FFXI Plot-holes and unclear issues

[Kachiko]

In the last chapter, what exactly were the forms of the five ladies that came to your aid, fighting the void-invested crystal? They had the Terrestrial avatar look, but the ones summoned, back during the Chapter 6 final future battle, didn't have the same look. Neither did the versions, in the last CS, where you're having, what seems to be, some form of dream, in the Mother Crystal. From what I can gather, the five ladies never really spent time together, in any of the story-lines, but act like the closest of friends, in that final scene. If neither group were the real ones, then what exactly are they trying to show us, in that last scene?

[Spira]

they're Trust alter-egos of the 5 ladies, literally summoned by your super friendship powers with them. I assume they were picked because if we go by mission story canon, they are in fact the people who become the closest to you throughout your adventures.
They don't glow in Reisenjima because youre dead and its a dream.. and since its a dream none of whatever happens in it may necessarily be true.

The actual 5 ladies never ever meet each other, as far as I can remember, but alter-egos do retain the original being's personality and are essentially sentient copies of them, so you can assume their interactions to be the same as if they actually met.

[Yuella]

i think Prishe and Lion met briefly at the end of Apocalypse Nigh although Lion might be unconscious

[Spira]

oh yes i forgot about that.. and also they'd at least know of each other through Dynamis i think

[The Assman]

Lion rescued Prishe from Diabolos somehow but her contact with the crystals was giving her nightmares so that created CoP Dynamis.

[Seha]

I can understand Lili, 'Meira, Prishe and Arcy are our best friends...but my character is still wondering who the fuck Lion is.

[Kachiko]

I can understand Lili, 'Meira, Prishe and Arcy are our best friends...but my character is still wondering who the fuck Lion is.

She showed up in the Nation Missions, as well as a pivotal role in the ZM story-line, but ya, she pretty much disappeared, for most of the game; being inside the crystal, through CoP, and then recovering, in bed, up until/through Rhapsodies. I'd honestly say we got to know Aldo better than Lion, but that would break the damsels in distress pattern that FFXI had going.

[Spira]

To be fair if RotZ were designed and released today we'd definitely get more filler mission content that'd allow us to know her much better

[Kachiko]

Still strikes me as odd that one clash of power, between your light/dark self, is enough to keep the Void away for eternity, or was there more to it then that and I just missed it?

[Jem]

So just came back and I finished up WotG before continuing RoV. One thing that seemed bizarre to me was they made a big deal about Lilisette being trapped in the alternate reality as the new Lady Lilith. Everybody cried and was sad about it. Then in RoV they just have her turn up with no explanation or fanfare as to why she can just come back and see your character, like it was no big deal and you could have seen her at any point.


And random WotG things:

Do we actually know who Aquila and Haudraule are in our Vana'diel?

Robel-Akbel randomly turning up as a Spitewarden with no explanation or lines. Then he's never seen again after that point. I assume it is explained in the Windy questline but if so, that's pretty awful storytelling considering the majority of people are going to go down Bastok/Sandy routes.

If our Vana'diel is supposed to be the fake one because Altana was sad about what happened in the real future. Then why do all these other nigh apocalyptic events after the crystal war happen in the 'happy future' that's a dream/not real? Because presumably they don't happen in the you're fucked future. You'd think we wouldn't dream up all this horrible stuff happening! Or is what Cait Sith says true and both futures are real? (Despite her earlier admitting the opposite)

And does WotG effectively make dynamis some sort of inception crap?

[Kincard]

@Kachiko

It's all fantasy power level bullshit, but the explanation seems to be that since the PC created light/dark deity versions of yourself that was powerful enough to stop CoD. I'm assuming that when the PC in the future began to study how to defeat the CoD, s/he referenced the fact that Prishe and Selh'teus both attained immortality by removing the Emptiness within themselves. PC attempted to reproduce this, therefore bad end etc.

@Jem

I remember there being some lines explaining why Lilisette could come back to our world, but she made it clear it was only temporary and she still had to go back to Lilith's world.

I don't think Aquila and Haudraule are ever explained, it's probably one of those copout "use your imagination" things that may or may not work for you. Also I don't know why you would assume everyone would go for the Bastok/Sandy route, but regardless the game has always had a ton of the story details hidden in side quests and the like. I mean, you don't really learn, for example, what happens to Iru-Kuiru unless you do the Windurst Nation missions.

As far as the overarching plot of WOTG goes, I personally don't care much for alternate reality/time travel stories myself, so I do agree with your assessment somewhat. With RoV in existence there's now a retroactive explanation (that Altana wanted to avoid the world swinging too hard in the Darkness direction). I mean, back when WOTG came out I guess it was just the one alternate reality so it made it feel more special- it was Altana intervening the one time she thought it was really necessary, but with all the crazy alternate realities introduced since then it does make less sense now.

Also Dynamis is similar, but unrelated. It's an alternate reality made by Diabolos. So yeah, I guess it's Inception.

[Jem]

Well I say the majority based on an even split amongst the three nations. So 2 out of 3 players would have no idea why he suddenly turns up with the Spitewardens for 1 cutscene and then never appears again. Like there wasn't even a throwaway line from Lilith/Spitewardens to explain him joining them or disappearing thereafter. You'd think they'd at least slot that in.

