Primal Indoctrination and Beast Tribe Colors

I want to know the significance of Primal Indoctrination on beast tribes and if/how it can potentially affect their "color". With the Sylphs it's pretty obvious having the Sylphs of Little Solace still retaining their green coloration whereas the Sylphs "touched" by Ramuh sport various shades of violet. There are similar occurrences such as with the Amalj'aa and now once again somewhat with the Kojin.

One that's confused me is the Vanu Vanu. You have the Vundu who have a blue plumage, and then the Zundu who have a red plumage. Easy enough.

But then there are the Gundu who still have a blue plumage but who are not indoctrinated? Is their color even related to indoctrination? Or is it that once you've "turned" once, your color never reverts back?

the sylphs are the exception and which is why tempering is so scary. Nothing about your outward appearance changes

I always wondered this too. Could you imagine if religious zealots irl turned different colors? You found jesus? Boom, now your skin is blue!

Why are the 6 main races colors not changed if its a byproduct of enthrallment.

Also why is the color change only a thing sometimes? We have seen turned beastmen and members of the 6 races who keep their coloring as long as its convenient to the plot.

Also why are the blue kojin green while the red are red.

Then we get into the question of whether one can even break free of indoctrination(Spoilers below):

which the story has been pretty ambiguous on thus far with bits of the MSQ conflicting with some of the Beast Tribe quests. What I'm referring to is the recent MSQ with the Ananta queen showing clear signs of unyielding loyalty to their "god", and then you have the Vath Keeneye who you help break free of the influence through their beast tribe quests. Then again the Gnath "Overmind" is could be considered a separate influence from Primal indoctrination or it could be considered a package deal. If indoctrination cannot be broken then what's the deal with the Gundu? Are the rules different between each primal? Is @OP overthinking this? Probably.

The blue kojin are green because it's a play on the older Japanese word "ao" which can mean blue or green, though modern Japanese typically uses "midori" for green. More info here: /r/ffxiv/comments/6hyjhu/question_about_one_of_the_new_beast_tribes/

AFAIK, the only beast tribes whose colors actually change when tempered are the Sylphs (green/brown to purples) and the Ixal (colorful plumage to drab brown; this is touched upon in the Ixal quests briefly). Rest are generally either different stages of life or genders (Sahagan/Kobold), differences in tribes (Vanu Vanu), or just wear different colors to show their allegiance or location (Gnath/Amalj'aa/Anata/Qirqin)

Do we know the origins between the different colors of the Kojin? I don't remember them being tempered, think its more like how the Vanu Vanu are.

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Originally Posted by survient

The blue kojin are green because it's a play on the older Japanese word "ao" which can mean blue or green

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Link wont open. Still the question stands, if its a play on ao which is blue or green, why not just say green instead of blue in the English translation since to us it just looks like bad localization.

If you have to explain your witticism or joke its neither. This also applies to devs.

As far as I can tell, none of the Kojin are tempered. Actually, I don't think we see Susano tempering anyone (on purpose anyway). The difference between the Red and Blue Kojin seems to be a cultural difference and one that's been around for years at that. At the very least, it's probably been around as long as one group of Kojin has been mercenaries and another group has been traders. So yeah, very much like the Vanu Vanu where there's a bunch of different tribes that have been around for a long time and their primal hasn't been shown tempering anyone.

Actually, they're aren't the only beast tribe that's been shown to worship the being that is summoned as a primal either. The Slyphs, the Ananta and the Vanu Vanu all worship the same deity regardless of whether they summon that deity or not. The ones that don't summon tend to think that their deity doesn't believe in forcing people to worship them and summoning is in direct opposition to that (The Slyphs, the Ananta). The Vanu Vanu believe that Bismark created the Sea of Clouds in the first place, so him eating the islands means he isn't the real Bismark in the first place.

So yeah, Beast Tribe color probably has way more to do with cultural identity then Primal tempering. However, certain sub-cultures within each Beast Tribe are a lot more likely to summon Primals then other sub-cultures are. In a lot of ways, the Beast Tribe quests are all about driving home the fact that those sub-cultures exist in the first place.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Link wont open. Still the question stands, if its a play on ao which is blue or green, why not just say green instead of blue in the English translation since to us it just looks like bad localization.

If you have to explain your witticism or joke its neither. This also applies to devs.

