Ngl, I think she had potentially more disregard for humanity than either of those two. Imagine if she'd attained this level of power back then and not risen to it in a time when we were alive.
I like the imagery of her boss design being a resplendant butterfly with her eyes permanently shut and wings in place of ears. A beautiful 'god' who is ultimately blind and deaf to anyone else but her own thoughts.
She may not have the complexity of Emet-Selch or Elidibus, but I find her kind of refreshing : a megalomaniac seeker of godhood that, while able to pass as a kind mother, clearly loves what she's doing and cannot be reasoned with because she's the only one in the right.
i kind of like that to be honest. this game could do with some villains that are just "screw you, i want power and ill kill you to get it", just straight up evil. not even the garleans were really like that. its weirdly refreshing.
we've got a lot of unrepentantly shitty fathers in media, it's about time the girlbosses got more representation. Like there's plenty of toxic "I'm doing this for your own good" types but "I literally do not give a single shit about you" is usually a dad-exclusive domain.
I like how WoL has become so powerful that he/she's effectively a divine warden that keeps all the gods in check and anything that potentially becomes a god has to go through WoL first. it's so absurd but cool.
And at the same time we are chillin with the twelve and only fighting them for some entertainment. Srsly fighting the twelve feels like some sort of vacation.
And yet still humble enough that when the Scions tell them to either: - Lean on them if things get too much - Let them shoulder the burden too and help out They do, because for all their godlike power they're still an individual mortal like everyone else. They can *very easily become a god too* but no, they're just an adventurer at heart like Zenos says.
@@W4lhalla well yeah, we decided the twelve were cool. we got into like one fight and were like "Oh actually you dudes are alright, shit and here I thought you were a threat to all creation. let's party more often!"
I get the vibe from these lyrics how utterly selfish and egotistical Athena is. The song is basicly her exclaiming her glory and how by her hand life will become perfect.
My favorite part is the way she quotes, and then twists, the lyrics of Scream and Hic Svnt Leones. Scream is a song of horror and a call for help from the dying sanity of the Keywards. Athena’s verse denies their right to life and sanity, outright saying “never once were you truly alive”, which reminds me of Emet-Selch’s attitude towards the sundered. Hic Svnt Leones has more of a reveling in chaos feel to it, but its lyrics still have this air of warning people about their sins. Athena’s verse discards the notion of needing to worry about her sins, and turns the last line into praising the glory of her ascension. ----- Basically, she’s twisting the prior songs and showing how much she does NOT regret what she’s done.
I like the way the song is sung. It almost sounds soft, like a mother figure. It fits Athena’s nature. She seems so consumed by her personal desires that she thinks she is doing the right thing in her own perverted way. To simplify, she’s so consumed by her evil that she doesn’t know she’s evil. Someone like this is their own brand of scary.
@Enlong Jones It all brings it back to how contemptuous and complacent the Ancients became towards life. They're creation magic diminished the value of life. Pandaemonium emphasises this even more. You can only think that all these monstrosities were not created "for the benefit of the star" but almost like for kick at this point.
Man, that part quoting and then twisting Scream’s lyrics is amazing. “Say goodnight! To the weakness that you hide behind. Leaving the lies, leaving the fear, inside! *Never once were you truly alive.* So scream all you like, no-one can hear you.” Such a cold and brutal line, that one.
While I'm not sure if it's intentional, it echoes Emet-Selch's quote: "...but yes, moral relativism and all that. Case in point: *I do not consider you to be truly alive.* Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you." But this isn't an Ascian speaking to their sundered inferiors, it's a woman who sacrificed everything for a taste of godhood speaking to her test subjects.
I love how her intro lyrics go something like "I manipulate your kind in my image" and she proceeds to alter the lyrics of the other raid themes to better match her own, it's a very cheeky way to match the theme with the story thematically and I'm here for it
Also it gives the feel every fight we've fought until there and every action we've taken in Pamdaemonium was part of her bigger plan. Really love this raid
@Duranwal yeah, I was a little disappointed when they announced the new raid tier before 6.0 but now I am really happy they took a chance and didn't use a collaborative effort this time
@@Sir_Duranwal yea the last time something like that happened was Ivalice, and it was all one elaborate trap to kill the WoL so Ultima could free themselves. We literally walked right into that trap. How ironic that both the raids also have auracite at the core of their questlines too....hmmm....
I love the parallels to the gentler Twelve. This is a selfish, tyrannical god, sung by her, illustrating her dominance over everything and the will to remake the world in her image. Contrast Menphina and Nald'Thals, and even the Twelve's more serene, relaxed theme. They're not even sung by their respective gods, but from the viewpoint of a follower, showcasing their wishes and prayers, prayers that the Twelve hear and abide.
That and the Twelve are always calling us their loves, their children and really excited to fight or hang out. Transforming into cute animals to go around. Very different vibe.
@@zephyr8072 They're not “false gods” at all. They're gods of our own making. There is a huge difference. When we pray, they hear us and try to inspire us. They didn't ask to be there and they're doing the job we unconsciously granted them.
@@AuspexAO And therefore manufactured and Eikons of a different stripe. The fact that they're not malevolent and don't exist due to a specific agenda is irrelevant.
I like to think that Athena is meant to represent what might've happened had someone with less than savory intentions become Hydaelyn instead of Venat. A pure heart is needed to be a god, otherwise you end up with a creature like Athena, someone/something too obsessed with attaining power for the sake of power itself. Also I'm betting on Athena's second phase in savage being something akin to a biblically accurate angel, fits the overall theme of eyes found throughout the Pandaemonium raids (especially P8 and P12) and that divine essence Athena so desperately seeks. Edit : An extra observation, this raid is the perfect showcase of just how powerful we've become since we started our journey. Not only do we have the ability to casually perform summoning spells with Azem's soul stone, but we can tank a true Ultima, something that took most of Hydaelyn's stored up strength to protect us from back in A Realm Reborn and takes a Tank LB3 in UWU.
my interpretation of athena is that she was the ascian to the ascians: willing to sacrifice all life on it for "the sake of the star," to pursue a delusional, bloody idea of perfection at any cost and with no regrets, except instead of being an unsundered considering the sundered unworthy and replaceable, she already felt that way about the unsundered themselves
I would personally disagree that Venat has anything like a pure heart but I like your interpretations. The eye stuff and fundamental secret of life/soul research gives off Eldritch/Red Science vibes that I'm very into so this whole raid series has been a blast, I'm very much looking forward to what we get for Savage.
Venat does not have a pure heart. Good people don't kill billions and create a cycle where millions more die. Athena is Venat if anyone else found out the true cause of the Final days.
So, theres a ton of references to the high seraph ultima when it comes to Athena, I have a feeling the Monastery raids is rearing its ugly mug on second phase.
Nothing tickles my "this is peak videogame" bone than when Hic Svnt Leones plays for those 20 little seconds and snaps back to the main tune with a PAN DE MO NI UM
It's incredible how Athena made Hermes and Meteion look like a tiny little oopsie in comparison. Hermes just didn't know what he was looking for and tried to fulfill himself by seeking hope out in the stars, then condemned his home out of a momentary weakness. Athena knew exactly what she wanted - complete, utter, total control over everything, using everyone and everything as a step towards that goal. She goes so far as to seeding her own soul into those of her husband and son and many more besides, all so that whatever happened, she'd remain, all for this goal of complete domination. And if she couldn't have it, she was fully ready to burn it all - because how else does one show complete power over a thing if not by being able to destroy it?
Hermes condemned more than just his home. Every planet the Meteia went to fell to ruin. The scale of his fuck up is so much grander than what Athena's megalomania would have resulted in that thinking she's even on the same level as him is ridiculous.
@@kio4896 The vast majority of worlds Meteion visited were already a smoking ruin or were in their last dying gasps. The few that Meteion did nudge over and hasten their doom were well on their way to apocalypse anyway, because the Great Filter is without mercy. And she did so not because of any inherent desire, but because she could not handle the overwhelming sorrow that she experienced by the virtue of being a Dynamis-based hivemind. She was so overwhelmed by pain of countless dead worlds that the only way out of that constant pain was to end it all. Athena, on the other hand, had zero empathy for anything or anyone. She took the Ancients' mission statement of creating and recreating life to its furthest possible point, holding nothing as a step too far and reaching for the logical end point of that philosophy - apotheosis. There was not a shred of remorse when defeated, not a word of sorrow. Athena thought herself fully, irrevocably, utterly in the right, and her failures were all the fault of someone else - her husband, her son, her people, everyone but her. She was so far gone that she was ready to obliterate Etheirys itself, its very lifestream - not as a means of euthanasia as with Meteion, who above all craved for the suffering to stop - but as an act of utter spite. Meteion was defeated because she cared about life, just as her creator did. She was defeated by appealing to that empathetic core of her, by convincing her she was wrong and that her song of oblivion was a mistake. And she spends her last moments of existence to fly across the universe and send ripples of Dynamis across it, urging and ushering new life to be born after its release from Ultima Thule. Athena was stopped only because she was snuffed out right after her ascension, and only because she had vastly underestimated the possibility that her vessel of rebirth might have their own opinion on the matter. She saw nobody as her equal, valued no one's opinion, cared naught for anyone's free will. A universe where she had ascended and gained free reign would have been worse than a hundred Endsingers combined, as difficult as it may be to fathom. Not just hastening the demise of worlds already failing the Great Filter, but taking them, reshaping them, creating and snuffing out life and souls entirely on a whim, twisting and tormenting them as she pleased - for no other reason than because she could.
what many badguys (and people) fail to grasp is destroying a thing is relatively easy compared to the monumental task of creating a thing. that is true power.
thirsty for wool would make a lot of sense given the here be lions from both hic svnt leones and Scream, where scream in specific mentions the lamb to be eaten.
