Origin of the Enchiridion?

My apologies if this question has been asked or clarified before, but I've had a bit of a think about it and I'm confused. I would be grateful if anyone knows any additional information, or is able to clarify.

So, the Enchiridion is the holy text of the Ishgardian Orthodox Church. As far as I know, the church was founded some time after the founding of Ishgard itself, which was some time in the 550s of the Sixth Astral Era (Encyclopaedia Eorzea p. 47), though the elezen in Coerthas prior to that certainly worshipped Halone.

A merchant in Ul'dah claims to have a copy of the Enchiridion from the Fifth Astral Era. (Screenshot.) Okay, fair enough. We know that the Twelve were worshipped as early as the Third Astral Era (EE p. 17), and that cults or churches dedicated to individual members of the Twelve first arose in the beginning of the Fifth Astral Era (EE p. 30). It is entirely plausible that the ancestors of the Ishgardians, prior to migrating into Coerthas in the Sixth Astral Era, worshipped Halone and wrote the Enchiridion then.

However, the description of the Shiva Triple Triad card (screenshot) says that the Enchiridion describes Shiva as the Original Heretic, who lay down with dragons. Shiva lived in the mid-4th century of the Sixth Astral Era (EE p. 47). If the Enchiridion refers to Shiva by name, it must postdate Shiva's life. If so, what on Earth is the merchant in Ul'dah selling?

Several possibilities spring to mind as solutions to this problem.

Possibility one: the Enchiridion does postdate Shiva, and the Ul'dahn merchant is just lying. The customer is trying to sound intelligent but stupidly doesn't know when the Enchiridion was written or has misidentified an earlier Halonic holy text, and the merchant is accommodating this ignorance in the hope of making a sale.

Possibility two: the Enchiridion was in fact written in the Fifth Astral Era or earlier, but at some point in its early history the Ishgardian Orthodox Church falsified the text. They may have added new references to villains, or added entirely new chapters, or in some other way added Shiva, and then passed it off as what the text said all along. That would make a Fifth Astral Era copy of the Enchiridion incredibly rare and valuable, since it proves that the text has been modified.

Possibility three: the Enchiridion is not, in fact, a single text. Like the Bible or the Tanakh, it is a collection of multiple books, written at different times, which are usually bound together into a single tome for convenience. Thus the Enchiridion may contain Halonic texts dating back to the Fifth Astral Era or even earlier, and also contain later texts that were written after the founding of Ishgard. (This makes some sense in light of what the word means: Enchiridion literally means 'handbook', so maybe it just means a handbook-sized collection of Halonic texts.)

Is anyone aware of any sources I might have missed? What's going on with this text?

I will do a deep dive to see if I come up with anything you didn't, but yours looks pretty thorough. I wouldn't expect much.

In the meantime....

My interpretation thus far has been that the church has overseen the book's contents and that over a thousand years they've changed. Even Biblical canon has been adjusted over its ~two millennia. I think of it this way: the holy texts say that Halone appeared before Thordan and led him to the promised land. That means they already worshiped Halone (or at least today want us to think they did then), which means they probably had (or today want us to think they had then) some scripture (if not the alleged Fifth Astral Enchiridion), and yet it also means that a new story was included in later texts. I never went much beyond that assumption, however; haven't needed to explain anything that required challenging it or digging sideways.

Fair enough. I would like to pre-emptively suggest that we stay away from real religious texts: all I meant was to note that it wouldn't be unusual for a religious text to contain many books. Any discussion of real religious texts should be avoided.

In any case, I would agree that pre-Ishgardian elezen surely had some religious texts about Halone. Those texts' relationship to the modern Enchiridion is an interesting question, though, especially if any of them contained prophecies that might be retroactively interpreted to mean Thordan, Shiva, Nidhogg, and so on.

My initial preference is to go with my possibility three. The Ishgardian canon will surely have changed over time, as new texts have been added, old texts discovered, new translations made, and so on. I'm sure the church has always regulated its own canon: add a hymn here, revise a history there, clarify a translation there, and so on. That's not automatically a bad thing either. There is no reason why a religious textual corpus shouldn't grow over time, as new works are created, and as new information comes to light concerning old works.

Post-Heavensward, the church will be in a position to continue this process, placing old works into a new context, re-evaluating their significance, and perhaps recognising additions to the the corpus. It's all quite fascinating for anyone interested in religious history or theology. Which I am!

Anyway, the more details anyone can dig up, the better!

While we're waiting for Moose to dig into it, allow me to post my thoughts on this topic.

After exploring the ruins of Dravania Forelands and Churning Mist for awhile, I don't find any depictions of Halone, or any god of the Twelve. Instead, images and statues of dragons are found almost at every part of the ruins. The exceptions in this are the giant statue of Mother of The Sheave, presumably meant to depict Shiva, and the giant fan in Sohr Kai which has a depiction of woman on it though we don't know who the woman is supposed to be. Also, names of most of the places in those areas are mostly written in Draconic instead of Eorzean tongue, even though it's shown in Moogle quest that the tongue and alphabet has been used at that time.

So my take in this is that the fixation to worship Halone didn't exist in pre-Ishgard society but actually something that's relatively new, founded alongside the church and the Four High Houses to bury the truth of the Dragonsong War. The choice of Halone as the object of worship is more likely deliberate. After all, what god is better to pick to make your followers believe that you're fighting a holy crusade than the war goddess herself?

I'm more inclined to pick a combination of possibility two and three. Enchiridion is likely an ancient text, dating back as far as Fifth Astral Era if not even longer. But with the neglect of worship at the end of Fifth Astral Era and the Calamities, it's entirely possible for the contents of the text to be scattered, forgotten and lost, resulting in many versions of the text.

It's possible Ishgard has somehow come into possession of some of the original text and added some new things inside to further their propaganda against the dragons, though they apparently also added some new teachings written by their saints. It's also possible they simply wrote the entire text from scratch and claimed it as Enchiridion, the must have handbook for worshippers of Halone, to again, further their goal.

The lalafell could just be shouting lies in order to sell the enchiridion to unaware collecters. It is Ul'dah (and a lalafell) we're dealing with.

I wouldn't count on his text bubble as truth.

Nothing new or exciting in Enchiridion mentions I'd saved, though I confess that I may have missed something in general mentions of scripture on the cursory pass. I did find one thing the new Hildibrand arc (of all places), though:

An Ishgardian student goes digging through the Inquisition's chamber of secrets and comes up with apocryphal texts that detail the Allagan Empire. German specifies that they are chapters of the Enchiridion, but not the alleged timing of their authorship. Their accuracy, however, bespeaks extremely ancient or extremely recent writings.