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They directly explain the reason to you in the story itself. Unless you're deliberately not paying attention, there's no reason it should come off as bad localization.

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Originally Posted by survient

which the story has been pretty ambiguous on thus far with bits of the MSQ conflicting with some of the Beast Tribe quests. What I'm referring to is the recent MSQ with the Ananta queen showing clear signs of unyielding loyalty to their "god", and then you have the Vath Keeneye who you help break free of the influence through their beast tribe quests. Then again the Gnath "Overmind" is could be considered a separate influence from Primal indoctrination or it could be considered a package deal. If indoctrination cannot be broken then what's the deal with the Gundu? Are the rules different between each primal? Is @OP overthinking this? Probably.

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The Gnath Overmind is something seperate from tempering, though at the same time for races that don't have a Hive Mind it could be considered alien enough as to essentially be tempering for those who break free from it only to return. However it wouldn't be surprising if those tempered by Ravana also joined the Hive Mind regardless of race/species, if he ever does temper anyone.

The Slyphs are the only ones to actually change color, and apparently the Touched are also supposed to gain magnificent beards that we never get to see. Maybe one day.

The Amalj'aa don't change colors, the friendly ones where blue as a way of differentiate themselves from their tempered/Ifrit-loyal kin. The Kojin colors are not based on temperence either, and as far as we are aware none of the Red or Blue Kojin are considered tempered though they do still have their own faith in the kami.

The main reason for different colors is so we the players can identify at a glance whether certain Beast Tribe characters we see are friendly to us or not essentially.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Link wont open. Still the question stands, if its a play on ao which is blue or green, why not just say green instead of blue in the English translation since to us it just looks like bad localization.

If you have to explain your witticism or joke its neither. This also applies to devs.

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Its specifically stated in story that we aren't quite sure WHY they go with Blue instead of Green. The main speculation is that they like the word Blue better, while another is that the Kojin are atleast Blue colorblind and thus mix up Blue and Green compared to the Spoken races.

The Kojin of the Blue refer to themselves as the Kojin of the Blue, in spite of the fact that they are green. The humans in-game are confused by this, as well, but it would be rude to refer to them as Green when they desire to be referred to as Blue.

Since there is in-game dialog where this difficulty is explained to the player - dialog that exists in the Japanese, as well - trying to pave over it all just because someone might THINK a localization error is going on seems unwise. This is especially true if you consider the fact that in future updates, the Japanese dialog might refer to this Green/Blue confusion again. I think they did the right think in keeping it, and rather than trying to explain the archaic Japanese origins, play it off as a quirk of the Blue tribe that everyone just goes along with.

Just my personal musings but it seems to me that why SE chose to depict the tempered sylphs a different colour to their untempered brethren compared to the ixal and amalj'aa might be for gameplay reasons and not lore reasons - all three beast tribes have been a part of the game since version 1.0, however in 1.0 the ixal and amalj'aa were both already tempered by the time they were first encountered by the player in 1.0, but the sylphs were not (in fact, the player's Path Companion remarked in 1.0 that they hadn't noticed any 'major' change to the ixal and amalj'aa, save for being "a touch more highly strung", showing that it was merely behaviour that changed and not their physical appearance from tempering.

As the sylphs only recently summoned Ramuh by the time of ARR and the ones who summoned him were tempered accordingly, and even then, it was not their entire race, there needed to be a more visual indication of the 'touched' sylphs being 'different' from their more benign kin, so a change of colour was probably the easiest way to do so. So it's probably just pure pragmatism from a gameplay perspective, rather than a deeper lore implication of it.

Here's a random thought: The other beast tribes (generally) have a colour difference in their clothing. Sylphs don't wear clothes. What if the tempered sylphs dye themselves (maybe the same way you can dye roses/other flowers?) to show devotion to their lightning god (purple being the colour sign of lightning in XIV)? That way there would be no immediate physical change to them either.
Might be a bit of a stretch though.

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Originally Posted by Aosha

What if the tempered sylphs dye themselves (maybe the same way you can dye roses/other flowers?) to show devotion to their lightning god? Might be a bit of a stretch though.

