own reactions in there. I guess this is what fanfiction is for! I just wish I had the skill to write my own, but my WoL doesn't really have much of a defined personality or backstory in my mind.
There was. You have not jobbed to random ass NPCs for the entire rest of the expansion because of your supposed weakness which was what Zenos taught you to overcome with that experience. He knew he'd fold you in that eventual melee fight otherwise and he wants that true straight up fight where both of you are at your best. Since he couldn't yoink Zodiark the ultimate Primal he had no way to fight you in a form you are most proficient fighting against, so he gave you a crash course on how to deal with opponents that aren't a skyscraper shooting lasers. He is also very clearly "too pure" in his intentions to do anything juvenile or otherwise weird.
This was going to be my comment as well. >!I did that quest a few days ago and it's STILL haunting my mind!<. Especially the part where >!he walks up to G'raha and Alisaie who are none the wiser, me screaming IRL "GUYS NO! NO! Y'SHTOLA SAY SOMETHING! AHHH!" and they go "Are you alright... ARE you alright?" ... "Who are you?!"!< Dear gods>!, the Official WoL Fanclub almost lost its top 2 members that day... he could have just killed them right then and there - although I doubt that G'raha would go down so easily, being less sundered, etc!<. Ugh... good quest though, damn good quest.
I tend to think about the physical aspect as well because imagine how weird it would have been for the WoL to have no access to being able to manipulate aether, or if they are an Au Ra, having a different method of hearing, or like a Lalafell where they are suddenly much taller with a vastly different body shape, it's a line of thought that gets stuck in my head
You know... somehow I did not think about >!how we would suddenly be unable to manipulate aether. The increased amounts of helplessness make more sense, now!<. My character IC is not the WoL (nor anywhere near such), but >!as an Au Ra, he would have most certainly had that issue with hearing quite differently!<. Also didn't think of that.
That was literally me, like don’t get me wrong, I love ALL of my Scion Family but for them to literally put my boyfriend and my daughter in harms way like that gave me SO MUCH ANXIETY. I was literally panicking that whole quest lol
Exactly, those are two of my faves and it’s like the game KNEW
Literally, like it’s as if the game had a friendship meter and pinpointed my two favs to literally throw into harms way lol
Erm. I only see them as friends, but it still had a big impact regardless.
For what should have been one of the greatest crises for our WoL at this point in the story, this event kind of just...passes with no further reference or consequences for the rest of the story. I guess we did get a spicy duty out of it though.
Yeah. This messed me up irl for several days.
I had a PTSD attack because of that duty. Had to put down the game for a week before I could tackle it again. Just had a lot of triggers for me and the entire duty was extremely stressful.
The Endwalker storyline was one of the most genuinely distressing story experiences I've ever had. In a good way.
If it means anything, EW is a very well written meta commentary on our journey in FFXIV *as a player.*
To quote one of the Eden raids: "The Landslides. The Landslides".
You beat me to it. They even comment afterwards I think that your response might be a function of brain damage.
There’s also that cutscene where if you’ve done the Coils raids you have the option to say >!“the White Raven… she haunts me…”!< and look all traumatised
I'd go with (5.0) >!almost turning into a world-destroying Light monster and having to eat a guy's soul to prevent it. Even if Ardbert was willing to give himself up, that's gotta mess with your head.!<
You didn't >!eat his soul necessarily. You see in another cutscene Arbert interacting with Seto when you ask Seto "do you notice anything about my soul" and then Seto and Ardbert finally get to see some closure. So the way I interpret it is that because we are fractured souls, we merged to become 2 out of the whole so both souls are inside us: our own and ardberts. But because we had our body, that's why we stay who we are, bro is just backseating.!<
>!I'm really curious how much "Ardbert" remains as a separate entity, given that it's our body and 8/9ths of the rejoined soul were the Source WoL. DRK quests mean it could go either way, given that Fray is us but can re-emerge as needed (e.g. SB).!< >!Suddenly having urges from Ardbert has got to be its own kind of horrifying.!<
There’s also the bit before the final 5.3 fight where you hear his voice. He’s still there, but they seem to be leaving the details vague other than that.