Allag was thought to be a myth until Saint Coinach made his find after the Dragonsong War began. Up through the Calamity, the findings conclusively revealed little more than simply proof that the ancient texts spoke of a place that actually existed. If the Enchiridion claims authority on the subject at all, its sources should theoretically be understood as ancient (unless they were allegedly delivered by Halone herself, a whole other can of worms).

Yet the Enchiridion also covers Halone skewering the heavens into the earth with The Nail (a Coerthan mountain) all the way up though relatively contemporary saints, including the (false) origins of the Dragonsong War. It seems suggestive of the book being continually "polished" by the Holy See regardless of origin.

Was it the Enchiridion before later texts were added? Or is it at least meant to be understood as such? I can't say (Apologies for how little help this digression has probably been thus far). As Robin said, it's possible that they didn't even worship Halone back then and have built a new canon from older scriptures. In such a scenario the Enchiridion is less than a thousand years old, but alleges authority on all that came before.

Like you, I still like the third possibility. The Archbishop is flat out called the Pope in JP (教皇); drawing parallels to the Bible isn't without precedent. And the use of the word "texts" implies that the Enchiridion is meant to be understood as a collection of such. But that still doesn't mean it's not meant to be a recent telling of ancient truths and the Lalafell is a fraud.

In my bones, something feels right about an all-of-the-above interpretation: Halonic scripture included in the Enchiridion predates the Sixth Astral, the Enchiridion itself postdates the Sixth Astral but claims to be an authentic collection of Halonic scripture and Ishgardian Orthodox scripture, and the Lalafell is a fraud. (I mean, it's being sold off of a rug; proffered to someone in a shepherd's tunic.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Enur

It is Ul'dah (and a lalafell) we're dealing with

---

Exac—HEY

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RobinMalvin

So my take in this is that the fixation to worship Halone didn't exist in pre-Ishgard society but actually something that's relatively new, founded alongside the church and the Four High Houses to bury the truth of the Dragonsong War.

---

That seems less plausible to me. If I were going to use religious propaganda to try to justify a new state, I don't think I would create the new religion from nothing. The claim that Thordan was blessed by Halone has no real pull with the people unless the people already follow Halone, surely?

It's true that there isn't very much Halonic imagery in the Churning Mists, but that gets us into the nature of ancient Ishgardian civilisation, and I don't know if there's enough information on that to really say anything. It seems unlikely to me that, prior to Thordan slaying Ratatoskr, everyone revered Shiva and dragons, because if so, how did Thordan acquire popular support? The Echo vision of Haldrath after 'Into the Aery' makes it look as if, in the immediate aftermath of Haldrath's battle with Nidhogg, there was no question that the vast bulk of elezen felt loyal to Thordan and the Knights Twelve.

So I feel as though there has to have been a substantial degree of separation between elezen and dragon at the time of Ratatoskr's death and afterwards. If the two societies were truly closely integrated, you wouldn't expect them to have been able to separate so quickly, to become militant against each other so quickly, and for the Ishgardian narrative to be so convincing. I would hazard that most of the statues in the Mists and the Forelands were built by dragons, or were in dragon territory, whereas the bulk of elezen lived in what is now the city of Ishgard or Coerthas. Archaeological evidence of Halone worship may well exist, but it would exist in the territories that are still currently inhabited by Halone-worshippers. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Nothing new or exciting in Enchiridion mentions I'd saved, though I confess that I may have missed something in general mentions of scripture on the cursory pass. I did find one thing the new Hildibrand arc (of all places), though:

---

Ah, thank you! I haven't played through the Hildibrand arcs, so I missed that. (I'm still at the initial battle with Gilgamesh. I'm afraid I don't find Hildibrand very funny or likeable.)

A reference to Allagans in the Enchiridion is fascinating, though. As you say, reliable information on Allag must be either extremely old, dating back to before the Fourth Astral Era purge, or extremely new. It sounds unlikely that these apocryphal texts were new, so that would suggest that the oldest layer of the Enchiridion goes back as far as... well, maybe the Third Astral Era.

Quote:

---

Was it the Enchiridion before later texts were added? Or is it at least meant to be understood as such? I can't say

---

My gut instinct there says "no". If we suppose, for a moment, that the Enchiridion is a constantly growing collection of texts - Third Era material on Allag, Fifth Era texts on Halone, a Sixth Era account of migration to Coerthas under Thordan, Thordan and Haldrath's battle with Nidhogg, the lives of the saints, etc. - then there must have been a process of redaction and compilation. Someone has to have come along and grouped all these texts together and said, "These are important. They share common themes, and united they form a canon."

That requires some institution or at least culture to back it up, I think. It requires a body capable of collecting the texts, studying them, and then promoting the idea that they should be read together. That says the church, to me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UAnchovy

So I feel as though there has to have been a substantial degree of separation between elezen and dragon at the time of Ratatoskr's death and afterwards. If the two societies were truly closely integrated, you wouldn't expect them to have been able to separate so quickly, to become militant against each other so quickly, and for the Ishgardian narrative to be so convincing. I would hazard that most of the statues in the Mists and the Forelands were built by dragons, or were in dragon territory, whereas the bulk of elezen lived in what is now the city of Ishgard or Coerthas. Archaeological evidence of Halone worship may well exist, but it would exist in the territories that are still currently inhabited by Halone-worshippers. ;)

---

I think that the two societies could have, indeed, been closely integrated. As instigators of the impending disaster, the remaining four of the Knights Twelve likely spread the word that their people would no longer be welcome among the dragons. While many Elezen and dragons alike might have been resistant to the notion, their tune would quickly have changed once Nidhogg's campaign of terror began. Nidhogg very likely started by rooting humans out of the Churning Mists, and he would likely have been just as ruthless at dealing with any human-friendly dragons who tried to defend them.

Essentially, no matter how closely integrated the two societies were, eliminating that integration (which was, in Nidhogg's view, the whole reason this awful tragedy happened in the first place) was at the top of Nidhogg's to-do list. The end of human/dragon friendship literally happened as quickly as Nidhogg wanted it to, and his ruthlessness did much to support the lies the Knights were spreading about their own responsibility for the chaos. As far as the humans knew, Nidhogg (who'd never been secretive about his distain for humans, even before Ratatoskr's murder) had finally decided to clean house, and that was all there was to it. The fact that Hraesvalgr seemed content to just step aside and let the slaughter happen likely did little to sway anyone from thinking that their former friends had all turned against them.

