No true gods?

So I've played through a good bit of the story in HW and it seems that the game takes a kind of Buddhist approach to things. There being spirits and a godhead (Hydaelyn) and the Ascians seeking a kind of Nirvana by awakening their godhead Xodiark.

But there seems to be no actual gods in the game. Only primals crafted by the human Chim, and other Aetheric beings like the Elementals.

But what of the Twelve? Do they even exist? Or are they simply benign primals who grant aid to those who can temporarily summon them?

I'm unfamiliar with Buddhism so I can't comment on the aptness of your comparison BUT

It's correct in saying there are no "true" gods as the people seek them. Hydaelyn's divinity is questioned often, and every "Primal" divinity has been rejected outright. The Twelve exist, sure, but probably in a way similar to the other deiforms swirling in the Aetherial Sea (that is to say, like the other Primals). We know Louisoix invoked them as if they were Primals at Carteneau, Gaius compares them directly to Primals, and for all intents and purposes it's best to simply consider them Primals. There is no reason to separate the two beings--it's just a matter of labeling to ostracize the beast tribes. Civilized people worship TRUE Gods and the savages their PRIMALS; the term Primal has been co-opted to refer any sort of deiform nowadays though.

Shiva wasn't a "real god." No one worshiped her as such, perhaps a "saint," which, I believe, is a different sort of divinity. Nonetheless she was able to be "Primalized." (Let's ignore the fact Hraesvelgr claims it wasn't even Shiva who was summoned, but as Ysale says a "goddess born of mine own hopes and dreams.")

Phoenix wasn't a "real god." We are led to believe no one worships phoenixes as such (though they are legendary/mythical but entirely real[?] creatures) and the Primal forms from a combination of Louisoix, his failed summoning of the Twelve, and the "collective subconscious of Eozea."

We also learn that Garuda isn't a "real god" either--hells, her followers, the Ixali aren't even what you'd call "real people!" (Is that... is that racist...? I mean they're chimeras... artificially created beings, there has to be a line of demarcation, right?)

What I'm getting at is that anything can be a Primal, really. We have no evidence that the Twelve exists outside of their "Primal"ness. That is, the object of worship of people(s). Hydaelyn (& Zodiark), to her credit, does seem to be able to exist independently of worship (if the story of her existing before Life is to be believed, lol).

Ah well the term "godhead" refers to what Hydaelyn said in her intro "all made one" as in the godhead is all things. This is why Primals are borne because the "faith" of multiple beings within the godhead allow for them to be.

it's godbert. duh, it's in his name!

I'm not so sure the Twelve can be properly considered Primals since, as far as I can remember, Primals are very specifically a summoned instance of a deity. Even Garuda, Ifrit, Titan, and their ilk aren't Primals until summoned; they're just a concept worshipped collectively, like the Twelve. So the Twelve were Primals briefly when Louisoix did his thing, but can't really be considered such outside that particular instance.

As such, the Twelve "exist" in the same way everything but Hydaelyn seems to: sentient beings can give physical (well, aetheric) form to the concept of them, but that concept is what shapes them. They have no actual, pre-determined form.

I wish I had something better to offer than, "Religion is hazy." but alas...

The world of Final Fantasy XIV has a few themes when it comes to world-building. For example, it tries not to be, as George RR Martin would call it, "Disneyland Middle Ages" (by sanitizing the brutalities of life). Another, it tries to find the right place and right time to be silly (because without silliness, something native to Final Fantasy is lost).

One of the more over-arching themes is that it tries to be organic in its realism. NPCs know what they think is true, not what is objectively true. The game engages in constant deliberate misinformation. You can see bits and pieces of this in most things. If you learn history, it might be from the point of view of the victor. If you learn science, it might be hindered by antiquated conventions.

And if you learn religion ... everyone seems to thinks that they've found the One True God and everyone else is wrong.

At one point in time, many (if not all) primals were simply a living thing. A person, a dragon, something. They died, and their being returned to the Lifestream (where it was torn into uncountable pieces). Later, that being (or something very close to them) became tangled up in some kind of faith, and then that faith was exploited by the Ascians by teaching the believers the art of summoning. When summoned, their faith would become a beacon that drew all of those tiny little pieces back out of the Lifestream, and the aether offered would become a catalyst that fused it all back together. The trouble is that what you think it is and how you feel and what you want it to do matter more than whatever it actually was. Once upon a time, Bahamut looked like Hraesvelgr and Nidghogg and Tiamat. When his brood tried to "resurrect" him by deifying him and summoning him to claim furious vengeance on Allag, what came back was not really him.

Due to this, you can be relatively sure that anything you summon (via the Ascian method as opposed to actual constructs such as Carbuncle) is not really going to be what you intended it to be. But that doesn't mean that that thing didn't or doesn't exist, even if faith has been warped to see it as something different.

The Twelve might have existed once upon a time, either as people who were remembered as gods, actual gods that were forced to return to the Lifestream, or even gods that actually did just ... go somewhere else. When Louisoix tried to summon their power, it probably wasn't what people believed it would be.

Hydaelyn, however, really is "All Made One". She is the center of the Lifestream, the great volition in the Aetherial Sea, and the "spirit of the planet". Zodiark once existed alongside of her. Either the Will of Light and the Will of Darkness coexisted, or at first, those wills were not so divided. She eventually banished that second, Dark volition from the sea when it (as far as we know) greedily took more power and broke the balance between them, as a matter of self-preservation.

Religious is hazy, and meant to be hazy, and it might be a long, long time before we know the truth (if we ever do on some counts).

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Originally Posted by Hinoto-no-Ryuji

So the Twelve were Primals briefly when Louisoix did his thing, but can't really be considered such outside that particular instance.

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I'll have to double check, but I believe they didn't even reach Primal stage then - what Louisoix did was use the prayers and concentrations of aether present - collectively called the power of the Twelve due to the way it manfiested - to power the act of weaving the most powerful sealing enchantment ever attempted.

So they didn't actually manifest as primals at that point...but whether the power wielded by Louisoix was born of belief and aether concentrated or a boon granted by the actual Twelve (who, as others have mentioned, may or may not actually exist and we don't know for sure one way or the other yet) we can't say for certain.

Yet.

According to encyclopedia eorzea, in the myth of the creation states that the twelve came before hydaelin and zodiark, and the way they describe the twelve it seems to me they are the real gods, they live and rule the six (7?)heavens and hells and they left the land in "humans" hands so in my opinion they are the real gods but unless the devs say something, the encyclopedia seems to be writen by an eorzean scholar, based in his beliefs/knowledge, so thats his truth.
That being said i have no idea why they gave their power to Louisoix , maybe to prevent the actual destruction of the original hydaelyn?

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Originally Posted by Pireco

That being said i have no idea why they gave their power to Louisoix , maybe to prevent the actual destruction of the original hydaelyn?

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Oh! I can actually answer that last one! It was less the Twelve giving their power to Louisoix and more adventurers focusing their prayers to the symbols of the Twelve, in a way acting as the belief element in a summoning. In a very roundabout way, Louisoix used that aether and belief to do a sort of Primal summoning WITHOUT actually summoning them physically into this realm.

Never thought that, but it makes sense, as Louisoix as far i know is devoted to the twelve, so he manipulated the aether to manifest in that power, nice one😃