Lack of enthrallment in SB (spoilers?)

So, in 2.x and 3.x the fact that Primals would enthrall those around them was a big deal. That is, after all, why you The Warrior of Light, are special -- you have the Echo and therefore do not succumb to their siren's calls. However, in 4.x, all mention, as far as I can see, has been removed. Even Laksmir, who DOES enchant her followers doesn't do so through the brute force we saw previously, but rather entraps them in a beautiful waking dream. A dream which the player must ward off through special means, not passively through possession of the Echo.

Furthermore, I am now going back and finishing up the SMN's job quest for SB, having just completed Coils (in case they get referenced). There are now non-echo possessing (presumably at least) squads fighting Primals?!

Is Square messing up their own lore, or am I missing something?

Lakshmi's "beautiful dream" is basically just another name for "tempering." Not as big a deal is made about it this time because we already know the deal with primals/ tempering/ the echo (thus no exposition is needed), but the characters still refer to it when they leave you to fight alone because of its possible influence.

Tempering is rarely done with "brute force", the beast tribes summon and submit to their gods willingly.

People without the Echo have been fighting primals long before we showed up, the folks we meet in the Summoner quests were just lucky enough to avoid getting their brains fried by a fake god.

Don't quite recall susano, but Lakshmi clearly "tempers" the ananta.

If you see the small cutscene before the fight with her you notice her casting some sort of spell on them, and them becoming entranced - I think her influence however is a bit more subtle than, for example, Ifrit's. The ananta seem still able to reason after the fight, but I don't really believe they're no longer under her influence. Remember that in MSQ it was the WoL that fought the primals, scions kind of just had to step back and watch and wave for moral support - presumably because yes, they'd be tempered otherwise.

As for the SMN questine I haven't seen it, do the NPCs actually fight the primals or prevent their summoning?

Susano (be he a true primal or something else) values freedom so wouldn't temper the kojin.... wild and pure and forever free!

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Originally Posted by Spiroglyph

.. The ananta seem still able to reason after the fight, but I don't really believe they're no longer under her influence...

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I can just speculate, but perhaps tempering is never permanent by definition in the first place. What if tempering is just the act of messing with someone's emotions and memories for a certain period of time. After a primal is defeated, they have no direct influence anymore, but whatever changes they did to their memories stay.
Ifrit: just completely delete the past, burn it away. Results are permanent, as after they're released, they'd not remember who they were.
Lakshmi: create a dream, feel happy, unlike your past. So after you defeat lakshmi, she has left a memory of the dream, which they'd remember as the happiest moments of their lives, and the WoL being the one to end it, putting them back to misery. However, they do remember what it was like before, and thus still remember who they are.

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Originally Posted by Spiroglyph

If you see the small cutscene before the fight with her you notice her casting some sort of spell on them, and them becoming entranced - I think her influence however is a bit more subtle than, for example, Ifrit's. The ananta seem still able to reason after the fight, but I don't really believe they're no longer under her influence.

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I'd agree that this would likely be tempering for any other primal, but considering Lakshmi's in-fight mechanics though, it's more likely to be her granting them vril. It has the same color and spherical shape as the icon, plus the adds at the start of the fight gain the vril buff on pull. So when it looks like they're becoming enthralled, they're really just being empowered, since that's kinda what vril does for the player (empowers your defenses against certain attacks).

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Originally Posted by Vulcwen

I can just speculate, but perhaps tempering is never permanent by definition in the first place. What if tempering is just the act of messing with someone's emotions and memories for a certain period of time. After a primal is defeated, they have no direct influence anymore, but whatever changes they did to their memories stay.

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If you do the Amaal'ja beastribe quest you find a Miqo'te who had been 'tempered'. However it seems she was just driven crazy and instead of killing her, they let her go back to live with her old tribe to 'recover'. So maybe being tempered isn't permanent but it more than likely screws someone up mentally.

It was clear even early on in ARR's storyline that not all Primals actively temper their followers, in fact, the only ones actually shown to be zealous about tempering is Ifrit, and to a lesser extent Leviathan. Garuda only tried to temper the player as a last resort after were had already beat her down (which went about as well as you would expect), and she did not even try to do it on Gaius when he showed up and had Ultima Weapon snack on her).