Doesn't that struggle with the sheer speed at which Ishgard forgot that any cooperation was possible? If almost all of society was integrated, this was common knowledge, most ordinary elezen knew friendly dragons, etc., then that makes the later propaganda line very odd. The official position ended up being that there was never any cooperation, and that's a very odd lie to promulgate if cooperation was well-known and spread through the whole of society. If I was a propagandist in that situation, I might prefer the more plausible position that while we did cooperate, the perfidy and inherent treachery of dragonkind led them to attempt to slaughter us all. Our only mistake was believing in their promises of friendship: it was all really just a ruse to gain our trust before they tried to consume us all.

I just don't see why, in that situation, you would try to cover up the fact that society was once integrated. You don't need to do it in order to sell the line that Thordan was a noble and self-sacrificing ruler and that dragons are inherently evil and treacherous beasts. What do you get out of lying to everyone about something that everyone knows, and has clear physical evidence of?

Whereas it feels intuitively more plausible, to me, if even at the time, cooperation was limited. There could very easily be large factions of both dragons and elezen who were skeptical about cooperation (cf. Nidhogg), or who simply had very little contact with the other race. Positing a degree of distrust and ignorance helps to explain how the claim that it was Thordan who first encountered dragons could take hold. If at the time most of Ishgard did not have contact with dragons, save for an adventurous community around Avalonia, I can make more sense of it.

Ah, but I apologise for going off topic. I am, well, deeply skeptical of every version we get of ancient Ishgardian history in Heavensward. The nature and purpose of the constructed history baffles me.

(e.g. EE p. 149: "These founding fathers then chose to join hands with the clergy to establish a new government to rule Ishgard - and to craft a compelling narrative with which they would convince the people to fight in a war against the Dravanians." Um, but firstly, they don't need such a narrative. The Dravanians, led by Nidhogg, have gone berserk and are trying ato exterminate them. Thordan's crime is not widely known, so you don't need a false narrative. The bare facts of the matter - the dragons have gone mad and are trying to kill us all - are sufficient, and in fact, the new constructed narrative doesn't add anything useful to those facts. The constructed narrative is still essentially that the dragons are mad and want to kill us all. Secondly, the founders of Ishgard have no reason apart from self-defense to want to motivate the people to fight the Dravanians. No one in Ishgard benefits from the war. No one gets anything out of it. So we have a situation where the leaders of Ishgard deliberately craft a lie which provides no additional motivation for people to fight a war that they were motivated to fight anyway and from which Ishgard extracts zero actual benefit. Why? Why do anything like that? Sorry for the rant, but I just can't seem to work out any way in which Ishgardian prehistory makes sense. It gets worse if we go back to Shiva or even further. The best I can assume is that every account we have of that history is full of holes.)

The bare facts would certainly be sufficient for the short term, and might have even been sufficient in the long run...

But why deal with a might when some propaganda can further cloud the truth, extending the length of the ruse?

Also, changing how the government worked - from King to Church guiding four houses - would be a transition made easier by such propaganda.

So it wasn't a necessary act, but creating that compelling narrative made their long term goals easier to achieve.

Even with the ruse of a "just cause" fueling their society the people grew weary of the long years of war and needed a strict system of punishments to keep the populace toeing the line. A thousand years of just fighting a mad dragon for no other reason than they keep attacking could have led to questions long ago...questions that may have never stopped the war but possibly destabilized the government and weakened its power...

And this was a system put in place by those who broke a two century peace for power. That they'd do whatever they could to keep themselves in power makes sense.

On a different note specific to the Enchiridon - the Scholisticate quest line does seem to imply that the text is not at all immutable, and some parts of it are clearly treated as secondary to other parts even in present day Ishgard. While it may have changed little in a thousand years, that parts of it are held in lower regard and the duplicity of the founders of the system of government they used strongly suggests to me a clear timeframe for it to have been altered, possibly significantly.

Would it have led to questions? Surely not any more than the version they did use? On the face of it, "we lived together with dragons for a while until they betrayed us because they're evil" is not less plausible than "we travelled into this region and then dragons came out of nowhere and attacked us because they're evil". Both versions contain the possibility of a hidden act of provocation that contextualises draconic aggression as well. If you were going to concoct a false history to justify the war against the dragons, wouldn't you try to concoct a false history that is more convincing or more morally compelling than the truth?

Similarly for other issues. You mention extending the length of the ruse. If I wanted a ruse to last a long time, wouldn't I prefer a ruse that is as consistent as possible with visible evidence, and which requires me to convince the fewest number of people of new facts? If I want a long-standing ruse, a lie that explains the existence of ruins from a time of coexistence is, ceteris paribus, preferable to a lie that doesn't. If I'm going to try to undertake a mammoth task like convincing thousands upon thousands of people that they (or their parents or grandparents) didn't really live alongside dragons after all, I should at least have a pretty good reason for trying something so difficult and so implausible. Here, it seems like it only weakens the overall integrity of the lie by introducing new inconsistencies into it.

It's particularly baffling, to me, because characters in-game portray the issue rather bizarrely. Take Aymeric's confrontation with Thordan VII in 'The Sins of Antiquity'. Thordan says, "No reparations shall ever suffice. This fact alone should serve as ample justification for our actions, yet some refuse to see it as such. For men like you, who yearn to commit themselves to a nobler cause, a more compelling narrative is required."

The first half of that statement is, in itself, perfectly reasonable. Nidhogg cannot be negotiated with. No reparations are possible. The only viable course of action is to fight back. Lies about history are irrelevant when you're dealing with a berserk dragon driven by hate. The second half is very strange. They need a more compelling narrative in order to convince idealists to defend the people of Ishgard? Surely idealists are already committed to defending the many innocent people of the city-state? Thus when we got to patch 3.3 and the Final Steps of Faith, there was no issue whatsoever of people like Aymeric or Lucia laying down their arms, or fighting only halfheartedly. They believed Thordan I was a monster who provoked the war, but they still laid down their lives to defend the people. The lie has no utility.

Yet Aymeric's reply to Thordan VII is little better. "This is how you protect our people? You have given us a lost cause! A death sentence! With your compelling narrative, you but doom our countrymen to give their lives for a lie!"

Really? I thought they were giving their lives to defend their home and their people. I don't think I ever saw the Dragonsong War framed as a battle to defend the honour of the noble King Thordan. That always seemed secondary to the issue that Nidhogg wants to kill everyone. Thordan VII hasn't given anyone a doom that they didn't already face. There is nothing Thordan VII could have said or done to prevent Nidhogg continuing the war.

