Light, Darkness, Balence, Gravitation

[Morningstar1337]

Okay so this is a discussion thread on the concept of Light and Darkness, and if either force need an equilibrium or not. This is also a thread for speculation on if any characters (Not just the Warrior of Light) are being tempered by the forces of light as much as they are forces of Darkness.

Certain topics of debate would be:

• The ending of the Crystal Tower subplot, in relation to the fall of Allag.
• Elidibius and whether or not he is merely talking propaganda.
• The existence of Light-aspected primals (Thordian, Alexander).
• And whether or not there has to be an equilibrium (tying with the 2nd bullet).
• And whether or not people are "tempered" by the Light

[Fenral]

As far as votes against light as an absolute good:

アラグ帝国が繁栄を極めていたのは、
私たちが生み出されるよりも、ずっと前……。
The Allagan Empire had become exceedingly prosperous long before we came to be...

その頃は、クリスタルタワーも開かれた施設でね。
In those days, the Crystal Tower was a public facility.

そこで生み出される無限のエネルギーによって、
国は渇きを知らなかったのさ。
Because of the limitless energy produced there, the empire knew not of thirst.

しかし、飽和した繁栄の中で、民は次第に退廃的になっていった。
However, in their saturated prosperity, the people became progressively more degenerate.

……その気運に拍車をかけたのが、皇族の衰退だ。
...And what further spurred that trend was the decline of the imperial family.

民の活力が失われ、それを束ねる皇族の血も弱まれば、
当然のごとく国は傾く……。
As the people had lost their vitality, and the blood of the imperial family that governed them had weakened as well, it was only natural that the empire itself would wane...

隆盛を誇ったアラグ帝国も、その流れは止められなかった。
The Allagan Empire, so proud of its prosperity, could not stem that tide.

This certainly sounds like they're saying that living in a world where everything was good all the time actually caused everything to go downhill. Pretty much every other mention of the Allagans has also framed them as a people whose over-reliance on technology, especially technology geared towards "the good of the people," resulted in their ruin... Except the very tail end of the Crystal Tower story, which chose simply to ignore the established precedents and say we should live like the Allagans used to.

[Cilia]

OK, here we go.

On The Crystal Tower, Light, and Darkness
-It could be said that an excess of Light led to the Allagan Empire's fall. Since the Allagans had want of nothing, they were totally bathed in the light - which led to their complacency and belief they were above everything else. With nothing to strive towards, they had little spirit because they never suffered through anything. This led to further reach - they conquered most all of Hydaelyn - but a stagnant culture that eventually brought about their downfall. If a game teaches you anything, it's that characters (and even players) can and will suffer though anything thrown at them to reach their goal, but the Allagans no longer had any goals to reach for. It's the driving theme of Answers - our suffering becomes our strength.

The only thing that could happen to such a "perfect" society is stagnation and collapse, which is exactly what happened. I don't personally believe anyone ever said we should live like the Allagans, but their tech would make things a lot easier for everyone... but if we had it, we might fall for the same mistakes unless we learn from their example. If that's even possible, considering how "perfect" their society was.

That said, even Xande alludes to the Cloud of Darkness, so Eorzea / Hydaelyn probably don't follow III's cycle of a Flood of Light and then a Flood of Darkness. Probably. III's World of Darkness is also a sort of parallel dimension, while here it's in the Void - implied to be a sort of terminus for the Final Fantasy multiverse. The Cloud of Darkness we fight could very well be the same one from III and Dissidia...

On Elidibus and the Balance
-Hard to say whether or not he's just talking out his ass. As we can learn from Allag's example, too much Light can be a bad thing (if that's what happened). Still, all of Elidibus' comments on the balance have been excessively enigmatic - the only thing he's said on the subject can be summed up with "If you knew what we knew, we'd be best buddies" and "The balance is shifting, which is bad for our goals." The former is just him trolling you, the latter is him complaining that their goals are getting harder to accomplish thanks to you.

On its own, the latter has little significance. Combined with Lahabrea's post-Ultima Weapon monologue, though, it does indeed imply that a balance must be maintained (if not tipped towards Darkness, for whatever reason). Still, we have yet to see adverse effects thanks to an aetherial imbalance between light and darkness, so it comes back to it being hard to tell whether or not Elidibus is talking out his ass.

