Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[Nightsword]

Again...please show me the spot where it was specifically said that was the case?

Citation needed.

Snip

Honestly both of you are wrong.

Zodiark stopped the cataclysm and then repaired the damage it wrought, i.e. rebuilt the cities but did not create new life. The new life first about came about via the surviving Amaurotians creation magic and any other life forms that survived the cataclysm and then spread around the planet naturally. After that Zodiark behaved as the primals do now, to devour aether and exist by any means necessary and as such demanded the aether of all new the life with a promise that was more likely a lie as the Amaurotian souls and their aether used to create him were gone. We even have examples of this on smaller scale creations as shown in the side quests and MSQ in Amaurot when an Amaurotian sacrifices their soul and aether for their creation, let alone the present examples of primals devouring souls. The non-tempered Amaurotines saw through this and summoned Hydaelyn to stop impending cataclysm that the tempered Amaurotians traded the last one for and to protect the new life from being devoured by Zodiark. Neither had anything do with life beyond that. As it is the Lifestream that dictates what happens to souls and their aether after death if it wasn't devoured, and which has always existed before and after the creation of Zodiark and Hydaelyn.

And yes it is out right stated that Amaurotians as a whole were functionally immortal and could only die via injury or if they gave up the life for a creation. Their aging likely stopped after reaching full maturity like Tolkien elves and what not.

[Ilenya]

Two random trains of thoughts.

I see a lot of comments talking about how Hydaelyn/Zodiark needed a constant source of aether, but do we know this is the case beyond "Other Primals require it"? It's entirely possible the Creation magic used to summon them made that not happen, and the lesser magics used to summon our Primals made them bleed the aether that would otherwise keep them fine and require them to constantly consume aether to stay around. This is just a random theory, but I'm curious.

The other train of thought about the two is how things went down between them. By all appearances, as a whole Zodiark should have a higher potential level of strength over Hydaelyn, I think. I'm wondering if, when the two ended up fighting, it was less a fight and more an agreement. If both are supposed to be the will of the Star, both would want life to go on, right? Zodiark may not have wanted the sacrifice the Ascians were planning to happen, either due to wanting the new life to have a chance, or because he just couldn't do what they asked. Hydaelyn gives him an out. Seal Zodiark, his power is now out of reach, and with enough fudging of history and the passage of time, hypothetically Zodiark will be forgotten, but there would be a means of bringing him back if required (AKA, another Calamity like the First one). Unfortunately for the two Primals, some Ascians remember everything, but remember it in a one-sided manner or were not involved with the conversation. Hydaelyn then has to tap into people (WoLs) to try and stop the plan both Primals wanted to avoid.

The other thought...

So maybe I am misremembering the White Aetheryte, but why did we never stuff the Light into it? I mean, obviously the Light from Lakeland's Light Warden would have been absorbed by the WoL/D, but every Light Warden after we were aware of the Aetheryte, but just...Never used it. Is there some specific reason that couldn't have worked? Did no one think "Hey, this can hold Aether. Why don't we try using this on the Light and see what happens?" Was the plan that reliant on the WoL/D that they never tried to think of an alternative?

Or am I overestimating what the thing can do?

[QT_Melon]

Honestly both of you are wrong.

That's FINE.
There's nothing wrong with me misunderstanding or missing out on information provided.
I was asking for citations and resources as to where it was stated.

So see if this information, basics is correct

Zodiark did save through summoning and tempering those who summoned him was the first problem because they will not resist him.
The next issue was that he needed to be kept in check once it was seen what happens with primals.
Hydaelyn became the counterpoint meant to bind him to prevent another tempering, the summoners sacrificed themselves.

Correct?

[Nightsword]

That's FINE.
There's nothing wrong with me misunderstanding or missing out on information provided.
I was asking for citations and resources as to where it was stated.

So see if this information, basics is correct

Zodiark did save through summoning and tempering those who summoned him was the first problem because they will not resist him.
The next issue was that he needed to be kept in check once it was seen what happens with primals.
Hydaelyn became the counterpoint meant to bind him to prevent another tempering, the summoners sacrificed themselves.

Correct?

Mostly, it was stop Zodiark from devouring all the new life, that non-tempered Amaurotians felt should inherit the planet as they felt their time had ended. This comes from MSQ (Hythlodaeus's conversation) and the Amaurot side quests, and from Emet himself and all the previous examples of Primals doing these things, Leviathan with the Shangin Priest, Lahabrea and Igeyorhm being used as fuel for the King Thordan summoning, and Lakshmi only able to create soulless husks from the dead.

