Questions for Fernehalwes- E3 2014 edition

[Fusionx]

Super fun theory to think about that a friend shared with me.

.. yes it goes back to Shiva and Ishgard lol.

What if.. they -had- succeeded in summoning Shiva at Ishgard. Because of that, winter came (snow) and Shiva further fortified Ishgard (still not letting anyone in) and what if she.... tempered/froze everyone in ishgard? Or at least the archbishop?.. what if she is the archbishop? bumbumbummmmm.

I got a feeling that Ramuh and his part is going to open our eyes a bit in regards to what we believe a Primal is.

Edit: new images for 2.3 story are up.. just going to place this one here without saying anything... because come on. We're all thinking it.

[Anonymoose]

They say that the great sea serpent from which the oceans came was bound to Swallowtail Roam by Llymlaen, yes?
But, wasn't it the Allagans who were good at binding dragons, primals and that sort of ilk?

This thought occurred to me as well; though I wasn't able to see any neurolink-like devices on the serpent OR Midgardsormr, for that matter.
I still think it's possibly they were enslaved guard dogs dragons, but hey, who knows.
It may also have been from the Fourth or Fifth Eras, considering the Rhotano Bloodcant tablet doesn't look all that Allag.

Just going to place this one here without saying anything... because come on. We're all thinking it.

Oh, jeez. <raises hands like scales> Big hint... cruel red herring... big hint... cruel red herring....

[Kyan]

Oh, jeez. <raises hands like scales> Big hint... cruel red herring... big hint... cruel red herring....

Ughh! What a horrible tease this is... Give me the story now!!

[AmyNeudaiz]

Touching a bit back on your conversation about Neal's identity, in 1.0 Neal used exclusively male Elezen emotes and both his standing and battle posture were also male Elezen. Would you have any retort to that? I'm still on the boat that Neal was a he but I'd love to be wrong.

[Xine]

How about this for a bit more of an idea on what he was getting at using a different example. In the anime and visual novel, Fate Stay Night, one of the main characters, "King Arthur" was seen as a male by everyone around him and was even brought up to be a male, despite being female, even as far as history is concerned, King Arthur is a man. Being able to hide "his" body behind armor, it was easy for most people to mistake her for being a very young boy. Since Nael has always been behind a mask and covered in armor of sorts, there's not concrete evidence to support Nael being male or female, even going by the emotes and idle stance. I'm not quite sure of the story behind Jeanne d'Arc as its been over 10 years since I learned about her story (not like my school taught us much about history to begin with and half of it was false.)

[Catapult]

SWhat if.. they -had- succeeded in summoning Shiva at Ishgard. Because of that, winter came (snow) and Shiva further fortified Ishgard (still not letting anyone in) and what if she.... tempered/froze everyone in ishgard? Or at least the archbishop?.. what if she is the archbishop? bumbumbummmmm.

I hadn't gone as far as to consider that Shiva had explicitly taken over Ishgard, even if she had "frozen" most of the city's upper echelons of power once summoned as Halone. But now that you mention it, she does stylize herself as royalty...

And yeah, that picture is so temptingly Shiva. XD

[Enkidoh]

Well, considering the Primals have long been known to be tools of the Ascians (remember, it was the Ascians who taught the beast tribes to how to summon originally, and even Lahabrea mentioned that the Primals are part of their big scheme to rebirth Zodiark, to create massive amounts of chaos and destruction), and given the fact that the Ascians take mortal bodies as hosts, whose to say that elezen isn't an Ascian's host body? Maybe what we're looking at the first official shot of an Ascian in their 'Paragon' form which teaches the currently unknown beast tribe how to summon Shiva, and hence takes a form similar, but not exactly, like the Primal being taught?

Or maybe I'm just grasping at straws desperately trying to hold off myself from succumbing to the 'Go Mad From the Revelation' trope by thinking of the other alternative.

[Morningstar1337]

What if.. they -had- succeeded in summoning Shiva at Ishgard...

Shiva is the Holy See. It kinda makes sense, as they seems to be fundamentalists and love to kill heretics. But if that's the case then they'd be the only tempered group to aid the heroes (The Sylphs of Little Solace don't count as they are obviously not tempered, same goes for the Brotherhood of Ash and their counterparts).

There are holes, such as Isgard's isolationism (would has been more beneficial to kidnap potential recruits, even the tempered sylphs do it (See the Thundershock FATE)) As well as their neutrality (disdain aside they don't seem to attack adventurers and sellswords, but maybe that just the fact that all the players are technically one entity as for as the lore's concerned. Even then the fact that they were even willing to help find the Enterprise at all despite the act that the PC slayed 2 primals implies alot about their stance on the Primals v. Eorzea "war")

[Enkidoh]

That doesn't quite fit though - the Archbishop that rules Ishgard's theocratic state was mentioned in the past as being male not female, and besides, they're fanatical in their devotion towards Halone the Fury, not Shiva. Really, the only similarity I can see between Halone and Shiva is that Halone was stated as being, amongst other things, the 'goddess of glaciers'. That's not quite the same as saying 'she's the goddess of winter/ice' like Shiva specifically is, but it's the only real link between the two (Halone was also stated as being the goddess of war as well for that matter, hence Ishgard's somewhat militaristic society.).

Given the fact in the past it was mentioned Shiva was the goddess of a 'large' beast tribe to the north, this makes the the idea that Isghard is summoning Shiva even more unlikely. But then I guess we'll see.

[Rocl]

The recent interview with Ferne seems to go back on the "beast tribe" notion of summoning Shiva (though this could be all a clever voidsent ruse to make us speculate and contrive more ludicrous theories). Another important similarity between Shiva and Halone is that more specifically that "goddess of glaciers," Halone is one of the two goddesses of Ice in the Twelve pantheon. (The other being Menphina)

Interestingly Rhalgr's description is also pretty close to Ramuh's. God of thunder, mage wielding a bronzen staff (and oddly enough the father of Halone).

Speaking of which Halone and Nophica are bitter rivals, you'd expect Gridania and Ishgardians to be more at odds with each other than they are!

Honestly if it's not gonna be a brand new/unexpected beast tribe I could see some Ishgardians going like AWH YEAH WE GONNA SUMMON HALONE TO FIGHT THE DRAGONS-- oh woops it's Shiva.


And completely unrelated to Shiva speculation and very minor T9 spoilers but related to Moose's last post: the Ghosts of Meracydia (wyvern adds) in the fight have an ability called "Neurolink Burst" which goes off when they die. However, there is no visible neurolink attached to them. So while Twintania's neurolink is super obvious, it's possible not all neurolinks are so blatant.