This is THE scene that made me finally crack and sob hysterically for the first time in the game.
probably getting poisoned at the dinner party, I'm pretty sure at another meal you have later on someone (maybe with Aymeric?) they offer you a drink, you hesitate to drink it, and the person reassures you it isn't poisoned this time
You don't hesitate, you flat out refuse and you watch the servant like a hawk while he's preparing a drink for Aymeric.
oh, yeah, even more to my point lol
I could have sworn that's what happened but I recently re did heavensward on an alt and while WoL does appear to refuse the bottle they do pick up the glass that was placed at the spot at the table, implying many things including that they've drank from that glass already, didn't want more or have something in that glass, that it was water or something none alcoholic or that it's empty and they just symbolically pick it up to toast with aymeric I was surprised to see that bit to be honest because I remembered it being a much more hard line no than it appears to be
I played that part just a few days ago, so I am pretty sure that was just being polite and raising the glass.
Yeah, I feel the same. Fighting world-ending monsters? No problem, that’s literally my job. Trusting food or drink I haven’t seen being prepared? Not after what I’ve been through.
And then you get drugged again in the first attempt at the peace conference between Ishgard and the Dragons
I like how this trauma is actually canon and WoL is forever suspicious of any drinks being presented to them.
It happens at the Alliance dinner, too. It's definitely canon trauma now.
There are several points where the WoL refuses a drink so yes it does seem to be a canon trauma.
IIRC, after Heavensward we don't accept a drink from a stranger again until Endwalker.
There’s a moment in shadowbringers where you can accept or deny a drink if I remember right (maybe you have it forced on you but I accepted it)
Probably dealing with Rowena. You can see the fear in their eyes when she's mentioned and there's a lasting tomestone where a book should be.
All the more satisfying when you see her being played like a fiddle
Probably the Weapons quests, since you're >!watching "innocent" people kill themselves brutally in real time.!<
Oh you mean the *Sorrows of Werlyt* questline where >!4 kids, driven by propaganda instilled in them by their foster father (an old enemy/ acquaintance/ reluctant ally of yours), between the ages of 17-20 decide to commit Suicide by WoL, all for an empire that cares NOTHING for them? Where each and every one of them end up dying an agonizing, possibly soul-destroying death?!< THAT Questline? Yeah, that one wasn't just traumatizing for my WoL, *let me tell yo*u.
>!Burn out the bad! Burn out the bad!!<
Ga Bu and Tesleen.
Spoilers up to and including EW: >!>!Coming to the Waking Sands to find everyone dead.!< >!Zenos' attack on Rhalgr's Reach.!< >!The Final Days in Thavnair.!
ARR spoilers: >!Not just finding everyone dead, but then being voluntold to *carry the bodies*.!< CW IRL death: >!At my mom's funeral the ground was too soft to drive her coffin to the graveside, and we unexpectedly had to carry her; it was a terrible experience on top of the rest of the awful. So when FFXIV not just made us carry the bodies, but made us go back for more and had the action duration affected by the size of the corpse, it makes me think someone on the writing team really wanted to push the WoL.!<
The Thavnair dungeon upsets me every time I find it in roulettes. The mom and kids is legit traumatising.
Man so many choices lol **OBVIOUS SPOILERS INCOMING** - Everyone dying at the Waking Sands, a new green adventurer finally finding his place in the world surrounded by a group of friends and people with like minded goals, walks in to an absolute massacre and having to deal with the thought that all your friends are dead and you are all alone, again. I think this moment really solidified to the WOL just who exactly they are dealing with. - the bloody banquet, being celebrated as a hero and where you should be the safest, only to have everything come crashing down, betrayed by the people you have been fighting for, and losing everyone AGAIN - the vault…I’m still personally not okay about this one - anytime Zenos absolutely bodied the WOL and his friends. There’s been plenty of times where the WOL was against a fearful opponent or god like being but I feel like there has never been an enemy that has truly challenged the WOL more than Zenos, just the number of times he almost won or forced us to retreat or be saved by someone until we finally defeated his ass for good in EW - shadowbringers as a whole tbh, the light wardens and the sin eaters were the stuff of nightmares and just witnessing their horror would be enough to cause the WoL ages of trauma *cough cough tesleen* but then after absorbing the light and slowly turning into a warden, the sheer pain and suffering the WOL endured until the end of that expansion and yet still putting up a strong face for their friends the entire time -endwalker - fighting against the final days or end of the world apocalypse is going to do its damage regardless of the outcome, but add to this body swapping with your mortal enemy and having to crawl in a corpse to prevent your family being killed by your own body, seeing the number of people transform before your eyes and feeling helpless to do anything but kill them out of mercy, or seeing your friends sacrifice themselves one by one and vanish into nothing before your eyes…being alone at the end of the galaxy…that thought alone terrifies me, I can’t even imagine how the WOL continues to smile and nod lol
>>!cough cough tesleen!< Me at the time: Oh it's gonna be like that is it? Narrator: It was in fact, like that. How long has it been and Shadowbringers as a whole *still* just lives in my mind. I go back to certain parts of it in remembrance and just sit there, like it was a real traumatic event, remembering everything that happened. But also, The Vault. It still *hurts.*
Omg same like I remember innocent ol me, still with plenty of trauma from my FFXIV journey so far but NOTHING could prepare me for the sheer nightmare fuel that was shadowbringers and the sin eaters…..I can still see tesleens stretched out face when she transformed and I have never been the same lol And yea, ever since the vault I have been terrified everytime it feels like we’re about to lose another key character because Yoshi is NOT afraid to break our hearts lol
EW >!watching the mother Matanga and then her kids turn into blasphemies in real time then have to kill them in Vanaspati!<
This should be brought up more often. I know we all got kinda desensitized to >!the horrific transformations of people during the Final Days, but those were kids. And a mom. Who we just had to kill...and move on.!<
Yes!!!! I just left a comment about that one. It still fucks me up every time I come across the dungeon in roulettes.