[QT_Melon]

Mostly, it was stop Zodiark from devouring all the new life, that non-tempered Amaurotians felt should inherit the planet as they felt their time had ended. This comes from MSQ (Hythlodaeus's conversation) and the Amaurot side quests, and from Emet himself and all the previous examples of Primals doing these things, Leviathan with the Shangin Priest, Lahabrea and Igeyorhm being used as fuel for the King Thordan summoning, and Lakshmi only able to create soulless husks from the dead.

Right, I never questioned them being tempered. The only difference with Hydaelyn is that they sacrificed themselves after seeing the nature of what happens when you summon a primal leaving none to be technically tempered by her?

[CaesarCV]

Right, I never questioned them being tempered. The only difference with Hydaelyn is that they sacrificed themselves after seeing the nature of what happens when you summon a primal leaving none to be technically tempered by her?

We're not sure if any of the surviving Hydelyn Sect members were tempered, or if any of them survived the sundering. Their identity is actually the biggest mystery left in the scenario, since we know very little about them. It's fairly safe to assume either they all died in the summoning, the presumed war between them and the Ascians or in the sundering thereafter however. Why? Because none of them have appeared lol.

[Nightsword]

Right, I never questioned them being tempered. The only difference with Hydaelyn is that they sacrificed themselves after seeing the nature of what happens when you summon a primal leaving none to be technically tempered by her?

Aye, her summoners are implied to be all gone and the remaining Amaurotians, save for the three paragons were sundered in the split and became proto-races that evolved or were modifed into the modern ones. With what info was in game, seems it seems the sundering also diluted Zodiark's tempering on any that were sundered. It could be that tempering only effects the living mind and not the soul unless a being becomes Ascian like where mind and soul are one.

Edit- One thing to clarify, I'm using "Amaurotian" for the race as whole. Hydaelyn's summoners were part of survivors of the Cataclysm, but not necessarily all native to the Amaurot City State.

[Eyvind]

A few things I haven't seen mentioned in the 31 pages so far of this lore thread.

The first is Seal Rock of all things...

I realize that the island that popped out of the waves was the opposite side of Vylbrand from Amaurot, but that city is so huge and Vylbrand so small by comparison that I honestly wonder if Seal Island is another part of the city. For those who don't know, the PvP area was on the bottom of the ocean until one day ot decided to rise out of the waves with no notice shortly before Dalamud fell. There were Allagan ruins on it, a stone tablet written in Sahagin...and a curious horn that the Ascians were obsessed with. Known as a "key" to the Sharlayans, it was one of several horns - another is in Louisoix's staff which we used to kill our first Ascian. The Ascians stole it, and the lore book itself hints that the horn was used in the summoning of Titan and Leviathan. I'm now wondering in ruins of Amaurot were still there in the days of Allagan, and if the ruins were built on top of them to study it. I also wonder if the "keys" were made to summon Zodiark, and that's why the Ascians know of them and repurpose them for summoning primals.

I also did not see anything about the name of a certain chatty shadow:

Outside FF14, Hythlodaeus only appears in one other piece of media I know: Thomas More's Utopia, written more than 500 years ago. There he is the one who tells the narrator how things work in the perfect society, but there has always been a question of whether More intended us to take him seriously. You see, his name means "dispenser of nonsense"

While we're getting literary, how about those Shakespeare references:

If anyone has any doubts that The Tempest refers to the Shakespeare play, two of its regions are named for two of the characters, Caliban and Trinculo.

For anyone who has not read the play or seen it, it is about an elderly wizard named Prospero who used to rule the Italian city of Milan, but who was forced out and exiled with his baby daughter to an island. He hones his magic to get off the island, and get his revenge...but when his enemy's ship gets close enough to his island to shipwreck, and he takes him prisoner, he is moved to mercy by his daughter Miranda. See, Miranda has never met any humans but her father and his two weird servants. When she sees the passengers of the ship, she is moved to wonder, saying "What strange new world that has such people in it," and she falls in love with the enemy's son. Prospero is moved to mercy, makes peace with his enemy, and returns to his city.

Prospero here is clearly Emet-Selch, and I'd argue that Miranda is Hythlodaeus...but Emet-Selch will not be moved, can't find any love or mercy for the "strange new world that has such people in it." So it becomes a tragedy rather than a comedy.

Those were the things I did not see talked about in the thread.

[Ilenya]

Known as a "key" to the Sharlayans, it was one of several horns

There are more???

[Kallera]

We're not sure if any of the surviving Hydelyn Sect members were tempered, or if any of them survived the sundering. Their identity is actually the biggest mystery left in the scenario, since we know very little about them. It's fairly safe to assume either they all died in the summoning, the presumed war between them and the Ascians or in the sundering thereafter however. Why? Because none of them have appeared lol.

Kinda is worrying if our character’s amaroutine is the one that summoned Hydaelyn. To say nothing of the vast amount of potential blood on our hands, it would add a rather selfish motive that taints what we do.