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).

Quote:

---

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.

---

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?

Quote:

---

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?

---

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😃

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cheolsu

It's Godbert. duh, it's in his name!

---

You say that in jest, but there is a certain "Fizban-ness" to Godbert and his dear wife :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pireco

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

---

Pretty much!

Most of Eorzea worships the one or all of the Twelve in some fashion, going back at least 6,000 years. The land is saturated with the traces of such beliefs, or as Lousioix would have said, "the Twelve slumber here". His plan was to "wake them up" by carving their symbols near places where worship of them is or was once prevalent. When people prayed there, it would stir that saturation.

Here are the symbol locations, just for the sake of completeness:

• Halone - [ICE] At the Fury's Gaze in Coerthas, where she is worshipped by Ishgardians.
• Menphina - [ICE] Carved into Gwyr Aen in Coerthas. Reasons unknown.
• Thaliak - [WATER] Carved into the Crypt of Xande I in Mor Dhona (moved in ARR). Reasons unknown. Not in Dravania, because we couldn't get there at the time.
• Nymeia - [WATER] Carved into a rock near Moraby Bay. Reasons unknown.
• Llymlaen - [WIND] Carved into a statue in Limsa Lominsa, where she is worshipped.
• Oschon - [WIND] Carved into a rock near the ruins of Nym, where he was worshipped.
• Rhalgr - [LIGHTNING] Carved into a stone in Little Ala Mhigo (as actual Ala Mhigo, where is is worshipped, was not accessible)
• Byregot - [LIGHTNING] Located near Camp Crimson Bark in the Shoud. Reasons unknown.
• Nald'thal - [FIRE] Located in Ul'dah (both statues), where they are worshipped.
• Azeyma - [FIRE] Located near the runs of Qarn, where she was worshipped.
• Nophica - [EARTH] Located in Gridania, where she is worshipped.
• Althyk - [EARTH] Located near ruins of Amdapor, where I thought he was worshipped; symbols inside of Amdapori ruins seem to contradict this.

Louisoix called on every able Eorzean to drop everything and make a pilgrimage to each stone, offering their prayers to the Twelve. If a 1.0 player did this, they mysteriously found a ring on their guardian deity's stone that had that god's symbol carved into it. (One of a few "thanks for investing in the broken version of this game" keepsakes.) Once the aether in the land was saturated and stirring, Louisoix harnessed it all at once - drawing a massive amount of aether from the aetherial streams all over Eorzea to summon the power of "The Twelve" so that he could shape that aether into a manifestation of peoples prayers. That's why the spell looked literally like "The Twelve" are "sending Dalamud back into the heavens". He planned to kill himself mid-ritual so that the Twelve didn't manifest as aether-hungry deiforms that would drain the land dry and destroy all life. Bahamut broke the spell before that happened.

Or so we think. The 3.5 trailer shows the return of "Louisoix Dalamud" via what looks like Tupsimati and/or Omega and we don't know why, yet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Transient_Shadow

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.

---

I'm not sure what you mean by Buddhism in this case.

There is Buddhism as a life philosophy, then there is Theravada Buddhism, which essentially seeks Nirvana through asceticism.

And then there is Mahayana Buddhism, the most common form of the religion practised in most of East and Southeast Asia today.

Mahayana Buddhism, in particular, tended to blend in with a huge variety of local folk religions and superstitions. It thus evolved into unique syncretic forms wherever it has taken root, so much so that the Buddhism practised in, say, Thailand, would be significantly different from the way it is accepted in China.

In a sense, the way many adherents practise Buddhism, it's almost like Buddha has become a god, and Nirvana is spoken of almost like heaven. This is divergent from what Buddha sought to achieve, but that's besides the point. The real point is that, for many worshippers, the bodhisattva (think of them as the Buddhist equivalent of Catholic saints) are as good as gods, whose favour they'd seek on the road to Nirvana.

So here's the cultural difference that Westerners need to grasp, especially if they are familiar only with a post-Enlightenment, sceptical view of monotheistic religions: For many East Asians, the gods are real, not just in the sense that they physically exist in some sort of alternative plane, but also that they are literal metaphors of many aspects of daily lives.

What I'm trying to say is that the idea that gods are born and sustained by belief alone is not actually so radical in many parts of Asia.

So, in a way, it's not correct at all to claim there are no "actual gods" in this game. Whatever the primals may be metaphysically, to their respective beast tribes, they are the manifestations of their true gods, their tutelary deities.

As for the Twelve, no one knows whether They do in fact exist. But that is the nature of faith: It requires you to believe in something even in the absence of proof.

Belief is all you need for a "god" to exist. It really is that simple.

Louisoix was very concerned that all the belief, prayer, and aether flying around during Bahamut's rampage would succeed in summoning the Twelve in Primal form. Note that, like all Primals, these would not have been the "true" Twelve, but Primal representations of the Twelve. That would have been a disaster as great or even greater than the one being caused by Bahamut himself. He carefully, meticulously planned things out to avoid that happening.

