Reinterpreting Answers after Shadowbringers

[Raiya]

There is certainly ample evidence to suggest the WOL is tempered by Hydealyn but still retains free will.

Another way of looking at Hydealyn is that she is essentially an ANTI-Primal, created far differently than Zodiark who was the First. Zodiark was an attempt to stabilise the world and restore it after the End of Days/Terminus but to do so he needed fuel to be able to act which meant more Aether etc, the problem is that eventually with half the surviving population lost to create zodiark and another half of those lost to restore life to the world that eventually there would be nothing left. He even has to bend the will of people by Temperment possibly to stop disintegrating or simply to stop the survivors basically being scared shitless into summoning monstrosities by accident which looks to be the original cause of the Termination: Some horror appeared and murdered people and those witnessing it were so terrified they ended up accidentally creating more by mistake which kills others which ends up triggering a runaway effect.

Those who survived realised that if they kept just offering up more to Zodiark it would possibly end up consuming everything so they summon Hydaelyn, she's summoned but her tempering doesn't enslave people in a traditional sense but rather acts the opposite: Her influence shield's the person's will from any external interference. There's likely more to her as well as Zodiark being the first should have had vastly more power than a newlyborn Hydaelyn but not only did she win with a fraction of the power Zodiark had but ended up hitting Zodiark so damn hard it shattered reality into 14 different worlds. It will be interesting to see what happens down the line but I expect both Zodiark and Hydaelyns true power and abilitys to be drastically different from the regular run of the mill primal which are essentially cheap knockoff's of other original beings.

[Anvaire]

Another way of looking at Hydealyn is that she is essentially an ANTI-Primal, created far differently than Zodiark who was the First. Zodiark was an attempt to stabilise the world and restore it after the End of Days/Terminus but to do so he needed fuel to be able to act which meant more Aether etc, the problem is that eventually with half the surviving population lost to create zodiark and another half of those lost to restore life to the world that eventually there would be nothing left. He even has to bend the will of people by Temperment possibly to stop disintegrating or simply to stop the survivors basically being scared shitless into summoning monstrosities by accident which looks to be the original cause of the Termination: Some horror appeared and murdered people and those witnessing it were so terrified they ended up accidentally creating more by mistake which kills others which ends up triggering a runaway effect.

Those who survived realised that if they kept just offering up more to Zodiark it would possibly end up consuming everything so they summon Hydaelyn, she's summoned but her tempering doesn't enslave people in a traditional sense but rather acts the opposite: Her influence shield's the person's will from any external interference. There's likely more to her as well as Zodiark being the first should have had vastly more power than a newlyborn Hydaelyn but not only did she win with a fraction of the power Zodiark had but ended up hitting Zodiark so damn hard it shattered reality into 14 different worlds. It will be interesting to see what happens down the line but I expect both Zodiark and Hydaelyns true power and abilities to be drastically different from the regular run of the mill primal which are essentially cheap knockoff's of other original beings.

I think what we are missing is knowing what exactly tempering is. We know from Ifrit NM that it can affect the mind, from Ramuh that it isn't a conscious thing and from Satasha Hard Mode that repeated tempering causes the aetherical form of the body to mutate (the pirates from the original Satasha were repeatedly "drowned" by Leviathan and mutated into fish men)

There is also the added caveat of elemental polarity - Astral active is Growth and change and Darkness, and Umbral passive is sterility and light. We know Zodiark's original purpose was to rewrite the rules of creation and restore life. Whereas Hydealyn was summoned to limit His power and did so via the sundering. I think, however, that this was a side effect of her battle and not the intended purpose of her power.

If we surmise that Zodiark is growth and Hydealyn is the counter Sterility, then it is not necessarily unthinkable that she would win. Her power and purpose were built around containing Zodiark. Whereas his was built around restructuring the laws of the cosmos and facilitating growth and evolution(assumed).

In this regard it makes sense why to bring him into being they needed half the souls, and then to facilitate growth needed another half of what was left. What we do not know is the scope that half pertains to. Is it the whole planet? or just the Amurotians? Going further, there is no evidence to suggest that had Hydealyn not been summoned, he would have bled life from the star itself.

The Amaurotian Creations seem different from primals due to the vast wells of Aether they naturally had. If I recall Alphinaud or Urianger touch on the subject saying it would be impossible for them without a vast horde of crystals and aether. I, therefore, wonder if the essence of Zodiark and Hydealyn boils down to souls. Zodiark is said to still hold the sould of the sacrifices, my question is why? Surely those souls would have dissipated and been used up. But Emet Selch specifically spoke about retrieving them following the Ardor. Which makes me wonder whether there is a relation between the soul (which was referred to as the spark of life) and Aether. One theory I came up with is that souls naturally produce or draw aether to itself, therefore sustaining the primal. This is pure speculation on my part, but I think it would make sense if this was the case.

The biggest flaw I can see in the argument that Zodiark had to be stopped because he needed an endless sacrifice to sustain himself, is that he hasn't had that sacrifice for a long time, and by all accounts still exists. If the souls draw or create Aether then it would make sense that he does still exist without sacrifice, unless with each rejoining the aether of that shard goes to Zodiark as the will of the star, rather than Hydealyn- its custodian.