Which gets back to the wider issue, for me. So, if I take most of the game's description of history at face value... a group of people concocted an extremely implausible lie and somehow convinced thousands of people of it, they obtained absolutely no benefit from this lie, and then the lie isn't even a more compelling narrative than the truth! If you tell the truth with the sole modification of claiming that Ratatoskr struck first, or perhaps that Thordan I uncovered evidence of a pre-emptive dragon attack, or somesuch, you get a story that is just as good for everything you want the lie to achieve, and you don't need to convince everyone of an implausible false history. Why lie about centuries if you only need to lie about five minutes?

Well, I can try to think my way around parts of this.

Firstly, as I said, this makes more sense to me if dragon-human cooperation was not actually widespread, and that most of the population of ancient Ishgard had relatively little contact with dragons. Secondly, I think you have to reject the idea that all this lie was produced by a small band of conspirators at the founding of the high houses. If much of this narrative grew in small accretions over centuries, it seems more logical. (For example, why would the founders of the high houses lie in order to say that Thordan I brought his people to Coerthas after receiving a vision from the Fury? That story is irrelevant to anything they might want to say about dragons, and obviously false if told to contemporaries of Thordan I who have been living in Coerthas for generations.) Over a longer period of time, however, there's more room for legends to grow. Thirdly, well, I would just be deeply skeptical of anything anyone tells us about that time. I don't think I trust Hraesvelgr's or Nidhogg's accounts. Dragons are an oral culture, without writing (EE p. 269), both of them have strong emotional biases, and memories can be unreliable. So when I encounter something that doesn't seem to make sense, I try to be open to the idea that perhaps the story is inaccurate. The church version is distorted and self-serving, but the dragon versions may be too. Piecing together the truth is very difficult.

Well. Feel free to consider me mad, or simply obsessing over minor issues. I will do my best to reach the Scholasticate quests, though. I'm sure they have a lot of fascinating additional content about Ishgardian religion and history.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UAnchovy

They need a more compelling narrative in order to convince idealists to defend the people of Ishgard?

---

Remember that those comments are coming from two individuals at the 1000 year old tail of a war that has defined their country since long before either was born - for one, continuing the war with as many advantages as are possible because there is ultimately no stopping the war (thus far anyway) is par for the course and certainly influences his beliefs, and for the other a good and noble cause is worth fighting for but so is seeking peace to end the suffering if it's possible, and continuing a war when peace is the most possible it has been in centuries is perhaps unthinkable...and thus influences his comments.

As for the founders...I think you're on to something regarding how much of what is seen/believed now was changed over the course of time, but I think it's worth considering that those who betrayed the peace after 200 years did so to seek power against those that were at the time not their enemy (I'd have to double check, but the Ascians may have had a small influencing hand in that belief...a nudge in the wrong direction if you will), so going the extra step beyond what was necessary to start a ruse if it would ultimately benefit them (and a nation fueled by fervor against an enemy would be a benefit) is certainly not unthinkable. Also, while logic might dictate that reducing the chance of the ruse being discovered to the smallest chance possible is the "correct" course this is meant to take place in an organic world where the characters don't always choose based solely on the most logical choice...especially if said logical choice didn't come with additional potential benefits in their eyes.

On dragons - they might actually be the most reliable when it comes to memories, believe it or not. They don't perceive time quite the same way...their "history is yet part of [their] present" in a way we can't comprehend. It does mean that they are influenced by emotional bias (potentially) to a far greater degree, but it also means that their memories of events are perhaps greater than any creature alive (at least for the Firstborn, like Nidhogg).

To be fair as well, after that scene Aymeric does tell you that he thinks he expressed himself poorly. Perhaps he was kicking himself afterwards, and thought he could have made a better argument.

On what is believed now: I suppose my point is that it doesn't make sense, to me, for there to have been a single lie produced by a cabal of deceivers. Rather, we are probably dealing with a growing tissue of falsehoods. At the time of Thordan's death, perhaps all the founders of the high houses said was that the dragons turned upon them and slew their beloved king. They omitted, but didn't lie directly. Over the coming centuries, the details of Thordan's death passed into legend and were exaggerated. I don't know where the story of the elezen first coming to Coerthas came from; perhaps that was bundled into the Thordan story centuries later. To bring us back to the topic, this question about the textual history of the Enchiridion is fascinating.

On dragon memories, I am sure that they remember some things extremely clear, but as you say, their psychology is not like human (or elezen, hyur, etc.) psychology. Their history is part of their present. There's something Hraesvelgr says to Estinien atop Zenith that springs to mind. Estinien asked Hraesvelgr why he should believe Hraesvelgr's version of history over the church's, and Hraesvelgr answered, "What thou choosest to believe is immaterial. The betrayal that yet haunts mine every waking moment is no less than the truth to my kind. And Nidhogg meaneth for Thordan's people to suffer for this sin till the end of days."

That makes an interesting point about truth, I think. Nidhogg is not driven by a historian's truth, so to speak. He is driven by a personal and subjective impression of Ratatoskr's death, that he constantly relives. The impression of how it felt to know that his brood-sister was murdered by treacherous elezen is a permanent brand on his spirit. That's not something that can be changed. If, perhaps, someone were to find a reasonable historical argument that cast Thordan's actions in a new light, or even justified them, that would do nothing to alter this vengeful memory. Or neither is there any gift, apology, or recompense that could be offered that would alter the memory itself. Nidhogg is haunted by the sense of how it felt at that exact moment in history. The memory is eternal.

I find that much dragon behaviour makes more sense if their strongest memories are eternal in this way. It especially contextualises their tendency to brood. When you first meet Hraesvelgr, he is a broken dragon, sorrowfully reliving both his memories of Shiva and his memory of Ratatoskr's death. Or we can consider Tiamat, who is so consumed by the shameful memory of what she did to Bahamut that she is prepared to sit motionless in an Allagan prison for eternity. I would not not be surprised if the oldest dragons usually do end up consumed by memory. They are monomaniacal beings, whether Hraesvelgr for lost love, Tiamat for guilt, or Nidhogg for rage.

Anyway, so I don't think the elder wyrms lie to you, and neither do I think that their memories are false as such. But I think that their memories are of limited usefulness when it comes to discovering exactly what happened.