My favorite part of Athena is how she is the manifestation of everything unsettling and wrong with Elpis and the Amaroutine society as a whole. They believed themselves to be living in perfect idyll, above all others and incapable of any real error. In Elpis, they played god. They literally designed creatures, killing them and bringing them to life as they sought fit. They truly believed that they were absolutely in the right in doing so. And so here is Athena. She created her son to fit into her plans. She wants to centralize that godlike capacity that is shown in Elpis into herself to mold the entire world at once. She said it herself: what else can a truly inquisitive mind do when given a hypothesis? And what is the most obvious hypothesis to be born from Elpis? Can nature truly be completely molded, shaped, and created at the whims of others. Not only that, but its worth considering the absolute insanity of a society that created not one but two gods. I don't think Athena fell far from the tree.
Don't you think that's a little bit of a stretch, seeing as Athena is being shunned by everyone else in the Ancient society, most of all its leaders in Themis and Lahabrea, for being a deranged lunatic with a messiah complex?
@@TheNoMoreHero672 The only real difference is Athena expanded the scope and scale of the very same actions that they did, and removed the oversight. Elpis was the Amaurotines playing god, and Athena simply chose to stop playing god and instead become one for real. I think part of them knew that without the system of oversight they had, disaster would happen. Also consider that Hermes was also a product of the same society. He also saw it as sick, and also by not having any oversight on him became an accidental villain. Yes, she is rejected by many within her society, but that does not mean she is not a product of the society's deep seated arrogance and belief that they know what is best for the world.
Elpis was tempered by procedure. You had to prove that your creation has objective merit and would improve the star. There was oversight and a scientific order to things. I shudder to think what a deranged mind like Athena's would consider to be a boon to the star (or just her), unbound by any sort of morality.
@@VioletCatastrophe Respectfully, I could never understand this interpretation of the Ancients. The worst problem their society has is the unsanctioned euthanasia of what amounts to essentially animals. To them, they cannot create true life because they can't bestow souls to the things they create. As far as they are concerned, it is AI. Even if you wanted to argue that outlook is wrong, that is not arrogance, that is ignorance. There is nothing the Ancients do that we, and by extension the Sundered society, don't do 100 times worse, and the genuinely awful people among them *like* Athena are universally condemned. Hermes was an unstable individual so obsessed with his own self-suffering that he himself designed an entity that would feel physical pain from the negative emotion that he felt. He's an aberrant that I would certainly not call a failing of Ancient society. As we saw with Amon, his soul was doomed to be miserable no matter where he went. Should we call Amon a "manifestation of humanity?" It just seems like a bit of a double standard to me.
@@TheNoMoreHero672 There's two points I'd like to draw out from this, because it's a fairly constructed perspective but it has a few hiccups. 1) Your claim of Hermes being 'an aberrant' implies that Hermes' beliefs are aberrant or unnatural to the Ancients when they're not. Lahabrea, Athena, and Erichtonios all prove in different ways that the Ancients are not fundamentally free of turbulence. Certain sidequest NPCs also illustrate this in less dramatic degrees. 2) As a corollary of the above, Amon isn't a reflection of Hermes as he was in ancient days, he is a product of those days, and of one very specific instance. In fact, his breakdown after Aitiascope shows that the part of him that IS Hermes, that remembers being Hermes, is the one that won out. The rest of the points are fair enough observations, but I think saying that "Hermes' soul was doomed to be miserable no matter where he went" and begging the question of Amon being/not being a "manifestation of humanity" are too far a reach. And if those are too far a reach, it is difficult to say for certain that Athena would be "universally condemned" - otherwise, Lahabrea wouldn't have felt the need to sneakily imprison his wife and her work in Pandaemonium and keep her at length from the other Ancients. Given she ensorcelled Hegemone to her side, there is a real risk that her ideals could have permeated - Lahabrea himself says that said ideals and views didn't come from nowhere, but were magnified by the auracite. All Ancients are taken to some level of turbulence and they just need to be in the wrong place with the wrong perspective to be affected irrevocably and have those dark impulses magnified, and the most direct methods of that are in dealing with Dynamis. In fact, it's implied that all life in the universe is taken to the same tendency; the Memoria crystals bear a resemblance to the Ea's crystals, which are stated to bear a resemblance to crystals the Grebuloffs found in the depths of the ocean.
That line "Never once were you truly alive" stuck super fucking hard with me every time I've heard this song so far. I know it's probably a finger pointing at the collective surviving humanity after the Sundering, referring to everyone as not truly living beings (ie, Emet-Selch's logic at the end of ShB "I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you.") But at the same time, I REALLY feel like it's a tiny nod at Erichthonios and what she truly thinks of him. Their final conversation, her calling him useless and his response "And who made me that way?" To me, it feels like it fits both.
Agreed, that lyric hits SO hard. It's very telling: you could argue that the only thing that differentiates Emet-Selch and Athena is that Emet remembers what was lost with an intense longing (his recreation of Amaurot on the First makes this clear), while Athena doesn't give a damn about literally anything or anyone that stands in her way, past, present, or future, including her own family. Funny that the difference between a monster and a villain is just a pinch of gratitude. Both can rationalize away incredible amounts of suffering in the name of "salvation" or **insert virtue here,** but I can only bring myself to **moderately** respect one of the them while they do so.
It also seems reflective of a solipsistic mindset. She only seems to acknowledge herself as real and everyone else is not, defined only by their utility to her until that utility is spent.
The key difference in that line between them though is that Athena truly believes it, whereas for Emet it's just part of the copium he's been taking ever since his son died.
There's something very funny to me about her saying "bare your souls to me" immediately followed by the first lyric being "souls laid bare." mission accomplished, I guess
I can't be the only one interpreting the lines "Journey's end" and "The sun is setting" as her knowing that we are Azem. Not the farce we made of being Azem's familiar. No, she knows that we are a sundered Azem, the Shepherd and Traveler. And she is going to halt our adventure, once and for all.
I love this thought. Also I love "Answers unfold, one with truth defined" Answers being Hydaelyn's leitmotif and defining theme song. But Answers was about her telling us to SEEK answers. Athena presents herself as THE answer.
With that reading, "Say goodnight to the weakness that you hide behind" references it too, as she sees you as a truly staggering opponent who claims to be a mere familiar or mortal rather than being a mortal who's had to get that powerful fighting gods just as unhinged as her. Which could be seen as the mistake she makes with a lot of things/people like Eric, seeing *what* they are more than *who* they are.
@@dianaroy78 I see it more as: you are willing to be ignorant and say that some doors should remain closed. You are an impediment to progress and I will shatter that prison.
@@Peashooter521 I mean... We're not Azem as they were in The World Unsundered, but it is not subtle at all that the WoL is one of their sundered fragments.
I feel like the devs wanted to clearly explain the problem in the Ancients' society that Hermes was appalled and horrified by, so much that they literally created Athena, the pinnacle embodiment of the Ancients' flaws and philosophical failings. To show how accurate Hermes' predictions were.
In a way, her warped reality-ignoring realm in P12S represents a different shiny, apocalyptic endpoint for the Ancients. The Plenty shows the crushing ennui that the Ancients could have felt from finally "perfecting" creation. Athena's realm, meanwhile, is what happens when the most depraved person their society has to offer rises to power and turns all of creation into her plaything.
@@SnopelolThe irony of her enrage being that even the attack itself is named after her own inability to understand just how laughably, morbidly unworthy she is of godhood, and why she will never truly know it in the way Venat did. She died as she lived, completely unrepentant and unable to find the answer to her question, not unlike Amon.
Ultima by the Ultima Weapon - "Shit, I can't survive this! Mothercrystal, shield me!" Ultima by Athena - "I'm stronger now. I can take this to the FACE."
@@Konpekikaminari alternatively, perhaps Athena’s version is as flawed as her plan as a whole. Though, both were being cast from the Heart of Sabik, so who knows?
*puts up a couple mits and shields* "Oh, we can do fine without; just don't want to be rude to our healers over there who will reverse it in like three seconds"
Her blatant insanity was so eerie because, not only did she wholeheartedly believe she was in the right, she had this gentle pity towards /us/ not ‘understanding’ her. Like “oh sweetie” 😂
She straight-up summoned her husband and son and went "look, they'll explain. Then maybe you'll finally understand." And left all three of you confused because, no, they didn't "understand" either.
0:00 - 1:16 = One Amongst The Weary (Pandae 9-10) 1:18 - 1:50 = Scream (Pandae 5-7) + Prelude 1:51 - 2:33 = Ancient Shackles (Pandae 1-3) 2:34 - 4:03 = Reprise of the above 4:04 - 4:32 = Hic Svnt Leones (Pandae 4) All through a Trance-Music like filter from White Stone Black (Pandae 8 Savage) (Unashamedly stolen from a different videos comment section, but just wanted people to see *all* the leitmotifs present)
Man, my favorite thing about FF music is that if you ever can’t decide which song to listen to, eventually one will come out that’s just all of them at once.
Something I noticed that no one ever mentions, in the cutscene she says "SEAT OF GODHOOD", as if to mock Themis and his own trial "The Seat of Sacrifice"
Seat of sacrifice was a refrence to elidibus being the only one from convication that got sacrificed to zodiark. Her Seat of godhood is probably she thinking she is above the convication.
@@peasantofpersia Yes but its very likely still a reference because right before this fight we fight Themis and not only is he "lower" than Athena but Athena also ended up controlling him.
