”Warrior of Darkness, servant of death, take care of our souls at our dying breath Let sinners and eaters of sin go with thee, That all may return to the sunless sea.”
– a Norvrandt nursery rhyme
To-do
- Why is Tesleen’s transformation as a sin eater more accelerated compared to the patients in the Amh Araeng clinic? (ex: Halric) → stabbed in the chest/heart = accelerated corruption of aether via cardiovascular system???
- What is the role of organ systems in relation to corporeal aether within the body?
What is “Forgiven Retribution?”
A theme that follows Rune throughout his life would be “retribution.” In many ways than one, the Warrior of Light is also made by the people on top of the abilities that they would possess; the duties that the Warrior of Light performs is in service of the star, and therefore, its people. In Rune’s case, much of his duties lie in retribution for the people and delivering justice for the common man where the common man would be unable to do so otherwise. He in many ways is – or heavily makes up – the driving force of such deliveries of justice.
Per expansion, his duties of retribution could be outlined as retribution for…
- ARR → those affected by the summoning of the primals, man, beastmen, and environment alike
- Heavensward → those wronged by the Church, both man and dragon alike
- Stormblood → those subjugated by the Garlean Empire, as well as himself
- Shadowbringers → those affected by the Flood of Light; against those that continue to try to uphold the unsteady status quo (aka Vauthry)
- Endwalker → those that live in the star and eventually, the universe; against the Meteia that eventually heralded destruction to other stars
Therefore, with the theme of his life being retribution, it then follows that it would be his epithet as a Lightwarden of the First.
Physical appearance
The transformation process
Reference: Tesleen’s transformation into a sin eater
- Get stabbed by sin eater :^)
- Some horrifying process takes place from inside out the body – most presumably through the corruption of the person’s aether first and then it affecting the corporeal body afterward.
- Due to the changes taking place inside the body, the person affected will begin to vomit light.
- They will eventually shed their mortal form while being enveloped in blinding light, and a cocoon of feathers form around them.
- After a while, the cocoon bursts, and the transformed sin eater emerges.
One thing of note: during the beginning stages of the transformation, there were the ringing of bells and the sky turning brighter – it was implied that this was from Tesleen’s point of view, and not necessarily the sky turning brighter every time a sin eater is made. This makes me wonder: are sin eaters afflicted with blindness and perceive things by aethersight similar to Y’shtola? It’s honestly hard to say if their faculties are actually working as they should.
Reference: Halric’s transformation into a sin eater
Compared to Tesleen’s accelerated transformation, Halric’s transformation is much more prolonged. Prolonged symptoms also go with the principle of “stasis” as followed by Light, as the slow transformation includes: loss of personality (maybe anhedonia?), aphasia, slowing of physical movement, “hardening of skin akin to plaster” (FFXIV 5.0 MSQ: A Purchase of Fruit), and the general slowing of bodily function.
Reference: Vauthry’s transformation into his Lightwarden form
During the Crown of the Immaculate, Vauthry transforms mid-fight starting with intermittent bursts of light – similarly to Tesleen, the change is coming from the inside at first. And then he… uh… turns squishy. Anyway. Light then bursts once more outward from him, to which he describes as, “The Light surges within me! Ah, such bliss!” and then the entire raid gets flashbanged. Afterward, he turns hot. Cool.
After witnessing Tesleen’s transformation into a sin eater and Vauthry’s into Innocence, one would expect Rune’s own transformation into a Lightwarden to be similarly violent and grotesque, and they would be right in some ways; however, Rune’s case of taking on light-aspected aether is different from these two examples in that he didn’t have his own corporeal aether corrupted (Tesleen’s was corruped after taking a hit from a sin eater, which is how they multiply; Vauthry’s was corrupted while he was still in the womb). Instead, his situation comes about from him taking on five Lightwardens’ combined aether into his own body. Of course, this may cause a certain degree of corruption for his own personal aether, but really it’s the massive disruption of balance in the aether in his body to where the balance is very, very much in light’s favor. Would this then warrant a more violent transformation? The corruption of one’s own aether and having it affect the person’s physical form appears to be quite painful, but for Rune, since there’s no actual corruption to be had, perhaps the sequence of his transformation would also be drastically different.
However, in the in-game cutscenes, the Warrior of Light was seen to have similar reactions to the excess of Light as Tesleen did while her corporeal aether was being corrupted, so maybe the act of taking in that much of light-aspected aether isn’t a strict “storing” of such aether, since the change in balance can cause the person’s corporeal aether to similarly convert to light-aspected one. Think of it like one bad apple in a barrel making the rest of the apples rotten over time.
Since light is stasis (whereas dark is energy), this might be where the “bliss” that Vauthry describes comes from. Therefore, one may be able to conclude that the actual transformation itself is blissful while the things that happen that precede it is painful. For Rune – yes, it would still be painful, as there are physical changes that he undergoes. This is all to say that it’s most likely going to be different from what we’ve seen in the game.
