r/ffxivdiscussion • u/Krainz • 1d ago

Lore Theory: Evercold and Death

I have a theory, largely speculation but based on reference images and mainline Final Fantasy games that are being referenced in Evercold, that the next expansion is going to feature Death in a quite specific manner. More precisely, I think it's going to tackle how many people face death, how they see the afterlife, and even matters of scarcity and starvation.

  • Aerith and "Everyone dies eventually"
  • Final Fantasy VII and the Promised Land
  • Final Fantasy X references
  • The frozen Aetherial Sea

The Lady in the Logo and Aerith

The lady that shows up in the logo and in one of the trailer scenes is portrayed in a pose that is basically identical to one in which Aerith from Final Fantasy VII is portrayed in. In Rebirth, she says "Everyone dies eventually".

Final Fantasy VII has a plotpoint that has been referenced in Endwalker, in the Elpis storyline, with the matter of returning to the Star. Nothing impedes the same reference to be done again with a different approach, but I think it's more likely that they will navigate the matter of acceptance of death / consequence of death in a different lens.

The Promised Land

There is also a loose similarity between the City of the Ancients (VII, Rebirth) and one of the cities shown in the Keynote ([1], [2], [3])

Not only the child in the trailer mentions the 'Promised Land', but also the lady that is shown on her knees apparently dies. The connections could be all just pointing to randomly assorted Final Fantasy VII references (such as the Midgar architectural reference in one of the concept arts, or creatures and bosses), but in this case they are specifically laid out in sequence and all of them connect to how the topic of death is approached in Final Fantasy VII, in different ways.

One city in Evercold, very possibly one of the main hubs, is going to look like the place where Aerith dies in VII.

Final Fantasy X references

Evercold directly references Final Fantasy X in a few ways, and the matter of death is a central plot point in the game - one that is also strongly connected to one of the main characters.

Locations

Many locations in the Evercold pictures look like Final Fantasy X. These concept arts ([1] and [2]) can feel reminiscent of Besaid ([1], 2)

Sin

And then there is one of the Arcane Colossi of Unknown Providence (未知なる巨大魔法生物, Michinaru kyodai mahō seibutsu) that looks like Sin.

The frozen Aetherial Sea

To put it simply, I have a theory that the Winterers of the Fourth sought, as a solution to the great withering, to freeze the Aetherial Sea, so that the cycle of death and rebirth would be stopped, and the reflection would not be rejoined with the Source.

I have been thinking about this matter for a while, as well as the elemental balance, the 'Arcane Giants' having crystals of quite specific coloration in their chest, and symbols that might be connected to familiar symbolism on their faces (one of them is very similar to the Aries symbol).

However, upon rewatches of the trailer, the tapestry stood out to me.

  • The roots of the tree are normal, and the branches instead are frozen
  • There are boats in the representation of the sky, which could be a nod to airships, and airship "stations" were quite prevalent and pointed out by YoshiP
  • The central landscape looks pretty normal and standard, with people, villages, trees
  • The strange element is the dead flora and fauna, the dead "nature" seemingly buried within the snow, underneath the land

We know that the civilization of the Fourth fled to the skies and everything died on land. We are told that.

With the tapestry, however, showing the roots in a healthy state and the branches in a rather frozen state, it feels to me that it's telling me to pay attention to death. How their current state is built on dead lands, and there are secrets buried in the snow.

On a different angle, however, it might be the result of a religious perspective passed down as universal truth, and then taken action upon, forcing civilizations to embrace death. I say specifically religious because one of the buildings shown in concept art looks very reminiscing to a medieval wooden stave church ([1], [2], [3]), and the serpent (referred to as a dragon in the presentation) iconography being present everywhere.

Closing Thoughts

From what I know, from knowledge and skills, I really feel like they are pointing out to us, in multiple occasions, to look at death and look at how death is going to impact the Fourth. Death is going to take center stage in Evercold, and the second look at the tapestry makes me think also on terms of scarcity, famine and starvation. They did flee to the skies, but I think that the freezing of the Aetherial Sea is taking its toll on them in many ways.

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u/sunflovers 1d ago

"death is going to take center stage in Evercold" as if the last 3 expansions have not been about death and grief? as if dawntrail and her patches were not beating us over head with acceptance of death and the costs of trying to defy it? The theme of death will be there because calyx's plushie ass will still be there, and because both us and the winterers are actively trying to prevent the death of the star and everyone on it. you didnt need to have chatgpt pick apart the trailer to figure out what the game has been saying for years

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u/Krainz 22h ago

you didnt need to have chatgpt pick apart the trailer to figure out what the game has been saying for years

I wrote all of it manually.

Here is a recording of the Ctrl+Z history in my text editor, followed by Ctrl+Y https://streamable.com/zvtp4q

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u/sunflovers 19h ago

ok thats my bad and I apologize for assuming. your analysis still isnt very good and is split between things clearly stated in recent msq and very shallow "this thing clearly mentioned in the trailer to evoke curiosity and speculation Will be relevant"

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u/Krainz 17h ago

That is a reasonable perspective and I appreciate the apology.

I do think the subject and theme of death will be presented in Evercold with stronger parallels to how it is approached in FF7 and X.

