Are Sprites "wild" elementals?

[Anonymoose]

Just a disclaimer that I'm shooting from the hip here, but...

Beings lacking in sentience don't have very complex behavior. Rather being motivated to act by past experiences and reinforcement, they would simply react to external stimuli based on their needs and limitations. They would seek out and consume aether of their aspect to persist and grow, for example. That's usually what they're doing when we come upon them. However, there's noting to motivate them to be the aggressor. Chasing, battling, killing, and consuming us would be an extremely inefficient way to feed, it might even be a net loss - we're not even aspected.

However, if a sprite experiences stimuli such as coming under attack, expending the energy to defend itself ensures survival.

The exception might be that a sprite's interest might be roused by the use of magicks nearby and try to feed from the aetherial source. Elementals aggrod to magicks occasionally in FFXI.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

too much moose to quote

Sounds logical. Now how about the ones found inside dungeons? Those are aggressive by default.

[Anonymoose]

Sounds logical. Now how about the ones found inside dungeons? Those are aggressive by default.

Ignoring "because game mechanics" (everything is aggressive by default)...
stares into the distance in cold calculation, blowing into a bubble pipe

We're often sent into dungeons to purge them of some threat or imbalance. The aether that gave birth to or sustains the sprites (or the sprites themselves by that point) would likely be either in jeopardy, in a tumultuous state, or outright tainted. Aether doesn't react well to imbalace e.g. elementals are easily angered, an enraged elemental enrages entities around it, etc. Bottle up an elemental and, like a primal, it will blindly attack everything around it when freed. The imbalance of Dalamud or even Toto-Rak caused fiends to grow restless and violent.

While not conscious, that might be enough to prime a sprite to lash out at a lower threshold.