Minfillia Speculation

[Fenral]

We have one image to work with, and it's of a severely uncomfortable Minfilia being chained (and absorbed!) by the mothercrystal. Nobody's arguing that Hydaelyn is going to turn villain, or that the Ascians are somehow magically good in all this. You're getting way too hung up on extremes of "absolute good" and "absolute evil" to see anything that might lie in-between.

Hydaelyn is supposed to be the physical form of source of Aether, and therefore lifeforce, for the world. That's why as she gets weaker Aetheric levels start to drop one would assume.

She's the anthropomorphic personification of a force of nature, something that by all rights shouldn't have any sort of personality. We've fought those before. They're called primals. The Lifestream in FFVII wasn't some great benevolent entity, it was an apathetic omnipresence with a completely incomprehensible will in service to itself alone. Aerith cast Holy to ask it for help (and the cost she payed was incidental and tragic, not a necessity), and it did, but only after we proved it was to our mutual benefit.

I think the thing here is this isn't about Hydaelyn doing an evil by possessing Minfilia. If Hydaelyn is our king piece in the war between the Ascians and us (and this is very much a war), then what we could be seeing here is Minfilia sacrificing herself at least in a way. What exactly is Hydaelyn's options here? If this is necessary and she doesn't then falls then what? We lose? That's not a noble or kind thing to do. That's sacrificing everyone and throwing away everyone else's sacrifices for the sake of pride and idealism.

You're jumping to some serious extremes there without even realizing it. To pull an in-series example, Yuna could have done as her father did, and turned one of her Guardians into her Final Aeon to defeat Sin. It would have worked. Sin's rampage would end and millions would have experienced ten years of peace at the cost of a mere two lives. But the Final Summoning wasn't addressing the root of the problem, merely cloaking itself in a "necessity" that was too great to allow itself to be questioned, built up ever further as more and more was sacrificed. By your logic, it would have been better for Yuna to die there than to put the whole of Spira at risk for a chance to end that cycle of guilt for good. (Yeah, I use FFX a lot, but only because it's an A+ treatise on the relationship between self-worth and sacrifice.)

We have twice in HW been saved by the sacrifices of others. They lost their lives to save ours. Are we bad people because of that?

No, but we aren't exactly drawing a line in the sand and saying "no more," either. We simply accept the necessity of sacrifice and move on, ad nauseam. Rather than argue this out further, since you seem pretty entrenched in the "sacrifice is beautiful, and we should sacrifice more to keep our sacrifices form being in vain!" camp that I can't even at this point, I'm just going to quote Soul Sacrifice Delta and be done. "A world that demands sacrifice isn't worth saving."

We're fresh pieces in an endless war between light and dark that we know next to nothing about, and our loyalty is driven by stakes we perceive as too high to question. Signs suggest we're about to start questioning, and that's a good thing for us and the world (anthropomorphic mothercrystal optional).

[Frederick22]

snip

I think we have more than enought evidence that support that Hydaelin is not a primal.

If she is a primal Fenral, what is Zordiark? So amaisingly he is not? Or both are primals or non of them.

[Fenral]

I think we have more than enought evidence that support that Hydaelin is not a primal.

I don't think we have any. My point is less that she is specifically for sure a primal and more that we're operating on faith no differently than the worshipers of Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Leviathan, Ramuh, Bismarck, or Ravana. The only difference between us and them is that no "more enlightened" beings have come along to point out that... oh, wait. I think I've figured out what's going on. The Ascians are foils for the Warriors of Light. If it's cool for us to go around stepping on lesser gods that ours might live, how is that any different from the Ascians? And please don't pretend we haven't already justified some degree of wholesale slaughter as a tragic necessity.

If she is a primal Fenral, what is Zordiark? So amaisingly he is not? Or both are primals or non of them.

Probably both. I was more objecting to the conflation of Hydaelyn and the Lifestream, since aside from both being billed as the source of all life, they operate very differently. The Lifestream is nature itself, a great unknowable that we nonetheless need to survive. Hydaelyn, on the other hand, is a personified entity with a benevolent will. A "god," if you will. They aren't the same thing. The Lifestream, much like nature, will preserve itself, and we can either work with or against it at our peril. Hydaelyn, on the other hand, comes bundled with an entire code of conduct that happens to include the suppression of false gods to ensure her continued existence. That's religion, not existence itself.

