Primals - A Discussion on Ethics & Philosophy (ARR & HW Spoilers)

But he must have turned at least once before our battle with him, since the knights were already able to transform before that and were already tempered to his will. Thus he either has already lost his mind before the fight or he did not lose it at all. I mean Ysayle is also called Shiva in the fight against her and yet we cant see any hint that she somehow lost her mind after that or that she was not in control of the primal through the whole deal. Zenos situation was completely different since he did not turn into a primal himself but just controlled the one that was there. Since he went into it we cant even say that its Shinryue that its taking, its probably simply just Zenos voice that rings out of the primal.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

But he must have turned at least once before our battle with him, since the knights were already able to transform before that and were already tempered to his will. Thus he either has already lost his mind before the fight or he did not lose it at all. I mean Ysayle is also called Shiva in the fight against her and yet we cant see any hint that she somehow lost her mind after that or that she was not in control of the primal through the whole deal. Zenos situation was completely different since he did not turn into a primal himself but just controlled the one that was there. Since he went into it we cant even say that its Shinryue that its taking, its probably simply just Zenos voice that rings out of the primal.

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I honestly felt the zenos may have been under a slight influence of Shinryue esp if they say hes as powerful as bahamut(though in my personal opinion i don't see Shin being anyware near bahamut in power).

Regarding the topic, I don't consider it hypocrisy with siding with ysayle. She basically wanted an end to the dragonsong war though her methods were misplaced. Thoradin on the other hand, he wanted the power of the warring triad. It would of been bad news if we didn't stop him. Heck we saw the results of his tampering. All of the warring triad nearly freed. (although truthfully i wanted one to escape to mercydia so we have an excuse to go there)

Moose don't over stress yourself trying to make sense of thoradin in keeping those archives straight.

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Originally Posted by Grimr

I honestly felt the zenos may have been under a slight influence of Shinryue esp if they say hes as powerful as bahamut(though in my personal opinion i don't see Shin being anyware near bahamut in power).

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Shinryu was confined by Omega's Bindings I'm not sure there is much evidence to suggest that Shinryu had any ability to temper while contained inside. Given the Resonate is an artificial Echo it may not have even been possible.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

From Cilia's quotes, the name change is very important here. That the name reverts to King Thordan afterward tells me that the bishop was no longer in control of the primal, and it was the entity's will taking dominance and running with it. In the reverse example, when we see Zenos take control of Shinryu, all of his lines are still "Zenos yae Galvus", even as they are reduced to dragon roars. Shinryu's will is overtaken, hence whenever Zenos speaks with it, it is always Zenos named and not Shinryu.

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Contradiction: it is widely acknowledged both in-universe and out that Ysayle was controlling Shiva, but the text boxes switch to "Shiva" whenever the primal is on the field. Even after we are made aware of this fact, it still happens. (Pre-Ravana cutscene.)

Why does Zenos' text boxes still display his own name and not Shinryu's? Dunno. Wager it's because Shinryu is incapable of speech on it's own (as an incarnation of violence and hatred, speech is largely redundant) and/or Zenos is just directly broadcasting his speech into our minds using the Resonant Echo.

Sort of off topic but I thought I should put this up here for the sake of posterity.

After doing some detective work I can say that my braincase seems to have malfunctioned while trying to retrieve information from my long-term memory.

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Originally Posted by Elidibus

Knowledge dictates expectation, and expectation colors perception.

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This all goes back to the scene where Thordan kills Lahabrea.

Summoner is the job I use to complete the Main Scenario Quests and it's the job that I was playing when I first saw that scene. And I think it's for that reason why somewhere in the back of my mind I've irrevocably associated that scene with Tristan from the Summoner quests. His literary namesake of Arthurian fame was one the Knights of the Round Table and it was Lahabrea's actions that began the chain of events that ultimately lead to his death. And it's those two things together that gave the scene another meaning behind the surface level; it wasn't just about Thordan dunking some Ascian scum, but also about Tristan getting his revenge from beyond the grave for what Lahabrea's schemings did to his brother. A picture perfect scene of poetic justice.

I think that's probably what a younger me saw when she was sitting in front of the monitor before taking a sip of coffee and queueing for Singularity Reactor.

And years later when the older me tried to recall it to put in my two cents on this topic that mental association with Tristan (who did not have the Echo) made my mind trip over itself and misremember a detail from that scene. A detail that then retroactively colored my recollection of the story as a whole.

That may sound stupid, dumb and unbelievable but it's the best explanation I can provide with my limited layman's knowledge of cognitive psychology. And if anyone has some spare dunce caps lying around, feel free to pass me one.

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Originally Posted by Draginhikari

Shinryu was confined by Omega's Bindings I'm not sure there is much evidence to suggest that Shinryu had any ability to temper while contained inside. Given the Resonate is an artificial Echo it may not have even been possible.

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I meant to respond earlier but actually there is evidence. Bahamut had tempered Nael in regards to the meteor project. Even while bound in Dalamand. I have no doubt Shin had the same ability. As for the synthetic echo, it has nothing on the real thing. Much like magictek in regards to magic.

If you're trying to imply that Zenos himself was tempered, I would say that it's very, very unlikely. He doesn't seem to exhibit the same obsession with Shinryu as say, Nael had with Bahamut or even that Archbishop Thordan had with...Thordan. And after a certain point he is expected to have been immune to tempering as well, since he has an artificial echo. Indeed, he agreed to the development of the Resonant process for that reason, so he can control Primals without being tempered by them.

