Question pertaining to the afterlife in FFXIV

Hmm, I doubt we'll get a full picture from Anamnesis Anyder. Maybe some more details on the tempering part, possibly some background on the creation process of Zodiark? One can only hope for some juicy bits.

As for the afterlife part, I always presumed that its akin to FFVII's lifestream. As in every soul comes from it, every soul returns to it. Souls returning disolve into it, and new souls are created from a random scoop when life is born. Echo wielders and ascians being the exception, as they have some means / strongly enough built soul to overcome the effect. Echo wielders would still lose most of their ego upon death, but preserving their... basic nature? I admit, this theory does have some holes in it, but not unmendable ones.

As such I think most if not all of the afterlife theories of heavens and such of the Twelve, are just myth.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

I'm intrigued whether tempering survives this whole process. What Emet-Selch suggested in the Unsundered's preference for the souls of the original members of the Convocation, due to their faith in Zodiark, does seem to hint at it, but it's not strong enough confirmation. Still, given that the Overlords possess the Echo, which itself appears to hint at a soul that survived the whole dissolution process effected by the Lifestream, there may be some connection to this and tempering. Alternatively, the division may be along the lines LineageRazor mentioned, which also seems reasonable to me - or it may be a mixture of both.

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One thing worth considering on this note are the cases of Nael and Loisouix. When Nael is defeated, she is briefly lucid and untempered before her soul finally passes on. The game dialogue suggests that Bahamut released her from Tempering, because he had no further use for her. It's also suggested that the whole reason Nael and Loisouix were around at all was because Bahamut had collected their souls and safe-kept them, figuring they'd be useful later on. So this is something Primals can do - at least, sufficiently powerful primals. Even ones that had been critically wounded, as Bahamut had been.

Zodiark is, most likely, several orders of magnitude more powerful than Bahamut, so even fourteen times divided, it's possible that he has a similar ability to preserve souls after death, and to maintain tempering upon them if he so chooses. Perhaps Hydaelyn does, as well - it's entirely possible that ALL of the instances of reincarnation we've seen are directly due to either of them choosing souls to preserve and bring back.

The fact that it implies that he could release her from it is interesting (especially when Ramuh states he cannot help but temper his sylph summoners), but I wonder if tempering is in that case some kind of potentiality, which enables the Primal to exert control if it wants to, but otherwise does not subvert the will of the tempered, but confers certain benefits, like those mentioned. The way Sophia's servants functioned, and the way the Ascians come across, does suggest to me that they retain their own will. So possibly the more slavish manifestations are due to the summoners being weaker, or the ritual being based on a crude understanding of how to summon, or just an earlier phase of the tempering.

I could see Zodiark's shattered state as a pretext for making use of the tempering to beckon his tempered to re-assemble himself, maybe out of the urge of self-preservation Primals must have, and in Hydaelyn's case, for her to try protect her own charges (but also herself) by calling upon those tempered in this way to rise up to her call. All very speculative, because we know so little about the true nature of the Echo, tempering or the Primals, but I think it is plausible based on current knowledge.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Hmm, I doubt we'll get a full picture from Anamnesis Anyder. Maybe some more details on the tempering part, possibly some background on the creation process of Zodiark? One can only hope for some juicy bits.

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Yeah, I'm personally expecting it to go through the deliberations before Zodiark's summoning, and maybe the Echo. Anything over and above that would be a bonus.

The Slyphs also don't try to summon him or leave their area of the shroud as is what he wants them to do. The only transformation we've seen of any tempered are the drowned which are the non Sahagain that worship Leviathan. Who also seem to be the bigger problem when it comes to them gaining more followers as the drowned seem to be very aggressive even when you take the Sahagin into account. Meanwhile the non beastmen worshipers of Ifrit and Lakshmi will go and blend into places until the time is right for kidnappings and such to happen. We unfortunately don't know how much is free will vs what the primal wants. I think part of the reason the Ancients didn't fear death is because there were those who could not only see the lifestream/aetherial sea, but also individual souls as each has a different color. Would it be nice if there was a place where you could have a chance to see old friends before joining the lifestream to be partly broken down? Sure, but I don't think the writers want to go that route.

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Originally Posted by WhiteTerror

I find this hilarious that the OP is quitting because FFXIV doesn't align well with their religion

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Talk about a strawman argument. Not once in my original post or any of my replys did I say anything even slightly resembling this. I said that I didn't want to play a game where the story states that souls are destroyed and everything is meaningless. You might want to actually read next time, and not skim.