And they all* involve deus ex machina and/or Mary Sue.
Anything is possible in fantasy. Not everything is possible in good fantasy.
*OK, not strictly all of them. Just the ones that don't end in "And then everyone dies."
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Yes, and there's a fine line, but if the game gives the avenues, then I don't see the dilemma. I been thinking about. Everyone keeps say that it takes sacrifices to restore the Phoenix, but I don't think that to be 100% true. I believe it more so that it requires energy, because when you break it down, Carbuncle is doing the exact same thing for Fenrir. The only difference for Tenzen is that he has no Celestial Avatars in his homeland and it's quite clear that not all the Terrestrial avatars agree with Carbuncle's methods. Noone really knows what happens to the Phoenix to get her to the state she's in now (E.I. Turned into a great katana). Which is why I stand by Time Travel or Abyssea's BC: Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox. If you use the Wings of The Goddess route, then you're not messing with current events, and who's to say She didn't get the way she is because of SMNs taking too much of her power (Ehh! Good thought!). And from what I've understand from playing the Abyssea missions and quests, there are multiple dimensions just they don't really cross. But as the arena states it's a Paradox, so things in it don't need to be 100% fact.
You're looking to much into the name of it. It's nothing more than the home of the fifth mother crystal. Which was destroyed by Shinryu in Abyssea. Atomos is the general reason for realm distortion between time and space.
I had actually always assumed that SAM would get some sort of affinity with Phoenix, kind of Tenzen-Style, rather than SMN. Perhaps with the lvl 99 GK WS or something.
Considering SMN can summon Odin outside of the normal means to which he been known to appear before characters in the story, it would be hard to expect that too.
But generally I look at in the same way that a lot of clothing and equipment we see on NPCs are unobtainable. I STILL want to know where I can body piece like the one Nanaa Mihgo wears.
There are so many factors that are involved in our pacts with avatars that a simple "Phoenix is dead" argument just doesn't suffice as an excuse, in my opinion.
Firstly, we don't know what death means to an avatar, nor do we actually know that she has been completely destroyed in any meaningful way. The events leading up to and during CoP simply show her as massively weakened, not dead. It's never stated that the sacrifices in the East are required to "keep her alive", simply that her ability to manifest in her current form depends on them. We can't even sure that her return to the Crystal would have "killed" her, nor the events in the Empyreal Paradox. Phoenix is essentially a god, after all, and she doesn't have to follow the rules that lesser beings do.
Secondly, most of the avatars are or have been severely incapacitated at some point, possibly excluding Carbuncle (depending on whether his poem is "canon") and Diabolos. Fenrir isn't exactly up and about until the completion of the Windurstian nation missions, yet he can be contacted with a "power injection" courtesy of Carbuncle's guidance for people who've never completed those missions. The Celestial Avatars have been in the deepest of slumbers for literal ages, yet Summoners can use the merest fragments of their power to do amazing things. It seems that a dead, sleeping or incapacitated avatar is still perfectly capable of sending us the tiny trickle of their energy required to summon an aspect of them.
Last and certainly not least, Phoenix is the very essence of resurrection and rebirth. To say she's dead with any level of finality is somewhat shortsighted, as is implying that she can't come back if she is dead.
Personally, I'd like to see a quest that involves reviving the sacrificed in the Far East as a motivation for, and result of, Phoenix's resurrection. Carbuncle seems like a fairly amiable individual so I'm sure he'd be up for donating a bit of astral power to "jump start" Phoenix and let her resurrect herself. As Phoenix's own power grows she could release the donated lifeforce of the sacrificed - and it'd make me feel a whole lot more comfortable about the whole thing, lol
I suppose the tl;dr version is simply - being "dead" is relative for an avatar, and if any avatar is "dead", Phoenix is the least likely to be worried about it. :P
Not that I disagree with you, but the first time you open the quest to fight Fenrir, Carbuncle states that they are creatures of Vana'diel and not like the other Gods. But I do agree that the may not be bound totally to death, or in any case this avatar for certain.
I support this idea. I would love to have Phoenix. I've always wanted a strong light avatar, even though we might get that with Cait Sith.
I may have another reason why se doesn't want to release bahamut and the pheonix.
It's a pattern, Besides the six celestial avatars (fire,wind,water,ice,thunder,earth) se hasn't released any new avatars other than light and dark types.
carbuncle- light
fenrir-dark
diablos-dark
Alexander-light
Odin-dark
and soon...
Cait Sith-light
Atomos-dark.
I think going by this history pattern, this is one of their main reasons for not releasing bahamut or pheonix other than those other people have mentioned. Bahamut if released would either have to be a non-element type or fire type and pheonix would have to be a fire type. Food for thought?