The deities in FFXIV have some amazing theme songs. Menphina's theme is an upbeat song that explores how the world's cat people find safety and comfort in worshipping the moon. Sophia's theme is a sad parable that shows how the goddess' idea of balance is harsh and inhumane. Lakshmi spends her song trying to seduce you into accepting her ideology of blissful sloth. Shiva mourns her own plight. Suzaku sings of lost love. Athena sings about how she is the shit and she's gonna kill you. It's all just so great.
I love Athena so much, shes so unhinged and evil, and unapologetically so. This tier has been so refreshing because it has irredeemable villains as the main antagonists, and the final boss being the mastermind behind it all feels so good. Also I love how Athena's transformation animation is the same as Meteion going into her emo era (without the black fire) and she also has wings on her head like Meteion.
I also like that FF14's writers didn't try to make Lahabrea more 'reasonable' than we remember him in ARR. They gave him depth as a character while DOUBLING DOWN on his 'Fuck you, I'll do what I need to' mentality.
That's what makes FF so interesting. Most of the games all end up with Gods, fallen gods, God wannabes being final bosses. Japanese culture also involve alot of malevolent gods after all.
@@Krescentwolfalso when you tell them their respective fates, Emet-Selch is crying, screaming, shaking in rage at the thought, and Lahabrea is like "yeah that sounds like something I'd do."
I LOVE the club version of Scream. This was an amazing raid, full of emotions. Regret for Lahabrea. So much sadness saying goodbye to Eric and Themis. So much hatred for Athena. But I also kind of like her… her brand of evil allowed her to be true to herself. Much like Zenos in a way.
Although her namesake is Athena, she cannot help but remind me of the individual known as Psykhe in Greek mythos. Quite literally the Goddess of the Soul, a mortal who ascended to godhood. She apparently had a lot of butterfly imagery, associated with her as well.
I love the song and I just love her design. She has the beautiful butterfly wings, plus angel wings... but the angel wings are the shape of mantis arms, predators that ambush prey. She makes me think of an orchid mantis, and it is so suiting!
The Aizen vibes I caught from Athena. Maybe it's just me because I recently finished watching Bleach, but from Athena's form design, to her desire for godhood, and the orange-haired experiment. That ball in her chest looks like a large Hogyoku, too.
"You have done well to reach the seat of Godhood." Lady, I have lost count of how many Gods, real, summoned, or self-proclaimed that I've killed. You are not intimidating, you are not the first, and you will probably not be the last.
First thing through my head when I heard it: "This song wouldn't be out of place during a final fight in Sailor Moon." It has that 'magical girl' vibe, and I'm totally here for it. I love how some of the chords clash in the opening bars, as if even her theme music is introducing how unhinged she is before the the melody and lyrics even drop. At first I thought it was my headset, but nope! And what a fight, huh? I was not ready!
EDIT: The official lyrics are out! th-cam.com/video/QaIdk-fpevk/w-d-xo.html Here are some pretty good / better interpretation of the lyrics as commented by others: One with the truth defined → One with the true divine I glee (looking back this doesn't make sense lmao) → Pride and greed (yeah, lyrics from P4. Quite an oversight from me ehe) Thirsty for wool (this is embarrassing 🤣) → Thirsty for war / Thirsty for more / Sins we have borne I am truth defined → I am true divine Your god can't hear you → Your god can hear you Clean my cries → Claim my prize Keep 'em coming! Let's aim for 100% accuracy when the official lyrics come out 😅
Definitely buying into it being ‘Sins we have borne’ so far for that one line, if only because it compliments the preceding ‘Pride, Greed’ line. (You know, sins).
I feel like it's more "Manipulate your mind" instead of "Manipulate your kind" and "My chosen one" instead of "ones" because of all the focus on how Eric got manipulated by her and was poised to become her vessel before we came along, and lines up with the previous verse how it says "a fool til the end" implying it's speaking to someone specific (Eric)
I was a huge fan of Pandaemonium 5-8, OST wise especially, so I was incredibly curious how Soken was gonna one up. The mad lad did that with the new tier again
I kind of want to say the "Scream all you like, your god can't hear you" Reprise is "your god CAN hear you", but given the distortion and speed, that's probably just me. It would, however, make total sense to me that Athena not only would hear your screams, but would delight in them.
This song was an absolute treat for the ears~! I love when songs for these tiers reference the previous songs and culminate like this. Really sells the fact that Athena was the mastermind behind all of this. It was all her. And I love the lyrics that come from if she did achieve her form as a twisted God. It makes you wonder if it has been her and not Venat!
This gave me such Bayonetta vibes, and paired with the bosses aesthetics, chefs kiss! I love the lyrics are referenced from the other two songs but now it all makes sense. Erik is the sheep and she’s been the lion all along. We always thought the references were about the chaos and carnage of the monsters and madness of Pandaemonium, and in some ways they were. But now we are given so much context as to how those songs when sung from the point of Athena, are about using and abusing her son for her own purposes.
Athena: "I am a god, and will shape the world as I see fit!" WoL: (summons other wol) "The council has found you.......wanting. Prepare to be decommissioned."
I was kinda hoping that in this raid, they would realize that the wol is azem reborn. Wol spammed azem's summoning spell throughout the wing. They should'vs realized something was up. Especially lahabrea and elidibus.
Lahabrea was not really present at the fights. Ellidibus on the other hand witness it and i think reconize it later when he found his peace ( his memory was afterall formed from his real soul unlike Lahabrea who was projected from the soul crystal)
@@Adam-th7qt ye but in p7 helps Themis to summon ur friends. U use the Azem crystal not once in both raid tiers. Only in the third one. A little interesting fact in p8 is the summon magic red cuz lahabrea helps this time to create ur "illusions" for the fight
Azem's crystal was made in secret by Emet-Selch. No one but him would have noticed and Azem themselves were wiped from all records. She'd have never known
I feel like "In Anabaseios I am the Truth Defined" is "I am the True Divine". Both suit Athena's pursuits, and I do feel like the earlier "Truth Defined" fits the context of its line, but Athena's chase of godhood and connections to The High Seraph lend credense to the "False Goddess of Anabaseios" the same way Ultima thought herself the one true god of Ivalice.
This song and this fight have always been so creepy for me, and I just realized why. While hydaelyn embodies the gentle nature of motherhood and the unconditional love a mother has for her children and loved ones, to the point where she's willing to completely sacrifice herself to ensure the safety of her kids, Athena is the exact opposite face of motherhood, the controlling, manipulative, toxic and absolutely destructive nature toxic mothers can have. That distinction is so evident in the song and her story, hydaelyn chose to become a god in order to save, while she yearns to be a god to control and destroy.
First we had zurvan who wanted to outright slaughter you, then we had susano who only thrill was combat and not death. Now we got a megalomaniac who is so arrogant that she underestimates us. It was super refreshing to have this story.
when i first heard this i was like ..wait moment. this is a clear version of p9 and 10..its her singing. its basically what they did with innocence, they put her insanity and twisted mind into audio. as she is not ascended yet, the version of p9/10 is sounding distorted and unclear but here she is so close to godhood and being the perfection she is seeking that we can hear her clearly now. amazing.
*Wicked flight intensifies* Legit disappointed she didn't say "Dude,trust me, I'm a fairy" or something like that, would have killed the tone but would be funny as hell
@@martonszentkiralyi2251 Man, Evil Wings (just my preferred translation for the song name) is such a strong song. I would love it if they used a remix of some BD music in XIV.
So, it sounds weird, but one of the most satisfying things about the lyrics and how she sings them. The verses that include "forevermore" and rubato tempo, the way she sings has such a wonderful fluctuation of notes in such a short time it's just very addictive to listen to.
My Athena raiding skills got progressively better as I learned all the mechanics, and then progressively worse again as I learned all the lyrics and started singing instead of paying attention to the game.
I might be mishearing, but "clean my cries" sounds like "claim my prize" to me. Makes some sense, since Lahabrea said Athena would burn the world if it meant she'd still stand to find her "prize" in the ruin and ash. "Here, I rise, to claim my prize."
When I did this raid, I thought to myself "She talks like Ultima, Seraph" and kinda thought how cool it is that they had this tie to both the end of ARR with the heart of Sabik and to the Ivalice raids to a lesser extent with how closely the boss' design in that raid match an ancient's 'combat form' so to speak and its ties to godhood. The auracity made them single-minded, but as powerful as a god.
If you talk to Claudien again after the quest ends and pick the first option there's an additional cutscene where they talk precisely about the High Seraph.
this is a great observation, but i also want to point out your typo of auracite as "auracity" and now i'm just imagining WOL seeing the heart of sabik after the ivalice raids and thinking _"the auracity of this bitch..."_
1:50 is one of my favorite moments to come back to, how it blatantly ties in the songs from before and subtly suggests that through every piece and orchestration made, it was all her. It was all Athena.
"FROM THE DEEPEST PITS OF THE SEVEN HELLS, TO THE PINNACLE OF THE HEAVENS.." When she said the ultima line, I was screaming. "SHE SAID THE LINE, SHE SAID THE LINE!"
I automatically finished it with UNLEASH ULTIMA because it's simply not complete without it But it's also a very cool bit of recontextualization that the unhinged and gloating Lahabrea we meet in ARR is such because he's being twisted around by Athena.
@@Bob-ji3tc You're kidding, right? It's awfully delivered compared to all the rest of her lines. Especially the weird deep voice she puts on for "tremble", makes her sound like a self-parody.