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Originally Posted by Grimr

I meant to respond earlier but actually there is evidence. Bahamut had tempered Nael in regards to the meteor project. Even while bound in Dalamand. I have no doubt Shin had the same ability. As for the synthetic echo, it has nothing on the real thing. Much like magictek in regards to magic.

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These are two different situations. Nael never had any kind of echo (be it natural or artificial) so she was not able to withstand his tempering. We have no information or hints that the resonant echo works different from the real one.

Zenos' own words in regards to Shinryu remark that the primal is just violence incarnate, and others theorize it's draconic form is a result of Ilberd's desire for a creature more terrifying and powerful than Bahamut was. It's entire existence was only to unleash hell upon the Garleans.

Shinryu was also powered by Nidhogg's eyes on top of the leftover, vengeful, and anguished aether of recently deceased Ilberd and the Griffin's rebels. Shinryu, even if it had the mental capacity to do so, really didn't need to temper anyone. That's unique to Shinryu as the whole crux to why Primals so badly want to temper everyone is that it increases their personal power. Plus, we don't know if Omega's bindings blocked any attempt Shinryu may have made.

So, currently, there is no way to tell if Shinryu tempered anyone. If anything, the reverse is more likely in that Zenos tempered Shinryu,, as he rambles about how we never used our Echo to it's full potential immediately before merging with the primal. (Although that's spitballing on my part.)

We know that Shinryu will still try to temper people at the least. He clearly attempts it on both the Warrior of Light and Zenos, although it has no effect on them given that they both have the echo, whether real or artificial. As for why Shinryu's a dragon...if we're going to be honest it was a little forced. I honestly thought that it was going to be a primal version of Rhalgr, but it seems they went for a surprise/FFV reference instead. There are a few explanations such as it being created using Nidhogg's aether and Ilberd not caring about what it would look like, but in the end it could have used some better foreshadowing. But getting back on topic, since there's no evidence of Shinryu successfully tempering anyone and the fact that it was bound, it's safe to assume it never did.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

As for why Shinryu's a dragon...if we're going to be honest it was a little forced.

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I complained about this before, yeah. I always wondered why Shinryu looked the way it did specifically, from a Watsonian perspective (since we all know the Doylist answer is "because FFV").

The stock answer is that Ilberd wanted a Primal powerful enough to rival Bahamut, but Shinryu looks nothing like Bahamut, and indeed looks very little like any other well-known dragons. (The closest to the worm-like shape is probably the Falak.)

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There are a few explanations such as it being created using Nidhogg's aether and Ilberd not caring about what it would look like, but in the end it could have used some better foreshadowing.

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To be honest, before the reveal of Shinryu and when people were looking for an alternative to "Ilberd summoned Rhalgr", I was half-expecting that since the Primal was made from Nidhogg's aether and there was a large possibility that Ilberd wanted something draconic, we'd have to contend with a Primal version of Nidhogg. Again.

It's a bit of a stretch, but if you look at the dark swirling aether coming off of all of the bodies around the time that Ilberd summons Shinryu in the first place you see it drifting off of both Ala Mhigan and Garlean corpses. Perhaps that can explain why it became 'Shinryu' instead of a warped avatar of Rhalgr? Ilberd didn't summon it alone, after all. He may have orchestrated the events to do so and played the primary role in it all but he still needed sacrifices to succeed and he apparently wasn't very discriminatory as to which sacrifices he used for aether.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

I complained about this before, yeah. I always wondered why Shinryu looked the way it did specifically, from a Watsonian perspective (since we all know the Doylist answer is "because FFV").

The stock answer is that Ilberd wanted a Primal powerful enough to rival Bahamut, but Shinryu looks nothing like Bahamut, and indeed looks very little like any other well-known dragons. (The closest to the worm-like shape is probably the Falak.)

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Long and spiky, two giant wings, generally worm-shaped, especially good at smashing up Garlean things -- he looks a lot like what I'd imagine you'd get if you tried to hate-summon a dragon based on Midgardsormr with your dying breath, to my eye. And if you want a world-shaking calamity, it's hard to do better than Bahamut's dad. I wouldn't be surprised if the Shinryu myth was based on Middy in some way, since he's tied into Omega too.

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Originally Posted by YianKutku

To be honest, before the reveal of Shinryu and when people were looking for an alternative to "Ilberd summoned Rhalgr", I was half-expecting that since the Primal was made from Nidhogg's aether and there was a large possibility that Ilberd wanted something draconic, we'd have to contend with a Primal version of Nidhogg. Again.

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Last year, before the lorebook stomped all over my theory, I thought that Shinryu would be one of the two then-unnamed First Brood dragons. Having the Shinryu/Omega fight shoehorned into 3.55 came out as meh for me, if only because it was yet another bit of awkward writing in a patch cycle that was absolutely full of poor writing and plotting. I'm honestly still annoyed at how we went from 3.3, which was fun and great, to the disjointed, poorly-paced 3.4 and 3.5, especially when I compare it to the 2.0 patch cycle and how much better that was at leading up to 3.0.

It is indeed rather heavily implied that Shinryu is a bastardization of Midgardsormr. Middy is said to share the epic rivalry with Omega usually reserved for Shinryu... and the reason for Shinryu being draconic is that Ilberd wanted something even more destructive than Bahamut. The only thing that would really fit the bill is Middy... or a bastardization of him, which he himself refers to as a "vile simulacrum."