Did anyone ever figure out the "spoilers" in the Zodiark/Hydaelyn artwork?

Agreed there really was a missed opportunity here, both in the art and in Zodiark’s form.

If we wanted to blow minds, they should have represented Z as a god-like human. Sure keep some dark aspects, but there really was no need to make him into a demonic entity, especially when we are learning “light” and “dark” do not necessarily mean classic angelic or demonic. I honestly expected him to be a beautiful Lucifer type dark angel.

The light wardens might have angelic aspects in the biblical sense, but the majority of the sin eaters we meet are merely corrupted animals or have a voidsent equivalent.

Eh...I never really GOT the whole idea of the story painting Hydaelyn and Zodiark as more than just good vs evil. I mean throughout the whole game its been very much clear the Ascians and Zodiark worshippers have been causing nothing but chaos based on their presentation such as in music, imagery and actions even if their reasons were for the greater good they firmly believed.

Hydaelyn throughout the whole ARR-EW arc was always shown and presented to us as the benevolent motherly figure and the speculations from the Scions of her true intentions due to recent as then recent discovered knowledge of Hydaelyn and Zodiark being primals was nothing more than just a red-herring, a writing technique this game loves to throw a lot.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Eh...I never really GOT the whole idea of the story painting Hydaelyn and Zodiark as more than just good vs evil. I mean throughout the whole game its been very much clear the Ascians and Zodiark worshippers have been causing nothing but chaos based on their presentation such as in music, imagery and actions even if their reasons were for the greater good they firmly believed.

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Agreed on all of that. If anything, Endwalker strayed off-track by attempting to subvert the "Hydaelyn is purely benevolent with good intentions" narrative and repaint her in shades of grey, which is really only done in that one climax scene and jars with everything around it.

Either they needed to stick with that, or dive the whole way in and make her turn out to be Evil All Along – which also would have flown in the face of everything we'd seen up to this point, but at least better than the "by the way, she did this deliberately on flimsy reasoning" thing that seemed at odds with everything both before and after it.

The reveal that she was a primal and not a goddess was fine, but the additional bombshells after it don't seem well thought through, and/or subject to late-in-the-process rewrites that put things askew.

have to remember these orders for artwork are put in MONTHS in advance of things finally being ironed out. I have absolutely no doubt the artwork has already been ordered for 7.0 assets already.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Agreed on all of that. If anything, Endwalker strayed off-track by attempting to subvert the "Hydaelyn is purely benevolent with good intentions" narrative and repaint her in shades of grey, which is really only done in that one climax scene and jars with everything around it.

Either they needed to stick with that, or dive the whole way in and make her turn out to be Evil All Along – which also would have flown in the face of everything we'd seen up to this point, but at least better than the "by the way, she did this deliberately on flimsy reasoning" thing that seemed at odds with everything both before and after it.

The reveal that she was a primal and not a goddess was fine, but the additional bombshells after it don't seem well thought through, and/or subject to late-in-the-process rewrites that put things askew.

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Yeah. Our meeting with her on the ship to Sharlayan, for example. There was little point in approaching Hydaelyn caustically, yet one of the options we get is how we don't trust her. Why?

https://i.imgur.com/4Ef5NBG.png

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

have to remember these orders for artwork are put in MONTHS in advance of things finally being ironed out. I have absolutely no doubt the artwork has already been ordered for 7.0 assets already.

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True. And we do know Yoshida delayed the game allegedly because he was still tweaking parts of the script.

It is rather awkward given that the only reason we'd have for distrusting her is all the stuff we'd learned from Emet-Selch in ShB which we admittedly didn't even know if it was true... and then we're not allowed even a smidge of negativity after we get more context behind her well-intentioned but extreme actions.

Even just being able ask something like "Was there truly no other way?" would've made me feel a bit better.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Yeah. Our meeting with her on the ship to Sharlayan, for example. There was little point in approaching Hydaelyn caustically, yet one of the options we get is how we don't trust her. Why?

https://i.imgur.com/4Ef5NBG.png

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probably just to appeal to those that thought along those lines for the short purpose of throwing them a bone before steering back to the "correct" path.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

probably just to appeal to those that thought along those lines for the short purpose of throwing them a bone before steering back to the "correct" path.

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Except they had already done that with Shadowbringers, didn't they? Explaining you Zodiark's true purpose and why Hydaelyn decided sundering the world and blowing up civilization was a better option than going on a constant murder spiral.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

probably just to appeal to those that thought along those lines for the short purpose of throwing them a bone before steering back to the "correct" path.

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That still could have been done more neatly – something along the lines of "Emet-Selch said that you're a primal," which would raise the reason we have to be sceptical of her, rather than going straight to mistrust. And then she just has to say that it's true and she's sorry she kept the whole truth from you, but you'll just have to trust in her plan a little longer to avert a disaster of unprecedented scale.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I still get the feeling that the artwork was commissioned before they'd completely ironed out the story. So maybe whatever spoiler would've been there ended up not relevant to the final product. Might also explain why neither of them really looks much like they do in-game (although that could just be stylistic choice, too).

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Thats definitely style choice.
Older final fantasy art didn't look anything at all like the sprites usually, ff6 being a huge example