Spot the Celestial Dragons

[WyrahFhurrst]

That really begs the question of if Primals are technically alive. I mean, is something really alive if it's already died and went through a sort of apotheosis? A Primal can be slain over and over, but is it ever truly dead? Is a Primal's ultimate demise only based upon being slain once, or is the Primal truly dead once all of his worshippers are dead and he can no longer be summoned? Or can he be summoned again once those old worshippers are dead and some new ones spring up?

I'm really not trying to turn this into a primal thread, just postulating on whether or not Bahamut would really be viewed as "alive."

[Cilia]

That really begs the question of if Primals are technically alive. I mean, is something really alive if it's already died and went through a sort of apotheosis? A Primal can be slain over and over, but is it ever truly dead? Is a Primal's ultimate demise only based upon being slain once, or is the Primal truly dead once all of his worshippers are dead and he can no longer be summoned? Or can he be summoned again once those old worshippers are dead and some new ones spring up?

I'm really not trying to turn this into a primal thread, just postulating on whether or not Bahamut would really be viewed as "alive."

Well, it's hard to say since a Primal's existence is completely different from a mortal's. Every Primal thus encountered has some degree of sentience - they're able to think and talk - but they all have some kind of base instinct they can't ignore; though I can't find a proper source, each elemental Primal supposedly has a personality "sphere" that dictates some of their behavior (Ifrit's love of dominating anyone and everyone he can through tempering, Garuda's unquenchable thirst for power and destruction, etc). Whether this extends to other / Elder Primals is debatable, but how much of a Primal's mind is its own and how much is shaped through its worshipers' prayers is suspect.

Is it possible to kill a Primal for good? Maybe. As long as the Primal still has worshipers they can be summoned through prayer and crystals, and even if all of said worshipers were killed the Primal might retain its existence in the aether as long as people remember it. Even being forgotten might not be enough; there's always those damn Ascians, and they might retain their original consciousness but have a radically different appearance if forgotten, remembered, and then re-summoned if no images existed of their original appearance. Otherwise they'd probably just be an amorphous blob of energy, a la IX's Ozma.

Shorthand for both questions... we don't know.