It seems apart from Ifrit all other Primals only really temper their initial summoners and don't willingly roam the landscape brainwashing others, so Susano and Lakshmi's summoning are in keeping with this.

Also a lot of tempering is not even done by the actual Primal itself but by their intial tempered kidnapping people and immersing their prisoners in a Primal's leftover aetheric residue (this is how the sahagin create more 'drowned', and how the purple sylphs were changing their untempered brethren despite Ramuh no longer being present - they had gathered up the relevant Primal's aether and stored it, then immersed prisoners in it, tempering them (although apparently this process is not as effective as a Primal actually doing the tempering themself).

This is what those weird gas emitters are doing in the Sylphlands in the East Shroud - they're actually spewing Ramuh's aether throughout the forest. But I digress.

First, the echo itself doesn't prevent being tempered. Instead, it is the blessing of hydaelyn, which is some sort of stronger, all around form of echo (as opposed to the one-dimensionnal echo other NPCs like Krile have).

With that said, most primals haven't ever tried to temper other people. Ifrit and (sorta) leviathan did. Ramuh tempered only those willing to. Garuda controls the ixali by torturing them, titan only tempers those around when confronted to a situation it can't control by its power alone, and shiva doesn't temper ever.

Then in HW, Ravana doesn't care as long as it can fight strong people and is the hivemind anyway, bismarck doesn't care at all. As far as I remember, sephirot and sofia didn't even try to temper you, and zurvan was more a "aether leaking and tempering randomly" than a real decision he made. Thordan wanted to temper people on a large scale but died before it could try.

Now SB so far : Susano doesn't care, just like ravana. Lakshmi tried to temper you only because you made it and its followers face reality, considering what it did to the clan's mother's daughter. Shinryu DID try to temper us, but zenos refused it by pure willpower, showing that the tempering has its limits. If the difference in willpower between the tempering primal and the victim isn't that great, or in favor of the victim, the tempering might not be enough to prevent a recovery or just straight up fail.


As for why Ifrit's victims are mostly not able to recover, I think it's mostly because its willpower is huge considering its personality, and it tempers repeatedly its victims to fry their brains.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

First, the echo itself doesn't prevent being tempered. Instead, it is the blessing of hydaelyn, which is some sort of stronger, all around form of echo (as opposed to the one-dimensionnal echo other NPCs like Krile have).

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Not true, it is the Echo itself that prevents tempering not the Blessing, although the Blessing of Light is connected with the Echo, the two are different (hence why when Midgardsormr seals the Blessing the player can still go and destroy Primals without risk of tempering, the Echo is unaffected and is what grants them immunity from Primal influence).

Also even in 1.0 when the Blessing did not exist the adventurer pre-Calamity was protected from Ifrit's tempering back when Ifrit appeared for the very first time, having only the Echo to protect them.

No, it's clear it's the Echo that protects a person from Primal influence (tempering), not the Blessing of Light (the later which is the manifestation of a mandala that allows the Crystals of Light to appear and function as a direct interface with Hydaelyn Herself).

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Not true, it is the Echo itself that prevents tempering not the Blessing, although the Blessing of Light is connected with the Echo, the two are different (hence why when Midgardsormr seals the Blessing the player can still go and destroy Primals without risk of tempering, the Echo is unaffected and is what grants them immunity from Primal influence).

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what we learned from Krile (and to a lesser extent, Minfillia) is that the Echo takes different form, and usually people only have one aspect of its power. The WoL is seemingly the only one with all the powers at once (primal tempering resistance, vision of the past, understanding of all the languages, etc), which is tied to the blessing of Hydaelyn as far as I remember (I could very well be wrong though).

The Echo does manifest differently in different people, and with varying levels of power, but it is indeed separate and independent from the Blessing of Light.

It's the Echo that protects the mind from tempering, and this is the reason that Krile and the WoL were the initial candidates to get within close proximity of the Warring Triad, even though Krile's Echo works differently from the WoL's.

What's interesting though, is that Zenos suggested towards the end of Stormblood that it's apparently strength of will that determines how easily one would succumb to tempering. That could explain why Regula was able to largely withstand the influence of Zurvan during the battle with against the eikon, even as several of his legionnaires fell prey to its will.