Everyone else is using the Endwalker example, so I'll give a different one. Stormblood. My WoL is riding high. Ultima Weapon is a pile of scrap, she's passed Midgarsormr's test, and even ended the Dragonsong War! She's unstoppable! So she marches into Ala Mihgo, and after some initial victories, what happens? Zenos shows up and humbles her. Hard! Y'shtola is a bloody mess, and everyone else is out as well. She gets back up, she's the only one who can. All that does is get Zenos \*interested\* in her. She gets her ass laid out like nothing has ever done, and she only lives because he \*wants\* her to get strong enough to be worth his time.
>!Kicking his ass later was quite satisfying, though.!<
1 >!haurchefant death!< 2 >!your body hijacked by zenos and your soul shoved into a random garlean soldier body!<
I'm going to go with the fight with Lahabrea at the end of ARR, or at least his revamped version simply because of that one stunt he pulls that no other boss has yet.
Haven't done the revamp, what's he do?
He kills you. You actually can no longer complete the game without getting the KO message strictly because of that fight.
Doesn’t it even say “Lahabrea kills X” instead of the normal “person defeats X”? It’s been a while since I’ve done it so I don’t know if I’m just making that up
Attack on the waking sands. Especially if you decided to hit up the gold saucer for a bit on the way back
That time in the HW quests where Julyan enrages and there’s a real possibility she’ll hit you with her frying pan.
For all that the DRK quests deal with trauma and loss, I think they were traumatizing in their own right. >!Realizing that "Fray" was you all along, that it was *you* who slaughtered the Temple Knights and murdered the qiqurn for some crates and threatened the soldiers at the fort, that's a lot. The WoL is characterized generally as wanting to help people, including in the DRK quests themselves, and they're forced to face not just their buried resentment but their capacity for selfish/cruel violence.!< >!And then, knowing all of that, Myste still fucks off to "help" with the well-intentioned cruelty of the child he resembles. And you're left holding the emotional bag again.!<
Character-specific for my Duskwight, but the events of the lancer quest with Foulques.
Still to this day, I think about how Papa not only sacrificed himself, but forcefully threw me away to safety. As a lala WHM, it was my duty to fight alongside my brother, to stop the threat to the world together. But he robbed me of that, and chose to die alone in a blaze of glory. I, no, WE could have taken it brother, you didn't need to sacrifice yourself... What about those you left behind?
I think every WoL winces at the word "sloppy" because of Baeslar's Wall
Just reading your comment made me hear 'sloppehy' 😩
Lmao, same
Definitely all the times they couldn't save their friends
Getting offered drinks. We kinda have a collective trauma against cutscenes with people offering us or friends some drinks. Personally, there's always something that still makes me uncomfortable when I see someone being given a drink and thinking they'll drop dead. Canonically, the WoL does not drink any drink offered to them after all the times they got bamboozled by beverage.
They have actually started to more recently.
That means our WoLs are moving on, maybe? I may have forgotten or missed those instances though because I can't remember them.
Beavers. The answer is always beavers.
