So, Answers has always seemed like a pretty song with hidden meanings that we could never quite grasp. Now that we have an understanding of the nature of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, however, it starts to make a lot more sense, and I thought I would take a crack at interpreting the true meaning of the words of the song, the 'speakers' of various passages in the song. It's definitely open to debate, but once it came up to my YouTube autoplay and I realized what the song was actually saying in light of everything learned in Shadowbringers, I couldn't stop myself!
Interpretation: The unsevered Ascians are questioning Hydaelyn - how can we carry on in this world where we are being forced to submit to your will? Why should we accept a shattered, broken world where our God has been forced under your will? We cannot be redeemed, our people cannot be made whole so long as your will drags our people under.Quote:
I close my eyes, tell us why must we suffer
Release your hands, for your will drags us under
My legs grow tired, tell us where must we wander
How can we carry on if redemption's beyond us?
Interpretation: Hydaelyn’s first answer: Life continues to exist. Zodiark was going to continue to demand more and more, and his judgement was going to cost you more and more until there was nothing left. The past you remember may be gone, but your people remain - in a different form, perhaps, but you can lead them to a brighter future. (Maybe Hydaelyn intentionally left some Ascians unsevered for that very purpose?) The land remains alive, you are free - please, believe. You can still experience life - with the next paragraph being a list of things that the beings that remain in this new world are free to do without Zodiark’s influence forcing them to submit to His will.Quote:
To all of my children in whom Life flows abundant
To all of my children to whom Death hath passed his judgement
The soul yearns for honor, and the flesh the hereafter
Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after
Shining is the Land's light of justice
Ever flows the Land's well of purpose
Walk free, walk free, walk free, believe...
The Land is alive, so believe…
Suffer (Feel) Promise (Think) Witness (Teach) Reason
(Hear) Follow (Feel) Wander (Think) Stumble (Teach) Listen
(Speak) Honor (Speak) Value (Tell) Whisper (Tell) Mention
(Hope) Ponder (Hope) Warrant (Wish) Cherish (Wish) Welcome
(Roam) Witness (Roam) Listen (Roam) Suffer (Roam) Sanction
(Sleep) Weather (Sleep) Wander (Sleep) Answer Sleep on
Interpretation: The Ascians did not accept Hydaelyn’s first answer, and so they continued to work against Her will for their future. They continued to cry out for Zodiark, for the restoration of their people and for their torn souls. They want their future back - just as Emet-Selch demanded. So they create chaos - what can they feel, learn, see, or hear in this broken and destroyed world? Hydaelyn is giving them nothing but empty words, lies, and they will not accept them. So they will stop at nothing to bring the one True God back, despite Hydaelyn’s best efforts to answer them before.Quote:
Now open your eyes while our plight is repeated
Still deaf to our cries, lost in hope we lie defeated
Our souls have been torn, and our bodies forsaken
Bearing sins of the past, for our future is taken
War born of strife, these trials persuade us not
(Feel what? Learn what?)
Words without sound, these lies betray our thoughts
(See what? Hear what?)
Interpretation: To me, this is the final answer: the answer that Hydaelyn that is giving to the children of these new worlds. The Ascians, unable to accept that this new world is the only way to maintain a semblance of meaning in the face of Zodiark’s dominion over all life, continue to enforce His will over creation, creating strife. She mourns the constant chaos and conflict this causes, as Her children - the children of the Shards - question why they must be made to endure constant pain and sorrow and death.Quote:
Mired by a plague of doubt, the Land, she mourns
Judgement binds all we hold to a memory of scorn
Tell us why, given Life, we are meant to die, helpless in our cries?