This fight was so fun the song is perfect the arena is beautiful the boss looks like Titania and hydaelyn had a baby. It’s not to hard on easy. I think also the song fits Athena character perfectly especially the line by my hand perfected they stand referring to Erichthonios who I absolutely love as a character. I will enjoy farming this and p11. Thank you for the lyric video also ❤. This is the first patch where I was actually at current content and could play day 1 and it was an absolute blast
We’re obv all talking about how much of scream is in this song and how its cool how that leitmotif has been distorted, but can we talk about how much of Hic Svnt Leones is in here too? This song is so cool as the perfect representation of a butchered and mangled amalgam of all of pandemonium with Athena as its ruler. The song is rife with familiarity but far prettier than either Hic or Scream but with far more disturbing lyrics, just like Athena this song pulls us into a false sense of security and familiarity until you begin to question and closely scrutinize and realize youre in far more danger than at any previous point
After reading the lyrics, it really seems like she's singing specifically towards Erichthonius. And his "purpose" in her eyes, to only serve as the vessel for her apotheosis. "By my guiding hand, perfected they stand" "I won't be denied, you were mine, you were blind" "A fool till the end" "I create, manipulate your kind in my image" "My chosen ones, For you the time has come, the sun is setting"
This is probably my favorite ff14 boss theme. I mentioned all the Alice in Wonderland references in the Scream video and this song took all of the fairy tale imagery and references and swirled them together into this really amazing song. It really gives the impression that she’s the puppeteer in the shadows manipulating circumstances to better her cause and position while everyone else is this imperfect thing she’s free to use as she pleases. I used to think the lyric “with each bite does your sanity die” might be referencing the poison apple from Snow White, but I’m beginning to wonder if Koji didn’t mean to reference Alice again from all of the shrinking and growing she did, which caused Alice to feel just as insane as the world she found herself in. In fact, Alice felt greatly manipulated by the Red Queen since all the nonsense laws were basically her insane whims. When you take that into consideration with how Emet-Selch felt about the sundered people, ie: “it’s not murder if you’re not really alive in the first place” mentality it really melds with the lyric “never once were you truly alive,” thus her own feelings of justification for doing as she pleases. Just my own rambling thoughts here lol but to me, this song and the recycled lyrics from Scream REALLY work for me. A phenomenal amalgamation of lyrics to create this absolute jam that really goes with the insanely good fantasy aesthetics and boss design. I just wish on Apple Music the music was remixed so the lyrics are clearer and easier to hear over the music. Also lowkey hoping we get an Athena style fairy stance on SCH in 7.0 😂
“For you the time has come. The sun is setting.” “Journey’s end, as I ascend.” If I remember right, Isn’t Azem usually associated with the sun and traveling? That’s one hell of a way of threatening us.
Not only to Venat, also to the Twelves who are worshipped as literal gods and they are there to just watch over everyone, letting everyone shape their images according to the wishes of the people. While Athena will get her hands on everyone and shape them to her image.
I think the implication is that she basically did survive the Sundering. Athena "died" well before the Final Days, but she left her memories and will in the Heart of Sabik as a backup plan. The fact that Lahabrea kept it means it likely escaped any effect of the Sundering. As the raid story tells us, it takes 3 things to recreate someone - a compatible vessel, the memories of that person, and a soul. Athena acquired the first and third by twisting and dominating Erich and by extension, Claudien. She re-acquired the second when Claudien encountered the Heart of Sabik. During the raid fight, she transforms (something only a true Ancient can do while remaining the same person and without the asssistance of some other plot device) and is casually throwing around Ultima spells without a second thought. Even battered and beaten at the end of the fight, she had enough energy left over to charge an Ultima big enough to obliterate enough of the Aetherial Sea to bring the Lifestream to an end. For all intents and purposes, we fought Athena at her peak and won.
Emet couldn't forget
Elidibus couldn't remember
Athena couldn't give a shit
"13 more Afterlives? Poggers! 13 more places to conduct my experiments on if the first one doesn't go over!"
no she didn't give a shit or a fuck
Ngl, I think she had potentially more disregard for humanity than either of those two. Imagine if she'd attained this level of power back then and not risen to it in a time when we were alive.
Top
Emet-Selch after dying and remembering the whole Kairos situation: Fuck, maybe I can forget
I like the imagery of her boss design being a resplendant butterfly with her eyes permanently shut and wings in place of ears. A beautiful 'god' who is ultimately blind and deaf to anyone else but her own thoughts.
that was a good observation friend.
It actually resemble Ultima the Nice Body with wings on her head and by giving 6 wings they emphasized The High Seraph title
Her form honestly reminded's me of the ff11 Aern enemy
Some Meteion thrown in there as well.
thats exactly what she thinks of herself, also this reminds me of bayonetta for some reason haha
Excited for this to be on Spotify in 3 years!
3? That's optimistic
On SoundCloud right now baby
@@PunnyFuzzYes lets go !!
Meanwhile, covers, covers, and more covers.
@@rayjinflo Full Paladin group?
She may not have the complexity of Emet-Selch or Elidibus, but I find her kind of refreshing : a megalomaniac seeker of godhood that, while able to pass as a kind mother, clearly loves what she's doing and cannot be reasoned with because she's the only one in the right.
i kind of like that to be honest. this game could do
with some villains that are just "screw you, i want power and ill kill you to get it", just straight up evil. not even the garleans were really like that. its weirdly refreshing.
@@AF-ue4ny even the garleans who were that way were outliers compared to most of them
Agree. As much as I love the deeper villains, for a raid Tier, it was refreshing to have someone being evil kind of just for the fun of it.
let pretty girls be unhinged and do unspeakable crimes this raid tier was a gift. athena was SO much fun
we've got a lot of unrepentantly shitty fathers in media, it's about time the girlbosses got more representation. Like there's plenty of toxic "I'm doing this for your own good" types but "I literally do not give a single shit about you" is usually a dad-exclusive domain.
I like how WoL has become so powerful that he/she's effectively a divine warden that keeps all the gods in check and anything that potentially becomes a god has to go through WoL first.
it's so absurd but cool.
And at the same time we are chillin with the twelve and only fighting them for some entertainment. Srsly fighting the twelve feels like some sort of vacation.
And yet still humble enough that when the Scions tell them to either:
- Lean on them if things get too much
- Let them shoulder the burden too and help out
They do, because for all their godlike power they're still an individual mortal like everyone else.
They can *very easily become a god too* but no, they're just an adventurer at heart like Zenos says.
There is a reason why the name of our main theme song is “Maker’s Ruin”.
@@W4lhalla well yeah, we decided the twelve were cool. we got into like one fight and were like "Oh actually you dudes are alright, shit and here I thought you were a threat to all creation. let's party more often!"
@@jakedge3 "I got the drinks, be in Omphalos in 10 minutes, you got everything set up? Cool, let's hit the beat!"
I get the vibe from these lyrics how utterly selfish and egotistical Athena is. The song is basicly her exclaiming her glory and how by her hand life will become perfect.
My favorite part is the way she quotes, and then twists, the lyrics of Scream and Hic Svnt Leones.
Scream is a song of horror and a call for help from the dying sanity of the Keywards. Athena’s verse denies their right to life and sanity, outright saying “never once were you truly alive”, which reminds me of Emet-Selch’s attitude towards the sundered.
Hic Svnt Leones has more of a reveling in chaos feel to it, but its lyrics still have this air of warning people about their sins. Athena’s verse discards the notion of needing to worry about her sins, and turns the last line into praising the glory of her ascension.
-----
Basically, she’s twisting the prior songs and showing how much she does NOT regret what she’s done.
I like the way the song is sung. It almost sounds soft, like a mother figure. It fits Athena’s nature. She seems so consumed by her personal desires that she thinks she is doing the right thing in her own perverted way.
To simplify, she’s so consumed by her evil that she doesn’t know she’s evil. Someone like this is their own brand of scary.
@Enlong Jones It all brings it back to how contemptuous and complacent the Ancients became towards life. They're creation magic diminished the value of life.
Pandaemonium emphasises this even more. You can only think that all these monstrosities were not created "for the benefit of the star" but almost like for kick at this point.
@@enlongjones2394 I also find that the weird beats, especially at the very start reminds of p8sp2.
"THIS WORLD IS IMPERFECT. IF ONLY I COULD WIPE AWAY THE IMPURITIES AND MAKE IT AS BEAUTIFUL AS ME!"
Man, that part quoting and then twisting Scream’s lyrics is amazing.
“Say goodnight! To the weakness that you hide behind. Leaving the lies, leaving the fear, inside! *Never once were you truly alive.* So scream all you like, no-one can hear you.”
Such a cold and brutal line, that one.
While I'm not sure if it's intentional, it echoes Emet-Selch's quote: "...but yes, moral relativism and all that. Case in point: *I do not consider you to be truly alive.* Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you." But this isn't an Ascian speaking to their sundered inferiors, it's a woman who sacrificed everything for a taste of godhood speaking to her test subjects.
@@sciencejoe That was the immediate connection I made.
@@sciencejoe Speaking to her test subject that is also *her own son*. Oof.
I like how the corrupted lines are in P9 and 10 as well.
@@DorkmasterFlek Her own son that she specifically conceived and gave birth to for the sole purpose of making into the perfect test subject.
I love how her intro lyrics go something like "I manipulate your kind in my image" and she proceeds to alter the lyrics of the other raid themes to better match her own, it's a very cheeky way to match the theme with the story thematically and I'm here for it
Also it gives the feel every fight we've fought until there and every action we've taken in Pamdaemonium was part of her bigger plan. Really love this raid
@Duranwal yeah, I was a little disappointed when they announced the new raid tier before 6.0 but now I am really happy they took a chance and didn't use a collaborative effort this time
@@Sir_Duranwal yea the last time something like that happened was Ivalice, and it was all one elaborate trap to kill the WoL so Ultima could free themselves. We literally walked right into that trap. How ironic that both the raids also have auracite at the core of their questlines too....hmmm....
