When you start your journey in Final Fantasy XIV, you make your way to Eorzea either on a ship or a chocobo carriage, depending on the starting location that you have picked. But irrespective of the choice you make, the first two incredibly important NPCs that you will see on your screen are the twins.
However, you don’t interact with Alisaie and Alphinaud right away. It takes a while for the Warrior of Light to formally meet them, but soon after, Alisaie departs on her own quest to learn more about Eorzea and try to understand why her grandfather Louisoix decided to sacrifice himself for this land.
Alphinaud then grows into one of your greatest allies in A Realm Reborn as you strive towards ushering in the Seventh Astral Era.
But have you ever wondered what prompted the twins to walk in their grandfather’s footsteps to begin with?
The Sharlayans have always been against interference. They regard themselves as avid historians and documenters of events. They rarely involve themselves in matters that involve bloodshed, and they take a sort of indifferent stance to everything else that goes on in the world.
Why did Alphinaud and Alisaie join the Scions in Final Fantasy XIV?
So when Louisoix decided to head to Erozea before the Seventh Umbral Calamity, there were a lot of protests, including from his son Fourchenault and the twins. However, Alphinaud soon fell silent in the face of his grandsire’s resolve, and Alisaie continued to weep because she was sorely going to miss him.
It was during this argument with his son that Louisoix made the famous statement, lines from which you often hear Alphinaud using in his speeches and also something that the Warrior of Light has access to during several dialog options, the Archon had said,
“To ignore the plight of those one might conceivably save is not wisdom─it is indolence. And such a passive stance will not, I fear, take us far upon the path to progress. That you would spare these younglings the horrors of war is a decision with which I am in full agreement. Thus do I refrain from exhorting you, or any other, to return to Eorzea at my side. We must all protect that which we hold most dear in the manner of our own choosing.”
Some days later, during the cusp of the Seventh Umbral Calamity, when Dalamud continued to descend, and the Alliance forces faced off against the Empire, the twins found themselves in the Studium’s observatory, along with their professors and a throng of fellow students.
Each took turns to observe Dalamud through a giant telescope. It was Alisaie who noticed that Dalamud had broken, with the Primal Bahamut bursting forth. And she was also the one to share with the group that her grandfather had been successful, as Bahamut seemed to have suddenly vanished.
However, the twins’ elation was short-lived. Shortly afterwards, Urianger’s letter gave a detailed description of the horrors of the calamity, along with informing them that their grandsire and his mentor had sacrificed themselves to seal Bahamut and had embarked upon his final journey.
This is the event that helped the twins consolidate their resolve to follow in their grandfather’s wake. So when they graduated from the Studium, Alphinaud and Alisaie were sixteen summers old, old enough to be considered of age in Sharlayan society.
Soon after, they set sail for Eorzea and Fourchenault, and although he opposed his children’s planned journey, he did not seek to bar their way.