Witness (Feel) Suffer (Think) Borrow (Teach) Reason
(Hear) Follow (Feel) Stumble (Think) Wander (Teach) Listen
(Blink) Whisper (Blink) Shoulder (Blink) Ponder (Blink) Weather
(Hear) Answer (Look) Answer (Think) Answer together
Thy Life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow
To listen, to suffer, to entrust unto tomorrow
In one fleeting moment, from the Land doth life flow
Yet in one fleeting moment, for anew it doth grow
In the same fleeting moment
Thou must live
Die
And know
She gives the same answer she gave to the Ascians, with one caveat - they must labor to find the answers together. Hydaelyn cannot give the beings of these new worlds the answers to life; to do so would make her no better than Zodiark, the creature she was created to oppose. Life must find its own way, chart its own course. But life has the ability to hear, to feel, to think. To entrust unto tomorrow. To look to those who walked before, to lead those who come after. And to continue to grow and learn. To drag the planet to the past, to sacrifice everything to Zodiark? That would be the ultimate tragedy, and that must never be allowed to happen.
Reinterpreting Answers after Shadowbringers
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07-06-2019, 11:59 PMFaerieAuraReinterpreting Answers after Shadowbringers
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07-07-2019, 01:03 AMAnonymoose
Usually I'm against trying to interpret Answers in light of new content...because it was written during a time when the game's story was completely different and refers (in part) to things that never manifested. But if there's one expansion that probably deliberately tries to echo and give new meaning to Answers, this is probably it, lol.
As soon as Shadowbringers said, "To this riddle all souls are tied." I was like, "Ah, nuts this is gonna require looking at Answers again, isn't it." lol. -
07-07-2019, 01:24 AMFaerieAuraYeeeessss. To be completely honest, I was just listening to the Shadowbringers soundtrack on Youtube as I was gathering, and Answers came up. When I heard the line "Our souls have been torn, and our bodies forsaken" I was like... wait. Let's go back and look at this whole thing through a new lens. When I did, I realized that a lot of this had to be coming from the Ascians perspective, at least in the post-ARR timeline we're in now. I agree that the song may not have originally intended to convey these meanings, but I definitely think the dev team took a look at the lyrics when they were thinking of the way the story was going to develop in the future, given the literal parallels between the events we've learned about in Shadowbringers and the lyrics of the song. I'm looking forward to learning more about Hydaelyn's intentions - all we've really gotten to see is the sort of vague glimpses of "Hydaelyn is good for vague reasons, Zodiark is sympathetic because He saved the world but for some reason He is bad and must be opposed!" Obviously, his servants are evil in our modern timeline, and we have glimpses of what Zodiark was doing that was bad, but there's no direct answer to the question of why he needed to be checked - and the Ascians obviously didn't believe he needed to be checked at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anonymoose
I want to know why Hydaelyn was created beyond just "Zodiark needed an opposing force." My best guess, as you can see through my lyric interpretation above, is that Zodiark was going to keep asking for more and more and more sacrifices, but also He was going to keep tempering more and more people as well. The Ascians had convinced themselves that they could sacrifice their 'lesser' creations to appease Him, but that wouldn't sustain His hunger for long. Zodiark did save the world, but at a cost - and that cost would be the future will of the inhabitants of the world, the domination of all things by Zodiark. Hydaelyn did break the world, but in so doing She freed it from an eternity of servitude to darkness. She represents the freedom to choose our destiny, our own fate, make our own choices and learn from our mistakes. That is why, even though She has 'claimed' us as Her champion, we are not bound to Her will in any real way - She merely protects us as we make our own choices. My current theory based on the lyrics to Answers, her actions in game, and the actions of our characters as Her champions, anyway. -
07-07-2019, 02:02 AMRemedi
Tbh I think neither is right, I can't exactly condone what Hydaelyn did but I can't say that Zodiark was correct, the ancients summoned him as a desperate measure for survival, but the cost was becoming astronomical.
