The aspect of grief is something that helped me through my struggles during my first playthrough. I used XIV as a way to mask going through the lost of my parent during the same time. Rather than attend my mother's service, I secluded myself from the real world, and took that time to sit and playthrough Shadowbringer's story, as a way to escape my own issues. In a sick way, it probably did a better job of helping me through grief than just sitting around and letting my thoughts get the best of me. Your video really hits it home for me

Super Paper Mario more like Super Paper KINO

This game was so fun, I hope that Nintendo will either make a sequel or a remake of this game someday soon

"Romantic stabbing" yea i sure hope it does /ref I once saw someone else describe TMA as a modern greek tragedy, and I have to agree after speaking to my mom about what a greek tragedy entails- she came to the same conclusion: TMA is a modern greek tragedy, and its sorrowful ending is but one of the many hallmarks of the genre ❤ (loving this video so far btw)

As I was finishing Shadowbringers, I had this appear in my home page. I listed it as watch later, because I wanted to finish the patch quests too before delving more into an analysis on what makes Shadowbringers such a fan favorite expansion. After watching it, I think you beautifully summed it all together, and it truly is an expansion that so many of us wish to experience for the first time again.

Opening with the first scene in ShB that made me ugly cry. Your title garbered my interest. But now you have my attention. (If I think of anything else I need to say I'll edit this comment.)

Burger king crown emet selch is wicked

Finally some good FFXIV video essays that aren't just about lore and canon and whatnot.

I love ShB and its patches sm. Greatly put together video essay! I want to add one little thing about G'raha though. He really does feel like an outsider and a foil to Emet-Selch in the fact that he succeeds in changing the past while Emet-Selch does not. They both want the best for their people but one requires hurt and calamities to ensure their safety while the other does not. I do think ShB does allow you to change the past >points at G'raha's refusal of the 8th Umbral Calamity, and that the only way to do so is to come out the victor- maybe some other factors are involved as well. If Emet-Selch had won, he would've traveled back in time to (try) and undo the Final Days with G'raha's secrets of time travel. Alas we won, so our timeline is the one that gets to continue.

The way I cheered at my screen when I saw the emet selch cosplay, like my sports team had just won. femroe wol? alisaie fan? and an emet selch understander 🤝 we are of one brilliant mind

Damn I never thought about Alphinaud being the Karl Marx of Norvrandt

This was a beautiful essay, so well composed and personal yet relatable to all. The very end is what broke me. I never knew the line to that quest. What an absolute raw line of text to be buried within the summary of a quest. I'm totally okay and not crying, you are.

shadowbringers broke me in ways i thank it for

for research purposes, completely unrelated to your chosen of FemRoe- are you a lesbian?

God dammit I just realised that’s why *Thancred*, specifically, was the one to break into your fight with Hades.

recongising the profile picture from an bc fanart in 2021(?) was a kind of whiplash.

To clear up the Burger King crown 😂 Mentors have a crown icon in the game and they're memed on to be really bad, so everyone calls those "Burger King Crowns"

Holy crap, this video is so well put together I quietly cried at least three separate times while watching it.

Thancred and Ryne almost struck me as the complicated relationship between a father, his daughter.. And the mother that died giving birth to her.

This was incredible. The best video on ff14 I have ever seen.

I am leaving this comment as a note to my future self. I hope you have learned something from this essay, but also learned from your own cathedral. I hope you have found peace.

Incredible video. I really appreciate how the thumbnail uses Endwalker's "Tales of loss and fire and faith" and i wanna take that a step further and say that line came out in EW so it's referring to the previous expansions in order. ShB is a tale of loss, as you've shown here, StB is a tale of fire (the world ablaze in a revolution etc.), and HW is a tale of faith (faith in love, faith in a higher power, faith in the system, how faith fails sometimes, etc.). And I think that's a really cool detail.

why are you smoking :(

I was actually so annoyed at 19:31 that you apparently used the very recognizable art of one of my favorite Emet-Selch artists until you put on the cosplay and I realized you were the artist.

My life has always been marked with loss. My parents, most of my family, chances and more, but post Endwalker I went through a type of loss I had never experienced and probably never will again. It had to do with irl and FFXIV, it was the type of thing you only get one chance at. To be honest I still don't think I was supposed to be a part of and probably never should have been a part of my life. This game has given me the best and worst experiences of my life, directly and indirectly.

For anyone else to understand that, they too must see your open wound. And they have to gaze upon the cathedral you built out of it. " Yep, that.

this is crazy good

Having dealt with loss this year and having played shadow bringers on release and loving it, hearing this was a real eye opener for both the themes of the story and myself

My slow brain just realized the parallels between Magnus, his wife, and the Golem with Thancred, Minfilia, and Ryne.