As a standalone I quite enjoyed WotG even if they threw in way too much recapping at the end (I guess because of how long it took them to get through the story in real time). But in the context of all the other stories our character has been through, it doesn't make much sense. I assume Adoulin is going to mess with that even more since alternate realities is seemingly the only story they had after a certain point.

[Spira]

Dynamis is pretty much inception. its an alternate reality but also just pockets of alternate reality, and it probably depends on whose dream it is? its been too long >_<

[Damane]

So just came back and I finished up WotG before continuing RoV. One thing that seemed bizarre to me was they made a big deal about Lilisette being trapped in the alternate reality as the new Lady Lilith. Everybody cried and was sad about it. Then in RoV they just have her turn up with no explanation or fanfare as to why she can just come back and see your character, like it was no big deal and you could have seen her at any point.


And random WotG things:

Do we actually know who Aquila and Haudraule are in our Vana'diel?

Robel-Akbel randomly turning up as a Spitewarden with no explanation or lines. Then he's never seen again after that point. I assume it is explained in the Windy questline but if so, that's pretty awful storytelling considering the majority of people are going to go down Bastok/Sandy routes.

If our Vana'diel is supposed to be the fake one because Altana was sad about what happened in the real future. Then why do all these other nigh apocalyptic events after the crystal war happen in the 'happy future' that's a dream/not real? Because presumably they don't happen in the you're fucked future. You'd think we wouldn't dream up all this horrible stuff happening! Or is what Cait Sith says true and both futures are real? (Despite her earlier admitting the opposite)

And does WotG effectively make dynamis some sort of inception crap?

If i remember correctly, and someone pls correct me if I am wrong: robel-akbel in wotg is acutally Karaha-Baruha from Lady Liliths Vanadiel world (not our Vanadiel). In that timeline he failed to summon Fenrir and came back in time to make sure, that Karaha-Baruha (himself) succeeds in Summoning Fenrir. I think it is somewhere mentioned that he used Lilith as a gatepass into the past, merly just useing here to gain access to the past. (WotG Missions Windurst lines).

Our Karaha succeeded in summoning Fenrir, but died/merged later in the process with Fenrir (Windurst missions Rank6+)

[Dotsudoku]

Just as an aside, if you didn't complete Windurst's WotG branch you missed out on probably the best storyline this game has ever put out

[Sechs]

The best of the game? I don't know about that, but the best of WotG for sure.
Jem keep in mind that the WotG main story and the cities stories were written by different people, commissioned work.
It's probably why there are several inconsistancies between them.
In hindsight I feel windy is the only one that really fits well with WotG main story and the game's story in general.

[Kincard]

I mean, unlike the Nation Missions the Past Nation Quests are not limited based on which faction you join, so they probably fully expected everyone to do all of them, especially considering how slowly they came out.

Damane hit all the key points of who Robel-Akbel is, but IIRC Karaha-Baraha was actually introduced from the day the game came out- if you create a new character and speak with NPCs around Windurst, many of them will reference the hero of Windurst that drove off the Yagudo 20 years ago.

Honestly one of my problems with WOTG's story is that a lot of it is just belaboring on things we already knew. For example we already knew all the stuff about Perih Vashai, the Bow of Light, and Semih Lafihna's identity through the Ranger quests, but WOTG decided it'd be real cool if we got to see it happen in real time. I dunno, I generally don't care for it when any work of fiction does that because I'd rather see new things. WOTG's not too bad with it though, since they did have the time travel aspect- Lehko Habhoka was great.

As for Dynamis, its a realm created by Diabolos to save people from the Emptiness.

Dynamis Lord resulted when Diabolos could not contain Raogrimm's rage, and he began to take over the realm, so when you watch the final cutscene Raogrimm says he heard the ruler of Dynamis tell him to watch over Dynamis-Xarcabard until his rage subsides (Diabolos wasn't named then so it was just a tease leading into CoP, assuming you were one of the very, very few people that actually managed to get a kill of Dynamis Lord before CoP came out).

IIRC Dreamworld Dynamis was getting some kind of interference from a nightmare of a different being. I believe it is referring to Lion while she was dead (Prishe also mentions seeing her in her dreams as I recall).

[Jem]

Oh I actually know who Robel-Akbel is, I just found it bizarre how they handled it. Having people show up and disappear in the main storyline without explanation is bad. The Windurst quests might have covered it but they should have at least put something in for those who had not done the quests. Even if it was just Lilith or another Spitewarden making an off-hand comment about him no longer being around.

And the Dynamis comment was more because I imagine in Lilith's world Dynamis doesn't exist. And as our world is supposed to be the fake/dream world, that would make Dynamis a dream within a dream. And I'm pretty sure Dynamis CoP came about because of Lion's nightmares due to her link with the crystal. So a dreamperson in a dream world had bad dreams which caused an additional dreamworld to come into existence.

[Petitssk]

I might be misremembering things, but I'm fairly sure that Robel-Akbel actually was mentioned in one of the missions, at least I recall Lilith acknowledging the fact that he basically defected. However, I did do the Windurst quests, so that particular remark might be tied to having done the quests so as to avoid spoilering anything about the Windurst-storyline, which would be kind of pointless since the fact that he's standing among Lilith's Spitewardens already gives away the fact that he is a time-travelling wizard from an alternate reality.

[Spira]

There was definitely one cutscene somewhere where Lilith made reference to Robel not being around her/ being in Windurst. Don't remember which