ShB story did not go the way I thought it would. (Spoilers)

So before the game came out, all I knew was that light was taking over the first and it was the enemy. The Warriors of Darkness defeated the dark and now only light remained which almost destroyed their whole world. So I thought in this expansion the main enemy was going to be Hydaelyn. The trailer even said she was a primal. I was sure she was trying to absorb the first for her own power. We would have to fight her and in doing so she would take away the echo she had given us for protection so we would be defenseless. How would we fight against her and her forces without the echo? An artificial echo. That's how. It's been twice before with Zenos and the Bandit woman who's name I forget. Getting that and teaming up with the Ascians would be how we push back Hydaelyn and saved the first. We learn that from the beginning we have been a pawn for a god that is nothing more than a superior elder primal and their goal has always been to completely wipe out Zodiark so that she could take everything. After everything is done we learn that the light can not live without the dark. It's a balancing act and if one side gets too much of a hold, they will take everything.

Obviously none of this happened but it was fun thinking up how the story would go before the expansion came out. The story was great, but I'm still a sad it didn't have anything that I thought it would.

EDIT: I may not have all the lore correct, but you kinda get what I'm trying to say.

Hydaelyn was never intended to be evil. Primals are not evil per se (see Shiva, Ramuh, or that certain one in the kojin tribe quests), and both Zodiark and Hydaelyn are special cases at that, too, in the sense that -unlike other primals- they don't actually seem to be negative (drain) to the flow of aether just by themselves. Or at least Hydaelyn doesn't do it, as we don't know what would Zodiark do. Would he keep trying to get more powerful and, in the absence of sacrifices, drain aether like most of the other primals?

On the other hand, the Echo is not given by Her to the WoL. What Hydaelyn offers is the Blessing of Light, which is like a super power that she gives us, AKA the power of the crystal. The Echo is independent of it, and it's a remnant of power from our unsundered selves (Echo users are parts of the split souls of the Ancients) that protects us against tempering, allows us to see other people's past/aether, and other unknown perks, if we believe the Ascians. Also, it will be interesting to see if it has gotten more powerful now that we have absorbed another piece of our original soul, meaning Arbert.

Now, about what was happening with the First. We know from very long ago that Rejoinings are not for Hydaelyn to get more power, but quite the opposite. The Ascians were the ones behind the massive light surge in that shard, as it was what working well for their objectives. In other words, if we hadn't done anything, a Rejoining would've happened, followed by a new Calamity in the Source (our world) after it would've absorved the First. The objective is to get the world to what it was pre-Hydaelyn, bringing back Zodiark and getting rid of her. Emet and the Scions explained it way better than me, so you could revisit the cutscenes at the inn if you don't fully understand what I said ^^'

Moreover, the story kinda implies that we aren't actually a pawn of Her, but that we (the former 14th member of the Council) might have been the ones that originally summoned her to defeat Zodiark and sunder the world. Probably to avoid another End of Time happening due to the raw power that the Ancients had, unless there's more that we don't know yet (which might be where the MSQ will go once we're done with the Ascians, but we'll see). I think that that was an actually cool turn of the story, and a surprise for most people.

Hydaelyn may very well still be an antagonist.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

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How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

https://i.imgur.com/uA07Hl2.png

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Hydaelyn may very well still be an antagonist.

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This reminded me of what Elidibus said at the end of the story. About us being warriors of Darkness.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

https://i.imgur.com/uA07Hl2.png



This reminded me of what Elidibus said at the end of the story. About us being warriors of Darkness.

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If the Ascians were tempered by Zodiark we are most likely tempered by Hydaelyn. The main difference is, the Ascians were aware of it (Zodiark's tempering) from the start and accepted it. Meanwhile we don't know if Hydaelyn tempered us or not. But considering we have her "blessing" it's probably safe to say that we are. Even Ifrit commented on it saying that we belonged to another, and because of this couldn't temper us. Even if we were to resist, what would happen? No one knows, because no one ever has...that we are aware of. She would probably be much less than thrilled. I think it would be an interesting story arc though if the WoL decided to or needed to rebel.