I think that you're correct in assuming that the great lie was one that developed over time. In all likelihood, the charade started simple, using half-truths and whole truths to unify Ishgard against Nidhogg and his horde. The original four knights most likely did not try to convince everyone that their beloved friend dragons were secretly evil and plotting to kill them. The original lie was likely simple, and based MOSTLY in truth: That Nidhogg wanted to kill them all, and had a horde of loyal followers to carry out that wish. However sympathetic some dragons might be, there were enough adversarial that war was inevitable, and the humans needed to band together for their own protection. In the early days of the war, it's even possible that some dragons allied WITH their human friends, maybe even with the full blessing of the Knights Four.

The problem is, though, that half-truths and whole truths were not enough. After a century or so of war, with no end in sight, it's little surprise that the Ishgardians would have begun to tire of it and yearn for the days of cooperation between the races in the past. Folks would begin to question the government, start calling for overtures of peace. The folks in charge know that peace would never be possible, due to their inside knowledge of Nidhogg's motivations, and all this anti-war rallying was tearing Ishgard apart. So, they started a long-term campaign to change the history books: The anti-war protesters are ruthlessly silenced, and the government starts taking steps to stymie such uprisings in the future by rewriting history to paint dragons as a whole in a negative light. There is no hope for peace with the dragons, so don't even try to find allies among them. All dragons are our enemies. Rumors of long-ago friendship are lies, perpetuated by the dragons to bring dischord. All who consort with dragons are heretics, and must be purged.

While it might seem illogical to try to hide the fact that the two races were once allied, in the face of blatant evidence as close by as the Dravanian Forelands, the leaders saw it as necessary in order to keep Ishgard constantly united against a foe that they knew would exploit any lack of solidarity on their part. After centuries passed, things that were common knowledge became folklore and myth as their leaders relentlessly ground the lies deep into the public's consciousness. A thousand years is a very long time, after all, and the Ishgardian leaders knew they'd be playing the long game with Nidhogg if they were to win at all.

Of course, the idea that history can be so easily changed is based on the arrogance and cynicism of powerful, yet flawed leaders. There have been many throughout history who believed they could change history simply by flexing their political muscles - Stalin being one notorious example. I don't think anyone here seriously believes that Ishgard's policy of writing draconic friendship out of the history books was a viable plan, or the correct thing to do - but it's certainly possible that the lords of Ishgard were convinced that it was.

Would you even need an organised, top-down attempt to change history? The story around heretics seems like it could arise quite naturally.

Suppose that a few generations into the war, some Ishgardians start agitating for peace, and want to negotiate with the dragons. On the face of it, this isn't actually a problem. Those negotiators will go off and either they will succeed (which is great; Ishgard doesn't have any reason to want to continue the war), or they will fail (in which case Ishgard has lost nothing). As it is, they will either encounter Hraesvelgr's brood, who will at best tell them to go away and at worst kill them, or Nidhogg's brood, who will kill them. A few naive kids lose their lives, and everyone gets a valuable lesson in the continued evil of dragons.

There's one problem. Nidhogg knows how to convert Ishgardian elezen into more dragons. Presumably this is where the idea of heretics comes from, right? Nidhogg's brood can reply to these idealists with, "Of course, let us tell you the truth, here, please receive our hospitality, drink this." Then they can start to produce aevises. Aevises are extremely valuable for Nidhogg: not only do they represent a reclamation of Ratatoskr's blood, they can provide intelligence on Ishgard, they provide more troops, and they provide an exit for any desperate elezen who may wish to surrender. After generations of brutal war, an elezen might despair and feel that the war is unwinnable. The promise that you can join the Dravanian Horde might be appealing, especially to any Ishgardians who might feel a desire for revenge against a nobility that is sometimes abusive or oppressive. You can even produce cults, so to speak: small groups of Ishgardians who collaborate with the Dravanians in the hope of one day being rewarded with ascension into dragonkin.

Once it becomes established that it is possible for people to cooperate with the Dravanian Horde, and indeed to become Dravanians, everyone else in Ishgard suddenly has a very good reason to try to teach everyone that cooperation is impossible. The person who wants to negotiate with the horde is no longer just an idiot throwing their life away, but a grave threat to Ishgard itself.

So of course Ishgardians will teach that it is always wrong to cooperate with a dragon. They tell stories about the depravity of heretics, and they will develop institutions (the Inquisition) whose job it is to prevent heretics. None of this actually has to be a deliberate lie. It's actually, well, true. For almost all of the Dragonsong War, there is no real hope of diplomacy, and the only attempts lead to betrayal, transformation, and slaughter. The best lies are built on truths, and so too here. In any case, once the concept of heretics is firmly part of Ishgardian culture, that will contextualise how you remember a figure like Shiva. If you are in a culture where you have extensive experience of people betraying their kin to join with dragons, and you are aware of ancient stories about the first elezen to join with a dragon, the connection is fairly logical.

Which then leads you to a pretty coherent view of Thordan's life, doesn't it? If dragons are all malicious, and they can recruit and transform people for their agenda, then pre-Thordan Ishgardian civilisation could easily fit into that pattern. A long time ago, there was an entire heretic civilisation. Then Thordan I destroys that civilisation and heroically separates out the races. Anyone who might object, whether dragon or human, by claiming that actually elezen and dragon once lived together as equals, can be seen as pushing a heretic agenda today. Heretics pose a real threat, so inquisitors will be rightly skeptical of anyone who preaches dragon-human cooperation.

This is a similar conclusion to yours, but it doesn't require any long-term project of deception from the top. I think I prefer a model where the view of history changes organically, from every part of society. The alternative feels too much like a conspiracy theory, to me. As I said, the best lies are based on truth, and I can well believe that the false history of Ishgard is actually 90% true.

As a side note, most of the above is about what I think of as 'Nidhoggian' heretics. Ysayle and her group are different. I might term them 'Hraesvelgrian' heretics. Nidhoggian heresy does involve transforming into aevises and is aimed at the victory of the Dravanian Horde and the destruction of Ishgard (e.g. the false Guillaime), while Hraesvelgrian heresy involves no transformations and is aimed at peace. It strikes me as possible that there have been many Hraesvelgrian heretic groups before Ysayle's, but they usually don't live for very long. Hraesvelgr's brood don't seem terribly determined to protect them, and Ishgardian persecution is relatively efficient. It is also worth remembering that, from the Ishgardian perspective, Hraesvelgrian heretics can be just as dangerous as the Nidhoggian kind. (Ysayle is responsible for attacks on large numbers of innocent non-combatants, after all.) I doubt anyone in Ishgard bothers to differentiate between types of heretics, but both types do present real threats to Ishgard.

