[Spoilers lvl80] Concerning Names and Titles

Seriously. There are some spoilers ahead!

In case you missed u/elvhen's Emmett post, here's a link to check out some dialogue options I'll be referencing here.

Be it Elidibus or Igeyorhm, all are titles of office. And when an office is vacated, it may be filled by another.

As noted, our Ascian friend's title of office is "Emet-Selch," and in the end he dies as Hades which in all probability is his real name (E: ty LunarEmerald for reading what I missed in my rush to kill Emmett). To reference u/gabrielceleste and u/dracosuave and their work on the lvl80 Zone's references and homages, Hythlodaeus acts as our Virgil in Amaurot, the Ascian Nonsense... I mean Ascian Utopia. Which fits with the previous Greek tie ins of using Philia, Eros, and Storge (but no Agape, curiously, though "Innocence" could be the twisted version of this given the themes). Greek references? Greek references.

So, who is Elidibus really? My prediction is Python.

Elidibus's symbol is the Ophiuchus, the Greek constellation known as the "Serpent Bearer." Unukalhai - who is his disciple that we meet during the Warring Triad arc of Heavensward - is the former name of the Alpha Serpentis double-star in real world astronomy; Alpha Serpentis lies within the Serpens Caput constellation, which lies immediately adjacent to the Ophiuchus. TL;DR for this: snakes, it had to be snakes.

So, we've got an expansion built around Greek language for its naming schemes and it's making references to Greek myths and concepts, like Utopia and Hades. In keeping with another FF reference, we're dealing with astronomy and astrology both (Zodiarc/Zodiark/Zodiac). Since one of the major themes of FFXIV has been built around the duality and perpetual combat between day and night aka light and dark, I figured it would make sense to look for Greek deities with snake backgrounds and enemies with solar or "light" backgrounds. Python's main foe in myth is Apollo. Apollo has been called by the epithet Phoebus, or "bright," and and it has as far as to equate Apollo with Helios - basically taking on the role of sun god. Given the nature of us Heroes of Hydaelyn being the Warriors of Light in the Source, we share a similar trait with our friend Apollo - light.

So, that's my hypothesis.

Now that said, I'm curious what happens. We're "switching up” our role as Warriors of Light by becoming Warriors of Darkness. Uriangier noted the difference between the Source and the First where our Astral Light is their Umbral Light, which of course leads me to ask why. But this is probably a tangential relation. That said, it is giving me vibes to Plato's Allegory of the Cave - our experiences are limited to our senses, and also the fact that the allegorical characters see a shadow created by the light. So I guess that revelation, to me, is a two-parter.