Yes, I very much doubt the tempering aspect can be avoided, and there’s plenty of indications that the WoL’s strong aspect of light is the result of tempering, IMO. We just need to be cautious to separate this from the more thrall like tempering we see in the Primal summoning to which we’re accustomed.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

This reminded me of what Elidibus said at the end of the story. About us being warriors of Darkness.

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I’m eager to see what he has planned. Hopefully something a bit better than throwing someone like Arbert against us... he just wasn’t able to fulfil such a task and I would think Elidibus would know as much now. He would also know from Emet-Selch that the Blessing of Light proved pivotal in driving back the Lightwardens and of course can sense the light aspecting of the WoL’s aether. So I doubt he’s being entirely literal, which makes me even more curious as to what he intends to do.

I’m also eager to see if we’re really dealing with the Oracle of Darkness and what her role will be, since if Urianger is correct she’s also on the First. You’d think the Ascians would be aware of and working with such a person.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

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Primals don't temper passively. They temper when they actually want to do it. We have to take into account the circumstances surrounding Hydaelyn's summoning to see that it's actually feasible that she hasn't felt the need to temper anyone, or that doing it might be against her nature. Regardless, while most of the primals that we know use tempering to control their subjects, it's perfectly possible that tempering someone doesn't involve a will to control.

About the Blessing of Light, what we know for sure is that it can be blocked, as uncle Middy was able to do it in the past. Knowing that, we could discard that having such blessing is part of any tempering process, unless we assume that Midgardsormr can "untemper" people at will.

That being said, so far -and besides the fact that other people have been throwing us around like a tool more than once- we've shown that we regain our free will. Hydaelyn has never been involved in any of the decisions that we've taken part of, including the prevention or causing of Calamities that would obviously be in her best interest to prevent. At most what she has done is protect us and guide us with her word sometimes (like showing us how to defeat Ascians by making a blade of light), but in the end it was us (or the aforementioned people) the ones that decided to walk that path. In fact, if what we did was part of any tempering, we wouldn't have had the internal conflict that we have seen in the DRK quests. The fact that we can think, doubt, decide, and do as we see fit, unlike the zealous Ascians and other tempered, really shows that even if we're actually tempered Hydaelyn has allowed us to act and think free of her influence.

It will happen sooner or later.

Whether the Warrior of Darkness is Tempered or not there's enough signs at this point to suggest that blind faith in Hydaelyn is a rather bad thing. Hopefully we put both Zodiark and Hydaelyn to the sword so that the reins of history can be placed firmly into the hands of man. They're not deities - they're Primals.

I am, however, open to the idea of both of them being kept around provided the story told is a good one. With so much focus on the balance between 'Light' and 'Dark' it'd be very odd if only one of them were to be eliminated from the playing field.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

Primals don't temper passively. They temper when they actually want to do it. We have to take into account the circumstances surrounding Hydaelyn's summoning to see that it's actually feasible that she hasn't felt the need to temper anyone, or that doing it might be against her nature. Regardless, while most of the primals that we know use tempering to control their subjects, it's perfectly possible that tempering someone doesn't involve a will to control.

About the Blessing of Light, what we know for sure is that it can be blocked, as uncle Middy was able to do it in the past. Knowing that, we could discard that having such blessing is part of any tempering process, unless we assume that Midgardsormr can "untemper" people at will.

That being said, so far -and besides the fact that other people have been throwing us around like a tool more than once- we've shown that we regain our free will. Hydaelyn has never been involved in any of the decisions that we've taken part of, including the prevention or causing of Calamities that would obviously be in her best interest to prevent. At most what she has done is protect us and guide us with her word sometimes (like showing us how to defeat Ascians by making a blade of light), but in the end it was us (or the aforementioned people) the ones that decided to walk that path. In fact, if what we did was part of any tempering, we wouldn't have had the internal conflict that we have seen in the DRK quests. The fact that we can think, doubt, decide, and do as we see fit, unlike the zealous Ascians and other tempered, really shows that even if we're actually tempered Hydaelyn has allowed us to act and think free of her influence.