@@sansfangirl4life439and neither took WoL fighting back into account... 😅
@@crowdemon_archives or more like their strength xD
I love the parallels to the gentler Twelve.
This is a selfish, tyrannical god, sung by her, illustrating her dominance over everything and the will to remake the world in her image.
Contrast Menphina and Nald'Thals, and even the Twelve's more serene, relaxed theme. They're not even sung by their respective gods, but from the viewpoint of a follower, showcasing their wishes and prayers, prayers that the Twelve hear and abide.
That and the Twelve are always calling us their loves, their children and really excited to fight or hang out. Transforming into cute animals to go around. Very different vibe.
Not to mention how joyous the Twelves' themes are; it feels like they're rejoicing in one another's presence.
Nice false gods are still false gods.
@@zephyr8072 They're not “false gods” at all. They're gods of our own making. There is a huge difference. When we pray, they hear us and try to inspire us. They didn't ask to be there and they're doing the job we unconsciously granted them.
@@AuspexAO And therefore manufactured and Eikons of a different stripe.
The fact that they're not malevolent and don't exist due to a specific agenda is irrelevant.
I like to think that Athena is meant to represent what might've happened had someone with less than savory intentions become Hydaelyn instead of Venat. A pure heart is needed to be a god, otherwise you end up with a creature like Athena, someone/something too obsessed with attaining power for the sake of power itself.
Also I'm betting on Athena's second phase in savage being something akin to a biblically accurate angel, fits the overall theme of eyes found throughout the Pandaemonium raids (especially P8 and P12) and that divine essence Athena so desperately seeks.
Edit : An extra observation, this raid is the perfect showcase of just how powerful we've become since we started our journey. Not only do we have the ability to casually perform summoning spells with Azem's soul stone, but we can tank a true Ultima, something that took most of Hydaelyn's stored up strength to protect us from back in A Realm Reborn and takes a Tank LB3 in UWU.
Next thing you know Ultima is going to just be a raid wide, oh wait.
my interpretation of athena is that she was the ascian to the ascians: willing to sacrifice all life on it for "the sake of the star," to pursue a delusional, bloody idea of perfection at any cost and with no regrets, except instead of being an unsundered considering the sundered unworthy and replaceable, she already felt that way about the unsundered themselves
I would personally disagree that Venat has anything like a pure heart but I like your interpretations. The eye stuff and fundamental secret of life/soul research gives off Eldritch/Red Science vibes that I'm very into so this whole raid series has been a blast, I'm very much looking forward to what we get for Savage.
Venat does not have a pure heart. Good people don't kill billions and create a cycle where millions more die.
Athena is Venat if anyone else found out the true cause of the Final days.
So, theres a ton of references to the high seraph ultima when it comes to Athena, I have a feeling the Monastery raids is rearing its ugly mug on second phase.
Nothing tickles my "this is peak videogame" bone than when Hic Svnt Leones plays for those 20 little seconds and snaps back to the main tune with a PAN DE MO NI UM
SO SAME. Gives me hype and chills every single time
@@nochill3379 I know what a Leitmotif is friend, I'm just saying I particularly like that part!
It went from dance club music into a bayonetta demon summoning bgm real quick
Oh im not the only one to think of Bayonetta here ! Love to see it
Right when I got out of the cutscene I put “ok bayonetta” oh party chat. Hahaha.
Is there any examples? I try to hear it ,but i am deaf to it. I feel zero Bayonetta vibes in this song. xD"
@@platinherz3884 Try Baal Zebul theme Bayonetta 3. Then you can kinda hear some vibes of bayonetta in this
@@Zerael252 Your so right! Now side by side comparison i can hear it to. Bayo vibe reach me ,muahaha. :D
It's incredible how Athena made Hermes and Meteion look like a tiny little oopsie in comparison. Hermes just didn't know what he was looking for and tried to fulfill himself by seeking hope out in the stars, then condemned his home out of a momentary weakness. Athena knew exactly what she wanted - complete, utter, total control over everything, using everyone and everything as a step towards that goal. She goes so far as to seeding her own soul into those of her husband and son and many more besides, all so that whatever happened, she'd remain, all for this goal of complete domination. And if she couldn't have it, she was fully ready to burn it all - because how else does one show complete power over a thing if not by being able to destroy it?
Hermes condemned more than just his home. Every planet the Meteia went to fell to ruin. The scale of his fuck up is so much grander than what Athena's megalomania would have resulted in that thinking she's even on the same level as him is ridiculous.
@@kio4896 The vast majority of worlds Meteion visited were already a smoking ruin or were in their last dying gasps. The few that Meteion did nudge over and hasten their doom were well on their way to apocalypse anyway, because the Great Filter is without mercy. And she did so not because of any inherent desire, but because she could not handle the overwhelming sorrow that she experienced by the virtue of being a Dynamis-based hivemind. She was so overwhelmed by pain of countless dead worlds that the only way out of that constant pain was to end it all.
Athena, on the other hand, had zero empathy for anything or anyone. She took the Ancients' mission statement of creating and recreating life to its furthest possible point, holding nothing as a step too far and reaching for the logical end point of that philosophy - apotheosis. There was not a shred of remorse when defeated, not a word of sorrow. Athena thought herself fully, irrevocably, utterly in the right, and her failures were all the fault of someone else - her husband, her son, her people, everyone but her. She was so far gone that she was ready to obliterate Etheirys itself, its very lifestream - not as a means of euthanasia as with Meteion, who above all craved for the suffering to stop - but as an act of utter spite.
Meteion was defeated because she cared about life, just as her creator did. She was defeated by appealing to that empathetic core of her, by convincing her she was wrong and that her song of oblivion was a mistake. And she spends her last moments of existence to fly across the universe and send ripples of Dynamis across it, urging and ushering new life to be born after its release from Ultima Thule.
Athena was stopped only because she was snuffed out right after her ascension, and only because she had vastly underestimated the possibility that her vessel of rebirth might have their own opinion on the matter. She saw nobody as her equal, valued no one's opinion, cared naught for anyone's free will. A universe where she had ascended and gained free reign would have been worse than a hundred Endsingers combined, as difficult as it may be to fathom. Not just hastening the demise of worlds already failing the Great Filter, but taking them, reshaping them, creating and snuffing out life and souls entirely on a whim, twisting and tormenting them as she pleased - for no other reason than because she could.
Hermes probably had clinical depression. Athena was a narcissistic bitch. :D
@@thesunthrone
Well if you think about it, her failures ARE everybody else's fault. She would've succeeded if they hadn't stopped her 🤡
what many badguys (and people) fail to grasp is destroying a thing is relatively easy compared to the monumental task of creating a thing. that is true power.
You have to strain a little bit to hear the R in it, but it’s definitely “Thirsty for war” instead of “thirsty for wool”.
I think it could also be “sins we have borne”, to go with the “Pride. Greed” before that.
Hey now, we don't know.
Those sheep are hiding something.
Did she just say 'thirsty for the warrior of light'? No that can't be right...
thirsty for wool would make a lot of sense given the here be lions from both hic svnt leones and Scream, where scream in specific mentions the lamb to be eaten.
I'm pretty sure it's "Thirsty for more".
Athena is one of the most Final Fantasy final boss looking final bosses I've ever seen.
and this isn't even her FINAL form!
@@SoooooooooooonicableWhen will her final form come out?
@@tuyua4652 P12S P2 is her final form
Endsinger still holds that title for me but Theos here is definitely not far behind.
Truly the "Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss" of FFXIV
yaaaas Athena, slayyy
Being a girlboss means being abusive to both your husband and son?
i support women's wrongs
Ah yes, Prospera.
Hahaha very true
My favorite part of Athena is how she is the manifestation of everything unsettling and wrong with Elpis and the Amaroutine society as a whole. They believed themselves to be living in perfect idyll, above all others and incapable of any real error. In Elpis, they played god. They literally designed creatures, killing them and bringing them to life as they sought fit. They truly believed that they were absolutely in the right in doing so. And so here is Athena. She created her son to fit into her plans. She wants to centralize that godlike capacity that is shown in Elpis into herself to mold the entire world at once. She said it herself: what else can a truly inquisitive mind do when given a hypothesis? And what is the most obvious hypothesis to be born from Elpis? Can nature truly be completely molded, shaped, and created at the whims of others.
Not only that, but its worth considering the absolute insanity of a society that created not one but two gods. I don't think Athena fell far from the tree.
Don't you think that's a little bit of a stretch, seeing as Athena is being shunned by everyone else in the Ancient society, most of all its leaders in Themis and Lahabrea, for being a deranged lunatic with a messiah complex?
@@TheNoMoreHero672 The only real difference is Athena expanded the scope and scale of the very same actions that they did, and removed the oversight. Elpis was the Amaurotines playing god, and Athena simply chose to stop playing god and instead become one for real. I think part of them knew that without the system of oversight they had, disaster would happen. Also consider that Hermes was also a product of the same society. He also saw it as sick, and also by not having any oversight on him became an accidental villain.
Yes, she is rejected by many within her society, but that does not mean she is not a product of the society's deep seated arrogance and belief that they know what is best for the world.
Elpis was tempered by procedure. You had to prove that your creation has objective merit and would improve the star.
There was oversight and a scientific order to things.
I shudder to think what a deranged mind like Athena's would consider to be a boon to the star (or just her), unbound by any sort of morality.
@@VioletCatastrophe Respectfully, I could never understand this interpretation of the Ancients. The worst problem their society has is the unsanctioned euthanasia of what amounts to essentially animals. To them, they cannot create true life because they can't bestow souls to the things they create. As far as they are concerned, it is AI. Even if you wanted to argue that outlook is wrong, that is not arrogance, that is ignorance. There is nothing the Ancients do that we, and by extension the Sundered society, don't do 100 times worse, and the genuinely awful people among them *like* Athena are universally condemned.
