Quote Originally Posted by Anonymoose View Post
(Allegedly her ability to do this was by virtue of the Echo but the devs will neither confirm nor deny that Thordan somehow acquired it (perhaps via Elidibus the same way he granted it to the Sahagin elder) so we can only speculate speculate speculate.)
I speculate speculate speculate that Zodiark has a similar "blessing" as Hydaelyn that has been neither denied or confirmed yet.Probably weaker since Zodiark is sealed (or shattered or whatever technobabble state he is in) and Hydaelyn is not, but something the Ascians can bestow in-part to their followers. That's just my assumption, though -- since the most we ever get out of NPCs is "something like the Echo" and not an actual Echo.

To everything else you said - Yeah, I guess so. The other example I mentioned briefly and you [perhaps] overlooked is Louisoix. Though technically not a Scion ... and we maybe were never clear on his personal take on summoning itself, I feel we can extrapolate from his students that he thought the practice was bad and taught them to be against it. Still it didn't stop him from relying on it to "win" against a supremely powerful primal of destruction. Using your same analysis of Ysayle, though, Louisoix was the same -- and went so far as to keep Phoenix a secret so its existence wouldn't rally Eorzea to summon him in the future to fight their battles. His intent was a limited-time human-guided use and he also didn't use aether gathered from crystals but his (deus ex machina) Staff of Infinite McGuffins. So I suppose I have to accept your analysis is correct.

I'm glad we had this talk. =)