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07-07-2019, 05:57 AMFaerieAuraTo be fair, I don't think we have enough data to get into questions of right or wrong. I get the feeling that what Hydaelyn did as an act of desperation, not the first-choice. But we don't know! So many more questions to be answered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Remedi
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07-07-2019, 06:31 AMRemedi
desperation doesn't absolve what happened for both sides. Especially if this leads to us being unable to stop another calmity because we are not strong enough anymore
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07-07-2019, 06:52 AMFaerieAuraFair, though I would counter that some of the information we have seems to indicate that the Calamity that threatened the Ascians' civilization was due, in part, to the unchecked power they had over creation itself. Because they had absolute control, once they began to give in to their fears and doubts, those fears and doubts given form were able to wreak havoc upon the world, thus fueling the fears and doubts that the populace had even more. This just spawned deeper and darker horrors, which eventually required the imposition of a will - Zodiark - to impose order upon the world. The unchecked ability to create, without limit, may very well have been what gave rise to the nightmares that caused the end of civilization. The Ascians speak of their civilization as if it is a dream, without realizing that it is by its very nature a dream that may be doomed from the start. Requiring Zodiark, a being that seems to necessitate sacrifice after sacrifice, in order to maintain order on such a world does not seem worth the cost, at least to me. Perhaps that is why the Ascians that remained untouched by Zodiark realized that another solution was needed - that the vain attempt to hold on to the order of the world that existed before Zodiark wasn't worth the cost he demanded - blood, aether, and death.Quote:
Originally Posted by Remedi
Every Calamity that has since occurred has simply been an echo of the first - the fear of oblivion, of death, leading to demands for sacrifice and aether, leading to constant turmoil and strife. Emet-Selch accuses the Warrior of Light and her companions of only seeing the problems in front of their noses, but the Ascians are so solely focused on their goal that they fail to see that they are merely repeating the same cycles of history, over and over again, in a vain attempt to regain what was lost. The Ascians are the ones who continue the cycle of pain and loss that has existed since the first Calamity - since the first pangs of fear began to appear in their civilization. They still are fighting against the fear of loss, the fear of oblivion. And until they realize that, Hydaelyn will have to continue spending all of her energy fighting them, rather than allowing life to flourish, which was Her original intention. Again, my theory, but I think the text supports it to a degree at this point. I can't wait to find out more about Her background and creation. -
07-07-2019, 07:30 PMZohar_Lahar
This is conjecture, but one implication I suspected was that the sundering wasn't just to seal Zodiark, but also to prevent a recurrence of the Terminus.
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07-10-2019, 07:10 AMFaerieAuraTo me, this makes a lot of sense. All of the current text points to the idea that runaway creation magicks were what led to the Terminus in the first place - a world where they continue to be possible, without limit, means a world where such an event can recur.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zohar_Lahar
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07-10-2019, 11:09 PMAnvaire
I think for me I reserve judgement on whether what Hydealyn did was the right thing. There is an assumption that Zodiark is "evil" because he is darkness, but as we learned during Shadbowbringers, Light aspect is static and sterility, whereas Darkness aspect is growth and change. The question remains unanswered as to whether Ascians were Darkness Aspected due to their ability to create or if this was simply due to their tempering by Zodiark. We are told that Zodiark is evil because he wishes to cause the rejoining, and he consumed half the lives of the ascian civilisation to summon. However, as seen in the second dungeon, the Ascians seemed willing to give up their lives to bring forth their creations.
My interpretation on the Ardor is that the Ascians, Lahabrea, Elidibus and Emet Selch only wanted the Ardor to restore the souls of their people who had been spent to create Zodiark. I have never seen any direct reference that Zodiark itself wants the Ardor, or indeed that he couldn't be woken up without it. While I am not averse to Zodiark being 'evil' I don't think that is likely. We know that a primal's essence, will and personality reflect the nature of their summoners, what then would the combined will of half the ascian population have spawned?
We know Hydealyn was created to balance and limit the chaotic nature of Zodiark's influence. But What she has wrought isn't really balanced at all. For me, I think that until we actually meet and speak with Zodiark, it is difficult to surmise the motives of both Primals. There is the added question of where Zodiark actually is. If he is the manifestation of the star's will, that would make him the planet itself. Which therefore begs the question. Where is Hydealyn? and what is she exactly?