On a side note, looking up aevises before, the EE notes (p. 288) that the word 'aevis' is from the Enchiridion, and seems to imply that the word was there before it was discovered that some elezen could be transformed into dragonkin. This doesn't seem to tell me anything about the composition of the Enchiridion - apparently it means 'devil who flies', and worshippers of Halone in the Fifth or Fourth Astral Eras had surely encountered flying voidset - but it is one more clue as to the contents of the text.

I think that it's dangerous to assume that Ysayle's group was "different" in the ways that you claim. While there are clearly factions among the heretics (evidenced in part by the fact that there are still heretical hold-outs even though most heretics have now surrendered), Ysayle clearly considered herself to be an ally of Nidhogg when her crew paved the way for the assault on the Steps of Faith. It wasn't until she witnessed the indiscriminate savagery of the attack against civilian, military, and clergy alike that her convictions were shaken and she began to wonder whether assisting Niddy was really the right thing to do. Her Echo had given her the knowledge that the Church of Ishgard was in the wrong - but it wasn't until then that she considered the fact that the dragons could ALSO be in the wrong, and that helping them to win the war might not solve things the way she thought it would.

Claiming her group as being non-transformative seems wrong, as well, as the quest leading up to your meeting with her explicitly involves a fight against a group of heretics who transform during the fight in order to protect Ysayle from you. They are clearly her people, and possibly even her personal guard. It is implied, too, that Ysayle is considered a leader figure among heretics in general, not just a small group of them. Even if not all factions obey her directly, she seems to be something of a prophet to them.

On the topic of aevis, note that Bahamut had a couple diresaurs (another result of Elezen transformation) assisting him in Coil 13, and the Allagan/Meracydia conflict LONG predates the whole Ratatoskr drama. There are apparently other methods to transform people into dragons than transforming Elezen descended from the Knights Four, so there could well have been aevis, as well. What those methods might be is currently a mystery.

To clarify, I am not positing any visible political distinction. Heretics aren't organised enough for that. I do not think heretics deliberately identify themselves with either elder wyrm. Most heretics probably don't even know there are these two elder wyrms. I'm suggesting, rather, that there are different ideological trends among heretics. They don't all want the same thing.

Thus, for instance, the false Guillaime spoke about being "blessed with power far beyond your ken", and when defeated, said, "Blood has been repaid with blood, and for that I am content". (Both from 'The Heretic Among Us'.) The impression I got there was that heresy was both about vengeance, making Ishgard suffer because all Ishgardians are complicit in an injustice, and about gaining more personal power. By contrast, while Ysayle embraced a plan that would harm innocents, that harm was not the point. Guillaime denied that any Ishgardians were innocents; Ysayle granted that some were innocents, but felt that ending the war was worth the collateral damage.

So I think you can talk about different heretics having different goals and different methods. Some want peace and coexistence, while others want revenge and the destruction of Ishgard. There isn't a single heretic creed. I linked these different views to Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr more because those are the two visible political factions among the dragons. (I think a few elements of Ratatoskr's brood survive as well, but never mind them.) If heretics take their cues from dragons, they are likely to come from one of the two major dragon factions.

I didn't recall any transforming heretics when you battle Shiva in 2.4. Very well, I stand corrected there.

Quote:

---

Her Echo had given her the knowledge that the Church of Ishgard was in the wrong - but it wasn't until then that she considered the fact that the dragons could ALSO be in the wrong, and that helping them to win the war might not solve things the way she thought it would.

---

I remember, on those quests, feeling that Ysayle had gotten her idea of what dragons are from Hraesvelgr, and Estinien had gotten his idea of what dragons are from Nidhogg. Thus to Ysayle, dragons are tragic beasts of great nobility and even greater sorrow, and to Estinien, dragons are vengeful monsters possessed of a hatred beyond mortal comprehension. Both of them are correct. (To an extent; I think the game wants you to be more sympathetic to Hraesvelgr than I found I could be. But let's not go into that.)

But yes, Ysayle was clearly ignorant of quite a lot about the true nature of the war at the start of Heavensward, and rather naive to boot. (Her objection to just killing Nidhogg springs to mind.) Ysayle had a glimpse of Hraesvelgr and a couple of Echo visions, and then she jumped to conclusions and did some quite awful things. She and the heretics who follow her do not have any moral high ground.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UAnchovy

This is a similar conclusion to yours, but it doesn't require any long-term project of deception from the top. I think I prefer a model where the view of history changes organically, from every part of society.

---

I think that conclusion would hold more weight if it weren't for the Echo vision we received.

In the one following their betrayal, we see Sylvetrel de Dzemael say "We shape our nation anew with a history of our own making - and let the truth of this dark day die here, upon the battlefield." While various aspects of the changes almost certainly did grow organically over time (say, perhaps, an increasing hostility toward "heretics" as the years passed and the need grew to keep men fighting instead of changing sides), that moment right there does strongly suggest that the intent to craft a compelling narrative specifically to hide the truth came from the top and from the very beginning.

Not a necessary act, but one they took regardless.

To be honest, I found that vision by itself to be rather strange, not least because they didn't craft a new history of what happened on that day. What happened on that day is that Haldrath drove off Nidhogg, and that's exactly what they publicised. As far as I can tell they never directly lied about anything. They omitted certain facts - that Thordan slew Ratatoskr, that they consumed Ratatoskr's eyes, that Haldrath took both Nidhogg's eyes not just one, and that three additional knights survived and renounced their nobility - but the basic history was, well, quite true. Nidhogg killed Thordan, Haldrath drove off Nidhogg, Haldrath renounced the crown, and the four remaining knights set about ruling Ishgard in stewardship.

So I have some trouble with what Sylvetrel might have meant there. What truth did he feel had to die? Surely nothing about what they'd done on that day itself? Does he mean specifically that Haldrath refused the throne in penitence for Thordan's crime, since publicising Thordan's crime would cause civil unrest? What did Sylvetrel or Haldrath even understand Thordan's crime to be? (I have never quite been able to get it straight what happened then. Thordan killed Ratatoskr, yes, but the context of that act and Thordan's motives have been relatively obscure.)

In any case, I suppose I think you are pinning a lot on one somewhat obscure phrase. I also find it a bit difficult to posit that Sylvetrel (and Flavien, Geunriel, and Driancoin) began this huge conspiracy then, at a time when Haldrath and the other three surviving knights were still around to contradict them. At the least, those four other survivors must have tacitly consented to whatever the four founders did, and that suggests to me that the founders weren't too blatant. I also understood the Knights Twelve in general to be men of relative integrity, Thordan's crime aside, which furthers my preference for a gradual evolution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UAnchovy

To be honest, I found that vision by itself to be rather strange, not least because they didn't craft a new history of what happened on that day. What happened on that day is that Haldrath drove off Nidhogg, and that's exactly what they publicised.