Hermes was an unstable individual so obsessed with his own self-suffering that he himself designed an entity that would feel physical pain from the negative emotion that he felt. He's an aberrant that I would certainly not call a failing of Ancient society. As we saw with Amon, his soul was doomed to be miserable no matter where he went. Should we call Amon a "manifestation of humanity?" It just seems like a bit of a double standard to me.
@@TheNoMoreHero672 There's two points I'd like to draw out from this, because it's a fairly constructed perspective but it has a few hiccups.
1) Your claim of Hermes being 'an aberrant' implies that Hermes' beliefs are aberrant or unnatural to the Ancients when they're not. Lahabrea, Athena, and Erichtonios all prove in different ways that the Ancients are not fundamentally free of turbulence. Certain sidequest NPCs also illustrate this in less dramatic degrees.
2) As a corollary of the above, Amon isn't a reflection of Hermes as he was in ancient days, he is a product of those days, and of one very specific instance. In fact, his breakdown after Aitiascope shows that the part of him that IS Hermes, that remembers being Hermes, is the one that won out.
The rest of the points are fair enough observations, but I think saying that "Hermes' soul was doomed to be miserable no matter where he went" and begging the question of Amon being/not being a "manifestation of humanity" are too far a reach.
And if those are too far a reach, it is difficult to say for certain that Athena would be "universally condemned" - otherwise, Lahabrea wouldn't have felt the need to sneakily imprison his wife and her work in Pandaemonium and keep her at length from the other Ancients. Given she ensorcelled Hegemone to her side, there is a real risk that her ideals could have permeated - Lahabrea himself says that said ideals and views didn't come from nowhere, but were magnified by the auracite.
All Ancients are taken to some level of turbulence and they just need to be in the wrong place with the wrong perspective to be affected irrevocably and have those dark impulses magnified, and the most direct methods of that are in dealing with Dynamis. In fact, it's implied that all life in the universe is taken to the same tendency; the Memoria crystals bear a resemblance to the Ea's crystals, which are stated to bear a resemblance to crystals the Grebuloffs found in the depths of the ocean.
That line "Never once were you truly alive" stuck super fucking hard with me every time I've heard this song so far. I know it's probably a finger pointing at the collective surviving humanity after the Sundering, referring to everyone as not truly living beings (ie, Emet-Selch's logic at the end of ShB "I do not consider you to be truly alive. Ergo, I will not be guilty of murder if I kill you.")
But at the same time, I REALLY feel like it's a tiny nod at Erichthonios and what she truly thinks of him. Their final conversation, her calling him useless and his response "And who made me that way?" To me, it feels like it fits both.
Agreed, that lyric hits SO hard. It's very telling: you could argue that the only thing that differentiates Emet-Selch and Athena is that Emet remembers what was lost with an intense longing (his recreation of Amaurot on the First makes this clear), while Athena doesn't give a damn about literally anything or anyone that stands in her way, past, present, or future, including her own family.
Funny that the difference between a monster and a villain is just a pinch of gratitude. Both can rationalize away incredible amounts of suffering in the name of "salvation" or **insert virtue here,** but I can only bring myself to **moderately** respect one of the them while they do so.
It also seems reflective of a solipsistic mindset. She only seems to acknowledge herself as real and everyone else is not, defined only by their utility to her until that utility is spent.
The key difference in that line between them though is that Athena truly believes it, whereas for Emet it's just part of the copium he's been taking ever since his son died.
There's something very funny to me about her saying "bare your souls to me" immediately followed by the first lyric being "souls laid bare." mission accomplished, I guess
great run everyone hit the showers
I can't be the only one interpreting the lines "Journey's end" and "The sun is setting" as her knowing that we are Azem. Not the farce we made of being Azem's familiar. No, she knows that we are a sundered Azem, the Shepherd and Traveler. And she is going to halt our adventure, once and for all.
I love this thought.
Also I love "Answers unfold, one with truth defined"
Answers being Hydaelyn's leitmotif and defining theme song.
But Answers was about her telling us to SEEK answers.
Athena presents herself as THE answer.
With that reading, "Say goodnight to the weakness that you hide behind" references it too, as she sees you as a truly staggering opponent who claims to be a mere familiar or mortal rather than being a mortal who's had to get that powerful fighting gods just as unhinged as her. Which could be seen as the mistake she makes with a lot of things/people like Eric, seeing *what* they are more than *who* they are.
@@dianaroy78 I see it more as: you are willing to be ignorant and say that some doors should remain closed. You are an impediment to progress and I will shatter that prison.
we are not azem
@@Peashooter521 I mean... We're not Azem as they were in The World Unsundered, but it is not subtle at all that the WoL is one of their sundered fragments.
I feel like the devs wanted to clearly explain the problem in the Ancients' society that Hermes was appalled and horrified by, so much that they literally created Athena, the pinnacle embodiment of the Ancients' flaws and philosophical failings. To show how accurate Hermes' predictions were.
In a way, her warped reality-ignoring realm in P12S represents a different shiny, apocalyptic endpoint for the Ancients. The Plenty shows the crushing ennui that the Ancients could have felt from finally "perfecting" creation. Athena's realm, meanwhile, is what happens when the most depraved person their society has to offer rises to power and turns all of creation into her plaything.
@@SnopelolThe irony of her enrage being that even the attack itself is named after her own inability to understand just how laughably, morbidly unworthy she is of godhood, and why she will never truly know it in the way Venat did. She died as she lived, completely unrepentant and unable to find the answer to her question, not unlike Amon.
Ultima by the Ultima Weapon - "Shit, I can't survive this! Mothercrystal, shield me!"
Ultima by Athena - "I'm stronger now. I can take this to the FACE."
Not to mention Theos's Ultima is most likely the original version
"haha Divine Veil/Dark Missionary/Heart of Light/Shake It Off goes brrr" ~ me, tank main.
@@Konpekikaminari alternatively, perhaps Athena’s version is as flawed as her plan as a whole. Though, both were being cast from the Heart of Sabik, so who knows?
*puts up a couple mits and shields*
"Oh, we can do fine without; just don't want to be rude to our healers over there who will reverse it in like three seconds"
At this point the there isn't much in the universe capable of scratching the WoL.
*INBF DONALD DUCK WALKS IN AND ZETAFLARES MY SCRAWNY LALAFELL ASS*
Her blatant insanity was so eerie because, not only did she wholeheartedly believe she was in the right, she had this gentle pity towards /us/ not ‘understanding’ her. Like “oh sweetie” 😂
and WOL is like "that's nice, you got a license for that Godhood? no? that's a paddling.
She straight-up summoned her husband and son and went "look, they'll explain. Then maybe you'll finally understand." And left all three of you confused because, no, they didn't "understand" either.
@@keithfilibeck2390 LMAO fr like "ok lady that's enough"
@@joshy541 😂 Yeah they 'understand' alright....Understand that she was outta her dang mind!!
You know she the type to use "Bless your heart"
0:00 - 1:16 = One Amongst The Weary (Pandae 9-10)
1:18 - 1:50 = Scream (Pandae 5-7) + Prelude
1:51 - 2:33 = Ancient Shackles (Pandae 1-3)
2:34 - 4:03 = Reprise of the above
4:04 - 4:32 = Hic Svnt Leones (Pandae 4)
All through a Trance-Music like filter from White Stone Black (Pandae 8 Savage)
(Unashamedly stolen from a different videos comment section, but just wanted people to see *all* the leitmotifs present)
The real hero here. i was trying to pick them out myself.
the hic svnt leones part is so subtle and sexy omg
@@Cat-sampo my bad oops
Man, my favorite thing about FF music is that if you ever can’t decide which song to listen to, eventually one will come out that’s just all of them at once.
Thanks for this! I can see a picture which is Athena on the top of all the bosses in pandaemonium by through this song…😂
Has anyone else listened to this song an unhealthy amount since release?
✋🏻guilty, I’m doing this fight now just to get the damn orchestrion so I can keep listening to while crafting 😅
I had the luck of getting the scroll REALLY quickly and it haven't left my orchestrion since
This built Eden Titan theme since I discovered titans theme in ff16 was based off of that one.
Instead of "I glee" I think she's still saying "Pride. Greed." to go along with "In mud thrive these seeds."
Yeah. Similar to the Scream section, the first bit there is a direct quoting of Hic Svnt Leones
I hear 'ugly'.
To add to that 'Thirsty for wool' is actually more likely 'Thirsty for more'. As again that more in line with 'wool' randomly being there.
I heard ugly also
@@NuminorTheFool I am hearing "These seeds **** have borne."
Something I noticed that no one ever mentions, in the cutscene she says "SEAT OF GODHOOD", as if to mock Themis and his own trial "The Seat of Sacrifice"
Seat of sacrifice was a refrence to elidibus being the only one from convication that got sacrificed to zodiark. Her Seat of godhood is probably she thinking she is above the convication.
@@peasantofpersia Yes but its very likely still a reference because right before this fight we fight Themis and not only is he "lower" than Athena but Athena also ended up controlling him.
@@KalleDemos666 not him.... her literal memory of him made manifest, large distinction that should be made imo
The deities in FFXIV have some amazing theme songs. Menphina's theme is an upbeat song that explores how the world's cat people find safety and comfort in worshipping the moon. Sophia's theme is a sad parable that shows how the goddess' idea of balance is harsh and inhumane. Lakshmi spends her song trying to seduce you into accepting her ideology of blissful sloth. Shiva mourns her own plight. Suzaku sings of lost love. Athena sings about how she is the shit and she's gonna kill you. It's all just so great.