So, do the Twelve really exist? Did they ever exist? Plenty of Eorzeans believe that they do and did. Our characters, too, worship a deity chosen at the time of character creation - though whether it is a deep devotion or mere lip service is up to you as a player to decide. Whether the gods actually exist is purely a matter of faith within the context of the game, however. The game has not verified their existence for certain one way or another - and possibly never will.

Here's the theory I'm going with untill we get some form of solid information regarding the Twelve. Given the prevalence of their symbols and worship all through Eorzea going back at least to the Allagan Empire (at which point they were already deified) they most likely existed on Hydaelyn in some fashion prior to that. Howerver many of the beliefs that Twelve worship is based on are probably false, particularly in regards to the afterlife. We see this in the 2.0 MSQ when we first go to Coerthas and find out that Halone worshipers believe that the rightous end up in Halone's halls (aka Heaven of Ice) when they die, but we later find out that aether (in this case the soul) doesn't work like that and that everything retuns the the Lifestream to be born again as something else.

If the beliefs surrounding the Twelve as deities are false, then I think they weren't deities but people who did great things and passed into legend and godhood as the ages passed. In particular I think they may have been the first Warriors of Light who kept life from being completely destroyed by the first Calamity. Hydaelyn would have been at her strongest then and the Blessing of Light could have made them so powerful that people mistook them for deities. Also reading the descriptions of the Twelve they are all depicted as a person holding a weapon or tool of some kind, which makes me think of a group of adventurers. If the first Warriors of Light were like the seventh, and everyone remembers their deeds but not them, then by the 3rd Astral Era the legends of the first (and most powerful) Warriors of Light may have changed from them being simply heroes to gods, and other details added to them over time to fill in the collective gaps in memory.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

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.

---

Sure?

A far I remember, the summon Louisoix has done by using Tupsimati.

The prayes of the others did raise the Phoenix.

Phoenix is a strange case as he wasn't summoned. He was pretty much created.

Bahamut destroyed the half formed Twelve Primal and scattered the Aether used to summon them all around Carteneu. All that Aether and the collective: Oh dammit, we don't want to die!!!!! Gave birth to a Primal whose whole shtick is making people not die. His method of making sure nobody dies was to punch a whole into Bahamut. Of course Bahamut used his last breath to somehow temper Phoenix (funny how Primals can temper primals) and forced him to turn the ruins of Dalamud into the Coil and rebuild Bahamut's broken body from it.

No idea why Phoenix wasn't simply summoned, Maybe Louisoix prayed for enough power to stop Bahamut.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Balipu

No idea why Phoenix wasn't simply summoned, Maybe Louisoix prayed for enough power to stop Bahamut.

---

I think there are a few headcanons floating around how how specifically that worked out.

Personally, mine is: The original spell that Louisoix cast was infused with explicit prayers to the Twelve that Dalamud be returned to the sky. It stirred the long-present traces of worship in those areas, and then Louisoix was able to focus it specifically on re-binding Bahamut ("Dalamud") and exiling him again. When Bahamut broke this, it broke the entire focus, so all that was in the air was a massive amount of free-floating aether.

That aether then reacted with the prayers of thousands and thousands of people below, "I don't want to die. Please, let Louisoix save us." This focused all of that aether on Lousoix himself and transformed him into a deiform. This is where I have a big ? even in my headcanon. Did he technically die somewhere in here? Did Bahamut light him up? Did the aether flooding him instantly tear him apart and put him together? That would explain the vision, I guess.

Anyroad, Louisoix is a scholar. Looking out on a world in flames and desiring nothing more than to see it reborn, it wouldn't be surprising if thoughts of the phoenix were at the forefront of his mind. With that sentiment weighing heavily on his heart when he got smacked with thousands of prayers in aetherial form, perhaps it just warped him right from one into the other.

But that's just my headcanon, lol. Based on the side-stepping of the specifics that happens every time it comes up, I wonder if this topic makes the lore team get a deer-in-the-headlights smile on their face as they quietly chant "Please don't think too hard about it. Please don't think too hard about it. Please don't think too hard about it..." Perhaps it's specifically what the scenario team wanted, anomalies be damned, lol.

Well we have enough questions for a few more lorebooks, don't we?

It is worth remembering the attempted summoning of Rhalgr by the Ala Mhigan Resistence, this thankfully was stopped as it would have created a Primal(version) of Rhalgar the Destroyer. So despite the truth of the twelve, whether they be god or humans of heroic deeds(whatever their origins), their current existence in the populace of Eorzea's minds are deities to pray to/worship. This existence is perhaps most comparable to primals in this sense since the Primal is separate to the actual existence(similar to shiva primal versus shiva the person who is deceased). What is important in this circumstance, I believe, would be the unified image of said primal. Everyone knows the twelve for their symbols, but to create a humanoid deity would require a much more uniform image, plus crystals & ritual of course.

