Primals - A Discussion on Ethics & Philosophy (ARR & HW Spoilers)

[Raqrie_Tohka]

Archbishop Thordan was still a better character than Zenos. At least he had partial credibility for his actions. Zenos just sort of gave up on any form of decency.

[Delily]

I addressed this in one of my posts. King Thordan =/= Archbishob Thordan VII

You can't separate the primal from the man like that. In fact, my interpretation of that is that is the primal is 100% the archbishop. When you defeat him, he reverts to his human form before dissipating.

If it was power for its own sake that he was after, there was no reason for him to wait to pull out the primal card after he got his hands on the key to Azys Lla. He could have cracked open the containment bays and slurped up all the eikon juice while we were still dismantling golems in Idyllshire. He didn't do that. He waited for us to arrive to Azys Lla and duke it out with Lahabrea and Igeyorhm to see if we could take them out on our own before wasting that one chance he had at killing them. It's only after when it becomes clear that two Ascians is too much for one WoL to handle that he transforms to finish off Lahabrea.

I'm not saying that Thordan was a hero. Not after what he did to Zephirin and the others. I'm merely contesting the claim that he was a power-hungry megalomaniac.

He was a power hungry megalomaniac. My memory is fuzzy, but he didn't have both eyes then. He can't absorb aether out of the air, he needed a large supply of it to initiate the transformation. He didn't kill Lahabrea out of any concern, but to establish his own dominance. He saw we can't kill them, and by effortlessly doing so, he sought to prove to himself and us that he was more powerful than us.

[Delily]

Archbishop Thordan was still a better character than Zenos. At least he had partial credibility for his actions. Zenos just sort of gave up on any form of decency.

This is another discussion we're having. Zenos has no reason to be decent. His position as the crown prince meant he was surrounded by people currying his favor, and his training and the experiments the Empire performed on him have rendered him the most powerful person around. I'd also say he is a genuine sociopath, from the perspective that he lacks empathy, and views everyone else as thing in his hunts and games. It's hard to do this in a video game, but if you met someone like Zenos in the wild, he would be genuinely terrifying.

[Alleo]

I addressed this in one of my posts. King Thordan =/= Archbishob Thordan VII

Why do you assume that he was not himself when he turned primal? Ysayle never lost her sense of herself so why should we assume that it was different with Thordan?

He was also going to Azys Lla because there was the Triade waiting with even more aether to consume for him. Also if he saw that we are quite able to kill Ascians why turn primal at all? He could just handed us the second eye that they were carrying around and let us kill the second Ascian with it.

And lets not forget that the knights could already turn into their primal part quite early in the story. We hear them with their primal voice in one of the cutscenes after a meeting. I dare to say that this was not Thordan first transformation because he needed to be a primal at least once before he fought against us to give his knight their form and to temper them. So it does not make much sense that he would lose his own self.

Also having a far worse motive is one big story plot for a lot of bad ones. They are used to make us believe that they are fine and yet near the end they suddenly turn around and reveal what this was all truly about.

[Cilia]

Thordan was a schemer. He played every party to get what he wanted.

He used the Ascians to learn how to become a primal, and likely from them learned of Azys Lla and the power held within.

He used the Scions (really just us and Alphinaud) to get rid of Nidhogg and get him the key to Azys Lla. He consolidated his power base while we were out.

Thordan's plan was to learn to become a primal. Then, after Nidhogg was slain, get us to kill Bismarck for him so he could get to Azys Lla. Once there he simply bided his time, knowing we'd come for him and that the Ascians would interfere. After the battle he would step in and kill those who still stood, be they servants of the Darkness or the Light, after going primal. Afterwards he'd return to Ishgard, sanctify (temper) everyone, and lead the nation on a crusade against the world before eventually putting it under his heel.

The only thing that went wrong with Thordan's plan was... us. We proved powerful enough to stand against him, and so his house of cards collapsed.

Thordan carries the same train of thought before and after going primal.

By taking unto my flesh the soul of the legendary King Thordan, I am become a god -

A god who knows not cessation, whose being is sustained by a millennium of fervent prayer and the Eye's nigh bottomless reservoir of aether.

Pretty hard time believing the Archbishop wasn't in control...