That may also explain how some members of the Company of Heroes survived their battles with Titan and Leviathan before the events of ARR.

In other words, the Echo provides full protection against tempering. Without it, your mind could well end up being fried, depending on the primal's/eikon's mood. But, if you're incredibly strong-willed, you may just be able to withstand the mind attack.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

First, the echo itself doesn't prevent being tempered. Instead, it is the blessing of hydaelyn, which is some sort of stronger, all around form of echo (as opposed to the one-dimensionnal echo other NPCs like Krile have).

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Since when is that the case? At least as far as I remember it is the echo that protects us from being tempered.

The only thing that I found strange was the vril mechanic in the Lakshimi fight. Why did we need to use that (and how did we already had one from the start?) if we have the echo to protect us from tempering?

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

what we learned from Krile (and to a lesser extent, Minfillia) is that the Echo takes different form, and usually people only have one aspect of its power. The WoL is seemingly the only one with all the powers at once (primal tempering resistance, vision of the past, understanding of all the languages, etc), which is tied to the blessing of Hydaelyn as far as I remember (I could very well be wrong though).

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Thats something separate from the tempering too. It was stated in the game that the echo protects us from being tempered thus why someone like Krile still went with us against the Warring Triad to free them but since she was way to weak she did not fight them. As long as you have the echo you are protected, but that does not mean that you can defeat the primal itself. Also the blessing is something completely different and we already fought our first primals with some crystals still missing and we still fought primals after our blessing was banned by Middy. If the blessing would be the part that gives us access to all the echo power we would have lost much of it after that but we did not.

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Originally Posted by Spiroglyph

The ananta seem still able to reason after the fight, but I don't really believe they're no longer under her influence.

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I believe that Tempering in general does not strip an individual of reason, no matter which Primal does it. It simply renders the individual fanatically loyal to the Primal in question. There are cases where individuals are OVERtempered, such as that of Loon Gah's mother in the Amalj'aa beast tribe quests (she was pretty much rendered a vegetable through repeated Temperings), but those are exceptional cases, not the norm. How individuals handle that fanatical loyalty vary from individual to individual. Nael became a crazed lunatic, while Louisouix was much more cold and methodical in advancing Bahamut's designs.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

Shinryu DID try to temper us, but zenos refused it by pure willpower, showing that the tempering has its limits.

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Remember that Zenos had the Resonance (a double dose, if the fact that both his eyes changed means anything), something that has been speculated to be a kind of artificial Echo. I don't think we can put a whole lot of weight behind his claim that willpower alone is enough to resist a Primal's Tempering - unless by it, you mean the willpower needed to toss you own humanity away and perform unspeakable human experimentation in order to find a way to survive. I could very much see that as being Zenos's belief, that "willpower" means to be completely unfettered, to be willing to do literally anything it takes in order to overcome your opponent.

I'm pretty sure in the cutscene prior to the Lakshmi the WoL uses their Echo to directly prevent the Scions from being Tempered. It is, as far as I'm aware, the first time we see our particular gift being used that way.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

First, the echo itself doesn't prevent being tempered. Instead, it is the blessing of hydaelyn,

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The thing that was removed from us pre-Heavensward by Midgardsormr, and would've led to Heavensward ending super early with us fighting Ravana?

Tempering isn't known to take away personality, but I do believe that the primal doing the tempering in question may be in part to blame for what happens to the afflicted. Remember that Ifrit's whole shtick is "domination," so his followers being fanatically loyal - submissive - to him makes sense. Likewise, Ramuh's "sphere" is reconciliation, which is why the touched sylphs try to kidnap the untouched (a twisted attempt at reconciling their differences) and why Ramuh himself is harsh but gives us a chance to prove ourselves.

The Blessing of Light and the Echo are not one and the same. As far as we know, the Blessing is just a comeback mechanic to help us deal with superpowered threats like Ascians and Primals - notably one of its functions seems to be protection from the Dark, if Igeyorhm's restraint after defeating Bismarck is to be believed. The Echo, on the other hand, is our protection from Primal influence and the ability to dive into the souls and memories of others. While we've never used it in that way before, the Echo being able to protect others isn't entirely without precedent - when Ifrit tries to temper us, it does create a sort of "dead zone" behind us where his flames didn't reach. Other than that, no primals save Garuda (who got some sort of feedback phenomenon thanks to the Blessing) tried to temper us before Lakshmi.

