Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[Alleo]

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.

He stopped the apocalypse then the remaining ancient ones saw that the planet was ruined anyway. Water was poisoned, the land was death and more. And this is why they sacrificed another round of souls so that he can restore the planet to how it was before. So this could of course include all the cities but why then not the animals too? Since as far as we know alot of these lifeforms were created by the ancient ones and sometimes even used to be turned into crystals.

We also do not know if he was truly hungry for aether and just seeminlgy forced the tempered Ascians for more sacrifice in the form of the promise of bringing back the rest. We imo simply cant use the workings of lower primals right now because these were beings on a whole other scale. (And the Ascian could have simply taught us a faulty version of the summoning, so that they will hurt the land) Maybe he needed constant aether or maybe all of this could have been avoided if the Ascians just moved on. I also still believe that they wanted to sacrifice future people to this. I somehow doubt that (if its even possible) Zodiark would accept common lifeforms in exchange for souls of beings that have such a huge amount of aether in them that they can create nearly everything with their mind. Seeing how the theme of the expansion was, that living in the past is bad and that one should walk towards a better future for others, I believe that they truly meant to sacrifice future people to get their friends and family back. Of course this could all change if we get the information that the other races existed along side the Ancient ones but did not have the power and they meant them for sacrifice (but than its still people). But as far as we know the ancient ones were the only ones that lived on that planet. And seeing how they saw creation (even creatures) just as some kind of experiment, well I am just not sure if they would be against using that to get their people back.

I mean they see us as not alive because of our imperfect souls..but we do have souls and even their emotions. How far lower would then even creatures be?

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.

And if the 14th was the one who summoned her, why does she have massive amount of blood on her or even our hands (because it was made quite clear that we are not the old person. We just have the soul) or why is it selfish? The Ancient ones sacrificed themselves willingly! They did that to ensure that others can survive. Emet even goes on and tries to talk our imperfect races down because he cant believe that our races would do such a selfless sacrifice. It would be strange if they talk about this in a way to show how good those were, if they only agreed to this if they are brought back. No I do believe that the story shows that they did that with the knowledge that they would be death.

It was the Ascians that stepped on their wishes for selfish reasons and tried to bring them back with massive amount of blood on their hands. It was them who started all of this splitting..if they had accepted their sacrifice then as far as we know all might have been well. But they did not accept it and planned to raise huge amount of lifes who are meant to be unwillingly sacrificed to bring the old ones back. Those that summoned Hydealyn probably did try to reason with them. (I mean the Ancient seemingly loved to discuss stuff x)) And in the end maybe this was the only way to stop this massacker of huge amount of new lifes. Since they were against sacrificing new life, they would surely not summon something that will need that life..so there is a huge chance that they only sacrificed their own lifes willingly to stop Zodiark and the Ascians and maybe the only way to stop him was to split him up. We have no idea if the split itself killed the new life but at the same time this kinda would not be possible, because if nothing is there anymore and they dont have the amount of creation magic nothing would have been there after the split, thus no new life. So they must have survived it in some ways.

Nah I think the circumstances they were worried about. I think it makes a bit more sense narrative wise that the group sacrificed themselves and not others. I still feel the 14th may not have been the summon but the failsafe/witness in case something went wrong - especially since there was no telling if their will would work correctly. I mean after all there is that saying about insanity in repeating something and expecting different results. Sundering may have been an unexpected byproduct of all of it.

Obviously their race even admitted their creation magic has results they don't think of - so wouldn't it make sense to have someone outside the two summons to deal with the possibility of something unexpected happening?

Hm maybe I remember it wrong, but wasnt it said that the summoners gave Hydealyn the ability to split the essence of every thing? Why would you give her something like that if you dont intent to use it?