---

When he said shape their nation anew with a history of their own making, I don't think he was necessary limiting himself to just the events of that one day...and even if he was, he references it as the "truth of this dark day" and that strongly suggests the betrayal and consumption of the eyes for power happened on that day as well (along with what they thought was the final defeat of Nidhogg, which was very nearly true...they had no idea Hraesvelgr would give up one of his own eyes to help Nidhogg). Certain elements of the lie were almost certainly created in later years, perhaps centuries later, but there's a strong indication from this scene that decision to begin that narrative was made that day and not born out of minor changes to the events that eventually spun out of hand as you seem to suggest. In fact, where they are talking is in the Churning Mists (The Rookery), not far from the area where Ratatoskr is most likely to have been killed (Tharl Oom Khash). Leaving only to return to the scene of the crime on a different day? Not terribly likely.

I also think you might be pinning too much on the belief that these were men of integrity. They were all complicit in the partaking of the power of the eyes to take the fight to there own allies (though clearly even after 200 years there were those among the Elezen who resented the Dragons for one reason or another), and that scene shows - with the exception of the Lord of House Dzemael, who was in fact quite pleased at the idea of Haldrath ruling with his newfound power - a great deal of guilt and shame among the survivors. It was a decision to hide the truth born out of shame and cowardice for a terrible act...not something men of integrity would do. While the others did walk away from it all and give up being knights...they were just as complicit, and it's likely that their guilt and shame kept them silent as well.

Eventually that guilt might (a word I've chosen carefully, but to explain why would be spoilery) lessen over time for those few privy to it as they are born further and further from the date of the transgression, and such knowledge coupled with more organic developments could certainly impact how the Enchiridion was taught (to pull the original discussion of the thread back in a bit) if not actual changes to the text in the 1000 years of the Dragonsong War.

Hold on, I thought we knew that there were significant gaps in time between Thordan slaying Ratatoskr, Nidhogg slaying Thordan, and then Haldrath defeating Nidhogg? Let me pull out the sources again...

The Encyclopaedia Eorzea (p. 149) suggests that Nidhogg killing Thordan and Haldrath defeating Nidhogg were part of the same battle, but that battle lasted for seven days and seven nights. It doesn't expand on what that means: perhaps it was a running battle with periods of rest, as each side withdrew to try to recover while the other side hunted them down, or perhaps Ratatoskr's eyes meant that each side had the stamina to literally fight for a week.

Then in-game... Ysayle doesn't provide anything in 'Purple Flame, Purple Flame'. In 'Heart of Ice', Hraesvelgr fails to add anything either. No dates are mentioned. No one mentions any dates in the Echo flashback after 'Into the Aery'. Neither does Thordan VII mention anything when he describes it in the flashback in 'The Sins of Antiquity'. I think those are the only places in the game where anyone describes what happened? Hraesvelgr, Haldrath, and Thordan VII all describe the same sequence of events - Thordan and the Knights Twelve slay Ratatoskr, the first dragon to learn of it is Nidhogg, Nidhogg immediately attacks the knights in a rage, Nidhogg kills Thordan and half the knights but is defeated by Haldrath, and then the surviving knights go on to found the high houses - but none provide any timeline.

Hm. When I played, the impression I got was that this wasn't all in the one day. It must have taken some time for Nidhogg to discover the news of his brood-sister's death, which would also allow time for the Knights Twelve to master their new powers. However, I can't offer any evidence for this. It just feels more right to me. In my defense, neither can I find any evidence that it did all happen in the one day. The only mention of time I can find is the EE's reference to the Thordan-Nidhogg-Haldrath battle taking a week.

On the integrity of the Knights Twelve:

Here's where the sheer ambiguity of what happened that day becomes a problem for me. I would think that we have a relatively consistent picture of Haldrath, and we know that he was pretty heroic. Similarly, the fact that three knights chose to walk away after the battle, instead of accepting power, suggests to me that they were not primarily motivated by greed or self-interest. Even the four who did take power couch their argument in terms of the benefit of the people (Flavien: "Think of your people, my lord! Without a king, who will the common man turn to in his hour of need?"), and then they immediately agree to share power and set up a stewardship. If they were motivated primarily by hunger for power, why not appoint a king from among their own number, as Haldrath suggested? Their restraint suggests to me some sense of propriety, some humility, or even some guilt, or a sense that they were unworthy. Or at the very least, enough enlightened self-interest to realise that feuding over who would be king would threaten them all.

Which makes me wonder: how the heck did Thordan pitch the slaying of Ratatoskr? All the Knights Twelve took part in it, including Haldrath, and at least one of them seems to have been a relatively decent person. Why did they agree to slay Ratatoskr? Was it, in fact, premeditated at all? Skimming the sources I mentioned above, there's even confusion as to what Thordan's motivation was.

EE p. 47 suggests that they devoured Ratatoskr's eyes "to gain preternatural wisdom", p. 149 says that Thordan "coveted the power" in the eyes, and p. 206 says that he killed her out of "avarice", "for her eyes and the strength they might provide." In 'Purple Flame, Purple Flame', Ysayle suggests that the knights believed that dragons are immortal because of the aether in their eyes, and that they wanted to become immortal. Hraesvelgr in 'Heart of Ice' just says it was the desire to possess 'strength', Haldrath in 'Into the Aery' says "we traded our honour for the strength which now courses in our veins", and in 'The Sins of Antiquity', Thordan VII says they killed Ratatoskr "that they might partake of her eyes, and thereby transcend their mortal limits".

So, what was the goal? Knowledge? Power? Immortality? How preconceived was this plan? For all I know, Thordan and the knights walked up to Ratatoskr, Thordan demanded that she share the knowledge and power of dragons with mankind, Ratatoskr tried to intimidate them and said that it could never happen while she lived, and battle broke out due to misunderstanding. I don't know what happened because they only people present for that battle were Ratatoskr, Thordan, Haldrath, and the Knights Twelve, most of them died, and the few survivors never talked about it.

Anyway. When I try to guess at something like this, I try to start with two principles. Firstly, I try to assume that no one was gratuitously stupid, and secondly, that no one was gratuitously evil. That's not say that gratuitously stupid or evil people don't exist in Eorzea (e.g. Hildibrand, Xande), but that they're unusual enough that I think it's better to start with the idea that people aren't morons or supervillains. If I bear that in mind and try to start from a position where Thordan and the Knights Twelve thought they were justified... well, how can that be?