- ==Quick side note: check out M4S and the transformation taking place there??? It might help honestly==
Physical and mental symptoms of sin eater transformation, both as witnessed and presumed, from slow progression leading up to the actual transformation:
- Fatigue
- Anhedonia – reduced motivation or ability to experience pleasure
- Aphasia – inability to comprehend or formulate language
- Agnosia – inability to process sensory information; loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells
- Hypomimia – mask-like facial expression
- Bradykinesia – slowing of voluntary movement
- Scleroderma – hardening and tightening of skin
- Fragmentation of aether
- Nausea and vomiting
- Intractable chest and generalized body pain
- Hallucinations
- Aura migraine leading to blindness – flashes of light, blind spots; tingling in extremities and/or face and sensitivity to light and sound
- Loss of hair and color to eyes and skin
- Eventual cocooning of feathers
Overall, symptoms generally lead to a slowness befitting to the principle of “stasis” as followed by the light element.
As for the actual sequence of events that would probably occur:
Firstly, he would most likely experience the same physical symptoms as Tesleen, as seen in the game. There would definitely be some degree of excruciating pain, also as seen from the cutscene with the Warrior of Light very nearly turning into a LIghtwarden right in front of the Scions. Emesis of light would occur. Fragmentation of the person’s corporeal aether would also happen at this time – but in Rune’s case, the fragmentation was already happening way before as confirmed by Y’shtola, but the actual effects and symptoms of the fragmentation were being held at bay due to the Warrior of Light’s blessing as given by Hydaelyn.
Next, the color of life would drain out of his form. His hair and eyes would become a lifeless white, with his skin the color of marble and his scars marred with gold. Only features unnatural to his appearance would remain – therefore, the red eyeliner that he prefers would stand stark against the white of his skin. With Tesleen’s transformation, her skin ended up being covered by some kind of waxy substance (kind of like what you see with candles) before being cocooned with feathers.
Humanoid form – Anamnesis
This form is most like his original mortal appearance, except everything is a lifeless white. Additionally, this form is not actually his true appearance as a Lightwarden and is instead an illusion of sorts, created by light and lacking any true physicality. When the light shifts, his true Lightwarden form is able to be seen. Think of it as if the humanoid form is the puppet, and the actual Lightwarden the puppet master.
Lightwarden form
- Much, much bigger in size; about 50ft tall
- Multitudes of wings upon his head and on his back
- Arms made of light that each hold its own kind of weapon, also made of pure light
- Still has his Viera ears with a large parhelion halo and a perpetual light enveloping his form
On the Source – canon timeline
In the timeline where Rune doesn’t become a Lightwarden and was able to be healed with the help of Ardbert, the weight of all of the aether of the Lightwardens manifest themselves in different ways.
From shadowbringers:
He also has an irreversible change with his appearance where, under times of significant stress, he slowly turns back into his appearance while he was under the influence of the Lightwardens’ aether. He also gets a bit more feral in fights. All of this is mildly concerning to the Scions because every time this happens, they keep thinking he’ll fully turn into a Lightwarden when, in reality, the danger has fully passed.
His eye color is usually the first to go. When his hair turns fully white, it means it’s really, really bad.
Events such as this are very rare, though, as the times that he undergoes this kind of change is when he’s truly under extreme stress.
Abilities
Radiance
“looking directly at divinity or something otherwise unspeakably magnificent/terrible causing your eyes to be burned out of their sockets” is a fun trope but i honestly think it’d be so much more interesting if your eyes were the only thing left untouched. if the skin around your eyes was charred and left pitted and shiny with scarring, perhaps even your eyelids seared away so that you can never for even a moment close them to the wonder of what you saw.
alternatively, seeing something so incomprehensibly awestriking and being unable to articulate it drives people to such madness that they resort to gouging their own eyes out in an attempt to find peace, which with time and storytelling becomes the belief that standing in the presence of divinity has the power to burn the eyes straight out of people’s faces
I like to think that, with the combined power of all of Lightwardens into one body, the experience of looking at such a body will be similar to looking at a divinity. When so much light is concentrated into one being, shouldn’t there be a kind of dangerous radiance to that? In order to look at something both beautiful and monstrous, there should be grave consequences that come out of it as well.
With his connection to the Sun as Azem, perhaps this kind of radiance is rather sun-like, compared to the pure white light that light-aspected aether tends to bring. I suppose this property would make him different from the other Lightwardens.
Gameplay-wise, this would probably come about as a kind of debuff, perhaps with a raidwide. Speaking of raidwides…
Unearthly song
Kind of inspired by The Seed by AURORA.
As a mortal, Rune never much liked to sing, as he was too self-conscious about it. But, as a Lightwarden, he becomes infused with the fury of the Light and, in his more beastly form, lets it out in the form of a roar.
From the wiki page on Lightwardens:
Strangely, Lightwardens of more unique nature, such as Titania and Innocence, are capable of emitting a disorienting screech or roar that can almost knock out ordinary beings. This may be due to their hybrid nature rather than being full-fledge Lightwarden, as both Titania and Innocence were capable of not only of speech but also of strategic thought.