Have the Elementals ever protected the Shroud from anything?

Every bit of lore about the Elementals I can find is them smacking down random people for stepping on the wrong plant.

But invading Ixal, Garleans, and Ala Mhigans during the Autumn War are left unharmed. (Where is their Il Mheg moment where they go all forest scariness on an enemy army?)

I understand post calamity they were extremely weakened, but before that they seemed unwilling to defend the Shroud vs invaders. They only beat down the weak and isolated.

Might be best if the residents of Gridania find a way to permanently kill them now while they are weak before they regain enough power to kill small children for picking flowers.

We see firsthand the Elementals protecting the whole forest in the blasphemy quests. Without their help,

the forest wouldn't have healed from the blasphemy there and we and the Elder Seedseer would have died from the fake creeping death.

As far as the Ala Mhigans, they invaded the part of the Twelveswood that now lies in The Fringes zone, on the east side of Baelsar's Wall but west of the river. That part of the forest doesn't look as healthy so it could be the elementals were never that strong there. The guardian tree there and the elemental inside it are dead as well, but that seemed to have been the Garleans' doing when it was poisoned by Black Rose.

As far as getting rid of them, you can't. It was established back in 1.0 that elementals are in EVERYTHING and are EVERYWHERE, not just the Shroud. That's just where they're concentrated the most. There was even a quest where you went to the Hearers to have them ask the elementals in the ink of a letter what they thought about the person writing it. Gridania probably is the least populated of the Eorzean city-states. I can't imagine it's particularly easy to feed a population when you can't have vast fields of wheat and need to be careful with anything botanical. So the whole thing affects relatively few people and those who don't like it leave or go angry athiest and get petrified.

The Gridanians are the ones who want to live there and living with the elementals is part of it. The elementals were there first, people came later. If people living there have a problem they can move to literally anywhere else. No one is forcing them to be there and the whole country's existence is tied to them. It's like complaining about Dravania being "infested" with dragons. People who go into someone else's home, put their feet on the couch and say it's their home now are called Garleans.

During one of the conjurer quests a group of elementals comes to assist you and and the girl (sylphie i think thats how her name is spelled im really bad with names at times for some of the npcs) to fight a curroption in the twelveswood and shocks the girl because they ARE helping.

Especially telling for the girl's shock because she thought what the conjurers did (gather outside aether for healing and such) would anger the elementals but it doesn't.

The Elementals also did successfully protect the Shroud from hostile assault by Mhach and their Voidsent-assisted armies. Granted, that approach could be described as 'overkill'.

But on top of the multiple, already-stated instances of the Elementals actually acting in defense of the forest, there's also a general stats quo of 'if you're doing it right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all'. The Elementals do a lot of subtler stuff to generally make the Shroud quite livable, you just don't notice it on the day-to-day. The Elementals are strongly inspired by Japanese kami, which should probably give you a good idea of what the approach is generally meant to be: if they get mad you're in trouble, but it's also their blessing that helps the plants grow, prevents floods in the rainy seasons, keeps your family healthy.

Also, please think about what the overall tone and message of a story where we fight and kill the Elementals protecting the Shroud would actually be. There's a reason why, in stories where people go up against nature spirits, those people are always the bad guys.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

During one of the conjurer quests a group of elementals comes to assist you and and the girl (sylphie i think thats how her name is spelled im really bad with names at times for some of the npcs) to fight a curroption in the twelveswood and shocks the girl because they ARE helping.

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The conjurer quest also makes me wonder why that little old man didn't just say "do as I tell to do and follow the will of the elementals or die". Too on the nose?

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Originally Posted by Misplaced_Marbles

The conjurer quest also makes me wonder why that little old man didn't just say "do as I tell to do and follow the will of the elementals or die". Too on the nose?

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Sylphie is a child. Have you met a single child that would actually listen to that? Especially one as already willfully disobedient as Sylphie?

The Elementals also protected the Shroud from the worst of Dalamund's impact. There's a reason why The forest continues to be one and didn't fall into turbo winter like Coerthas did. You can even see that The forest is growing fast around the shard of Dalamund in the North shroud. Elementals also took over and protected the forest from the sealed Diabolos in the lost city of Amdapor, and only asked for help when they were weakened and couldn't keep doing it themselves.

They used to go full Il Mheg too, there's something called the Greenwrath and they were very judicious and swift in their use. However, as said before, they were severely weakened by Dalamund. ARR declawed and defanged most of the Shroud Elemental's power and arsenal.

As Cleretic mentioned ealier, they also did their best to protect the forest from the Mhach vs Amdaport war. It was unfortunate that their solution ended being amplified by the Umbral Calamity. Just because there aren't big special effects on things they do, it mean not they aren't protecting the forest.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Sylphie is a child. Have you met a single child that would actually listen to that? Especially one as already willfully disobedient as Sylphie?

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It's a little different in real life where there aren't many things that would lead to a persons death with certainty, unlike a world where everyone, or at least some, are capable of using their own life force to heal other which will lead to death. I mean, she stopped and listened as soon as she got a taste of it, so i don't see why it would have hurt to be honest about it. Maybe the elementals told him to keep quiet so she'd be more accepting of their chains after she felt the cold embrace of death? *shrug*

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

The Elementals also did successfully protect the Shroud from hostile assault by Mhach and their Voidsent-assisted armies. Granted, that approach could be described as 'overkill'.

But on top of the multiple, already-stated instances of the Elementals actually acting in defense of the forest, there's also a general stats quo of 'if you're doing it right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all'. The Elementals do a lot of subtler stuff to generally make the Shroud quite livable, you just don't notice it on the day-to-day. The Elementals are strongly inspired by Japanese kami, which should probably give you a good idea of what the approach is generally meant to be: if they get mad you're in trouble, but it's also their blessing that helps the plants grow, prevents floods in the rainy seasons, keeps your family healthy.

Also, please think about what the overall tone and message of a story where we fight and kill the Elementals protecting the Shroud would actually be. There's a reason why, in stories where people go up against nature spirits, those people are always the bad guys.

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Eh, personally I've always been of the persuasion the nature spirits are morally suspect too. If only due to disproportionate retribution. It's like poltergeists and the ghosts of wronged, murdered people attacking everyone except the one who killed them. It's tragic and often times they don't know any better, but does it make it RIGHT?

As for the deforesters always being the bad guys, I'd say it boils down to old human supremacy in fantasy stories. Too often, especially lately have I seen the pervading ideology of 'we are the only kind truly worthy of ruling this world and owning our destiny'. All other peoples get thrown to the wayside and plot nuance is disregarded for the sake of convenience. All power to the perspective of the characters we control and are made to favor, and screw everyone else. That kinda stuff.