As for a one true god, I suppose it would come down to what limits of godhood you think of. On the most generic level, you have the creator and the destroyer, the light crystal and the dark crystal respectively. I say this because I think there is an argument of Hydaelyn and Zodiark being primalistic themselves. I'll just point to this link and say enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZhT...bQQr-psMidCXH8

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

The original spell that Louisoix cast was infused with explicit prayers to the Twelve that Dalamud be returned to the sky. It stirred the long-present traces of worship in those areas, and then Louisoix was able to focus it specifically on re-binding Bahamut ("Dalamud") and exiling him again. When Bahamut broke this, it broke the entire focus, so all that was in the air was a massive amount of free-floating aether.
That aether then reacted with the prayers of thousands and thousands of people below, "I don't want to die. Please, let Louisoix save us." This focused all of that aether on Lousoix himself and transformed him into a deiform. This is where I have a big ? even in my headcanon. Did he technically die somewhere in here? Did Bahamut light him up? Did the aether flooding him instantly tear him apart and put him together? That would explain the vision, I guess.

---

Assuming that my memory functions as proper, neither Louisoix or Bahamut were killed. While Louisoix's methods are still shrouded in some mystery, we know that some image of the twelve were summoned in attempting to hold the primal. While still unsure about the worship, we are told that the aether poured back into Louisoix, and he became the Pheonix. (I would have to check, but the Pheonix was chosen due to the bird being the symbol of rebirth and life in most if not all people.) After striking Bahamut down, he released the aether intending that it would return to the land. However, Bahamut refused death and took in a fraction of this aether to survive. Mind you, Bahamut took in all the aether he could, including that infused with Louisox/Pheonix, Gaius Van Baelsar, and more.
In response to Louisoix's transformation, I believe it to be more of an ascension of existence. Perhaps it is to be compared to the summoning of Shiva? I would hazard a guess to say so.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zhao

Assuming that my memory functions as proper, neither Louisoix or Bahamut were killed.

---

Not visibly, of course; but that's why I leave the ? on the table.

To elaborate: Bahamut was deified after he was dead; there was an "essence" (amongst the Lifestream) to be drawn to the "beacon" (the summoning) and rematerialized as a primal. This is also known to be true for the Allagan general conflated with the Garuda, the sanctified heretic Shiva, the deified king Thordan, and the transmogrified chieftain Moggle. All of these were long-distributed essences rematerialized it into something new, and it's easy to speculate what other primals perhaps "once were", as well. It seems to just be the way this works.

Louisoix, by contrast, appeared to be still living - still whole - and he was (re)materialized anyway. It's the only example we have of such an event. Ysayle was able to (by virtue of the Echo) allow her soul to fuse with that of the primal Shiva. She became host to an already-existing deified soul. Thordan says that this is true for him, as well (though his possession of the Echo is an inference). Louisoix makes no suggestion of a pre-existing Phoenix soul merging with his own, or that he was a vessel at all (and he didn't, as far as we know, ever have the Echo). He says that he himself became a primal.

Because it is an anomaly, I leave the door open for the bright light that precedes the vision of the "Twelve" to perhaps be his death; that he was either taken by the intense heat of Bahamut's charging attack or shorn apart by the massive amount of aether focused on him (which kills even Ascians under the right conditions). Notice that his skin cracks and glows like other beings who have been dematerializing / shapeshifting due to being stuffed chock full of aether (such as Eula Darnus and Estinien), yet he never actually takes the shape of the Phoenix.

What comes after that we know for sure: he blew a hole through Bahamut, thought he killed him, tried to return all the surrounding aether to the land to revive it (another possible origin for if not simply further strengthening his thoughts of the Phoenix), and got sucked up along with a last-ditch vacuum effort by Bahamut's heart.

I just leave a little blur in my headcanon between the bright light and Louisoix returning the aether to the land for ... "Wait, did he die in there?", lol. For all we know, it is possible to warp a living being's soul directly into a newborn primal, though. (A terrifying prospect.)

The door is also wide open for me to be, as usual, overthinking things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zhao

Mind you, Bahamut took in all the aether he could, including that infused with Louisox/Pheonix, Gaius Van Baelsar, and more.

---

Baelsar would have been a hell of a plot twist, so I'm going to imagine that this said Nael van Darnus, lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Baelsar would have been a hell of a plot twist, so I'm going to imagine that this said Nael van Darnus, lol.

---

lol, Thanks, I can never remember names right. I did a (quick) search for a name and clearly did not read enough, just saw the Garlean name and stuck it in. Lesson learned. xD

and great thanks for the clarification between Louisoix's and Ysayle's circumstances!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

the transmogrified chieftain Moggle

---

lol I see what you did there