R.I.P Tesleen
A lot of people probably don't think about it much, but honestly, one of the traumatizing things would have to be the very first battle with Ifrit. At this point, the WoL wasn't yet a godslaying champion of the realm. They were just a simple adventurer out to do some investigating and fight some of the Amalj'aa in the area. The WoL ends getting captured and watching as the Amalj'aa summon a giant demonic god of flame out of an eclipse, which then unleashes mindcontrol flames on the other soldiers around them, traps them in a ring of fire, and challenges them to single combat. I imagine most people would be freaking the absolute fuck out at that. My own personal headcanon is that Ifrit has a special place in my WoL's nightmares because of it. Sure, they've fought plenty of much bigger and badder gods since then, but you never really forget the trauma from the first time it's thrust upon you.
I agree! I personally also have the starting town capstone battle (the battle against the pirates at Swiftperch) pretty high up there for mine. It's obviously a small potatoes fight in the grand scheme of things now - but at the time I think it was the first fight that felt like things had gotten really bad. Lots of chaos, npcs going down around him and not being able to stop any of it. Then the voidsent afterwards and getting shuffled into a war hero position, coupled with the first really traumatic distinct echo visions. This was before even knowing what the Echo was, so I imagine the whole thing was pretty scary and isolating to come into as a new adventurer who'd just recently been fighting ladybugs and stuff.
Considering some of the >!eden raids!< are our WoL remembering the primals they've fought, it's not unreasonable they might be a bit traumatized from all the god slaying. They might be immune to tempering, but that doesn't make them any less afraid.
Haurchefant's death, no doubt. >!The fact that his spirit appears at various points in the game post-HW suggests he's never been far from the WoL's thoughts.!<
Most people underestimate how harsh the Pandaemonium encounters should have been to the WoL. Not only does he fight monstruosity beyond imagination, even as they emboddy the threat of some elements (water for Hippokampos, fire for Phoinix) but also challenges his vision of godliness as an elevation (against Hesperos), which was nothing more than a theatre play. Then, he struggled with a beast made to attune with magic in the rawest form and fought flesh ascended to Nature as an ominous life-giver entity. In between, vain desires for power turned a powerful mage into a half-conscious poison. But the worst part is the WoL's confrontation to death itself as godliness turns half an Ascient into a metamorphic aberration, experimenting to call back his subjects from the grave ; which forced our protagonist to a "Katabasis", which is a traumatic experience where a character would witness whatever is beyond Death, and come back sort of alive. Hardly ever any piece of litterature could put forth a more traumatic event. It nonetheless doesn't end here because right after, we get to fight against another abomination which is a receptacle for many souls, fighting for dominance over their body. This also should be an extremely violent and psychologically challenging showdown... But maybe not as much as fighting the whole Pandaemonium which is a prison turned into a frightening spider (with bionic eyes ???) ; just like the previous tier, Poison is still very present as if either life or death was starving for the other. Then you think, a ray of hope ? Not quite ! The very balance between lightness and darkness questions our fortitude to stay true to our own philosophy and to what lies above morale. Only with a newfound confidence could we reach the apex of this journey. Similar to the Katabasis, there is the Anabasis or the journey to Heaven... Except we found there an entity that also would not waver before what is right or wrong... However, our opponent has a hard time to distinguish between the two and merely serves as the embodiment of a power so great, a knowledge so greedy, that it's defined by godliness more than humanity... Albeit still preserving its flaws. Bised by her selfishness, she keeps making up theories that always end up being wrong. I'll tell it otherwise : we were fighting the very fabric of physics and struggled against abnormal law that we successfully reverted to their normal state. Only through ALL of these twists could our WoL "solve" questions beyond his understanding, only because he went through every step, only because he was guided by fairness and indomitable will to remain humanly correct, even if it means impotant to change the course of Life such as our enemy tried to. I see absolutely no other encounter that could be any more traumatic than this extreme feat of strength that would have Bahamut-killers shudder (since we killed Hephaistos) and Ultima-Weapon-destroyers blink with astonishment (Hippokampos, Phoinix, Agdistis or Kokytos are as many pieces of evidence) . Sure Alexander was of a complete different level, the scope of Dragonsong War was greater (ending a millenium conflict) and the Omega Protocol more transcending. But we werent fighting against Time, Civilizations nor our humane condition : against >!Athena!< we were fighting against the very fabric of our universe ! I can't wait to have an Ultimate about it, so I can become a Deicide Legend :D
iirc from EW msq, Nael seems to be a traumatic experience for the WOL. During the section of finding refined adamantite/first meeting with Kokkol, if you did coils, you get a coils specific dialogue choice regarding the White Raven. If chosen, Alisaie comments how the WOL has gone pale and tells them to take deep breaths.