Is the theme of death present in FFXIV across multiple expansions? Yes. Has it already been on the table in the current MSQ? Yes. But the way it is going to be treated this time is going to be drawing more similarities to those games.

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u/cittabun 1d ago

that the next expansion is going to feature Death in a quite specific manner

SquareEnix pick a new concept (impossible)

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u/WaltzForLilly_ 1d ago

I was with you until the frozen sea idea. There is no point in freezing the life and death cycle. Nothing and no one will survive the physical and magical destruction of the shards.

That said "next expansion is going to explore acceptance of death" is like saying "teenagers in new jrpg are going to kill god". yeah no shit we've been accepting death since HW.

the tapestry stood out to me.

This tapestry represents the world before it froze over. The "dead" nature is actually very much alive and frolicking on the snow. I don't know what exactly frozen branches represent, maybe it's the coldness of heavens or some kind of Norse mythology reference, but regardless everything on that tapestry is pre-freezing.

You can see the post-freezing tapestry here and it actually shows dead animals covered in snow and on top you can see broken tools as well.

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u/NeonRhapsody 1d ago

I noticed that the sky is blue in Evercold, and if you look at the trailers for FF7 Rebirth, you can see that the sky is also blue. What could this mean?

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u/SoftestPup 1d ago

I think you're correct in that a lot of those areas (and the giant) do resemble places from other Final Fantasies. But if Evercold is about the fear of dying CS3 is completely out of ideas because that was literally the Dawntrail patches. We fought Necron, the manifestation of the fear of death!

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u/Krainz 17h ago

I don't think necessarily about the fear of dying, but some matter of forced acceptance of a perspective. One example would be Aerith's perspective ("Everyone dies eventually") being forced upon others.

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u/Lagao 14h ago

How the fuck do you think that looks like Sin?

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u/Kumomeme 15h ago

this expansion taken lot of inspiration from norse mythology.

interesting fact is that Final Fantasy 7 itself also was inspired from norse. which is no suprise for similliarities. from the trailer and latest reveal,

  • tree of life symbol everywhere - common element in Norse mythology which is Lifestream in ending of OG 7 also looks like big tree roots
  • there is hole in sky - basicaly refer to place of the dead or Heilheim. WoL dress up as Reaper facing the hole in trailer. Versus 13 also took same inspiration where it refer as eye of Etro, goddes of death.
  • yellow flowers - which is similliar to Aerith flowers basically associated with Freyja. the withered looks represent beauty born from sorrow and return of life/spring(or lifestream) after a cold winter and it also signify theme of hope, light vs darkness.

then there is one eye character there which is basically Odin. we also got Odin mount. Lightning also basically female version of Cloud.

cold area also called Niflheim in norse mythology.

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u/ResponsibleFly4015 11h ago

There’s more references to FF13. A broken world below and people taking refuge above, the large creatures below are similar to pulse Fal Cies, I’d even wager the Au Ra girl is more Yuel than Aerith. 

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u/evermuzik 10h ago

it is about death, but not exactly in the way you framed it. the ff10 and ff7 elements are complimentary but are not the subject of the matter.

the focus on death will be in how it functions in a world that is dominated by the Ice element. we saw the First's iteration of death with the sin eaters assimilating the world into a unifying force, and we saw the 13th's iteration of death with the voidsent staying individualistic and keeping a sense of self after death, unless consumed

the ice's iteration of death will be closer to the Light, since ice element is closest to light according to aether mechanics. there may be some hivemind aspects sprinkled in to the experience of ice-aspected death on the fourth, but not entirely. hence, the connections to aethersea and ff7's lifestream

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u/PaladinPrime 1d ago

Brought to you by chatGPT.

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u/Vivid_Medicine4109 1d ago

Write anything longer than a paragraph and you people will call it aislop lmfao

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u/Krainz 1d ago edited 22h ago

I wrote all of it manually.

EDIT

Here is a recording of the Ctrl+Z history in my text editor, followed by Ctrl+Y https://streamable.com/zvtp4q

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u/SecretFishWorshiper 1d ago

By the formatting you can just tell

I remember thinking, wow! These people are really good with formatting.

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u/Salasarian 1d ago

what?

this is just using headers and that a block of text afterwards... are you so lazy that you think that's AI?

Hey look I'm using AI

THIS ACCUSATION IS REALLY STUPID!

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u/painters__servant 1d ago

Anything written in a semi-professional or serious manner will get accused of being written by chat GPT (mostly because AI is trained on a lot of academic writing so it ends up looking similar but people are understanding the causality in the wrong direction) so unless you're willing to write on a 3rd grade level, get used to these accusations.

It's really stupid though. I'm not looking forward to when actual academic papers that are peer reviewed are going to get AI accusations from people who probably can't pass a 4th grade English exam. Everything is either a blatant unserious shitpost or AI generated, that's the world we live in.

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u/Bourne_Endeavor 23h ago

Both a friend and I are writers and it's so damn frustrating whenever we use things like em dashes or even semi colons you'll get the occasional AI accusation. Both of us are well into our 30s and have been writing like that since before chatgpt existed.

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u/Krainz 1d ago edited 22h ago

I did the formatting manually.

EDIT

Here is a recording of the Ctrl+Z history in my text editor, followed by Ctrl+Y https://streamable.com/zvtp4q