I am certainly looking forward to the patch MSQ's - hopefully - if Yshtola's hint is anything to go by, more will be revealed. -
07-10-2019, 11:34 PMDaraliiHades was very candid about the fact that Zodiark's presence immediately tempered His summoners, and they then proceeded to sacrifice half of the remaining population to Him. It doesn't really help Zodiark's case. The necessity of the sacrifices is also a complete enigma, as one member of the Convocation and some portion of the surviving quarter of the population was sufficient to summon a primal powerful enough to break Zodiark and imprison Him for 12,000 years and counting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvaire
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07-10-2019, 11:53 PMAnvaireThat Zodiark tempered his summoners isn't very surprising, we already know that Primals by their nature do that, whether they want to or not. Ramuh himself said that. We know that Zodiark was created to rewrite the laws of creation, perhaps, that was the reason so many needed to be sacrificed? We also know that the Ascians sacrificed themselves willingly, or at least initially they did - I lean more towards Zodiark being a morally grey construct rather than the black evil he is painted as, similar to many ways to the Ascians. They seem evil on the surface, but their intent isn't inherently so, only their methods. I suspect that before the end, Zodiark and Hydealyn will be similar in this regard. They certainly feel to be set up as two sides of the same coin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daralii
Another thing I wonder is whether the half sacrificed is the entire population or just those who resided in Amaurot. Seems that there is a lot of discussion around other cities and other cities creations as though the original star populations were split into city-states. By that reckoning, though the sacrifice is horrendous it isn't as large as it originally seems. It would therefore by extension mean that perhaps Hydealyn was summoned in the same manner but by one of the settlements across the sea.
I think the question that needs to be asked is whether those that sacrificed themselves after they were tempered did so because of the tempering, or if they did so because it was the only way to ensure their people's survival. It seemed to me, that while Ascians were tempered, they are by no means mindless as those tempered by Ifrit, Garuda or leviathan are. Which brings into question, what tempering actually is and if is effects vary and can be altered by the primal tempering them.
There is certainly ample evidence to suggest the WOL is tempered by Hydealyn but still retains free will. -
07-11-2019, 09:34 AMRaiyaAnother way of looking at Hydealyn is that she is essentially an ANTI-Primal, created far differently than Zodiark who was the First. Zodiark was an attempt to stabilise the world and restore it after the End of Days/Terminus but to do so he needed fuel to be able to act which meant more Aether etc, the problem is that eventually with half the surviving population lost to create zodiark and another half of those lost to restore life to the world that eventually there would be nothing left. He even has to bend the will of people by Temperment possibly to stop disintegrating or simply to stop the survivors basically being scared shitless into summoning monstrosities by accident which looks to be the original cause of the Termination: Some horror appeared and murdered people and those witnessing it were so terrified they ended up accidentally creating more by mistake which kills others which ends up triggering a runaway effect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anvaire
Those who survived realised that if they kept just offering up more to Zodiark it would possibly end up consuming everything so they summon Hydaelyn, she's summoned but her tempering doesn't enslave people in a traditional sense but rather acts the opposite: Her influence shield's the person's will from any external interference. There's likely more to her as well as Zodiark being the first should have had vastly more power than a newlyborn Hydaelyn but not only did she win with a fraction of the power Zodiark had but ended up hitting Zodiark so damn hard it shattered reality into 14 different worlds. It will be interesting to see what happens down the line but I expect both Zodiark and Hydaelyns true power and abilitys to be drastically different from the regular run of the mill primal which are essentially cheap knockoff's of other original beings. -
07-11-2019, 09:54 AMTheodric
Hydaelyn is very likely to be just as dangerous as Zodiark. We already know that Primals interact with their followers differently. Some show very little care and use them as pawns, others seek to protect them - at a cost.
We already know that Hydaelyn's actions came with a significant cost and to top it all off she refused to be open and honest about what happened. All the while whispering vague promises and sweet nothings.