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Actually Primals can temper passively. Pretty sure the Slyphs just summoning Ramuh auto-tempers them and one of the Sahagin beast tribe quests is about trying to save some captives before they are turned by being in Leviathan's aether-coated lands for too long with it being possible they all were turned.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

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When you look at what limited information that surrounded the calamity they faced the highest possibility of why it happened was because of their creation magic. If you look at the people themselves they did everything they could to avoid confrontation and bottled up their emotions. So when something happened that started the calamity in a far off city state it caused fear to become widespread, as the calamity spread that fear manifested more monsters to propagate it further which lead to even more cases of the Ancients becoming overwhelmed by fear and summoning forth more monsters. After all, all it took for them to use their creation magic was a mere thought and all it took to produce a different result was another thought.

So what would be one way to try to prevent this from happening again after the laws of the world was repaired from the rampant unrestricted use of creation magic? Tempering. If Zodiark tempered everyone and controlled their emotions then even if something were to go wrong and monsters get summoned no one would fear the monsters and lose control of their magic because they cannot feel fear unless Zodiark allows it.

So of course Zodiark naturally tempered them. It was part of Zodiark's design to begin with as an anti-terminus measure.

Hydaelyn though is the antithesis to Zodiark. She was summoned by those who did not agree with the sacrificing of unwilling life and those who did not want to be controlled like puppets by a creation of their people. So they summoned Hydaelyn to be a check on Zodiark and to ensure that the life that was restored had a chance to have a future of their own. As well as sunder the creation magic of their people so that the calamity could not come to pass again while still allowing everyone free will. Which every action of Hydaelyn checks out in regards to that. Not to mention our ability to question Hydaelyn is proof of us not being tempered. Just as the Ascians inability to question their god or truly consider alternatives proof of them being tempered. Hydaelyn wants us to make our own future, to live our own lives. Zordiark exists to control lives and maintain a state in the past.

Every other primal that does tempering works off of ascian blueprints, and those primals were purposely designed to be as destructive on hydaelyn as possible.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

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Its an MMO. it just wouldn't work. Nothing satisfying can come of it. They are not going to change the game to make it to work. Besides that the First WoLs shouldn't have been able to cause trouble on the Source like they did if they were tempered.

It's a bit foggy when it comes to if primal's have to temper automatically as Lakshmi didn't try to temper the Scion's with us until she actively chose to try and we had to block it, same when she was summoned in the palace, if they just tempered by proximity she'd had tempered Alisaie, Alphinaud, Lyse and later all the people in the throne room on the spot. It might be they release a burst of Aether at the moment of summoning that tempers but that's also unclear. There are several cases of Primal's not tempering people so we don't know really how it works.

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

Actually Primals can temper passively. Pretty sure the Slyphs just summoning Ramuh auto-tempers them and one of the Sahagin beast tribe quests is about trying to save some captives before they are turned by being in Leviathan's aether-coated lands for too long with it being possible they all were turned.

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Not quite. The Primals behave exactly as their worshipers believe they should. As such, Ramuh was summoned to *rule* (important part here) over the forest and protect it, and that might be why he made the sylphs his subjects and servants. Also, if we remember that the Ascians are the ones teaching the beast tribes how to summon a primal, it's perfectly possible that their whole process makes the summoners tempered, to start with (see our poor Ga Bu). Then after that you just have the tempered beastfolks bringing more subjects to temper.

About the Sahagin quest, I've always understood that one as Leviathan always going around with his temper-mode (so to speak) ON, and/or leaving trails of his tempering power around.

Remember that Ysayle was able to summon Shiva several times in front of non-Echo users and we didn't actually see her temper anyone passively while doing so. Nor do we see the kami (and I mean the "real" ones, not Susano) tempering anyone, either. Nor Ramuh when we talked with him with most of the other Scions present. Nor Lakshmi in Ala Mhigo, which actually shows us that she needs to temper in a very active way. Etc.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

https://i.imgur.com/uA07Hl2.png


This reminded me of what Elidibus said at the end of the story. About us being warriors of Darkness.