I think I also prefer a non-stupid non-evil interpretation of the knights because it better contextualises their surrounding actions. In every part of their lives we know about other than the slaying of Ratatoskr, they don't seem to have been villains. Haldrath is unambiguously heroic; the three survivors who walked away weren't after power; and even the four founders spent their lives defending Ishgard and establishing a stewardship that would last a thousand years. Even Hraesvelgr describes Thordan I as "that most noble of elezen". (Granted, he might be sarcastic. What does a sarcastic tone even sound like in dragon speech?) Haldrath also refers to them as "men of such wisdom and compassion", though I guess he too might be sarcastic? Regardless, the slaying of Ratatoskr is the only clear act of villainy I can attribute to any of these people.

As a final note, I find it more dramatically interesting if the Knights Twelve were not just nakedly after power, or if they, Ratatoskr aside, were for the most part genuinely good people. A noble brotherhood who are tempted to do something evil, or who commit a terrible crime out of loyalty to a king who has gone mad with power, or who rationalise a dark deed to themselves and later regret it, or who commit an atrocity out of misunderstanding and then have to face the consequences, are to me more interesting than people who are simply monsters. I think that also heightens the parallel between the Knights Twelve and the modern Heavens' Ward, who contain some villains but also some genuinely good and heroic people. Thordan VII, like his original namesake, tries to use hideous means in order to accomplish a noble goal. I like the parallel you get.

Anyway, I realise I've gone on for a while, and haven't been very focused. I suppose this is what happens the first time you post in the official forum, with an entire game's worth of reflections to comment on. Thank you for indulging me. :)

On the topic of why the knights went along with Thordan's insane plan to steal Ratatoskr's eyes, I think we might need to step back a bit and remember that this is a Japanese production. While pretty much the world over has stories of soldiers unquestioningly following their leaders, even when they really ought to have done some questioning, this kind of mindset seems particularly pronounced in a lot of the media I've sampled from Japan. Good man does bad things for bad leader for no reason beyond the fact that bad leader is the leader, and good man hates himself for it is a powerful dramatic trope in Japan, and I believe it was that trope that they were trying to evoke here. Thordan's knights assisted Thordan in retrieving the eyes without question or hesitation, because Thordan was their king and asked/commanded them to do it. After Thordan was dead, they acknowledge to each other that these were some pretty terrible actions they'd engaged in, and I don't believe this was a change of heart. They'd known it was terrible all along, but were unwilling to disobey their king.

Was Thordan himself a villain? Or just weak? One or both of these seems very likely, but we simply have too little information to make a judgment. Weak or bad, though, it's far from beyond imagining that his knights could have been honorable men, and nonetheless followed him unquestioningly. They might not even have liked him, on a personal level, and still been very loyal. It's easy to imagine a long-standing monarchy, featuring a hereditary line of kings of varying quality. Noble youths strive to join the personal guard of the king because it's a position of high honor and prestige with little regard of just who, exactly, is sitting in that throne. Sadly, this time around the one sitting in that throne was a covetous thief or a scheming mastermind who has decided to toss aside centuries of peace and prosperity for personal gain. And who knows? Perhaps Thordan had managed to convince himself that the murder was justifiable for the good that power would make him capable of performing in the service of his country - much as Thordan VII justified his own actions.

Basically, while in some cultures it might seem like blindly following Thordan's wicked ambitions are a sign of poor moral character, in others such unflinching loyalty is a sign of HIGH moral character. It can make analysis of this story very difficult with our cultural baggage. Are we supposed to quietly sympathize with the knights for winding up with such a terrible leader? Or are we meant to condemn them for not standing up to him?

I wouldn't be surprised if there are elements of culture clash. There are some parts of Heavensward that are quite difficult for me to interpret. Earlier, I alluded to Hraesvelgr being one of them: the game seems to think I will be appalled by things that I don't have a strong reaction to (e.g. Hraesvelgr saving Nidhogg), and that I will approve of things that I am genuinely appalled by (e.g. Hraesvelgr and Shiva). There are points in the paladin Heavensward storyline that I can only interpret as the localisation team attempting to apologise for how little sense the story makes.

The idea of service in the context of Thordan and the Knights Twelve seems like it could be another one. You do often find that Japanese media that apes a Western aesthetic nonetheless still has a Japanese soul; and vice versa, for Western media that attempts a Japanese aesthetic. In this case I don't know which cultural lens to apply. Ishgard is clearly making heavy use of Western aesthetic themes: the entire dragonslayer conceit is Western (Beowulf, Sigurd, St. George, even Sleeping Beauty), the Knights of the Round are of course Arthurian, and there's even a bit of Tolkien in the doomed relationship between the mortal and the immortal. (I mention these two specifically because Yoshida has mentioned being inspired by Arthuriana and Tolkien.) Yet as you say, underneath that something about the heart of the game beats Japanese.

I suppose I would like the story to be open to a plurality of interpretations, especially since Thordan himself is presented in so many ways: Thordan I, Thordan VII, and the primal King Thordan are all related, just as Saint Shiva, Ysayle, and the primal Shiva are similarly related. The plot of Heavensward revolves around the Thordans and the Shivas, and while the surface reading of the plot is that the Thordans are evil and the Shivas are good, I can't quite accept that myself. The heretic or draconic heroes of the story are all problematised. What is the ultimate difference between Thordan VII, and Ysayle, for example? They are both characters who commit terrible deeds for a good cause, and who clad themselves in primals. The game's position on Hraesvelgr is very odd indeed. And underneath it all lies this mysterious figure of Thordan I: the original sinner, but one whose character, motives, and goals remain obscure.

Anyway. I don't blame anyone for taking a purely negative interpretation of Thordan I or the Knights Twelve. That may well be the most consistent intepretation to take overall. Personally, though, I find so much of Heavensward's plot ambiguous. There are plenty of cases where I just don't know what it's trying to say, or where it seems to undermine what it's trying to say, or where it seems to be saying something earnestly but that thing is so prima facie absurd that I can't accept it as presented.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Berethos

Eventually that guilt might (a word I've chosen carefully, but to explain why would be spoilery) lessen over time for those few privy to it as they are born further and further from the date of the transgression, and such knowledge coupled with more organic developments could certainly impact how the Enchiridion was taught (to pull the original discussion of the thread back in a bit) if not actual changes to the text in the 1000 years of the Dragonsong War.

---

In the Scholasticate quests, it was mentioned how a man who had to keep records on these dark secrets for the Vault actually became depressed and committed suicide because of it.