I want to talk about tempering

[Remedi]

Also he forgets them when he leaves the sands

[Lacan]

Well, from how I understand it, when someone is tempered the primal basically imprints themselves on all the aether inside a person. Once that happens, all they can do is worship the primal and that just generates more aether for the primal to feed on. They've basically been turned into literal aether batteries. Just leaving them alive will empower a primal and hasten their return if defeated.

This is why the echo provides complete protection from tempering. Hydaelyn has imprinted herself on you so that no primal could possibly claim you. What I wonder is if tempering could be reversed if someone got blessed with the echo after the fact.

[Biridan]

Does that mean the Warrior of Light is tempered?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Does that mean the Warrior of Light is tempered?

This ranks up there among some of the most common questions on FFXIV lore, like whether the WoL is not in fact already a primal.

The short answer is, no. The WoL is not tempered. The Blessing of Light works differently from tempering. Crucially, the WoL retains his or her free will, unlike tempering, which effectively warps the minds of individuals.

This could lead to more philosophical discussions about free will, and whether any of us are truly thinking "freely" to begin with. But I don't think we want to do that. It would be interesting to note, though, that the tempered are still capable of rational thought. It's their motivations that become warped, and it usually comes across as fanatical, but not necessarily maniacal, behaviour.

[LineageRazor]

The Blessing of Light works differently from tempering. Crucially, the WoL retains his or her free will, unlike tempering, which effectively warps the minds of individuals.

While I personally agree that the blessing is not tempering, I feel obligated to play devil's advocate and point out that our character is pretty darned dedicated to serving Hydaelyn's will. Is it because we freely choose it, recognizing that her will is benevolent? Or is it because we're compelled to, because of the blessing? The railroading in this game means that we're perfectly set up for a Bioshock reveal down the line, where we find out that none of our choices have been freely made at all...

Again, though, given that this is a MMO, and MMO's depend in part on players becoming invested in and identifying with their characters, chances are slim that we're going to discover later on that we were slaves under Hydaelyn's command.

[Biridan]

... I feel obligated to play devil's advocate and point out that our character is pretty darned dedicated to serving Hydaelyn's will. Is it because we freely choose it, recognizing that her will is benevolent? Or is it because we're compelled to, because of the blessing? The railroading in this game means that we're perfectly set up for a Bioshock reveal down the line, where we find out that none of our choices have been freely made at all...

...

The dark knight arc openly explores the servile nature of the WoL. At least the first part I've not seen later parts. Its rather openly implied that the WoL is denying his own wishes. Its as though he cannot act on his own impulses. Likely the dark power is taking his impulses to an extreme it does seem like there is a conflict within himself. Its actually brought up in other places. How the WoL never thinksnfor himself but always dutiful does whatever is asked with a stoic nod.

[ObsidianFire]

The only alternative we've seen to "serving Hydaelyn" is siding with the Ascians with Zodiark. Which would be bad. The thing with Hydaelyn is that we've never seen her messing with situations that Zodiark/the Ascians weren't already messing with first. Until we get solid proof to the contrary, I havn't seen anything that leads me to believe supporting her goals is a bad thing. Also... what does "serving Hydaelyn" actually entail? Killing off eikons is something that really does need to be done if life as we know it is to go on. And we know the Ascians don't want that to happen. We've also yet to see a "third option" to the Zodiark/Hydaelyn conflict...

Umm... Darkside is literally the Warrior of Light giving into their alter-ego who really does not like the WoL saying yes to every little thing people ask them to do. The end of the Lvl 50 quest makes it pretty clear who won that fight. The Lvl 60 - 70 quests touch on it some more.

Ultimately, the story kinda need the WoL willing to do what they're asked or it doesn't work to have the WoL be the main character. The dev team likes leaving a lot of things unspecified so it can by your WoL that is doing things and not SE's WoL. One of the things that's often not specified (or the WoL is sometimes given options to pick from) is why the WoL does what they do. The further the WoL gets in HW and SB, the more times they're given options to pick from.

[Lacan]

snip

Well, from what I understand, since Hydaelyn is "all made one" she is actually a sort of collective conscious of all of humanity's aether. So serving her is the same as serving humanity. This also explains why the echo gives you insight into other people's minds and memories, since you were connected with them when Hydaelyn blessed you. That's why you can understand people regardless of their language, since you're listening to what their spirit is saying via the echo. And they can understand you because you're speaking to their spirit as well.


None of that is confirmed though, just my theory. :v Think it makes a lot of sense though.

[Zohar_Lahar]

Oh I'm aware. I was just curious because the thought had crossed my mind and I was wondering what exactly happened to them (We can assume Y'shtola's and Thancred's were lost in the aetherial sea, and Papalymo's disappeared with him), but Yda/Lyse should potentially still have hers, and potentially more. I'm guessing they were more or less forgotten about, but it'd still be interesting to know if they would have served a purpose in telling Tempered people apart from unTempered.

I thought Cid borrowed Y'shtola's aetherometer during the Alexander questline. (when they check Alexander after shutting down Midas)

[Ilenya]

I thought Cid borrowed Y'shtola's aetherometer during the Alexander questline. (when they check Alexander after shutting down Midas)

If he did, I wonder where she got it from, since I am...Fairly certain she had it on her when she dove into the Lifestream? I'll have to check.