On Light-elemental Primals and Tempering
-This gets into the very heart of aetheric science, I think. Hydaelyn as an entity has the elemental alignment of "Light," but what is Light in aetheric terms? Well... if Zodiark requires a "chaotic confluence of aether" to be reborn, then it can be presumed that Darkness is "all elements," while Light is "no elements." By that token, well... Ifrit implies that your soul belongs to Hydaelyn in the same way tempered souls belong to him, as after his unsuccessful tempering effort he notes that mortal souls can only harbor one blessing (for comparison's sake, let's call Ifrit's tempering the "Blessing of Fire"). Since you already have one Blessing, you can't get another... sort of? Makes a continuity snarl with Midgardsormr sealing the Blessing but not the Echo...

Anyway, perhaps it's a trait that Light is simply a sort of "filler" element that doesn't affect the personality of the Blessed. It's implied you still have your free will despite Hydaelyn "tempering" you, and it would explain how the Knights of the Round were able to retain their free will even in Primal Mode apparently without the Echo. The Primals are intentionally perverted false gods, though, so perhaps it's simply a facet of their summoning ritual the Ascians devised to further aetheric consumption? A way to divert followers from Hydaelyn's truly divine grace?

Too many questions, not enough answers.

I think that covers most every question asked. Nothing to respond with but more questions, but that's what keeps me playing. Sorry if I missed anything; kinda tired.

[Fenral]

I'd like to write something a bit less dry on the subject (or even just finish something I've already started), but here's what I have gleaned from the text itself on the fall of Allag:

The only thing that could happen to such a "perfect" society is stagnation and collapse, which is exactly what happened. I don't personally believe anyone ever said we should live like the Allagans, but their tech would make things a lot easier for everyone... but if we had it, we might fall for the same mistakes unless we learn from their example. If that's even possible, considering how "perfect" their society was.

Ramnbroes more or less does, in the final NOAH report, which is actually extremely out-of-character if you look at the description for the Onion Knight minion. Also, the whole "once more" implies restoring it to a prior state, but the two choices we have are Azys Lla lite and the aforementioned "stripped its people of the will to improve" Hope Hope Beacon MAX Extreme Supernova. Neither is a good option.

Further supporting this is the group from which "the Ancients' wish" was made. The Allagans who survived the Calamity were, of course, Allagans of the period in which that Calamity occurred; in other words, the very same Allagans who were too drunk on the light of the tower to do things for themselves, and had only heard of the "golden age" from their parents, who had likely only heard of it from theirs. At some point, this starts sounding eerily similar to the way primals are born...

As for the one facilitating the entrusting of their wish to the future, it was the last survivor of the imperial line, our dear Salina. Yes, that imperial line, the one that was no longer able to hold the empire together and keep its people striving towards new goals. The "weakened blood" that led chief scientists like Amon, Unei, and Doga to believe zombie!Xande would be more preferable as a ruler. As the last of that imperial line, she would no doubt hold the same completely idealistic view of the tower and the "golden age" without knowing anything of them firsthand, so to her, seeing that restored in the future would be the ideal way for Allag to atone for their mistakes. Even if nothing actually came of it, an effort to make such a thing possible would give her people hope, which may well have been her primary objective.

Problem being that it took 5000 years for the Crystal Tower to reappear, and the final cost was payed not by Salina, but by two clones who were given free will only to become extra lives for their originals to sacrifice after theirs were spent, and the last descendant of that aide's bloodline, who may as well have been chosen at random to become the new "living key" bound to the tower by every will but his own. So to give their hope to the future, she sacrifices numerous lives that aren't her own, in true Allagan fashion. Of course they are necessary, because they always are, or so the Allagans continued to tell themselves until they lay in ruin.

Curiously, though, what was translated as "Once more" in the English script was, in Japanese, "Kondo koso," or "next time for sure," which in light of the above could mean finding a new use that is radically different than either prior use (and thus without the drawbacks), but as Localization works using insider knowledge and went with "once more" anyway, not to mention the NOAH report outright stating that their purpose is to reopen it as a power plant and public facility like it was during Allag's golden age, this is highly unlikely. And possibly a terrible idea, if we can't cheat our way back into the tower (coughEurekacough) and give a certain catboy historian a chance to properly sort through his feelings versus the voices in his head instead of acting on impulse.

<editorial comment>And then there's the whole "Garlemald has Azys Lla and the Warring Triad now" thing that kind of makes sacrificing anything for the tower seem like a vain and thoroughly under-analyzed waste of life. At this rate, the world will be destroyed by misused Allagan tech long before anyone reopens the tower by "proper" means.</editorial comment>

The Cloud of Darkness we fight could very well be the same one from III and Dissidia...

