[MAJOR SPOILERS] On Souls and the Lifestream

[Jaywalker]

So wth is a 'child soul'?

A child soul as in a dead seven year old. Someone who never reached adulthood because they died young. The same way that the fuath are supposed to be the souls of the drowned who resist the lifestream, pixies are specifically supposed to be the souls of people who died as children and didn't move on to the lifestream. The way your response is written it comes across like you forgot kids can also die and were thinking in terms of reverting a dead adult to a child state.

[Alleo]

I don't take those 'fairy tales' seriously tbh. I mean... if souls persist in the lifestream, there shouldn't be 'child souls', bcs... well... every soul was a child once (or twice or...) and every soul reborn would also always start as a child. So wth is a 'child soul'?

I mean:
Adult person dies
-> adult soul gets into lifestream, ready to be reborn (but not as fairy, since no child)
-> soul gets reborn in a new born child (the former adult soul is a child soul now) and dies
-> child soul gets reborn as fairy
-> soul trapped forever in a childlike state

If fairies are immortal and child souls get likely turned into fairies and fairies always and forever stay childish (and so their soul) AND the number of souls is constant.. we should run low on souls at some point, lol.

Well not everyone dies as a child and we simply dont know if we only have all souls being recycled or if new ones can be created. Anyway I think that quest pointed out that a child died (not sure if a certain age was needed) and instead of becoming part of the lifestream they somehow were left back on earth and became the new race. The same for those that drowned. So I guess that not every child that die will become one.

[QT_Melon]

Well been coming back to this after thinking about the elemental chart.

Light energy is passive and extreme amounts is static/pure.

Stasis would be no growth, just using what is there?

Darkness is active, and would promote growth but too much creates chaos?

Would the imbalance of these energies affect the way souls are or are not created?

[OgruMogru]

I think the reason not everyone is seven times rejoined is because it is only the souls of those who can keep hold of themselves through various means/motivations that are not dissipated within the lifestream. Hydaelin was summoned with express purpose to sunder and I would expect that applies to all the life energy that passes through her and onto reincarnation. At this point even if there were only a small amount of original Ascians they would have been dissipated and recombined an endless amount of times by now through generations that they would all be inextricably entangled within each other. This is where our "newer" souls are coming from, they're recombinations of everything that came before.

[manamoppet]

New souls can probably be created, if I remember the Anima weapon story correctly (please correct me if I'm wrong), where the weapon in the Lux stage have a soul created through the weapon/Anima absorbing/pressure of aether from all your fighting and the high condensation of the (stabilized) anima.

[Kyoraei]

One final thing to be considered form all of this is who we are. Speculation is that we are the 14th member of the council who left opposing the summoning of Zodiark. Whether we went on to summon Hydaelyn is up for debate. But when talking to Hythlodaeus he references the 14th member as a "she". Now going back to FFXII for a sec, there are two known Scions of Light that are female, Igeyorhm and Ultima. There is also possibly Emmerololth: The Holy Queen, because of their title, but titles can be wonky, just look at Titania. Anyways, Igeyorhm has appeared, but not Ultima. And Ultima's mythos is about her rebelling, which is sorta what the 14 council member did, so it fits. Another possible connection is Emet-Selch's "friend". Emet-Selch and Yltima are the only Seraphs/Angels, and Emet-Selch is Gemini. Maybe the 14th member was a reletive, in this case a twin sister? It's a bit of a stretch but one that has some bases.

I just went back and watched the cutscene again on my character and my friends. To clarify the gender, during the cutscene with Hythlodaeus they say "she" or "he" based on the players selected gender when talking about the soul we share with Ardbert. I got a "he" and my friend got a "she". The specific gender of the 14th member is not given, only that there were 14, but at the time of Zodiarks summoning it had been reduced to 13. The implication from the aether current quests and the final scenes leading to the end of the MSQ is that we are the 14th member, and at one time were friends with Emet-Selch but disagreed with the summoning of Zodiark, or at least the method/purpose given to the Primal when it was summoned.

Edit - Forgot to add my thing to this:

Regarding the third sacrifice to bring back the lost Ancients, it says that they would sacrifice some portion of the "living energy":

The Convocation decided thus: we would nurture our world until it was bursting with vitality. Then,when the time was right, we would offer some portion of its living energy to Zodiark... In return, He would restore to us those brethren whose souls had fed His strength, and together we would resume our role as stewards.

I personally did not take this as meaning half of the lives that were on the planet after it was repaired, instead I took it as we in the Source mean it. The living energy, that is the energy of the planet, is the natural aether that exists in the ground, the plants, the sky, the sea, etc. Just like how a beast-tribe primal drains aether from the environment and crystals (Alexander is as close to Zodiark and Hydaelyn in terms of power and he knew he would drain the world dry in it's current state), they would cultivate and saturate the world with life so that it brimmed with natural aether far exceeding the norm, then they would take an equal amount from everywhere to trade for what they wanted returned to them from Zodiark.