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Exactly this... plus, Uncle Emet essentially gives you a hint early on in the MSQ when he says...

https://i.imgur.com/VzGMvb2.png

It appeared that way from the cinematic, but ffxiv is nothing if not unpredictable. It became much more complicated than simple elemental light vs dark. This expansion added an underlying ideology that led to the summoning of Zodiark and eventually Hydaelyn. The Ascians following Zodiark are clinging to memories of a glorious past. The followers of Hydaelyn believed in the dream of a better present and future. As the champion of Hydaelyn and Eorzea, we're fighting for every mortal life in the here and now, and those yet to come.

if there is something i learn from the past expansion story is that, it seems that yoshi didnt want to get things become to dark (like nier series dark for example), he just want to stay like dragon quest, you know... the usual story of brave hero saving the world kind of thing where the hero is really do goodies, kind and help others willingly.

part of me really want things to get dark like known npc to die permanently, you know... another "haurchefant", and no that npc in amh araeng didnt count (that npc only with us like what? 15 minutes and you expect me to go sad drama? thats not how it work)

what i hate with JP game developer (well, anime developer too i guess) is that they tend to keep character alive even if the plot tell them otherwise, they just magically survive on next 4 episode or something. i know, waifu/husbando marketing stuff yeah, but still...

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Originally Posted by gumas

if there is something i learn from the past expansion story is that, it seems that yoshi didnt want to get things become to dark (like nier series dark for example), he just want to stay like dragon quest, you know... the usual story of brave hero saving the world kind of thing where the hero is really do goodies, kind and help others willingly.

part of me really want things to get dark like known npc to die permanently, you know... another "haurchefant", and no that npc in amh araeng didnt count (that npc only with us like what? 15 minutes and you expect me to go sad drama? thats not how it work)

what i hate with JP game developer (well, anime developer too i guess) is that they tend to keep character alive even if the plot tell them otherwise, they just magically survive on next 4 episode or something. i know, waifu/husbando marketing stuff yeah, but still...

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I think Tesleen's case was a show of how a sin eater is born (showing the pain and anguish) as well as having us feel more sad for Alisaie.

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Originally Posted by Kidria

I think Tesleen's case was a show of how a sin eater is born (showing the pain and anguish) as well as having us feel more sad for Alisaie.

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yeah its definitely for that purpose but it just weird when it happened my char just stood there lifeless (not even angry or assume battle stance or anything) while alisaie went berserk lol

in my view i feel like "am i suppose to feel something or what?"

Just remember the Ascians dont need to lie exactly they can say half truths and still not lie.

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Originally Posted by kidalutz

Just remember the Ascians dont need to lie exactly they can say half truths and still not lie.

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Emet-Selch was almost certainly telling the truth. His primary concern was to ensure that his people were seen as actual people and that their history and culture was brought back/preserved. His name also roughly translates to 'Bringer of Truth'.

Hydaelyn, meanwhile, has been anything but open and honest. She has lied repeatedly - both directly and indirectly.

Characters have been killed off for far lesser reasoning. I think it's about time we apply the same standards across the board if we can find a way to safely extract her without shattering reality further.

There can be no mercy for false deities.

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Originally Posted by Ramesses

Exactly this... plus, Uncle Emet essentially gives you a hint early on in the MSQ when he says...

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Allies worthy of bearing the burden of truth.

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And yet curiously enough, instead of echoing that quote, the quest in which he explains the murals to us is called "The Burden of Knowledge" rather than Truth.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Hydaelyn, meanwhile, has been anything but open and honest. She has lied repeatedly - both directly and indirectly.

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And by design! It seems reasonable to surmise that the rationale is going to be that it was to achieve fragmentation of all lifeforms whilst depriving them of memory of the event as a "necessary step" to avoid the further step of sacrifice the Convocation sought plus more stringent regulation of life to avoid potential abuses of Creation magick. At least then it isn't the usual good/evil/ drama and more a matter of two distinct philosophical approaches and two Primals with their upsides and their flaws.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

And yet curiously enough, instead of echoing that quote, the quest in which he explains the murals to us is called "The Burden of Knowledge" rather than Truth.

