What is Zodiark?

[Ignacius]

Pure speculation incoming...

-Zodiark existed before the world as we know it, thus all of reality occurred after Zodiark and (we can assume) the current world somehow is mutually exclusive to whatever Zodiark lived in before.

-The Ascians are largely not of this world and cannot interact with it.

-Hydaelyn is shown as a bright crystal in darkness, and a dark crystal is shown in a vision (possibly Zodiark or Hydaelyn...)

-There are as many Ascians as gods (twelve).

There's a lot of FFXIV that is based on duality, so it may be that Hydaelyn and Zodiark are actually the same being, with the Ascians attempting to return Hydaelyn back to Zodiark in order to retake the place of the Twelve (who may have supplanted them during this era). It could be that, before this era, Zodiark was Hydaelyn and the Ascians were in the position of the Twelve, and it was actually the Twelve who were attempting to break the status quo.

Just speculation, of course, but everything in FFXIV seems cyclical.

[Fenral]

Just speculation, of course, but everything in FFXIV seems cyclical.

Which begs the question of what effect our actions have on the cycle. Will our final objective be to halt the wheel, turn the wheel, or break the wheel?

[Ignacius]

Well, weirder questions abound if that's the case:

-Why is Hydaelyn fighting the cycle?
-Was the cycle supposed to have changed already, and Hydaelyn is trying to stop it?
-Is trying to stop it part of the cycle?
-Is it ethical to stop the cycle? Who or what did we replace? Another common theme through both ARR and HW is that mankind might be sorry about thing, but they always do what they think they must for their own good. Is that a reflection of Hydaelyn?
-The dragons arrived from the stars and made a deal with Hydaelyn. Were they not supposed to be here? Did they stop the cycle? Are they meant to continue the cycle?

[Frederick22]

Maybe Zodiark is the original WoD ( not the ones we will battle now, the 1st one that ever existed ). Pure speculation.

[Nalien]

one more stone to the foundation : if zodiark was one of the gods, then what of Hydaelyn ? The Usurper... A wannabe god who borrowed Zodiark's power somehow, thus achieving his sealing when he returned to our world ? One of the twelves who came back to ensure Zodiark remains sealed forever ? none of the above, and an other entity we never heard about in the Eorzean mythology ?

That's a difficult one... Just another Eikon who was chosen to remain and unite all mortals? Effectively the actual Goddess who created the Eikons? I'd lean towards the later given how she's talked about in various lore panels... Zodiark, then, doesn't get why she'd favour mortals and would aim to usurp her...

I am incline to think that ultimately she is just the most powerful Primal/Eikon though, to the point where she can create others (plot twist: Primals are just unsanctioned Eikons, that's why they're damaging, if Hydaelyn "summoned" Ifrit, instead of the Amalj'aa, he'd be an Eikon perhaps)... Something about Alexander has me speculating that Hydaelyn (the planet) is effectively just a massive Primal/Eikon... Alexander is the biggest Primal so far (well, second to Bahamut I guess) and the Illuminati seem to believe they'll survive inside him, acknowledging that a Primal such as Alexander will drain the land and result in ruin, but confident that they'll be protected inside and he'll sustain them... Take that and make a planet sized Primal/Eikon, and I think you have Hydaelyn... The Mother Crystal we frequently talk to? Remember finding Bahamut after T5? He had a fairly nice Crystal Heart, did he not? Same thing... The Burning Heart contained Bahamut Prime, I imagine the Mother Crystal contains Hydaelyn Prime and that's who we talk to, while the planet we walk on is the same as us fighting on Bahamuts claw/inside Alexander, if Hydaelyn truly is a Primal/Eikon that is...

(btw, if I happen to see you some day on cerberus, I'll be sure to /wave you )

/wave to the right person, I'm... unable to post here on my own account... >_>

[Kuwagami]

I put some thoughts in this (ongoing) theory.

We know that primals need aether, crystals and prayers (actually, feelings are enough. See Enkidu). The aether is drawn from Hydaelyn continuously too.

The bigger/more powerful the summon is, the bigger crystal you need, and the bigger strain on aether resources there is.

