BIG DAMN SPOILERS, SIR!
You've been warned.
You've been warned.
Well, as I've said in a couple threads before when this subject gets brought up: to simply equate The Echo = Hydaelyn's Blessing does not work. Period. It can't. Because the Ascians have it, the Beastmen have it, people who have come and died and were not saved by Hydaelyn have had it, the Ascians can BESTOW it upon people. So the Echo is so much more than "Hydaelyn's Gift."
Is it possible that Hydaelyn gifted us the Echo way back in 1.0? Yes, it is possible the reason we have the Echo in the first place is because of Hydaelyn, but this does not make it exclusively Her gift. Nor should we think of the Echo and the Blessing as synonymous any longer.
The only people who seem to truly understand the Echo and what exactly it is, are the Ascians... and maybe Midgardsormr cuz he just stripped us naked hardcore.
So what exactly does "Hydaelyn's Blessing" aka "The Blessing of Light" entail? Well, so far, it appears to only be protection. Now, asides from being physical protection against things mere mortals could not withstand (Tempering, Ultima, Ascian attacks...) it also bears with it a Covenant. This is vaguely alluded to by Midgardsormr when he attempts to murder you, Hydaelyn says no, and Midgardsormr obeys as per the Covernant. We don't know what this Covenant is exactly, but we can assume that it pertains to an ancient pact between the Terrestrial Gods of Hydaelyn back during Creation. I don't know for certain, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that their immortality is on the line. I mean, what else could you use as a bargaining chip against a 10,000 year-old god?
Okay, so if Midgardsormr killing the Player Character would break the Covenant, we can infer that no Chosen of Hydaelyn can harm another Chosen of Hydaelyn. Who doesn't seem to give a crap about the Covenant? Primals and Ascians.
I'm rambling cuz Coil + Lore again. Merp.
Anyways, Echo, we don't know what it is, we don't know where it comes from. It could come from Hydaelyn, but it can't be exclusive to Hydaelyn, therefor it cannot be "Hydaelyn's Blessing" because Hydaelyn's Blessing was stripped from us by Midgardsormr, yet our Echo appears to remain intact.
However, our only evidence of this fact is that we can still understand Ascian language, a gift afforded to us by our specific Echo. As per the 1.0 MSQ, the ability to understand all language is NOT a common gift. In fact, its an ability very few Echo-users seem to have.
1.0 Minfilia could not understand all languages. 2.0 Minfilia can, apparently, understand Ascian. Whoopsies or retcon? Who knows. See for yourself:
1.0 MSQ Together We Stand
Also Path of the Twelve/1.0 Echo lore for folks who are interested:
1.0 MSQ Fade to White
__________________________________________________________________________
EDIT: Fernehalwes dropped this lore bomb today. Asides from the very interesting details of the Dravanian language there's also some small things tucked inside the post I wanted to pull out as they relate to this topic.
Quote:When the Echo “translates†for someone, it is a joint effort between the listener’s mind and Hydaelyn’s gift. The gift is providing the knowledge, while the listener’s mind is using its previously compiled linguistic background to compile the data into something more familiar.
So this pretty much confirms that the Echo was granted to us by Hydaelyn. Ding! This is now a fact. However, the fact also remains that the Echo is not exclusive or synonymous to Hydaelyn's Gift as those not bound by Hydaelyn's Covenant also seem to have the power of the Echo (and far greater knowledge of it).
Quote:And, because of this, the only way a non-dragon would be able to understand a dragon is if the dragon chose to speak in the non-dragon’s language, or the non-dragon was blessed with the power of the Echo.
This makes it sound like an Echo retcon is now officially in play. 2.0 Echo seems to grant everyone the power to understand any language, or at least, that's what this post seems to infer to me. This is intrinsically different than 1.0 Echo, which the only common gift between Echo users was the ability to enter the mind of another. See above cutscene for Minfilia being unable to understand Sylphic, despite her having the Echo.
