Primal confusion - spoilers

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Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar

I'm thinking that if the Warring Triad and Dark Divinity are "eikons" as Unukalhai has suggested, then perhaps the Twelve and the elementals are eikons as well.

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the twelve are more like "partially summoned" primals as i cant rem where but i rem someone saying that the 12 that us mortals created come at great cost to hydalen (if thats how you spell it).

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Primals look like whatever their summoner(s) want them to. Shiva the primal, for instance, looks nothing like the real Saint Shiva; she just looks like what Ysayle imagined she would. Works the same for every primal.

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But wouldn't the Ixal think their savior would look more like them? Or the Gnath?
Shiva at least looks like a hyper-stylized Elezen, which Shiva was.

Another question I have is how Odin/Zantensuken came to be. Did people pray for a weapon?

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Originally Posted by dragoelete

the twelve are more like "partially summoned" primals as i cant rem where but i rem someone saying that the 12 that us mortals created come at great cost to hydalen (if thats how you spell it).

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Close, Hydaelyn.

And it's not the Twelve themselves, but Primals as a whole. If the Twelve were summoned as Primals, then, yes, they would tax Hydaelyn greatly, but us just worshiping gods without summoning them does nothing to harm her.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

But wouldn't the Ixal think their savior would look more like them? Or the Gnath?
Shiva at least looks like a hyper-stylized Elezen, which Shiva was.

Another question I have is how Odin/Zantensuken came to be. Did people pray for a weapon?

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Not necessarily. When people imagine a savior, or hero, or champion, they imagine someone or something larger than life. Myth is also a common basis for a primal: see Ramuh, "the Sage in the Wood." The people imagine up whatever they want the primal to be, Ravana as a conquering warlord for the Gnath, for instance, and create a larger-than-life image. They're supposedly gods; would you earnestly expect a god or goddess to look like a normal person (unless they wanted to)?

As an eikon, we don't really know much about Odin yet. Supposedly he got the Zantetsuken from an Auri warrior, the first to nick his armor, but besides that and what's learned after defeating his trial (that Odin is just a puppet of the sword, which mind-slaves the last person to kill him and turns them into a new Odin) we don't know anything.

Just a reminder, one of the ARR quests especifically involves stopping Ala Mighan youth from summoning a Rhalgr primal as they were told by Ascians. Meaning, we COULD have an image of the Twelve around, but it wouldn't be THE "eikon" (if that's what they are) Rhalgr.

Also, given that we have Phoenix Down items, it's likely that there used to be phoenixes (phoenix?) in Eorzea, so Lousioux turning himself into "A symbol of Rebirth" could have brought the Phoenix imagery and shaped him as such (hope I'm making sense...)

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

Just a reminder, one of the ARR quests especifically involves stopping Ala Mighan youth from summoning a Rhalgr primal as they were told by Ascians. Meaning, we COULD have an image of the Twelve around, but it wouldn't be THE "eikon" (if that's what they are) Rhalgr.

Also, given that we have Phoenix Down items, it's likely that there used to be phoenixes (phoenix?) in Eorzea, so Lousioux turning himself into "A symbol of Rebirth" could have brought the Phoenix imagery and shaped him as such (hope I'm making sense...)

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It's mentioned that "Phoenix Downs" are actually only alchemical mixtures spread over a painted feather. They're pretty much fakes, but worth it to the greater part of the citizenry because they can bring the recently dead back to full life. And Louisoix mentions he took on the form of the "mythical Phoenix." Phoenixes in Hydaelyn, as far as we've been told by NPCs, are just mythical creatures, with no actual fact behind them.

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Originally Posted by WyrahFhurrst

It's mentioned that "Phoenix Downs" are actually only alchemical mixtures spread over a painted feather. They're pretty much fakes, but worth it to the greater part of the citizenry because they can bring the recently dead back to full life. And Louisoix mentions he took on the form of the "mythical Phoenix." Phoenixes in Hydaelyn, as far as we've been told by NPCs, are just mythical creatures, with no actual fact behind them.

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Fair warning, that may end up being one of my crackpot theories that never came up again, lol. Between the complete absence of phoenixes, Louisoix becoming one and calling it legendary, and the fact that NPCs are handing out feathers like candy, yeah, I'm inclined to believe they're alchemically-treated like Icarus and Regain feathers. However, the latter two admit their nature, while Phoenix Down does not - it only lampshades an ongoing joke about the translation of Phoenix Tailfeather (JP) to Phoenix Down (EN) in the old days. It may, however unlikely based on current information, be the case that phoenixes are plentiful somewhere.

How a primal is truly born? I think this is the main question. The Scions and the WoL are slowly learning what a Primal truly is, the main confusion about it all is that the ritual of summoning a primal already know and is common knowloedge to the Scions. However, thats a method the Ascians have been teaching to some men and beasts I don't think we can state that we know how it truly works and bit by bit that's being revealed to us. On Heavensward we discovered some more about primals and since 2.4 we're noting that the ritual of summoning that we knew it was possible can also take innumerous forms and the one we assumed as the only one was just a method the Ascians were using to teaching to the beast tribes an easy way to summon their gods and looks like they know the truth behind all of these summons.

Maybe something was lost during the 1.0 to 2.0 transition, leaving us with some inconsistencies.

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Originally Posted by WyrahFhurrst

To complicate matters, Thordan and the Twelve Knights wear Primal forms of themselves, so essentially tempering themselves to an idealized image of themselves, mostly leaving them mentally the same, but overall leaving them even more devoted to the Archbishop, their Godking.

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Thordan VII and the Heaven's Ward take the form of Thordan I and his Twelve Knights (the ones with the statues lining the main thoroughfare in The Pillars) when they go into Primal form.

As far as we know, it's the same kind of transformation that Ysayle undergoes when she becomes Shiva; there seems to be some element of the summoner's will (though we don't know how much) directing how the resulting entity acts.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Thordan VII and the Heaven's Ward take the form of Thordan I and his Twelve Knights (the ones with the statues lining the main thoroughfare in The Pillars) when they go into Primal form.

As far as we know, it's the same kind of transformation that Ysayle undergoes when she becomes Shiva; there seems to be some element of the summoner's will (though we don't know how much) directing how the resulting entity acts.

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It would be, if they didn't keep their own names when they transformed. Iceheart becomes Shiva, but the knights keep their own names when they transform. Whether that's an example of the knights taking the names of the original twelve, or if their primal forms take their own names, I don't know if we know. I used the latter as my reasoning toward my decision that they are idealized forms of themselves, since they keep their own names they may very well simply be the same mind as the original host (the knight from today), just warped to an idealized form as a Primal.