The Ascian Question: Have the Ascians ever lied?

[QT_Melon]

What exactly has Hydaelyn lied about? To my knowledge she hasn't lied about anything or told a half-truth; like the Ascians, she simply hasn't explained damn near anything. We've got all these cryptic hints from them both, but we don't really have a clear, in-depth picture of the greater conflict we were dragged into.

It's a kind of glaring omission that she's a primal....Especially since we were basically told to go around and get rid of them since they cause harm to the environment.

[Hezzlocks]

It's a kind of glaring omission that she's a primal....Especially since we were basically told to go around and get rid of them since they cause harm to the environment.

To my recollection, Hydaelin has not even once asked us to go kill Primals. Stop the Ascians, yes, but I don't believe she's ever directly asked us to kill Primals. It's the Scions that tell us to do that, because they know the affects Primals have on the land. The fact that you never talk to Hydaelin about Primals kinda rules that out as a lie, even as a lie of omission, because it's a subject that just doesn't come up in general with her.

[Seraph522]

It's a kind of glaring omission that she's a primal....Especially since we were basically told to go around and get rid of them since they cause harm to the environment.

To my recollection, Hydaelin has not even once asked us to go kill Primals. Stop the Ascians, yes, but I don't believe she's ever directly asked us to kill Primals. It's the Scions that tell us to do that, because they know the affects Primals have on the land. The fact that you never talk to Hydaelin about Primals kinda rules that out as a lie, even as a lie of omission, because it's a subject that just doesn't come up in general with her.

To build on what Hezzlocks said (which is spot on - she's never directed us after primals, as that's something we've been lead to do by the Scions), we've had remarkably few conversations with Hydaelyn directly; we had a handful of short conversations during 2.0, and then we didn't directly hear from her until the 3.X patches. The longest conversation I believe we've had with her was during 3.3, via Word!Minfilia, and that conversation barely gave her enough time to inform us of the presence of the Shards and their general origin - namely, the conflict with Zodiark. Even with Minfilia acting as her voice, she's barely strong enough to tell us about that conflict and ask us to stop the Ascians. She could be hiding something from us, but it's more likely that she hasn't been strong enough to have that necessary conversation about what exactly she is.

And, of course, always take anything Ascians say with a grain of salt; what Solus means when he calls Zodiark and Hydaelyn 'primals' remains to be seen.

[Anonymoose]

It's a kind of glaring omission that she's a primal...

Primals don't know they're primals; they believe they are what their summoners expected them to be.

Ifrit believes he's the one true god.
Garuda believes she's the one true god.
Bahamut believes he's Bahamut.

Even the vague essence of Shiva that Ysayle allowed into her soul gave her a sense that she was truly a vessel for the soul of Saint Shiva.

[YianKutku]

Primals don't know they're primals; they believe they are what their summoners expected them to be.

Ifrit believes he's the one true god.
Garuda believes she's the one true god.
Bahamut believes he's Bahamut.

Even the vague essence of Shiva that Ysayle allowed into her soul gave her a sense that she was truly a vessel for the soul of Saint Shiva.

Does this apply to Alexander? I can imagine that at the moment Alexander was summoned, he may have believed whatever he was summoned to be (home of Goblinkind?), but then had enough Future Knowledge to figure out that he was a Primal, with all that implied.

(I'm not even going to go into Phoenix.)

[QT_Melon]

Primals don't know they're primals; they believe they are what their summoners expected them to be.

Ifrit believes he's the one true god.
Garuda believes she's the one true god.
Bahamut believes he's Bahamut.

Even the vague essence of Shiva that Ysayle allowed into her soul gave her a sense that she was truly a vessel for the soul of Saint Shiva.

That is true for most Primals, but not all Primals. Like I said earlier she is the thoughtform of what people believe a "good god" should be. As far as her consuming Aether it's been noted that she is.

The cave painting is the singular original being, then the split as people had their concepts of "good and bad" (like Ramuh said) the the other painting is Hydaelyn shattering (look at the feet) there isn't a (which way is this to be read) if you look carefully. It's showing her doing the Sundering or Split. This knowledge of it (the cave painting of history)of course was lost due the various calamities.

