Primal Indoctrination and Beast Tribe Colors

[LineageRazor]

The Kojin of the Blue refer to themselves as the Kojin of the Blue, in spite of the fact that they are green. The humans in-game are confused by this, as well, but it would be rude to refer to them as Green when they desire to be referred to as Blue.

Since there is in-game dialog where this difficulty is explained to the player - dialog that exists in the Japanese, as well - trying to pave over it all just because someone might THINK a localization error is going on seems unwise. This is especially true if you consider the fact that in future updates, the Japanese dialog might refer to this Green/Blue confusion again. I think they did the right think in keeping it, and rather than trying to explain the archaic Japanese origins, play it off as a quirk of the Blue tribe that everyone just goes along with.

[Enkidoh]

Just my personal musings but it seems to me that why SE chose to depict the tempered sylphs a different colour to their untempered brethren compared to the ixal and amalj'aa might be for gameplay reasons and not lore reasons - all three beast tribes have been a part of the game since version 1.0, however in 1.0 the ixal and amalj'aa were both already tempered by the time they were first encountered by the player in 1.0, but the sylphs were not (in fact, the player's Path Companion remarked in 1.0 that they hadn't noticed any 'major' change to the ixal and amalj'aa, save for being "a touch more highly strung", showing that it was merely behaviour that changed and not their physical appearance from tempering.

As the sylphs only recently summoned Ramuh by the time of ARR and the ones who summoned him were tempered accordingly, and even then, it was not their entire race, there needed to be a more visual indication of the 'touched' sylphs being 'different' from their more benign kin, so a change of colour was probably the easiest way to do so. So it's probably just pure pragmatism from a gameplay perspective, rather than a deeper lore implication of it.

[Aosha]

Here's a random thought: The other beast tribes (generally) have a colour difference in their clothing. Sylphs don't wear clothes. What if the tempered sylphs dye themselves (maybe the same way you can dye roses/other flowers?) to show devotion to their lightning god (purple being the colour sign of lightning in XIV)? That way there would be no immediate physical change to them either.
Might be a bit of a stretch though.

[Yuriane]

What if the tempered sylphs dye themselves (maybe the same way you can dye roses/other flowers?) to show devotion to their lightning god? Might be a bit of a stretch though.

I actually like that one. I always thought like sylphs were probably more aetherially charged than other Spoken races, I mean they'd have to be to spend 90% of their time flying with wings as small as that. So I figured it was Ramuh's aether that dyed them, because they've already so much aether in their bodies (probably Wind because y'know they're green and can fly but that's just rampant speculation)

[BillyKaplan]

Tempering varies between Primals, that's been thoroughly established within the lore. Even the touched Sylphs seek to temper the ones from Little Solace not to feed Ramuh's following, but to bridge the gaps formed between their people. This is opposed to the, say, Amalj'aa who kidnap people all over Southern Thanalan for Ifrit's army, or the Sahagin who 'drown' whoever they can. Then you have the Kobolds who couldn't rightly care less about tempering even their own people so much as getting revenge on the humans.

Then we have the case of the pirates in Sastasha (HM), who appear to not be tempered in mind, but whose bodies were corrupted due to over-exposure to Leviathan's aether. Highly likely the Sylphs changed color as a result of the tempering, as one of Ramuh's traits seems to be that he's very territorial.

[CaesarCV]

Tempering can have wildly different effects to be certain. While Ifrit's tempering seems to turn people into constantly worshiping thralls, Lakshmi instead brings her tempered into dreams of eternal bliss. Sophia seemed to turn her tempered into fanatically loyal followers willing to die for her cause, and even makes them reflect their goddess, gaining the stark black skin and golden coloration. Meanwhile we have the Tempered of Thordan, who's blessing/tempering allows them to transform into powerful knights. Tempering can certainly have physical effects, but not all of the, do. I kind of like how different primals have different effects for their followers, it gives a cool extra theme to each of the malevolent deities.

[Lazaruz]

Meanwhile we have the Tempered of Thordan, who's blessing/tempering allows them to transform into powerful knights.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasnt that actually more along the lines the Heavens' Ward knights becomming avatars of Thordan I's twelve knights by summoning each one individually and inside themselves (much like Ysale with Shiva and Thordan VII with King Thordan)?
I vaguely recall the MSQ going into short details of the knights you fight in The Vault having more or less displayed feats that were attributed to one of King Thordan's knights (and The Vault occurs before you even get to Azys Lla, where King Thordan is summoned)

(TL;DR I thought the 12 knights alongisde Thordan were sepparately summoned, not a result of tempering?)

You're absolutely correct though about the rest, especially Tempering having the potential for physical side effects, as we learn in Sastasha HM, but it seems to be caused by a prolonged exposure to the primals aether (or possibly in the case of sylphs things like the change in colour might happen rapidly if they're aethericly sensitive), not just regular Tempering

[Cybylt]

Well I thought I'd share the recent news and confirmation that the 12 Knights are not Primals.


http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/blog/001318.html

Unsurprisingly, Enkidu is also a Primal

King Thordan and his knights are a singular entity. That the knights are capable of things attributed to the originals doesn't mean they are individual primals.

[Canadane]

Link wont open. Still the question stands, if its a play on ao which is blue or green, why not just say green instead of blue in the English translation since to us it just looks like bad localization.

If you have to explain your witticism or joke its neither. This also applies to devs.

They explain it in the MSQ.
Yes, I agree that explaining a joke may ruin it somewhat, but it's not just a joke but a lore real explanation of why they did it.

[Lazaruz]

King Thordan and his knights are a singular entity. That the knights are capable of things attributed to the originals doesn't mean they are individual primals.

Fair enough. The connection was tenuous at best regardless (Plus Knights of the Round, the summon he's supposed to be, includes all 12 knights along with it)

I question though how the knights the Heavens' Ward turn into, are connected to Thordan when the MSQ seems to clearly imply King Thordan wasnt summoned untill Azys Lla, and The Vault clearly shows a minimum of 4 Knights existing long before Thordan VII became God King Thordan.