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I actually like that one. I always thought like sylphs were probably more aetherially charged than other Spoken races, I mean they'd have to be to spend 90% of their time flying with wings as small as that. So I figured it was Ramuh's aether that dyed them, because they've already so much aether in their bodies (probably Wind because y'know they're green and can fly but that's just rampant speculation)

Tempering varies between Primals, that's been thoroughly established within the lore. Even the touched Sylphs seek to temper the ones from Little Solace not to feed Ramuh's following, but to bridge the gaps formed between their people. This is opposed to the, say, Amalj'aa who kidnap people all over Southern Thanalan for Ifrit's army, or the Sahagin who 'drown' whoever they can. Then you have the Kobolds who couldn't rightly care less about tempering even their own people so much as getting revenge on the humans.

Then we have the case of the pirates in Sastasha (HM), who appear to not be tempered in mind, but whose bodies were corrupted due to over-exposure to Leviathan's aether. Highly likely the Sylphs changed color as a result of the tempering, as one of Ramuh's traits seems to be that he's very territorial.

Tempering can have wildly different effects to be certain. While Ifrit's tempering seems to turn people into constantly worshiping thralls, Lakshmi instead brings her tempered into dreams of eternal bliss. Sophia seemed to turn her tempered into fanatically loyal followers willing to die for her cause, and even makes them reflect their goddess, gaining the stark black skin and golden coloration. Meanwhile we have the Tempered of Thordan, who's blessing/tempering allows them to transform into powerful knights. Tempering can certainly have physical effects, but not all of the, do. I kind of like how different primals have different effects for their followers, it gives a cool extra theme to each of the malevolent deities.

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

Meanwhile we have the Tempered of Thordan, who's blessing/tempering allows them to transform into powerful knights.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but wasnt that actually more along the lines the Heavens' Ward knights becomming avatars of Thordan I's twelve knights by summoning each one individually and inside themselves (much like Ysale with Shiva and Thordan VII with King Thordan)?
I vaguely recall the MSQ going into short details of the knights you fight in The Vault having more or less displayed feats that were attributed to one of King Thordan's knights (and The Vault occurs before you even get to Azys Lla, where King Thordan is summoned)

(TL;DR I thought the 12 knights alongisde Thordan were sepparately summoned, not a result of tempering?)

You're absolutely correct though about the rest, especially Tempering having the potential for physical side effects, as we learn in Sastasha HM, but it seems to be caused by a prolonged exposure to the primals aether (or possibly in the case of sylphs things like the change in colour might happen rapidly if they're aethericly sensitive), not just regular Tempering

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Originally Posted by myahele

Well I thought I'd share the recent news and confirmation that the 12 Knights are not Primals.


http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/blog/001318.html

Unsurprisingly, Enkidu is also a Primal

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King Thordan and his knights are a singular entity. That the knights are capable of things attributed to the originals doesn't mean they are individual primals.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Link wont open. Still the question stands, if its a play on ao which is blue or green, why not just say green instead of blue in the English translation since to us it just looks like bad localization.

If you have to explain your witticism or joke its neither. This also applies to devs.

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They explain it in the MSQ.
Yes, I agree that explaining a joke may ruin it somewhat, but it's not just a joke but a lore real explanation of why they did it.

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Originally Posted by Cybylt

King Thordan and his knights are a singular entity. That the knights are capable of things attributed to the originals doesn't mean they are individual primals.

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Fair enough. The connection was tenuous at best regardless (Plus Knights of the Round, the summon he's supposed to be, includes all 12 knights along with it)

I question though how the knights the Heavens' Ward turn into, are connected to Thordan when the MSQ seems to clearly imply King Thordan wasnt summoned untill Azys Lla, and The Vault clearly shows a minimum of 4 Knights existing long before Thordan VII became God King Thordan.

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Originally Posted by Lazaruz

MSQ seems to clearly imply King Thordan wasnt summoned untill Azys Lla

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I'm not sure that's ever implied. I always thought the implication was they've known how to do it since before the Vault, and the reason they went to Azys Lla was to like eat the Triad or something like Thordan did with Lahabrea and the other Ascian who honestly I can't remember the name of. He was clearly both capable of it and knowledgeable of how to do it on the fly so I get the feeling he had done it before. Although I do think Ascalon was first manifested at Azys Lla, although how significant that is I don't know.