The game has never shied away from painting blind faith as a very bad thing. That goes for both Zodiark and Hydaelyn. The question, now, is how do we eliminate them in a way that doesn't cause irreversible damage? I suspect that will be the end game for the Zodiark and Hydaelyn story. Especially with the strong narrative focus on Light and Dark not necessarily being equal to good and evil. -
07-11-2019, 06:49 PMAnvaireI think what we are missing is knowing what exactly tempering is. We know from Ifrit NM that it can affect the mind, from Ramuh that it isn't a conscious thing and from Satasha Hard Mode that repeated tempering causes the aetherical form of the body to mutate (the pirates from the original Satasha were repeatedly "drowned" by Leviathan and mutated into fish men)Quote:
Originally Posted by Raiya
There is also the added caveat of elemental polarity - Astral active is Growth and change and Darkness, and Umbral passive is sterility and light. We know Zodiark's original purpose was to rewrite the rules of creation and restore life. Whereas Hydealyn was summoned to limit His power and did so via the sundering. I think, however, that this was a side effect of her battle and not the intended purpose of her power.
If we surmise that Zodiark is growth and Hydealyn is the counter Sterility, then it is not necessarily unthinkable that she would win. Her power and purpose were built around containing Zodiark. Whereas his was built around restructuring the laws of the cosmos and facilitating growth and evolution(assumed).
In this regard it makes sense why to bring him into being they needed half the souls, and then to facilitate growth needed another half of what was left. What we do not know is the scope that half pertains to. Is it the whole planet? or just the Amurotians? Going further, there is no evidence to suggest that had Hydealyn not been summoned, he would have bled life from the star itself.
The Amaurotian Creations seem different from primals due to the vast wells of Aether they naturally had. If I recall Alphinaud or Urianger touch on the subject saying it would be impossible for them without a vast horde of crystals and aether. I, therefore, wonder if the essence of Zodiark and Hydealyn boils down to souls. Zodiark is said to still hold the sould of the sacrifices, my question is why? Surely those souls would have dissipated and been used up. But Emet Selch specifically spoke about retrieving them following the Ardor. Which makes me wonder whether there is a relation between the soul (which was referred to as the spark of life) and Aether. One theory I came up with is that souls naturally produce or draw aether to itself, therefore sustaining the primal. This is pure speculation on my part, but I think it would make sense if this was the case.
The biggest flaw I can see in the argument that Zodiark had to be stopped because he needed an endless sacrifice to sustain himself, is that he hasn't had that sacrifice for a long time, and by all accounts still exists. If the souls draw or create Aether then it would make sense that he does still exist without sacrifice, unless with each rejoining the aether of that shard goes to Zodiark as the will of the star, rather than Hydealyn- its custodian. -
07-11-2019, 07:36 PMEnkidoh
The thing to remember is (and this fits into what Moose said), is that Answers was written specifically for the original 1.0 story (1.0's original concept/story was also written by a team member who no longer works for SE), where current revelations and concepts in the story... actually did not exist or where at least had not yet been developed in any really meaningful way (Zodiark did not exist at all, there was no 'Blessing of Light'/'Warriors of Light'/'Crystals of Light', the whole Source/Shards split did not exist, the Ascians were limited to just two mysterious beings with virtually no explanation, the Allag were just a mysterious name given to a ruined road in Thanalan and strange runestones that Rowena was being paid to find, Hydaelyn's very existence was hinted at vaguely but never outright named, even Dalamud was originally planned to be a final dungeon the player was meant to travel to, according to Yoshi), so sadly it is too much of a stretch to try and retcon these new recent story concepts into Answers' melancholy lyrics.
Lets not also forget the development already revealed ages ago that the meaning of Answers is simply a call and response between the adventurer and Hydaelyn and the struggles they face in an unforgiving world and remaining resolute even in the face of certain death and destruction.
Having said that however, it is vague enough to fit in new ideas fairly easily without 'breaking' the pre-existing meaning so I don't know. I guess I'm happy with the original meaning and don't need to re-examine it any further based on new information from Shadowbringers. -
12-12-2021, 09:17 AMGrimmelnoob
Please tell me what you think about what you said after finishing endwalker, good frekaing job tho!!