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There isn't a huge divide between the two, other than that knowledge is usually defined as a justified, true belief. The truth wouldn't be much of a burden if you did not know it.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

Primals don't temper passively. They temper when they actually want to do it. We have to take into account the circumstances surrounding Hydaelyn's summoning to see that it's actually feasible that she hasn't felt the need to temper anyone, or that doing it might be against her nature. Regardless, while most of the primals that we know use tempering to control their subjects, it's perfectly possible that tempering someone doesn't involve a will to control.

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Keep in mind that Hydaelen and Zodiark are not our typical primals. The rules we know for tempering and such may differ with these two. It could be that they temper just by exposure to them, or a passive tempering. It may be something that just happens. At the same time, being tempered by either also appears to leave one's own free will intact. Hydaelen and Zodiark operate on a different rule set due to them being on a completely different level of power.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Emet-Selch was almost certainly telling the truth. His primary concern was to ensure that his people were seen as actual people and that their history and culture was brought back/preserved. His name also roughly translates to 'Bringer of Truth'.

Hydaelyn, meanwhile, has been anything but open and honest. She has lied repeatedly - both directly and indirectly.

Characters have been killed off for far lesser reasoning. I think it's about time we apply the same standards across the board if we can find a way to safely extract her without shattering reality further.

There can be no mercy for false deities.

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I think you need to redo the msq from scratch and explain this again cause frankly I think you're really scratching here.
First thing you need to remember Ascians are all tempered and the Tempered will think of ONLY for thier Primal. Thier reasoning thier justifications all of that are only to serve thier tempered masters ultimate goals. Zodiark required sacrifice and vast reservoirs of Aether and would only do his work when given these sacrifices it said as much right in the text of the story Half of the Ancients were required to stay thier end time to summon him half again that number was required to heal the world from what the ancients who brought forth the horrors of the world created. While Emet-Selch wanted to see his people restored the only way to do so was to once again bring forth Zodiark through the destruction of 13 worlds thats beyond vast amounts of Aether. and what would he do to see his people restored sacrifice the rest of the life that was left to Zodiark

Meanwhile Hydaelyn was summoned and was the very opposite of Zodiark Not once has she lied. In fact if you think things through you'd fairly quickly realise that in Order to Preserve Life Hydaelyn had no choice but to split everything into 14 separate parts. Even with Zodiark defeated his tempered would not end the war that began when they clashed and that war would very much have destroyed everything simply due to the untamed energies employed by the Ancients themselves by splitting existence into 14 parts Hydaelyn ensured that life would thrive and grow and evolve. it effectively ended a war that would have seen all life ended by that lifes own hands.

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Originally Posted by kidalutz

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I've completed the MSQ's on two different characters. It was never implied that Hydaelyn was 'good' and Zodiark 'evil'. Furthermore she has lied by falsely claiming that Zodiark was responsible for shattering reality when it was, in fact, a consequence of her own actions. Her motives are largely unknown for us and the attempts to paint her as being virtuous stem from bias sources as well as speculation pushed as fact on behalf of various players.

She is also directly responsible for Minfilia's situation and falsely presenting herself as a deity when she is not one. In general she's been fairly incompetent at best, malicious at worst.

If we're the Ascian/ancient who summoned Hydaelyn, we and all her summoners are in all likehihood also tempered. It was never implied Zodiark would only do that work if he had sacrifices, but that they were necessary to repair the dire state of the world. The final sacrifice they envisioned was to bring back those who gave their lives to summon him and repair the world. It's all well and good noting what it'd take to restore Zodiark and their world, but the Sundering is what made such actions necessary... they don't consider life forms that post-date it as 1) equivalent to them and 2) legitimate. Any warring was a consequence of her being summoned at that point. If the summoning was instigated, as some speculate, against the Convocation's wish to more tightly regulate the world given the way Creation magicks were manipulated into almost bringing about the end of the world (for reasons we still don't know), the misgivings about their misuse becomes something of a wash. Destruction of the world would not follow from her destruction at that point - simply reclamation of aether.

I also find it bizarre that it's claimed that she hasn't lied. Elidibus - when speaking to himself - notes that obscuring your broken state and origins was the intended consequence of her summoning. Is he "lying" or telling half-truths in a monologue? Or is hers just a "white lie" and thus not a real one? The events so far seem pretty consistent with what he said on the matter and she is lying one way or another.