Honestly, I prefer how Dissidia worked out. Rather than the heroes endlessly sacrificing themselves to save Cosmos, the so-called "king piece" Cosmos surprised everyone by exemplifying the Light's virtues herself, in a move that ultimately dethroned both Chaos and Cosmos. If Hydaelyn truly cares for all her children, the discussion is moot because she wouldn't demand anything of Minfilia.

To get this dead horse galloping in a different direction, what if Minfilia is trying to sacrifice herself against Hydaelyn's wishes? As in, the mothercrystal is ready to let herself fade away in a bid to save her children, but Minfilia is trying to keep her from doing it, at her own expense?

[Nalien]

Hydaelyn, on the other hand, comes bundled with an entire code of conduct that happens to include the suppression of false gods to ensure her continued existence. That's religion, not existence itself.

That's the Scions code of conduct, not Hydaelyns... Granted, the Scions believe they're working for Hydaelyns will, but in reality they've been bumbling around in the dark since their inception. The Scions believe that Primal summoning is harmful to Hydaelyn, but there has never been a decree from the heavens telling us to go out and put Primals down. That's on us, and I wouldn't be surprised, given that Elidibus and his Warriors of Darkness are now doing the same thing, if Minfilia comes back and tells us we've been doing it wrong. Given what we've seen with Leviathan and Thordan, Primals seem like a literal deus ex machina for dealing with the Ascian threat... I really can't help but wonder if there is something more there... Are the current Primals bad? Sure, but who has been summoning them, or better yet, who taught those people how to summon them?

If I was an Ascian, and I knew Primals could stop me, I'd set the board up so that people forget what Primals are for and fight them for me. I'd set it up so everyone loses their way and fights each other, rather than working together against a common threat. Likewise, if absolutely nothing happens to the Ascians from here on out, and in a thousand years they're still kicking about, as an Ascian I'd probably make sure people don't ever find White Auracite again, I'd spread the myth that it gives Super-Cancer or something, to ensure people never mine it to trap Ascians again...

[CyrilLucifer]

If I was an Ascian, and I knew Primals could stop me, I'd set the board up so that people forget what Primals are for and fight them for me. I'd set it up so everyone loses their way and fights each other, rather than working together against a common threat.

Related to this - how did Thordan know that Ascians were aether balls and could be eliminated by being absorbed by a primal just assuming dear Laha is gone for good for ease of discussion in the first place? He specifically mentions "aether, no matter the source," implying he knows. It took the Scions until studying Lahabrea's Dark Crystal to figure their mechanisms out, I don't think the Ascians would just be willing to share that info with anyone.

And our meeting with Thordan mid-HW wasn't really long enough to discuss such things.

[Nalien]

And our meeting with Thordan mid-HW wasn't really long enough to discuss such things.

He "copied" us.

We took out Igeyorhm, then Thordan walks in, having witnessed this, and blasts Lahabrea.

[CyrilLucifer]

He "copied" us.

We took out Igeyorhm, then Thordan walks in, having witnessed this, and blasts Lahabrea.

That seems like a fast conclusion to jump to, then. "Oh, the Warrior of Light, is capable of killing an Ascian using some wierd white gem thing the energy Nidhogg's eye. They must be aether balls!"

It seems like it's a huge leap of logic.

That being said, I think with a primal large and powerful enough, it could probably absorb your internal aether and kill you through touch or sustained close proximity, no matter if you have a physical form or not, like what BisEx does when you're on his back. I think it's less Thordan being brilliant and more being absurdly overconfident in his abilities.

So I suppose I'm answering my own question here. Apologies for the derail, feel free to go back to your scheduled Hydaelyn-role argument.

[Delily]

That's the Scions code of conduct, not Hydaelyns... Granted, the Scions believe they're working for Hydaelyns will, but in reality they've been bumbling around in the dark .since their inception. The Scions believe that Primal summoning is harmful to Hydaelyn, but there has never been a decree from the heavens telling us to go out and put Primals down. That's on us, and I wouldn't be surprised, given that Elidibus and his Warriors of Darkness are now doing the same thing, if Minfilia comes back and tells us we've been doing it wrong. Given what we've seen with Leviathan and Thordan, Primals seem like a literal deus ex machina for dealing with the Ascian threat... I really can't help but wonder if there is something more there... Are the current Primals bad? Sure, but who has been summoning them, or better yet, who taught those people how to summon them?

Are they bad? Look at Ramuh, he was interested in dialog, but generally, since primals are born of fervant wishes for vengeance, they generally are only interested in destruction. However we know the Ascians are the ones who taught people how to summon, and we know why, as summoning them weakens Hydaelyn. Thordan was an exception, they thought they could control him