[Alleo]

The problem with it just being normal aether to sacrifice is the sentence where Hyth says that some wanted to give the planet and its future to the newborn life and thus were against using that life to bring back the old Ancient ones. That sounds to me that they have at least meant some kind of lifeforms and not just the aether of the planet. And seeing how huge their aether was in their own body how many lifeforms (with a high chance including sentient life too) would be needed to even bring back one of those souls?

[LineageRazor]

I wonder if the big difference in soul concepts we're seeing might have something to do with the "new life" that Zodiark created during the Second Sacrifice. Perhaps what we wound up with was souls that did not persist on death, but instead dispersed into the Lifestream to be recycled into new souls. Meanwhile, the sundered souls of the Ancients were NOT subject to this soul-blending, allowing for a more proper form of reincarnation (our own soul being one such example).

So, from the perspective of Eorzean scholars, the cycle of the Lifestream (living things die, their aether returns to the Lifestream, and new life is borne from that Aether) is completely correct - MOST of the time. It's only when the relatively uncommon Ancient soul fragment gets involved that the normal cycle is disrupted. This could also explain why the Council of Thirteen were on board with sacrificing this new life to resurrect their sacrificed people - in their minds, these ephemeral souls were not TRUE souls at all, just a temporary measure to prop up a dying planet. Proponents of Hydaelyn disagreed, feeling that the new life was just as important as the old - different, but just as beautiful and worthy of protection.

It'd be interesting if the Dotharl were all possessed of such soul fragments, and had some means of "reading' them...

A child soul as in a dead seven year old. Someone who never reached adulthood because they died young. The same way that the fuath are supposed to be the souls of the drowned who resist the lifestream, pixies are specifically supposed to be the souls of people who died as children and didn't move on to the lifestream. The way your response is written it comes across like you forgot kids can also die and were thinking in terms of reverting a dead adult to a child state.

I believe that Neophyte was speaking against the concept of whole souls persisting through multiple reincarnations. If your soul has lived dozens of full lives, dying of old age, and it just happens that THIS time you died as a child, are you suddenly qualified to become a fairy? Even though your soul has been an old man or woman several times over?

If there are two kinds of souls, those that persist through reincarnations, and those that break up and recombine to form new souls, then this could address the question. Only recombined souls would be eligible for becoming fairies.

[Jaywalker]

I believe that Neophyte was speaking against the concept of whole souls persisting through multiple reincarnations. If your soul has lived dozens of full lives, dying of old age, and it just happens that THIS time you died as a child, are you suddenly qualified to become a fairy? Even though your soul has been an old man or woman several times over?

If there are two kinds of souls, those that persist through reincarnations, and those that break up and recombine to form new souls, then this could address the question. Only recombined souls would be eligible for becoming fairies.

Honestly I think it's probably a situation where it depends on the will of that particular soul upon death and how strong that will is.

Ex. Not every single dead child becomes a pixie, same way not every drowned person becomes a fuath. I personally figure that if a soul had past lives but was able to conclude them at peace with their death or without further business to attend, they're able to return to the Lifestream. If the soul has past lives but this most recent life has a burning need to remain for some reason, they become pixies, fuath, undead, etc. Would depend on the current state of the soul.

It's possible for pixies, fuath, and undead to be truly killed in-game, so it's not like this is 100% forever state of being. But it does afford more time.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

We learn from Emet's 'friend' that half of the population sacrificed themselves (more accurately their creation energies which amounted to the same thing) to summon Zodiark. Emet casually mentions, in the cave with the ancient murals, that the ones who were left alive after the summoning were instantly Tempered. The remaining population used their creation energies to create lesser lifeforms (i.e.-- the current races/lifeforms) as fodder to ressurrect those that gave their lives for the summoning. However, conflict arose when the morality of sacrificing these lifeforms came into question. It is hinted that the leader of this dissention is the 'missing' member of the Council of 14 (and quite possibly us, if we are indeed a shard of that same soul). The correllation between the remaining 13 members and the fact that there are 13 shards is significant. What we don't know is how Hydaelyn was summoned. The story implies that whoever was left was Tempered and yet there was enough dissention in the remaining ascians that Hydaelyn not only came to be but was able to defeat Zodiark. This is where the numbers don't add up. I can't remember specifically but I think there were two calamities and I don't know if they ended up sacrificing half, then half of that or if it was a smaller number for both that ended up amounting to the same. In any case theres definitely more questions than answers at this point.