Also not so fast on her never telling us to kill primals. She gave us the vision to get the crystals, those crystals were housed in Primals as well. The vision she gave us was the darkness that the Ascians were causing. The Ascians were summoning Primals. She has been actively telling us to banish the darkness. Not capture it, banish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk8xv5wWtjE

(interesting to see other shards of ourselves [as in WoLs not *ourselves*] go forth and do the same but anyways).

I think you're also hitting the root problem with Hydaelyn though not sure if you are aware of it. Her being a Primal she is "our creation" - man made so therefore she will have the faults because she contains what is mankind's concept of good. Since these traits are what are seen as good, it's likely we will excuse the faults in those paths (when explaining Hydaeyln is different and not really meant to "harm" us).

As far as not specifically telling us to kill Primals, okay why are we subscribing to Ascian double talk on her behalf? She literally congratulates us on several occasions for overcoming various trials, including re establishing our connection to her and says we still aren't done and still need to spray our Darkness-b-gone.

[GenBroadaxe]

I think you're also hitting the root problem with Hydaelyn though not sure if you are aware of it. Her being a Primal she is "our creation" - man made so therefore she will have the faults because she contains what is mankind's concept of good. Since these traits are what are seen as good, it's likely we will excuse the faults in those paths (when explaining Hydaeyln is different and not really meant to "harm" us).

I think the post ARR stories have also been setting us up to make us think of primals in less black and white terms. As Iscah mentioned, Hydaeyln is in a unique position where she's not being summoned, she communicates to us in another plane, and is able to act on our plane at will (to her detriment since it weakens her). It could be that she's a capital P primal who is a being that has always been there in some way while others are lower P primals who are created by the will of mortals and therefore act by different rules.

Hydaeyln continually tells us to "Hear, feel, think" which to me says she wants us to be independent and make our own path, so I don't think we're going to become antagonistic to her when we have to battle the light. After all, she sent her avatar to the First to help stop the flood of light which shows that she knows that a balance has to be maintained as well. Unlike the Ascians, she listened to the WoD and acted to help them. The big difference being is that Hydaeyln maintains balance to maintain life, while the Ascians want a balance in their favor to cause rejoinings which would destroy life and empower Zodiark. So while Ascians aren't directly lying when they talk about balance, they're also omitting that whole "oh yeah and you all will die, but we're beings who live outside the natural flow of things so we're good" aspect to it.

From everything I've seen Hydaelyn has been truthful in the brief moments she can communicate with us. She wants the balance to stay in Light's favor because it means life continues. The Ascians can never be fully honest with us because balance favoring darkness means rejoinings and the destruction of mortal life.

[QT_Melon]

I think the post ARR stories have also been setting us up to make us think of primals in less black and white terms. As Iscah mentioned, Hydaeyln is in a unique position where she's not being summoned, she communicates to us in another plane, and is able to act on our plane at will (to her detriment since it weakens her). It could be that she's a capital P primal who is a being that has always been there in some way while others are lower P primals who are created by the will of mortals and therefore act by different rules.
From everything I've seen Hydaelyn has been truthful in the brief moments she can communicate with us. She wants the balance to stay in Light's favor because it means life continues. The Ascians can never be fully honest with us because balance favoring darkness means rejoinings and the destruction of mortal life.

As far as the primal narrative - it's a bit more than that. From what I see it, not just "primals =good/bad"

It's more of an allegory towards today's religious beliefs. Everyone blames religion but it's "man" that has created it. Not that religion is inherently bad, but it's a cautionary tale.

I think that's what the setup is. We see "life is good" preserve it at all costs. It's an ideal mankind has set up.

We naturally don't trust Darkness - it's chaotic, destructive, and unorganized. It means it can destroy those we love and care about.

She *never* has talked about Balance, yet this is what the Ascians have mentioned. We fear the consequences of said balance because yes, that means life is lost. Rejoining will obviously kill off life on other shards. So here lies a moral conflict. We would naturally side with preserving life.

For the record: yes she went to the First after it was getting the Flood of Light - based off her orders on banishing the Dark. However, she only stopped the Flood (which is that shell thingy you see in the illustration as far as I can tell). Not exactly eradicated it because of preservation of life. Which is why we're in the situation we're in.