Now onto Hydaelyn. As an enormous crystal, and with the precedent of Bahamut Prime (which was able to interact with us), we could perfectly think that she is a primal. Or something else (I'll develop that point later).

In that case, summonings would draw both crystals and aether from Hydaelyn, weakening her available resources every time and thus endangering her as a primal being (to kill a primal, you either need to cut off its primary resource by sucking all aether within it dry, or destroy its physical flesh to let the remaining aether return to the world). In other words, summonings would deprive Hydaelin from both her air and food (aether and crystals).

Though, there is a little detail that feels horribly wrong with that : where would the aether used to maintain Hydealyn's existence come from ? Perhaps from the gods themselves, or from Zodiark, sealed somewhere within Hydaelyn to serve as an infinite aether source. This also opens way for the statue we see in the chrysalis and which is supposed to represent Zodiark, and look nothing like Hydaelyn.

Hydaelyn would then become an enormous gaol, sealing Zodiark by depriving him of his aether and thus preventing him to free himself on his own.


Or, and that brings the point I talked about earlier, Hydealyn is truly something else. We are told that the gods were there at some point. Zodiark too probably. And midgardsormr came from space and stayed here to watch over the world and fulfill his covenant with Hydaelyn. Though legends also say that the Twelves themselves asked him to stay in Silvertear.

So I've been thinking, what if something happened between the Twelves and Zodiark at some point, and then they decided to seal him using all their power, forming the gaol with their bodies (or whatever else gods may have. Pure aether bodies maybe ?) and trapping Zodiark eternally within them. The gaol in this case would be the planet itself, and Hydaelyn as we know her would be the collective consciousness of the Twelves in their eternal slumber. The Twelves would have then asked Midgardsormr to ensure that nothing can free Zodiark from the exterior, and thus joining both stories as one.


Hydaelyn in this case would be the usurper as the gods would have stripped Zodiark from everything he had, keeping it for what was left of them (the mother crystal). Summonings and great destructions on the land would weaken the gaol and help zodiark free himself, while summoning too much would also weaken him as he is forced to be part of the planet in a lesser extent (being sealed in the Mother Crystal, source of the aether on the planet).


I though of this thanks to dalamud. Sure it was an artificial satellite created by the allags, but it actually was a gaol made to contain a super powerful being and used to gather energy. Similar to how Zodiark would be gaoled in the mother crystal, contained by the other gods (keep the FFXII's lore, he ought to be more powerful than any of them ), and "used" to nurture the life on the planet by providing a continuous stream of aether.

[Cilia]

If we're going to posit our whole hypothesis on the myth arc...

Zodiark is exactly what the Ascians claim: the one true god.

Going into more detail, before you fight him, Ramuh hypothesizes that light and darkness only became separate with the advent of men. If this is true, then Hydaeyln could very well be the "original" primal created by men so long ago that nobody really remembers it. They created Hydaelyn because the world pre-Hydaelyn was so awful that they couldn't stand it, thus making Hydaelyn the primal of "Light" and "Hope." This changed Zodiark, formerly an intangible concept, into the "god of darkness and chaos," who then created the Ascians as a sort of antibody to set things right. To take a line from King Vendrick of Dark Souls II:

Fire came to be, and with it disparity.
Heat and cold, life and death, light and dark.
Dark was seen as a curse. Shadow is not cast, but born of fire.
And the brighter the flame, the deeper the shadow.

Thus, Hydaelyn leeches Zodiark's power (aether) to keep him asleep and keep the disparity existent for the good of man, because that's what she was designed to do. Ascians are sentient antibodies created to return the world to its true, intended shape. Whenever the light shines too bright, the dark overwhelms it, and whenever the dark reaches too close to the light it is burned away. Thus turns the wheel of fate, the cycle of Astral and Umbral Eras.

... just my hypothesis, running off one of Ramuh's own and various lines from the Ascians.

[Februs]

I am incline to think that ultimately she is just the most powerful Primal/Eikon though, to the point where she can create others (plot twist: Primals are just unsanctioned Eikons, that's why they're damaging, if Hydaelyn "summoned" Ifrit, instead of the Amalj'aa, he'd be an Eikon perhaps)

I dunno... I have trouble picturing Hydaelyn and Zodiark as simple Eikons. I mean, it is definitely possible, but they don't seem to fit. Primals seem too limited...