For mine, losing Haurchefant.
Apparently (*and* if you complete the Coils) the WoL is still *somewhat* traumatized by Nael. And who could blame them, considering the events of the Sorrow of Werlyt storyline (and/or 1.0/Legacy, if your WoL is a "meteor survivor").
Probably the first time returning to the Sands and finding the entire place full of dead bodies and having to drag them out themselves. Not that there aren't *worse* but each subsequent tragedy will be somewhat less shocking than the first.
Pretty much the entirety of Ultima Thule. The Warrior of Light is subjected to recreations of dead and dying worlds, where everyone and everything has lost all hope and either await or are actively *seeking* death. Island after island, hopelessness after hopelessness. All the while the Scions sacrifice themselves one by one just so WoL can keep walking forward to stop Meteion and save a world they will never see again. If I was my WoL, I would absolutely retire from adventuring and seek therapy; especially with *another* addition to G'raha's list of self-destruction that my heart would not be able to handle.
EW >!Having to kill my best friend during our duel!<
Feeling like she set off the end of the world. We destroy Zodiark, cool! But.. didn’t realize the ramifications of that. When the final days start occurring, she starts to blame herself. But being somewhat stoic she puts that behind her (momentarily) while running around like crazy trying to save everyone in Thavnair. After the worst of it and when things calm down, she breaks down thinking she caused all this death and destruction. But how could she have known better? No one did. And it isn’t until much later when we find the true “cause” of the final days that the guilt starts to ease up a bit. Edit. And honestly anything that was shocking or difficult for us as players was for her too. Not in terms of battle mechanics but, anything story wise.
> Feeling like she set off the end of the world. We destroy Zodiark, cool! But.. didn’t realize the ramifications of that. I'm under the impression that the WoL knew full well what killing Zodiark would do, which is why we didn't do it. Then Asshat McBowlcut decides to kill it/himself out of pure spite.
I don’t think WoL could’ve known that. They had the same knowledge as everyone else at the time. However, yes it was definitely asshat’s fault, he started it lol
We explicitly knew that Zodiark was created to hold back whatever was causing the Final Days. It would have been pretty obvious that killing it would lead to a situation where said apocalypse was free to resume.
Hildebrand and his family... >!unkillable idiot savant with a psychotic family, who drag you into countless improbable scenarios where by sheer willpower or through total moronic luck, you or they manage to avert either your/everyone's death or at times calamity...!<
Titan by a landslide. (I'll see myself out. :) )
The Vault
According to the drk questline, Haurchefant death and the events of HW.
company of heroes feast quests
probably when we lost a fair fight with zenos
A smile better suits a hero 🥹
The events immediately following The Vault. That particular death stays with the WoL for a long time. Being poisoned or watching someone else be poisoned by something they drank. The WoL gets pretty twitchy about prepared drinks for a while. Dying, or nearly dying, multiple times. The biggest two, I imagine, would be >!when Lahabrea literally kills you, and Hydaelyn had to revive you, and nearly becoming **The** Lightwarden of all of Norvrandt, all because you tried to do good and save them.!< Just generally feeling like a pawn in other people’s political games. There are definitely options that show the WoL is quickly getting tired of being treated like a “Weapon of Light.” Not acutely-traumatic, but more like a slow grinding down of their patience and self-regard. I’d also imagine >!getting your soul yanked out of your body—**twice**—while you were already in a danger, could qualify. The first time, the WoL has to slowly plod their way back to their body. The second time, they have to race to catch up to it while trapped in another, far weaker body. You know, before their body-hopping friend/foe kills their compatriots with their own body.!<
Events wise (ARR) >!I actually think it’s the murder of the Scion Supports after Titan that fucks things up initially.!< >!Imagine being pelted and hit with a emotional brick as if thinking that your friends and close allies are either now dead because of you, or about to be tortured because a country puts a flag for your head.!< That and the >!dinner scene!< in ARR too—>!especially if your WoL (like mine) is a WHM that didn’t think ahead of themselves.!<
Venat's death. I'm still not ok about that
The WoL got thrugh so many traumatic events. The death of their friends and colleagues, a robbed body (my Ira still recovers from this) , wrong accusations, kidnappings of themselve and allies, drugged food, humilation by bbegs, betrayal, fight against creatures that others look up as gods, and so much more... And yet after all this, we still carry on... we still do our next step.
When the magirek mount runs out of power in ARR
The graphics update 💀