Fordola and Zenos have the Resonant Echo, which is functionally the same thing but artificially granted. (Or rather Zenos had the Resonant Echo.)

What do we have to do to summon Anonymoose into this thread? O:

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Originally Posted by Cilia

The Echo, on the other hand, is our protection from Primal influence and the ability to dive into the souls and memories of others. While we've never used it in that way before, the Echo being able to protect others isn't entirely without precedent - when Ifrit tries to temper us, it does create a sort of "dead zone" behind us where his flames didn't reach.

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I think it was to show both how strong you were getting, and correlates with Zenos's theories of how the Echo prevents tempering. Your Echo was greater than Lakshmi's Echo, and nulled out her enthrallment waves.

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Originally Posted by Clawbriar

The thing that was removed from us pre-Heavensward by Midgardsormr, and would've led to Heavensward ending super early with us fighting Ravana?

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Except no primal even tried to temper us while our blessing was gone ? I mean, other people here explained already where I was wrong, but the "primal threat" never existed to begin with with the few primals we fought while our blessing was gone.

^ Except that Ravana was regarded enough of a threat that only the WoL and Ysayle went to confront the primal. Estinien stayed behind with Alphinaud, as the chance of being tempered was too high to risk, whether or not Ravana was actually going to do so.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I believe that Tempering in general does not strip an individual of reason, no matter which Primal does it. It simply renders the individual fanatically loyal to the Primal in question. There are cases where individuals are OVERtempered, such as that of Loon Gah's mother in the Amalj'aa beast tribe quests (she was pretty much rendered a vegetable through repeated Temperings), but those are exceptional cases, not the norm. How individuals handle that fanatical loyalty vary from individual to individual. Nael became a crazed lunatic, while Louisouix was much more cold and methodical in advancing Bahamut's designs.

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Don't forget (especially after all those Sasthasha Hard runs that keep coming up in DF) that what you're referring to as OVERtempering can also manifest physical changes. Members of the Drowned are followers of Leviathan after 1 Drowning, but they are punished with subsequent drownings for failure which not only strip them of more and more of their will (Something that I believe Koji-Fox addresses somewhere on these forums) but physical changes begin to occur. Ifrit's Tempered all have red eyes while the Drowned all have indigo facial markings.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

Except no primal even tried to temper us while our blessing was gone ? I mean, other people here explained already where I was wrong, but the "primal threat" never existed to begin with with the few primals we fought while our blessing was gone.

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And it was said ingame that primals dont even need to actively temper anyone to do that. Being in their presence too long seems to do the deal too and since this was never a big point in the HW story part when we did not have our blessing back, it seems that its the echo that does it. Also Krile who only has the echo went with us to the warring triad and came out of this without any signs of being tempered. If I remember it correctly she was chosen to go with us because she had the echo while the rest kept our back free from tempered followers.

It seems tempering comes from exposure to a primals corrupt aether... normally it leaks off them like a loose gas pipe... long enough exposure will temper you.... they can also create a burst of it to force temper.... the echo protects us from the side effects of concentrated aether which is why we can port all over with no ill effects..

Yeah, the others have this one pretty much in the bag. The echo, for whatever reason, allows one to resist being tempered. Technically speaking, the Echo has a large series of powers, many of which we players don't understand. Apparently it's even what allows the Ascians to do their soul transfer, as evidenced by the echo-possessing Sahagin priest who was able to switch between different bodies. According to Elidibus, if the Scions mange to 'master the echo' they will be 'on the same side' as him, a mysterious note from a very mysterious character. In the case of Stormblood, it visibly allowed the characters to survive tempering from Shinryuu and Lakshmi. Zenos also managed to survive tempering from Shinryu thanks to his artificial echo powers granted to him by the Resonant procedure. As far as Susano goes, we have seen Primals who do not wish or bother to temper thralls before, and the cheerful Susano falls in that camp as well.