So far, we have different levels of "God-like" beings that have some linguistically confused names, but the Odin lore panel seems to have (somewhat) cleared some of it up. From that we have learned (although there's still a lot of back and forth on it in regards to the exact definitions) that the lowest level is "Primals" or "Toshin" (the Allagan term for Primal, meaning "god of fighting"). Then, above them, is "Elder Primal" or "Eikon" (the Allagan term for Elder Primal). Now, what they have not stated is if there is a level above these two, or if all "God-like beings" can be categorized under one of these two settings. However, if you consider the known characteristics of Primals (elder or otherwise) it's hard to believe that Hydaelyn or Zodiark could be sustained in the same way as which Primals are.

For one, can we honestly say that Hydaelyn has enough "true believers" who offer up their prayers with Aether and Crystals in order to sustain her? Considering the rather extreme methods of ceremonies that have been required to create and sustain more powerful versions of Primals (ie: live sacrifice for some extreme versions, or tens of thousands of tortured followers in other cases) what would be the nature of Hydaelyn's continued existence?

Worse yet, consider Zodiark. He, certainly, does not have enough followers to warrant his existence as a Primal on the same level as Hydaelyn. No one aside from the Ascians worships him, or even knows about him. It's kind of hard to offer your faith to a god you don't even know, so I just don't see this as being the basis of their existence. Personally, I'm more inclined to see entities like Zodiark and Hydaelyn (and maybe the 12 and the Warring Triad) as "true gods," rather than Primals. Obviously I'm speculating, but what I mean here is that, contrary to any Primals we know of, neither Hydaelyn or Zodiark require faith or belief to sustain themselves. They are not insubstantial aetheric beings, but real physical beings that can manipulate, or perhaps even spawn, massive amounts of aether.

[Februs]

Well, weirder questions abound if that's the case:

-Why is Hydaelyn fighting the cycle?

Assuming there is a cycle in place (and it is anywhere even remotely similar to actual mythologies that exist in our world) I would say that it's a safe bet that she is protecting herself.

In the mythos of a lot of cultures, each subsequent generation of "gods" leads to the downfall of the previous one (Ie: Greek Cosmic deities give way to the Titans, Titans give way to the Gods, Gods give way to man... man gives way to supercomputers and the internet... etc ...). The only "God" that persists in most mythos is that of the "true" god, whom is usually the origin god (in Greek mythology that god is a shapeless entity named "chaos" from which all thing supposedly sprung into existence, including the cosmic deities) and is the furthest "god" removed from direct involvement with humans. The way such a god is directly involved with mortals is by nature (ie: chaos represents our state of existence. Rather than being personified or preforming miracles or w/e, we simply exist with Chaos as a facet of our reality). Hydaelyn may be taking on this role. However, it's also possible that Zodiark is the true holder of this role, and Hydaelyn just stands in for him, doing what she can to prevent her destruction at the hands of subsequent generations of Gods.

It is possible she's simply trying to protect us from destruction at the hands of this cycle, since it's possible that her destruction could also mean ours, but it's just as likely that she is only looking out for herself, and exploiting our ignorance as a means of getting us to play along.

[Belhi]

I'm not convinced Hydaelyn has any nefarious purpose. She is constantly portrayed as a positive figure. Her words in the theme songs, what she has asked of the WoL and even down to the first thing she said to us. Feel.. Think..

I honestly feel she wants us to think and act for ourselves. To learn and grow. She certainly doesn't hand us a lot of marching orders. Whatever she and Zodiark truly are, I don't think she is on the 'bad' side. If Zodiark is the true god then maybe its a good thing he isn't active. Being a true god doesn't mean being a nice or good god.

The Hydealyn/Primal thing doesn't look likely to me. Primals consume Aether, they don't hand it back out. If Hydealyn is a primal then realistically from all we have been given, we would be part of that primal as she provides Aether to the world. Also no one acts tempered towards Hydealyn, including the WoL. Being tempered means being unquestionably devoted and obsessed with the Primal. You exist for that primal. That doesn't seem to be the case for people and Hydealyn. If the WoL was tempered it wouldn't matter if Hydealyn was bad because they would have no free will anyway.