I love Athena so much, shes so unhinged and evil, and unapologetically so. This tier has been so refreshing because it has irredeemable villains as the main antagonists, and the final boss being the mastermind behind it all feels so good. Also I love how Athena's transformation animation is the same as Meteion going into her emo era (without the black fire) and she also has wings on her head like Meteion.
I also like that FF14's writers didn't try to make Lahabrea more 'reasonable' than we remember him in ARR. They gave him depth as a character while DOUBLING DOWN on his 'Fuck you, I'll do what I need to' mentality.
That's what makes FF so interesting. Most of the games all end up with Gods, fallen gods, God wannabes being final bosses.
Japanese culture also involve alot of malevolent gods after all.
@@Krescentwolfalso when you tell them their respective fates, Emet-Selch is crying, screaming, shaking in rage at the thought, and Lahabrea is like "yeah that sounds like something I'd do."
For your opinion, which one you love to hate more, Asahi or Athena?
Like a wool-hungry moth flying too close to a lamp, Athena has girlbossed too close to the sun. Or, in this case, Azem.
The Asphodelos segment in this is glorious
I LOVE the club version of Scream. This was an amazing raid, full of emotions. Regret for Lahabrea. So much sadness saying goodbye to Eric and Themis. So much hatred for Athena. But I also kind of like her… her brand of evil allowed her to be true to herself. Much like Zenos in a way.
Although her namesake is Athena, she cannot help but remind me of the individual known as Psykhe in Greek mythos. Quite literally the Goddess of the Soul, a mortal who ascended to godhood. She apparently had a lot of butterfly imagery, associated with her as well.
Oh shit yeah that is damn close.
FFXIV players superpower is to be able to fight boss while hearing bangers like this one.
Didn't realize we were on chaos route in smt pandemonium
I'm not the only one getting SMT vibes either \o/
“One more god rejected!” As a certain Demi fiend would be hearing in his head or something
when she sang 'In Anabaseios', gave me the chills. Like 'woah!' we're in it right now!
They foresaw everyone who didn't have a greek mythology phase in elementary school whinging about not being able to pronounce it again 😂
1:48 - Pride, greed, in mud thrive these seeds
2:11 - Pride, greed, thirsting for more
Pretty sure you've nailed it otherwise!
I fucking love this track. Take both Hic Svnt Leones and Scream, and then just *twist it in Athena's image.*
I love the song and I just love her design. She has the beautiful butterfly wings, plus angel wings... but the angel wings are the shape of mantis arms, predators that ambush prey. She makes me think of an orchid mantis, and it is so suiting!
The Aizen vibes I caught from Athena. Maybe it's just me because I recently finished watching Bleach, but from Athena's form design, to her desire for godhood, and the orange-haired experiment. That ball in her chest looks like a large Hogyoku, too.
"You have done well to reach the seat of Godhood." Lady, I have lost count of how many Gods, real, summoned, or self-proclaimed that I've killed. You are not intimidating, you are not the first, and you will probably not be the last.
"I'll tell you what I told the last guy, and the other assholes before them - we can do this the easy way, or the hard way!"
Athena: I have become unto a GOD! WORSHIP ME!
WoL: To me you're just another mark on the wall.
6:00 I can't get over the summoner and paladin just walking right off the edge.
Sacrifice was needed to survive
Omg I did the same thing! I thought it'd be one of those aoes that radiate outwards 😂
Had someone do the same on my first run here!
"Nah she tripping hard I'm out"
First thing through my head when I heard it: "This song wouldn't be out of place during a final fight in Sailor Moon." It has that 'magical girl' vibe, and I'm totally here for it.
I love how some of the chords clash in the opening bars, as if even her theme music is introducing how unhinged she is before the the melody and lyrics even drop. At first I thought it was my headset, but nope!
And what a fight, huh? I was not ready!
EDIT: The official lyrics are out! th-cam.com/video/QaIdk-fpevk/w-d-xo.html
Here are some pretty good / better interpretation of the lyrics as commented by others:
One with the truth defined → One with the true divine
I glee (looking back this doesn't make sense lmao) → Pride and greed (yeah, lyrics from P4. Quite an oversight from me ehe)
Thirsty for wool (this is embarrassing 🤣) → Thirsty for war / Thirsty for more / Sins we have borne
I am truth defined → I am true divine
Your god can't hear you → Your god can hear you
Clean my cries → Claim my prize
Keep 'em coming! Let's aim for 100% accuracy when the official lyrics come out 😅
I am fairly confident it is "Gods can't hear you", like the Scream lyrics, from P6 and 7
Definitely buying into it being ‘Sins we have borne’ so far for that one line, if only because it compliments the preceding ‘Pride, Greed’ line. (You know, sins).
I know it wasn't correct but Thirsty for Wool is still the goat so thank you for the audible chuckle from me
I feel like it's more "Manipulate your mind" instead of "Manipulate your kind" and "My chosen one" instead of "ones" because of all the focus on how Eric got manipulated by her and was poised to become her vessel before we came along, and lines up with the previous verse how it says "a fool til the end" implying it's speaking to someone specific (Eric)
in context with the rest of the verse Pride and greed does make more sense lol
This has been out for almost a year now and I’m only just now noticing, verrrry faintly, her “tremble!” at 6:09.
I was a huge fan of Pandaemonium 5-8, OST wise especially, so I was incredibly curious how Soken was gonna one up. The mad lad did that with the new tier again
If there’s anything Soken has proven over the years, it’s not to ask “how can he top this?”
The man will find a way without fail
@@Harrowing999 Soken is a primal all on his own. He is the god of music, and he can't be beaten.
@@jijonbreaker he is indeed a primal, and we are all willingly tempered
This might not be soken tho
Yeah electronic music tracks should be Inamura composition
It's "Pride, Greed, in mud thrive these seeds."
It's *literally* the lyrics from Hic Svnt Leones.
It has several lyrics from Scream too, including a new variant of the "say goodnight" verse
This sounds so menacing and beautiful at the same time.
I kind of want to say the "Scream all you like, your god can't hear you" Reprise is "your god CAN hear you", but given the distortion and speed, that's probably just me. It would, however, make total sense to me that Athena not only would hear your screams, but would delight in them.
Her eyes are closed and her ears are replaced with wings. She can't hear you and doesn't care to.
keeping her boss intro line is was a fire decision
you should do that with any of the ones that talk
This song was an absolute treat for the ears~! I love when songs for these tiers reference the previous songs and culminate like this. Really sells the fact that Athena was the mastermind behind all of this. It was all her.
And I love the lyrics that come from if she did achieve her form as a twisted God. It makes you wonder if it has been her and not Venat!
This gave me such Bayonetta vibes, and paired with the bosses aesthetics, chefs kiss! I love the lyrics are referenced from the other two songs but now it all makes sense. Erik is the sheep and she’s been the lion all along. We always thought the references were about the chaos and carnage of the monsters and madness of Pandaemonium, and in some ways they were. But now we are given so much context as to how those songs when sung from the point of Athena, are about using and abusing her son for her own purposes.
Athena: "I am a god, and will shape the world as I see fit!"
WoL: (summons other wol) "The council has found you.......wanting. Prepare to be decommissioned."
I was kinda hoping that in this raid, they would realize that the wol is azem reborn. Wol spammed azem's summoning spell throughout the wing. They should'vs realized something was up. Especially lahabrea and elidibus.
Lahabrea was not really present at the fights. Ellidibus on the other hand witness it and i think reconize it later when he found his peace ( his memory was afterall formed from his real soul unlike Lahabrea who was projected from the soul crystal)
I think Elidibus had this realization when we shared our Eather with him
@@Houseoholiker Lahabrea's watching the Abyssos ones, he has a line in p7 in the fight
@@Adam-th7qt ye but in p7 helps Themis to summon ur friends. U use the Azem crystal not once in both raid tiers. Only in the third one. A little interesting fact in p8 is the summon magic red cuz lahabrea helps this time to create ur "illusions" for the fight
Azem's crystal was made in secret by Emet-Selch. No one but him would have noticed and Azem themselves were wiped from all records. She'd have never known
Thank goodness that I'm single or else half of my soul will be taken
pay Check
@@solisimperium1203 At this point, same thing.
I feel like "In Anabaseios I am the Truth Defined" is "I am the True Divine".
Both suit Athena's pursuits, and I do feel like the earlier "Truth Defined" fits the context of its line, but Athena's chase of godhood and connections to The High Seraph lend credense to the "False Goddess of Anabaseios" the same way Ultima thought herself the one true god of Ivalice.
The vocalist does an amazing job!
This song and this fight have always been so creepy for me, and I just realized why.
While hydaelyn embodies the gentle nature of motherhood and the unconditional love a mother has for her children and loved ones, to the point where she's willing to completely sacrifice herself to ensure the safety of her kids, Athena is the exact opposite face of motherhood, the controlling, manipulative, toxic and absolutely destructive nature toxic mothers can have.
That distinction is so evident in the song and her story, hydaelyn chose to become a god in order to save, while she yearns to be a god to control and destroy.
First we had zurvan who wanted to outright slaughter you, then we had susano who only thrill was combat and not death. Now we got a megalomaniac who is so arrogant that she underestimates us. It was super refreshing to have this story.
when i first heard this i was like ..wait moment. this is a clear version of p9 and 10..its her singing. its basically what they did with innocence, they put her insanity and twisted mind into audio. as she is not ascended yet, the version of p9/10 is sounding distorted and unclear but here she is so close to godhood and being the perfection she is seeking that we can hear her clearly now. amazing.