I see this theory a lot, but that's a no. The Cloud of Darkness in FFIII was killed by the combined powers of the Warriors of Light and the Warriors of Darkness (Light/Dark fusion magic FTW), with the implications that another, new entity, could be born if either light or darkness got out of hand. The one in XIV was "defeated" offscreen by Allagan Force Lightning. And unless I really misread the secret reports in Duodecim, the one in Dissidia is just a really well-made manikin created from the idea of the Cloud of Darkness and made, like all Dissidia's roster, to believe it is the real thing.

I'll get around to the rest later maybe, this post is mostly a long-winded bump for people tracking it via thread subscriptions.

[Morningstar1337]

<editorial comment>And then there's the whole "Garlemald has Azys Lla and the Warring Triad now" thing that kind of makes sacrificing anything for the tower seem like a vain and thoroughly under-analyzed waste of life. At this rate, the world will be destroyed by misused Allagan tech long before anyone reopens the tower by "proper" means.</editorial comment>

In the interest of bumping this thread and asking for otherper people's thoughts on these topics, I must point out that the last time the people used "eikons" to power the Tower, it ended in the Calamity and with it the 7th Umbral Era, the story even points this out after the Garlean Empire rears Regula's ugly mug on Azys Lla.

Or were you referring to the Triad's fetters when you mentioned misused Allagin tech?

[Fenral]

Well, the idea behind sealing the key inside the tower was that it was too powerful/dangerous if not understood and used safely, so it needed to be kept out of untrained hands until it could be put to "proper" use.

Azys Lla, as a contemporary to Dalamud, was created during the very specific period of history loaded into the aforementioned key's brain, and that's without assuming Salina passed on more than we were told at the time. Not only does it have three perfectly preserved 100% Eikon batteries, but also enough in the way of operational tech that the "prize" to be awarded to those who crack the Tower's doors in the future is already obsolete. As an added bonus, the power contained in the Singularity Reactor is enough that any disaster that sealing the tower might have prevented can still occur even with the tower out of play.

What I'm trying to say is, the one person who almost certainly knows how to properly operate and contain Azys Lla removed himself from play in order to preserve a piece of tech that is far less dangerous and far less valuable overall. All he really accomplished in fulfilling his "purpose" was ensuring that he most emphatically cannot actually be of any use to anyone. Go team?

[Frederick22]

snip

Fenral seriously, your obession with that catboy is harmfull and not healthy. Just let it go man xD
Dont keep including him on every comment you do ^^

[Echofalls]

Fenral is just upset over what some of us here percieve to be a bad ending to a somewhat confusing and convoluted questline.
Personally, I hold onto the idea that it is not yet finished and may return in future content (and actually *stay* around this time, Allagan brainwashing be damned!)

[Fenral]

Fenral seriously, your obession with that catboy is harmfull and not healthy. Just let it go man xD
Dont keep including him on every comment you do ^^

Sure thing. Once people stop talking about the Allagans and their legacy, the Students of Baldesion, the Archons of Sharlayan, the hidden meaning in related tattoos, or whether or not there's some nefarious connection between the Allagans and Miqo'te.

That work for you?

Addendum: any derailing that happens, happens because people insist on asking me questions I've already answered, like "why haven't you dropped that yet?" or "why does he even apply here?" to which I am obligated to answer. Trying to refute me is also a mistake, because I'm stubborn and I've taken courses in debate. When something actually happens that allows my feelings on the subject to change, they'll change on their own. Left in stasis, though, I feel obligated to at least remember him as I deem appropriate (since Cid apparently doesn't).

Also, not expecting people to pick things apart is just insulting. I mean, really. This is the series that spawned the "Squall died on Disc 1" debate that persists to this day. There's a legacy to be upheld.

[Cilia]

There's lots of things people are upset about in the game. The difference is that Waffles has been on about it for about, what, a year or so now...? And picked it apart far more thoroughly than SE ever intended us to?

I mean, I admit that it wasn't a wholly satisfactory ending (the storytelling in most all 2.5.x content was a bit... off for my taste), but it happened. I'd like to revisit it someday too, but I'm also fine with letting it lay as is and not derailing every topic that includes the Allagans into a long-winded examination and rant on how and why the resolution of the Crystal Tower storyline was poorly written and executed.

I don't like how the Ul'dahn Revolution arc from 2.x was resolved, but I don't launch into page-long diatribes on why it was awful. (Yes, I will talk at length about Dork Knights, but that's because it's very introspective and psychological. Hypocrite, double standard, blah blah blah. We're all hypocrites with double standards.)

While it is certainly possible to revisit the Crystal Tower and get a good ending, I won't bet on it happening. To paraphrase Peter LaFleur:
"I found that if you [want something], then you might not [get it]. But if you don't [want anything], then you are never disappointed."