Although there may have been understandable motives to her summoning, and in both cases they were last resorts to extreme events, the Sundering seems like a sledgehammer approach.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

If we're the Ascian/ancient who summoned Hydaelyn, we and all her summoners are in all likehihood also tempered. It was never implied Zodiark would only do that work if he had sacrifices, but that they were necessary to repair the dire state of the world. The final sacrifice they envisioned was to bring back those who gave their lives to summon him and repair the world. It's all well and good noting what it'd take to restore Zodiark and their world, but the Sundering is what made such actions necessary... they don't consider life forms that post-date it as 1) equivalent to them and 2) legitimate. Any warring was a consequence of her being summoned at that point. If the summoning was instigated, as some speculate, against the Convocation's wish to more tightly regulate the world given the way Creation magicks were manipulated into almost bringing about the end of the world (for reasons we still don't know), the misgivings about their misuse becomes something of a wash. Destruction of the world would not follow from her destruction at that point - simply reclamation of aether.

I also find it bizarre that it's claimed that she hasn't lied. Elidibus - when speaking to himself - notes that obscuring your broken state and origins was the intended consequence of her summoning. Is he "lying" or telling half-truths in a monologue? Or is hers just a "white lie" and thus not a real one? The events so far seem pretty consistent with what he said on the matter and she is lying one way or another.

Although there may have been understandable motives to her summoning, and in both cases they were last resorts to extreme events, the Sundering seems like a sledgehammer approach.

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Again to reiterate Hydaelyn has never been asked by anyone thier origins the reason the worlds are in 14 different existences nor the reason for why she does what she does. if not asked there is no chance to lie thuskly no lying ever took place you're only getting the ascian side of the story and drawing conclusions from that when has ever one half of the story been the comprehensive truth of all?

Why are we assuming hydaelyn HAS to be tempering people? If we know Zodiark tempers people, and Hydaelyn was summoned to counter zodiark, it follows that she may not have been summoned with the ability to temper at all. In fact it makes sense to believe she may have the complete opposite, the power to protect people from tempering and maybe to even reverse it.

I think it would have been cool during the scene where our character is turning to have him go berserk and have to fight the Scions, ultimately injuring one of them only being calmed down once Ardbert interfered giving Ryne enough time to supress the light coruption...It would have been freaking epic and the aftermath would have been interesting.

I do feel like we're going to fight Hydaelyn at some point though. Emet made it a habit to keep pointing out the fact that Hydaelyn was created to keep Zodiark, who was seen as too powerful to some, in check. Who's to say that she won't do the same to the WoL? After all, we've defeated primals, gods and other beings.

To be fair we don't really know. Primals do temper people, we've seen that. How that works with Primals on the scale of Hydaelyn/Zodiark or whether the free will we think we have is even free will is completely unknown.

There's a lot unanswered with Emet too. He's very likely telling the truth but he isn't telling us the whole story. He claims his race was "perfect", yet the cataclysm that endangered his world didn't just materialize out of thin air. Something caused it. Their race was messing around a lot with creation. Also why did some of his people feel that threatened by Zodiark? We already know Zodiark required sacrifices to maintain "peace". Emet very likely didn't give us the whole picture. Perhaps, being tempered by Zodiark, he couldn't give us the whole picture in the same way a beast tribe tempered by their primal would never question it.

I imagine there will be many more surprises to come, we've only started the expansion.

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Originally Posted by CazzT

Keep in mind that Hydaelen and Zodiark are not our typical primals. The rules we know for tempering and such may differ with these two. It could be that they temper just by exposure to them, or a passive tempering. It may be something that just happens. At the same time, being tempered by either also appears to leave one's own free will intact. Hydaelen and Zodiark operate on a different rule set due to them being on a completely different level of power.

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Yeah, that's why I also said that maybe it's not even in Hydaelyn's nature to temper anyone, or that her tempering is not like what we know. She was summoned with a specific purpose, and I doubt that whoever summoned her was naive enough to not see the dangers of tempering. Especially a member of the Council well aware of what Zodiark was and what could do.