Bravely Default finally got a raid nod
*Wicked flight intensifies*
Legit disappointed she didn't say "Dude,trust me, I'm a fairy" or something like that, would have killed the tone but would be funny as hell
@@martonszentkiralyi2251
Man, Evil Wings (just my preferred translation for the song name) is such a strong song. I would love it if they used a remix of some BD music in XIV.
She really does have that third act arrogant evil fairy thing down.
The fact this song twists the lyrics of previous songs feels like a very “Airy” thing to do lol
As amazing as this song is, the backup singer's "PAN-DAE-MO-NI-UM is the best
So, it sounds weird, but one of the most satisfying things about the lyrics and how she sings them. The verses that include "forevermore" and rubato tempo, the way she sings has such a wonderful fluctuation of notes in such a short time it's just very addictive to listen to.
Why is nobody talking about the timing hungrychad did for the intro? "Now, bare your souls to me! SOOOOULS LAID BAAAARE"
My Athena raiding skills got progressively better as I learned all the mechanics, and then progressively worse again as I learned all the lyrics and started singing instead of paying attention to the game.
"I glee" is definitely "Pride, greed" because it's followed by the line"In mud thrives these seeds" from Hic Svint Leones.
The perfect Mother's Day song.
Whoever the mother is that you send this to... Damn. It's a mood
"Here I rise, and clean my cries" Giiirl, mood.
I mean, I'm pretty sure you meant eyes, but mood
I might be mishearing, but "clean my cries" sounds like "claim my prize" to me. Makes some sense, since Lahabrea said Athena would burn the world if it meant she'd still stand to find her "prize" in the ruin and ash. "Here, I rise, to claim my prize."
YoshiP : I need music for a new raid
Soken : Ok, you need music for a new rave
YoshiP : No, a raid
Soken : A rave it is
When I did this raid, I thought to myself "She talks like Ultima, Seraph" and kinda thought how cool it is that they had this tie to both the end of ARR with the heart of Sabik and to the Ivalice raids to a lesser extent with how closely the boss' design in that raid match an ancient's 'combat form' so to speak and its ties to godhood. The auracity made them single-minded, but as powerful as a god.
If you talk to Claudien again after the quest ends and pick the first option there's an additional cutscene where they talk precisely about the High Seraph.
this is a great observation, but i also want to point out your typo of auracite as "auracity" and now i'm just imagining WOL seeing the heart of sabik after the ivalice raids and thinking _"the auracity of this bitch..."_
1:50 is one of my favorite moments to come back to, how it blatantly ties in the songs from before and subtly suggests that through every piece and orchestration made, it was all her. It was all Athena.
Love how this has a massive Bayonetta feel to it
I also can't get over the Soken LB4 at 1:48
I'm really excited for savage
That's Ramuh's theme background screams in there, no?
YEAH DO YOU ALSO HEAR "I STAAAND AT YOUR GATEEE" it just happened subconsciously to me ngl
@@d.r.643 I can hear it too!
@@d.r.643 Same omg I thought it was just me xD
@@d.r.643 Like with la-hee and the Bozja theme, it's taken from a vocal soundtrack for the purpose of sampling.
For anyone interested this song has a BPM of 135.
I love how you keep the intro dialogue into the song. It makes the listening experience even better. Don't stop doin that if you can!
"The not once were you truly alive." really hits different ❤
"FROM THE DEEPEST PITS OF THE SEVEN HELLS, TO THE PINNACLE OF THE HEAVENS.."
When she said the ultima line, I was screaming. "SHE SAID THE LINE, SHE SAID THE LINE!"
I automatically finished it with UNLEASH ULTIMA because it's simply not complete without it
But it's also a very cool bit of recontextualization that the unhinged and gloating Lahabrea we meet in ARR is such because he's being twisted around by Athena.
@@thesunthrone Yup! I think most of the outright hostile Ascians in ARR were already redeemed, except for I think Nabriales.
And she says it so well, the VA really knocked it out of the park with that line...
@@Bob-ji3tc You're kidding, right? It's awfully delivered compared to all the rest of her lines. Especially the weird deep voice she puts on for "tremble", makes her sound like a self-parody.
@@Vulgarth1 I lost it when I heard that line, it was so unintentionally funny 😂
Probably the best 12th fight and music since Alexander, holy SHIT.
"Thirsty for wool" lol you tried, at least we should be getting the actual lyrics later but good effort
I'm embarrassed for even considering the word wool 😅
The starting portion while waiting for players is always such a bop
Thirsty for wool
This fight was so fun the song is perfect the arena is beautiful the boss looks like Titania and hydaelyn had a baby. It’s not to hard on easy. I think also the song fits Athena character perfectly especially the line by my hand perfected they stand referring to Erichthonios who I absolutely love as a character. I will enjoy farming this and p11. Thank you for the lyric video also ❤. This is the first patch where I was actually at current content and could play day 1 and it was an absolute blast
We’re obv all talking about how much of scream is in this song and how its cool how that leitmotif has been distorted, but can we talk about how much of Hic Svnt Leones is in here too? This song is so cool as the perfect representation of a butchered and mangled amalgam of all of pandemonium with Athena as its ruler. The song is rife with familiarity but far prettier than either Hic or Scream but with far more disturbing lyrics, just like Athena this song pulls us into a false sense of security and familiarity until you begin to question and closely scrutinize and realize youre in far more danger than at any previous point
After reading the lyrics, it really seems like she's singing specifically towards Erichthonius. And his "purpose" in her eyes, to only serve as the vessel for her apotheosis.
"By my guiding hand, perfected they stand"
"I won't be denied, you were mine, you were blind"
"A fool till the end"
"I create, manipulate your kind in my image"
"My chosen ones, For you the time has come, the sun is setting"
honestly this song has no right going this hard XD
ATHENA!!
YOU CONSPIRE AGAINST ME?!
This is probably my favorite ff14 boss theme. I mentioned all the Alice in Wonderland references in the Scream video and this song took all of the fairy tale imagery and references and swirled them together into this really amazing song. It really gives the impression that she’s the puppeteer in the shadows manipulating circumstances to better her cause and position while everyone else is this imperfect thing she’s free to use as she pleases. I used to think the lyric “with each bite does your sanity die” might be referencing the poison apple from Snow White, but I’m beginning to wonder if Koji didn’t mean to reference Alice again from all of the shrinking and growing she did, which caused Alice to feel just as insane as the world she found herself in. In fact, Alice felt greatly manipulated by the Red Queen since all the nonsense laws were basically her insane whims. When you take that into consideration with how Emet-Selch felt about the sundered people, ie: “it’s not murder if you’re not really alive in the first place” mentality it really melds with the lyric “never once were you truly alive,” thus her own feelings of justification for doing as she pleases. Just my own rambling thoughts here lol but to me, this song and the recycled lyrics from Scream REALLY work for me. A phenomenal amalgamation of lyrics to create this absolute jam that really goes with the insanely good fantasy aesthetics and boss design. I just wish on Apple Music the music was remixed so the lyrics are clearer and easier to hear over the music.
Also lowkey hoping we get an Athena style fairy stance on SCH in 7.0 😂
I appreciate that you at least blurred the boss.
So many people are careless about spoilers.
The corrupt versions of the other pandaemonium songs is a really nice touch.
She cares not about them, only herself.
Fuck yea, this song makes me thirsty for wool!
Athena: I will become the supreme god
WOL: Another one? I've killed, what? 4 Supreme gods already. And it's only Thursday morning.
When it comes to the Endsinger, I think even "God" as a title is too limited to fit what it had done for 12 millennium.
Athena: the hell you- _>*
Wol: *casts lb4 of each dps job* :3 we're gonna have loves of fun~
Athena: *internally confused screaming*
@@leonides1527 Yeah, nobody in my run used LB, so she ain't worth even that.
I have to say that but the drop when Athena says "bare your souls to me" hits really hard
i have this song memorized and in a choke hold help😭
The way you had the lyrics start after she says "Now, bare your souls to me."
You really ate that.
“For you the time has come. The sun is setting.”
“Journey’s end, as I ascend.”
If I remember right, Isn’t Azem usually associated with the sun and traveling? That’s one hell of a way of threatening us.
She's the perfect antithesis of Venat/Hydaelyn (who was the previous Azem).
Not only to Venat, also to the Twelves who are worshipped as literal gods and they are there to just watch over everyone, letting everyone shape their images according to the wishes of the people. While Athena will get her hands on everyone and shape them to her image.
I *do* hear "clean my cries" but I maintain that "claim my prize" makes more sense given the context.
If Athena survived the sundering she would be the most terrifying ascian we have to face
I think the implication is that she basically did survive the Sundering. Athena "died" well before the Final Days, but she left her memories and will in the Heart of Sabik as a backup plan. The fact that Lahabrea kept it means it likely escaped any effect of the Sundering.
As the raid story tells us, it takes 3 things to recreate someone - a compatible vessel, the memories of that person, and a soul. Athena acquired the first and third by twisting and dominating Erich and by extension, Claudien. She re-acquired the second when Claudien encountered the Heart of Sabik.
During the raid fight, she transforms (something only a true Ancient can do while remaining the same person and without the asssistance of some other plot device) and is casually throwing around Ultima spells without a second thought. Even battered and beaten at the end of the fight, she had enough energy left over to charge an Ultima big enough to obliterate enough of the Aetherial Sea to bring the Lifestream to an end.
For all intents and purposes, we fought Athena at her peak and won.
The fact that this song brings the pandaemonium story together so well you can hear P4S P5,6,7S and P9,10,11S in this one song
I'm impressed with this and the other content, especially the music. I really like 6.4 music.
this has some banger mid-2000s vibes and I love it for that