[LineageRazor]

He literally says his intention is to become a god. He says that when they bring the remains of Thordan I to him. When he transforms, he calls himself a god-king, destroys the ascian, then says he plans to seek out all chaos and excise it with his sword of righteousness, and that if we have a problem with it he's going to fight us. That is in the cut scene right before we gain access to the Singularity Reactor. Did you not pay attention?

And all of this is in service to his stated goals: Defeat the Ascians, protect Ishgard's legacy. He was convinced that he was the only one qualified to do those things, and also knew that he would literally require the power of a god to accomplish them. He also believed that in order to maintain Ishgard's lie and preserve the dignity of its people, it would become necessary to subjugate anyone who could conceivably be a threat to Ishgard. Even after becoming a Primal, he continued to be perfectly frank and honest, telling us straight up what his plans were, and what he would do if we tried to stop him.

Why are you so intent on portraying Thordan as some suffering misunderstood hero who sacrificed himself to destroy a singe Ascian, when the game makes it quite clear he's for power over all of mankind?

Misunderstood, yes, but not a hero. He was definitely after power over all mankind, but not because he desired to rule them. He wanted that power because he felt that they needed to be ruled, and that he was the only one qualified for the job. By his reckoning, his (and anyone else's) personal feelings on the matter were inconsequential to the greater need.

[Delily]

Misunderstood, yes, but not a hero. He was definitely after power over all mankind, but not because he desired to rule them. He wanted that power because he felt that they needed to be ruled, and that he was the only one qualified for the job. By his reckoning, his (and anyone else's) personal feelings on the matter were inconsequential to the greater need.

How can you say he didn't want power over all of mankind? He manipulated and deceived everyone around him to accomplish his goals, and then when got what he wanted, he moved from claiming to end the war to taking over mankind. He was convinced he was right and that everyone else was wrong. That sounds like a megalomaniac to me.

[LineageRazor]

How can you say he didn't want power over all of mankind?

I... didn't say that? In fact, the words you bolded explicitly say that yes, he did want power over all mankind?

Now I'm getting confused...

But to address the rest of what you said, he never "moved on" from anything. Taking over mankind was how he PLANNED to end the war - it was the means, not the end. He did not want power for power's sake; he wanted power to accomplish a goal. And the war did not end with Nidhogg's defeat or a peaceful settlement with the dragons - in Thordan's mind, the war would only end when Ishgard was safe. Ishgard would never be safe as long as the threat of the truth behind its shady past still had a chance to break its people. His solution: control every last person on the planet, and that truth would be buried forever.

Thordan likely WAS a megalomaniac, and I don't think I've ever claimed otherwise - but all megalomania does not mean that Thordan was motivated by self-interest. Megalomania is the belief that you are greater than others, and Thordan certainly believed that he, alone, was qualified to decide the future of Ishgard. That doesn't change the fact that he wanted the power not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of Ishgard.

[Cilia]

Note: Thordan's plan for burying Ishgard's past was to sanctify (re: temper) all Ishgardians, then all mankind. However, had he simply stopped at Ishgard, they simply would not care whether people told them the truth or not. Sanctifying all mankind was not necessary to keep the truth about Ishgard's past hidden from its people.

Thordan's goal was to "sanctify all [mankind]" in order to bring about "an endless era of peace" where "vice and conflict [had ceased] to be."

[Kallera]

I think we are missing something important.

It is entirely possible for Thordan to not realize the route his primal form would take with his wish even as he used himself to summon him. He wanted Ishgard safe from its enemies,but what are his enemies? His own son's revelations upending the society, the global chessmasters he wheeled and dealed with to stop the Dravanians, the killer of Nidhogg and his primal slaying buddy, even the remnants of the church he leads, lead on by the false comforts ascribed to Halone...The list is extensive once he pops that cork, and yet pop he must ,then and there, to kill the otherwise nigh unkillable Lahabrea(and his ladyfriend(Iegorhym?), had we not done the deed ourselves.)

I think Thordan's goals might not have been megalomanical at the start, but became that as the primal's interpretation of his summons. From Cilia's quotes, the name change is very important here. That the name reverts to King Thordan afterward tells me that the bishop was no longer in control of the primal, and it was the entity's will taking dominance and running with it. In the reverse example, when we see Zenos take control of Shinryu, all of his lines are still "Zenos yae Galvus", even as they are reduced to dragon roars. Shinryu's will is overtaken, hence whenever Zenos speaks with it, it is always Zenos named and not Shinryu.