Minfillia Speculation

[Mjollnir]

*fwoosh*

I REALLY hope one of the 'changes' in this patch brought about Hydaelyn's 'change' is a 'change' to our The Echo so we regain the ability of time travel.

*fwoosh*

[Fenral]

DARKSIDE ACTIVATED

This, really. So much on these forums about how the light is goodness and individuality and freedom and free will and-- FULL STOP MOMMY WHY ARE YOU CHAINING UP MINFILIA?

There is no amount of justification that can make that okay. If goodness and love can't win with just goodness and love, it stops being goodness and love. You've lost either way.

[Nalien]

I... Think the chains are entirely symbolic...

I'm not sure Minfilia is losing her free will or anything like that, I think her fate is tied to that of Hydaelyns (in a very specific/important way, hence Elidibus showing an interest in her, dudes obviously known this would happen for a while), and any change that occurs from here on out is a result of her learning about that fate. She's gone from bumbling around in the dark to gaining a much deeper understanding of things, and as a result she is bound to Hydaelyn. It's still her will to "do the right thing", but in learning TheTruth™ she is now in a position where she either helps Hydaelyn or she damns Hydaelyn, either way her fate is chained to Hydaelyns.

Unless Hydaelyn has intentionally been deceiving everyone, I cannot see such a radical change in personality... It's also entirely possible that, given we'll likely be finding her at the end of a dungeon in which we fight numerous Sharlayan defense systems, the chains are Sharlayan in origin, not Hydaelyns work... I mean... If you had a station monitoring God, and there was a cult of maniacs (and there are plenty of such forces in Eorzea...) you knew were trying to kill God... Wouldn't you put some kind of defense system in the way? Wouldn't you want to apprehend anyone trying to come into direct contact with God? If the chains aren't symbolic, my bet is on them being Sharlayan in origin. Hydaelyn never struck me as the bondage type...

[Cilia]

I REALLY hope one of the 'changes' in this patch brought about Hydaelyn's 'change' is a 'change' to our The Echo [sic] so we regain the ability of time travel.

I never played 1.x, but technically literal time travel was never a function of the Echo. It was a sort of mental flashback via the memories engraved in a person's soul, exactly like we do with it now, just less clear when it was functioning.

I... Think the chains are entirely symbolic...

Well, they're not physically literal chains. However, based on what I've seen, it's led me to the conclusion that Minfilia has been possessed by Hydaelyn during her absence from the narrative. First off, in the artwork Minfilia is not only bound by chains to the mothercrystal, close inspection shows her sort of melding into it. Second, she's wearing a very simple white dress - white is typically the color of light and associated with the divine (compare Minfilia's original rather ornate pink halter top and butt-gap skirt... thing). Third, in every image we've seen of her except the vision of her in front of the mothercrystal, Minfilia's eyes are closed. The eyes are the "windows to the soul," and her eyes are only open in a vision of Minfilia in front of the mothercrystal... hmm...

The only conclusion I can reach with this information that Hydaelyn is either piggybacking in Minfilia's body or has outright possessed her. It may have been willingly, and it may be limited to a certain area, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If it's outright possession with Minfilia's consciousness suppressed or outright extracted, I... don't want to fight for Hydaelyn anymore. Resorting to possession is a pretty immoral thing to do, necessary or otherwise. Zodiark, for all his supposed evil and malice, left the Ascians with free will; if Hydaelyn is going to go possess our close friend, is she really better?

... this is all mere conjecture, of course. Until we get the whole story it's quite rash to jump on the deicide bandwagon. Suffice to say, however, that after Bloodborne I'm quite skeptical of trusting in the absolute morality of any deity, especially when they do morally questionable acts like possessing people. Their value systems differ greatly, and they have no problem offering one person as a sacrifice for the greater good because one life is relatively inconsequential. However, what may be a single, inconsequential life to a deity is everything to that person, and it makes everyone who cares for them suffer as well...

Something something collectivist culture.

Something something hope will never die.

Our reunion will be in the depths of the Antitower, of that I have little doubt. But what manner of reunion will it be, and who will we be speaking to...?

I don't think Minfilia was kidnapped or captured by a band of Sharlayan extremists intent on performing immoral research on the Echo. Every Sharlayan but Matoya left 20 years ago with the impending Garlean invasion, and the only Sharlayans to return since were the Circle of Knowing and those tied to the AST quest (and they all became pariahs in Sharlayan as a result). Besides which, before the Isle of Val was destroyed there was a whole order of Echo users, likely close to the Sharlayan motherland, so that shouldn't have been necessary?

[myahele]

I always jokingly thought that Minfilia will somehow be Hydaelyn vessel in some shape/form ... just never thought it might be a reality.

I do wonder if this might be Elidibus' doing? Nobody could have transported Minfilia underneath those tunnels unless it was an Ascien. Strange that she was also changed to Zodiark.

Also, I remember an "Ascilia" helping out Doman orphans. "Ascilia" is Minfilia's real name. She was only mentioned, but assuming Minfilia having hydealyn-powered telepathy is not much of a stretch.

Maybe we're slowly seeing Hydaelyn's "darkside" I remember the Asciens calling her a parasite ... that artwork did remind me of parasitic being.

[Fenral]

Also, I remember an "Ascilia" helping out Doman orphans. "Ascilia" is Minfilia's real name. She was only mentioned, but assuming Minfilia having hydealyn-powered telepathy is not much of a stretch.

That was actually Ascelina, the barkeep at Revenant's Toll. It was a text error (I suspect autocorrect had something to do with it) that ended up in the initial release, but has since been corrected.

[Belhi]

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.

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.

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?

Now this is all speculation so the above scenario could be completely wrong. If find it a stretch from how the narrative has been presented to us so far for them to so suddenly make Hydaelyn appear a villain, particularly because under every stretch of the imagination it is still going to be hard to sell the Ascians as 'good guys' considering the carnage and death they have caused and continue to cause. If Hydaelyn go bad, does that mean we turn on her? Does that mean we will suddenly have Midgarsormr turn on us since he is her ally. Will we lose the Blessing of Light? Exactly what will we do then? That narratively at this stage of the story sounds like it would be utter chaos. That's why Im not expecting it.

The other thing we should consider is Minfilia's current situation might not be permanent. This might be a stop gap measure. We just have far too little info to go on at the moment. I wouldn't leap to the conclusion that this is evidence of Hydaelyn going bad.

[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?