I can't believe I let this video essay move me to tears. Goddamn it Shadowbringers cannot keep making me cry it's been four years it's not fair. Thank you

more ff content plssss

Absolutely obsessed with your takes on ShB, to the point where I had tears welling up at the end. There are so many obvious parallels I just hadn’t noticed, and cutting between Thancred and Emet-Selch’s impassioned speeches left me floored. It’s past midnight but I couldn’t stop watching, and the whole experience was so smooth I couldn’t believe it was over an hour long. But what hit me the deepest and hardest was what you said about there being no existence outside of grief’s shadow once you’ve been touched by it. You’ve left me with so much to think about with how I carry grief and loss in my own life. Your Emet-Selch cosplay is stunning, too! Thank you for making this video. (And this might be a weird recommendation, but check out the movie Asteroid City. It’s also all about grief.)

Small correction. Shadowbringers is the 4th expansion

I just wanted to say that this brilliant and poignant video singlehandedly reminded me how much FFXIV meant to me, too, after i put the game down after Endwalker's release. I've just bought Dawntrail, so thank you.

I came to FFXIV in Stormblood during my cancer treatment. As such, I feel ShB very strongly from that angle - that personal grief, that struggle with my "dying world." I'm lucky things worked out for me, but it did not for many I met along the way in my treatment. But because of this, like you, Alisae is my favorite. Already I liked her attitude and nature a bit more over her brother's (I softened to him after his own humbling), but her role as a protector of a hospice really cemented her for me. And then her line after her outburst at Ryne's promises. "But making promises you have no way of keeping is not a kindness - it's a lie, plain and simple!" It was a line I felt so deeply. For everyone that told me things would be ok, "I promise," I felt pain. I knew they were trying to be hopeful and helpful, but the dread always set in. For who was the failure if things didn't go well? They for making that promise they couldn't do anything to make true... or me for my body failing, not being strong enough? You named your cat well! As for Endwalker... well, a lot of your later discussion feels similar to my own situation as Endwalker was coming out due to another event that blindsided me. And that expansion kicked me in the heart a lot, even small things that most players would not think on had a large impact to me. I needed that first patch story addition though to feel complete. Such a minor character, people barely remember them, but I needed to hear that the characters would remember them for all they did in life that was good and admirable, and not how it ended for them and the unfortunate, unintended repercussions of that.

The BK crown is a reference to being a mentor.

In a strange turn of events, urianger, ardbert, emet, estinien and thancred made me realize i am in fact bisexual or some form of it anyways. Thanks ffxiv i guess? Lol Ive now been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 5 years and he means the world to me. Yes he also plays ffxiv lol

shadowbringers remain my favourite expansion as well, and your video was extremely relatable. I too weathered several losses between starting this expansion, finishing it, and the little after. Rewatching, reading, replaying the story, definitely hit different too. I had felt myself shatter to pieces, try to pretend i'm very mature about it, only to break down and stare into nothing when i least expect it, and playing XIV on their themes of grief definitely made me feel.. many, many feelings. Thank you so much for this video, it now reminds me i should probably finish SHB on my alt :')

I resonate a lot with the idea of worrying about losing the lessons I take from art over time. With the fear that these stories that are so important to me now will fade into just another game or movie or book I read. I guess that's part of why it feels so validating to see other people affected by these stories in a similar way. Shows that you aren't just an obsessive romantic overanalyzing everything...or, I guess, if you are, you've at least got plenty of company.

I was not taken by ffxiv, so my bf bought me a story skip to the current expansion at the time, Shadowbringers, when endwalker was announced. the opening scene struck me with how different it felt to the story of ARR.

What a beautiful analysis. I appreciate the hard work (both logistically and mentally) that went into this essay, well done!

Dawntrail could never

"Emet-Selch is a man who is bursting with love, but cannot and will not give any of it to the present, and so it is left to rot inside of him." God damn

Amazing video

Thank you. Putting this into words and describing why Shadowbringers is such a moving story must have been a tremendous effort and it was an entertaining yet interesting and educating video I very much enjoyed! If I may make a suggestion, since it seems that you're interested in the topic of grief and how we deal with it, the game Outer Wilds has a similar premise. Though it's an entirely different genre both in gameplay and setting it deals with the lingering thought that existence itself will ultimately end extremely well in my opinion. Please give it a look :)

This is literally sooo cool idk how you fit so much into such a short video!!

Lol the way that this is helping me with the dawntrail 6th area lol

I saw the emet cosplay and RUSHED TO THE LIKE BUTTON

Thancred and the WoL we're able to reconcile and make peace with the death of Minfilia in just a few short years...Emet-Selch however could never accept the losses that he had incurred after thousands of years... he just couldn't let go

i played shadowbringers in a different place then i am now, surrounded by people that i loved and tried to love me. nearly a year after losing them my mind still stubbornly live it in an echo of that time. this video helped more then i could of imagined. ill pick myself up, ill walk. thank you