Major plot hole with Heavensward ending (Spoilers, duh)

[nyttyn]

So, Estinein. Drops his guard for 'but a moment,' then suddenly Niddhog takes over in a fashion that would make CATS proud. A touching moment, but one big problem -

It made no damn sense.

Consider the context - one eye had just been drained, twice - once to overpower the barrier of Azys Lla, and another to kill a ascian (which is even REMARKED UPON RIGHT THERE), and the other had just been sapped to transform the Archbishop and the Heavens' Ward (albiet, after consuming Lahabrea). So, unless Lahabrea was some sort of uberconduit the likes of which the world has never seen, how the hell did the eyes, in their drained state, manage to overpower the dragoon in the mere less-than-a-minute he was holding the things?

This gets even stupider in light of the fact that King Thordan's son held the bloody things for who knows how long (easily upwards of ten minutes at the least), both at once, and he never so much as saw a hint of going super nidhogg sayian - and this was when Nidhogg's eyes were at full power - immediately after getting ripped out of the wyrm's sockets. Plus Nidhogg wasn't even dead at the time!

I like the story overall but this is kind of a glaring diabolus ex machina.

[AlbelTelWicked]

Two key things.

You answered the reason why King Thordan's son didn't go super nidhogg, Nidhogg still had a physical form. In this non physical form he probably attached to Estinein and took control when his guard was down. If he was killed in the past and his physical form destroyed he could have probably taken over King Thordan's son.

Secondly, Estinein was much more blood thirsty and had hatred in him throughout the expansion if you are aware. He also had the eye with him, Nidhoggs blood on his armor if you didn't notice his armor was changed to red after he killed nidhogg think of it like a catalyst, losing a physical form he attached himself to Estinein and waited. King Thordan didn't kill him so he couldn't attach himself to King Thordan like he did to Estinein.

This is speculation but him having a physical form after King Thordan until Estinein killed him and Estinein having bathed in his blood and other hatred things as a catalyst does have it make more sense.

[lololink]

I don't think it's directly related to the blood of the dragon, all dragoon armors contains dragon blood so I don't think that would explain a lot also you have to drink the blood to change, the fact that the power of the eye was weakened didn't weakened Niddhog's will, his will was separated in the two eyes, Estinien had troubles to contain one so when he had two niddhogs must have been taken over by niddhog's will reassembled in the eyes.

[nyttyn]

Hm, those are some pretty good points. Still kind of out of the right field, but it does make much more sense when one considers those two factors.

Though, it does raise some disturbing implications if dragons can come back from the grave like that.

[lololink]

Well dragons come from another world and their soul seems to be shared between their body and their eyes, so we can consider that a dragon ( or at least an ancien dragon since we don't know if regular dragon eyes have the same properties ) are dead only when both their eyes and body are destroyed.

Also maybe Niddhog posess the echo and did the same thing the sahagin priest did.

[Viridiana]

Though, it does raise some disturbing implications if dragons can come back from the grave like that.

We know Midgardsormr can, at least if the Battle of Silvertear Skies before 1.0 actually killed him. I suspect that Mid is the only one who's completely immortal, and the others have a more limited form. I don't think Ratatoskr will ever be able to be brought back, for example, and the same is probably true of the real Bahamut.

[Kauthryn]

I don't see the plot hole at all, I just see you wanting there to be one?

Haldath was, as was stated, completely in control of himself when he possessed the eyes. Nidhogg then fled to his brother because he was gravely wounded. How could he both consume/become Haldath and maintain his other form?

Secondly, while the eye you used was weakened, the other was still strong. In a moment of foolish confidence (Estinien's flaw), he lowered his guard -- as we were warned of several times -- and was consumed by the power that he claimed he mastered. This was foreshadowed for several quests, so where are you getting that it comes out of nowhere?

I don't think we were supposed to take Estinien as being at the zenith of his dragonphobia then, though. It seems he was actually somewhat stayed in his animosity as he bids Iceheart farewell following her sacrifice. It's more likely that he just thought "his watch had ended," and in that moment the Elderseer's warning came true.

[Timat]

Not to Hijack this but one thing I dont understand is this:

I never really got the humans being conduits for primals thing.

So follow me here

Primals are beings that are created out of many many prayers of people/beastmen/dragons/etc. that then react to a large quantity of ather crystals which then create the manefestation of said primal.

So people like Shiva and the Archbishop.....how again can then use their own bodies as vessals? Do they take the place of crystals in that equation? So intsead of Prayers + Ather Crystals = Primal

its

Prayers + Lots of ather (i.e. dragon eye) + Body = Primal?

ALSO

How does that white auracite work again? I know you trap and Acian soul in it and then break it...but WHY does it work? What makes that different than just kills the physical body host? (I know this is pre heavensward stuff but I forget and cant find the explainations on the web)

[Samcaesar]

White Auracite, from my understand, is just really good short term storage device for Aether, but it doesn't hold it for long. Think of it like a battery that you can fill up with a ton of electricity, but it only holds the charge for a small amount of time. It works by containing the Ascian in their pure Aetheric form, this allows for the Ascian to keep trapped (Unable to go back to where ever ascians hide away to regenerate) long enough for a massive burst of aether to basically whether down what would be an Ascian into just small aether chunks that have nothing to do with the previous Ascian. For an analogy, think of a rock. Now imagine that rock (The Ascians soul) is blasted with high pressured water (The massive aether burst) to whether it down til it just begins minute grains of sand (Aether). The rock is unable to reform and it's now just a bunch of sand.

[Esper]

it makes enough sense to me, first off he was already tainted by the eye from dragoon quest in ARR.
2nd, He's been fighting control the entire expansion.
3rd, the ishgardians have king thordans blood in them somewhere, which means they all have dragon blood in them, making them able to change into a dragons which was how Nidhogg made much of his own army.
4th, we did not even see a small fracture of Nidhoggs own power in his dungeon, as we learn later it was not his eye. Thus it is inevitable he will be a very powerful enemy to fight.
5th, the eye can take on any source of power it wishes, using Estinein as a conduit, Nidhogg was able to take the ascian power along with whatever else power was held within the other eye to empower his other eye.
6th, the reason he never took on the prince was because he was not killed, nor was the prince tainted by the eyes as he held them. He was however tainted by one over time, but a dead body would never be suitable for a new vessel.

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