Question of the week- Why is Ash blurry? (Ends 9/18)

[ChristineMoon]

When you first meet Elise, she stares at you and asks "you're blurry. Are you broken?"

In chapter 8, Elise sees the woman in the bone mask and comments that "she's blurry too".

What makes you and Scarlet blurry?

As always, please mark any spoilers with [ spoiler] (your text) [ / spoiler] (no spaces between brackets) as necessary, and PLEASE try not to refer to the memory oracles if you've played far enough to guess what makes people blurry.

Per Ben's standard rules, 300 gems will be awarded to the best answer. If 5+ people answer, the winner gets 300 gems, 2nd place gets 100, and if 8 people play, a bonus 50 gems goes to a random player.

Good luck, and I can't wait to hear your answer!!

[DudeLove721]

I actually think the answer is pretty simple. I would imagine they are both blurry because they have died and come back to life. Elise can see spirits of the dead, so it would make sense that she thinks Ash is broken and that him and Scarlet look blurry to her.

[ChristineMoon]

Great theory! I have considered the same.

[Casey]

This makes sense. I've never thought of that.

[crysania]

Maybe Ash and Scarlet are both descendants of humans. Maybe the blurriness is caused by the fact that their magical side, the Elinsian side, is not complete. Please excuse any spelling errors. I am blind using VoiceOver as my screen reader now

[ChristineMoon]

Good answer! No need to apologize- it sounds the same when you read it aloud.

[Alicia von Gryphon]

I think there are two possible explanations. One is DudeLove721 's theory.
The other one is based on something that was mentioned on the forum - the idea that Scarlet might not be really alive. So that might be the reason why she appears blurry to Elise, because she is both dead and alive at the same time. (Something like her body is alive, and a fragment of her soul is in there, but she is more like a puppet of the one pulling the strings from behind the door.) As for Ash, he might also be blurry because he isn't entirely there, but in a different way. We know that Chronos can see fragments from other timelines, but I think that is because he is a time mage; Elise is really unlikely to possess that ability. In the meantime, due to us altering time, Ash has lived in multiple timelines, some of which he remembers. If we see timelines as alternate realities, alternate universes, we can say that they are different worlds (just like in Scarlet's case, the world of the living and that of the dead). So Ash may appear blurry to Elise because he lives in multiple worlds at once (as long as he remembers any timeline other than the current one).

[ChristineMoon]

Very interesting.

[Casey]

What do you mean Ash isn't entirely there?

[KristenKelling]

Ash is probably blurry because of the fact that we have altered timeso much throughout the game, and it could also have something to do with him being a descendant of humans. I also wonder if him being connected to the human world could play a role in his blurriness.

[ChristineMoon]

Welcome to the forums! Can't wait to hear more of your theories.

[dberryelixir1011]

I don't think it's because Ash is a human descendant - if that were true, then Marik Stewart would also have been blurry to Elise. Scarlet and Marik were in the forest scene together, as was Elise, why did she comment on Scarlet being blurry but not Marik if he's a human descendant too?

My theory is that Ash and Scarlet are blurry due to their connection to the human world. I'm not talking by ancestry, I'm talking like actually being in contact with the human world. Ash has his pocket watch to talk to us and I believe Scarlet must also have some connection because she has access to human technology, something that's been banned in Alyncia (I'm thinking in particular of the bomb that went off after the confrontation in the forest - since Ash and the gang didn't recognize it it's probably safe to conclude it's not part of the Alyncian world).

As Ash continues to communicate with the human world, Ash also becomes less grounded and present in this world. It's like the two of them are split between two different universes and aren't completely a part of either anymore. It's possible that Ash and Scarlett's ancestry does play a role in this too but I don't believe it's the prominent reason.

[ChristineMoon]

welcome to the board! Great theory, hope to hear more from you!

[ChristineMoon]

Plenty of great theories this week, so I'm very glad that we had 5 players, and could pick 2 winners, and both of them are new to QOTW!

In first place, congratulations to dberryelixir1011, and at a very close 2nd, DudeLove721. I will PM both of you with winning codes. Thanks to everyone who played!

[Alicia von Gryphon]

Congrats, dberryelixir1011 and DudeLove721!

[ChristineMoon]

I really found the dead/ revived theory pretty interesting, and it makes perfect sense. I originally believed that Scarlet/ Ash were blurry because of their relationship to the door- not necessarily that they were both dead but because, as Elise says in Chapter 9, Ash's aura doesn't belong in this world.

We know that Ash's power is from a human-connected artifact- the watch. Perhaps the glyphs that appear in Ash's head make the aura blurry. Maybe Scarlet's mask is a human-connected artifact, or maybe it's just her powers are now being channeled from the other side of the door.

I don't believe Scarlet is human, but I won't share the spoiler reasons here.

[Casey]

What do you mean gems?