Ascalon is the sword of the original King Thordan. In it is Nidhogg's other eye (not the one the Azure Dragoon has). Even since the original King Thordan died, the eye has been soaking up all the aether the Ishgaurdian's worship has been producing. It's essentially acting like an aether battery for the King Thordan Primal the way crystals do for the other primals we've seen. In the Azys Lla cutscenes, we see Bishop Thordan take the sword out of King Thordan's coffin and absorb all that aether to turn himself and the Heavensward into the King Thordan Primal. And then he wants to absorb all the aether of the Ascians and the Warring Triad...

It's never very clear what is going on with the King Thordan Primal and the KotR. Even with the lore book, there's a lot of contradictions as to what came first and if the Heaven s ward are tempered or not. Given that Bishop Thordan has always had access to Ascalon and therefore Nighogg's eye, I would say that he certainly has enough worship generated aether to mess with the Heavensward. Fully transforming into the King Thordan Primal would give the game away though, and he's smart enough to wait until he's got both the Ascians and Warring Triad on hand.

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Originally Posted by Yuriane

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Good point, although I do wonder how much of the archbishop's knowledge is a hint at having done it before, since we do know for a fact he was contacted by the Ascians, so its deffinetely a fair assumption they told him how to do it (For all we know the plan was infact for him to become God King Thordan and absorb the Warring Triad so he becomes a unstoppable primal. They just didnt expect the archbishop to turn on them. But one could assume they actually taught him to become a avatar, instead of just regularly summoning a primal). Having summoned on the fly however felt plausible if one assumes they "practiced" on the Heavens' Ward members first.

But idunno, maybe I'm not thinking far enough. Lord knows I'm probably forgetting a ton regarding the primal lore.
Still feels kinda "off" though to me that the knights the Heavens' Ward turn into are connected to Thordan, but you're right, the only thing we know for sure is that Ascalon likely only manifested for the first time in the Singularity Reactor

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Ascalon is the sword of the original King Thordan. In it is Nidhogg's other eye (not the one the Azure Dragoon has). Even since the original King Thordan died, the eye has been soaking up all the aether the Ishgaurdian's worship has been producing. It's essentially acting like an aether battery for the King Thordan Primal the way crystals do for the other primals we've seen. In the Azys Lla cutscenes, we see Bishop Thordan take the sword out of King Thordan's coffin and absorb all that aether to turn himself and the Heavensward into the King Thordan Primal. And then he wants to absorb all the aether of the Ascians and the Warring Triad...

It's never very clear what is going on with the King Thordan Primal and the KotR. Even with the lore book, there's a lot of contradictions as to what came first and if the Heaven s ward are tempered or not. Given that Bishop Thordan has always had access to Ascalon and therefore Nighogg's eye, I would say that he certainly has enough worship generated aether to mess with the Heavensward. Fully transforming into the King Thordan Primal would give the game away though, and he's smart enough to wait until he's got both the Ascians and Warring Triad on hand.

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That wasn't the body of King Thordan the I in that coffin the Heavensward brought to the Singularity Reactor though, that was actually the body of his son Prince Haldrath, the first Azure DRG, who the second Eye of Nidhogg was fused to (and which prevented his body from decaying, it was still intact even after a thousand years) - the silver Drachen Mail the corpse is clad in is the giveaway, the player earlier saw Haldrath wearing that exact same armour earlier in an Echo scene.

The real Ascalon is presumably long since lost - the giant blade Thordan the VIIth wields as Knights of the Round was just part of the Primal summoning, drawing on the aether from the Eye of Nidhogg and formed from the Archbishop's own memories of Thodan the 1st and the legends that surrounded him.

I figure the individual knights appearing during the vault is the result of an incomplete summoning running off their own aether. Since we never see more than one at a time its possible they are each summoning Knights of the Round and taking on the aspect of their corresponding knight, leaving out the rest. Only when the eye is brought out do they have enough aether to do the entire summoning.

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Originally Posted by koichi88

I figure the individual knights appearing during the vault is the result of an incomplete summoning running off their own aether. Since we never see more than one at a time its possible they are each summoning Knights of the Round and taking on the aspect of their corresponding knight, leaving out the rest. Only when the eye is brought out do they have enough aether to do the entire summoning.

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According to Koji's trivia game they're a singular entity and the knights are "blessed" to receive those forms by King Thordan. By that, Thordan must have been a primal first. We just didn't see him ourselves til later.