As I mentioned, we have plenty of proof of us being able to act independently of her. "Tempered" or not, there doesn't seem to be any negative consequences from our relationship with her. In fact, as Midgardsormr said several times, it has always been the other way around. There's no other primal sacrificing its own existence in that way. Well, actually, there's another one, and it's the kojin one that I also mentioned, which is actually quite benign. And for all we know Hydaelyn follows the same patterns as that one, personality-wise.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I've completed the MSQ's on two different characters. It was never implied that Hydaelyn was 'good' and Zodiark 'evil'. Furthermore she has lied by falsely claiming that Zodiark was responsible for shattering reality when it was, in fact, a consequence of her own actions. Her motives are largely unknown for us and the attempts to paint her as being virtuous stem from bias sources as well as speculation pushed as fact on behalf of various players.

She is also directly responsible for Minfilia's situation and falsely presenting herself as a deity when she is not one. In general she's been fairly incompetent at best, malicious at worst.

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When she said that Zodiark was the cause of the Sundering, was that really a lie? Because it was actually Zodiark's existence what caused the Sundering, as I'm sure that at that point it was the only way to defeat him. There's no way that Hydaelyn was as powerful as him to defeat him one-on-one, not after he had consumed 3/4 of the Amaurotine population (which was was was left of the world at that point, so there was nothing else that powerful to feed her). Did she Sunder the star? Yes. Was she the reason for it? No.

In regards to the deity part, even the Ascians themselves call Zodiark a god. I might be wrong here, but I don't remember her ever calling herself a god. However, for all we know Hydaelyn could just be using that word like the Garleans call primals 'eikons' (like the Allag did before them). About her being incompetent, and this is also related to Minfilia's fate, remember that she is in a VERY weakened state right now. She was already weakened when she was lending us her power and protection, and doing that weakened her even more. That's why she needed to send the Oracle of Light to the First to help, because she couldn't do it herself at that point anymore. And that's not something that she has told us, but what Midgardsormr and the Ascians said. If anything it's shows that despite risking her existence she's still doing what she's able to do, when she's able to do it; but keep in mind that at this very moment she might be using her remaining strenght just to keep Zodiark imprisoned.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

The final sacrifice they envisioned was to bring back those who gave their lives to summon him and repair the world. It's all well and good noting what it'd take to restore Zodiark and their world, but the Sundering is what made such actions necessary...

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Unless I misunderstood you, no, that's not what happened. Even before the Sundering happened, the plan was to use any new life that came to existence as a sacrifice to bring back the volunteers. The Sundering itself had nothing to with that, in fact that might have been the last straw that actually made those against the Zodiark plan summon Hydaelyn.

Well if WoL is tempered then I guess Emet-Selch is a complete idiot for hoping he could've convinced us to switch to his cause, as being tempered would render WoL completely unable to do so.

Considering that Emet has so far proven to be rather intelligent, we're probably not tempered.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

To be fair we don't really know. Primals do temper people, we've seen that. How that works with Primals on the scale of Hydaelyn/Zodiark or whether the free will we think we have is even free will is completely unknown.

There's a lot unanswered with Emet too. He's very likely telling the truth but he isn't telling us the whole story. He claims his race was "perfect", yet the cataclysm that endangered his world didn't just materialize out of thin air. Something caused it. Their race was messing around a lot with creation. Also why did some of his people feel that threatened by Zodiark? We already know Zodiark required sacrifices to maintain "peace". Emet very likely didn't give us the whole picture. Perhaps, being tempered by Zodiark, he couldn't give us the whole picture in the same way a beast tribe tempered by their primal would never question it.

I imagine there will be many more surprises to come, we've only started the expansion.

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They didn't feel threatened. They felt that sacrificing the life newly born that their bretheren sacrificed themselves to restore would be going against the point of their sacrifice. Also we can't be truly sure that Zodiark could actually bring those souls back. As I understand it, the souls of the Ancients surrendering themselves to Zodiark is like Lahabrea being absorbed by Thordan, the form of their souls would most likely have been ripped apart. Also remember that the Qalyana Ananta queen tried to get Lakshmi to resurrect her daughter, but what was brought back was simply just a husk with "life". I think the whole point of that story thread was to reinforce that it is impossible to bring back the truly gone.