(ShB Spoilers) Didn't Hydaelyn, uh...

[ShinShimon]

It's way too black and white in Zodiark's favot if the Ascians are right. I'm assuming that Hydaelyn and co. had better reasoning than "aLl liFE iS sAcReD, you can't sacrifice trees to revive your friends".

Theories:
1. The only way to prevent another apocalypse with full-power Ancients around is to temper them, removing their free will. That's all Zodiark does - "rewriting the laws if reality" is just BS. Hydaelyn and co decide that sundered beinglets with free will is a better future than one full of happy immortal ancients enslaved to Zodiark forever.

2. Zodiark is just another aether-hungry primal. Recovering aether/souls from him was always a hopeless pipe dream, and if left at full power he would continue to demand sacrifices and gorge himself on aether until there is nothing left but him. Hydaelyn sunders the world because that is the only way for there to be any world in the long term.

I favor 2, because there were clearly untempered Ancients around if Hydaelyn was able to be summoned.

[Edax]

It's way too black and white in Zodiark's favot if the Ascians are right. I'm assuming that Hydaelyn and co. had better reasoning than "aLl liFE iS sAcReD, you can't sacrifice trees to revive your friends".

Theories:
1. The only way to prevent another apocalypse with full-power Ancients around is to temper them, removing their free will. That's all Zodiark does - "rewriting the laws if reality" is just BS. Hydaelyn and co decide that sundered beinglets with free will is a better future than one full of happy immortal ancients enslaved to Zodiark forever.

2. Zodiark is just another aether-hungry primal. Recovering aether/souls from him was always a hopeless pipe dream, and if left at full power he would continue to demand sacrifices and gorge himself on aether until there is nothing left but him. Hydaelyn sunders the world because that is the only way for there to be any world in the long term.

I favor 2, because there were clearly untempered Ancients around if Hydaelyn was able to be summoned.

We have seen Primals and a certain someone from the DRK storyline summon people from the dead. The resurrected don't come back right. It could be the Ancients already knew this but because their de facto government (The Convocation) was tempered and possibly indoctrinated into thinking Zodiark was special. If the untempered Ancients thought Zodiark couldn't bring back the dead properly, then this could have resulted in the schism that destroyed Amaurot.

[Brightamethyst]

The Twelve really are slowly bleeding the land dry

What? No.

That would be true if the Twelve were constantly summoned as primals, but they're not. People worship and invoke the Twelve, but no one is summoning them. (aside from the one time at Carteneau, sort of.)

[Absimiliard]

What? No.

That would be true if the Twelve were constantly summoned as primals, but they're not. People worship and invoke the Twelve, but no one is summoning them. (aside from the one time at Carteneau, sort of.)

And what is going to happen when something happens that pushes Eorzea's citizens beyond the despair event horizon? They'll cave in and try to summon The Twelve. Louisoix was smart enough to only summon partial manifestations when he did it - they had vague forms and some power, but none of those conjurations had any actual will of their own. They were woefully incomplete and simply not up to the task at hand. While we do not know if full manifestations of The Twelve could've re-sealed Bahamut, we do know that the amount of aether required for Louisoix to even partially summon them was monumental to say the least. A full manifestation of The Twelve would in all likelihood have catastrophic consequences. The Twelve being inherently more powerful than most other primals, courtesy of the sheer volume of faith and prayers available to them, would doubtless consume heretofore unseen amounts of aether.

In any case, it was established a long time ago that The Twelve may actually passively consume a certain amount of aether without having to actually be summoned due to the overwhelming amounts of prayer and supplication in their name. It was never confirmed, but the mere fact that it's been mentioned is at least worth noting.

[Alleo]

A sacrifice of presumably non-sapient life to bring back heroes that gave their lives to save their world and people really doesn't sound that bad, if you think about it.


The Warrior of Light's nature is largely up to the player to decide.

As others have pointed out I am quite sure that a lot of Ancients would have had no problem if it was simply just animals or plants to sacrifice (seeing how its fine to capture that monster and turn it into a crystal so that we can craft our own robes) so I doubt that this was the case. Hydealyn talks about the spoken races as her children, if she was created to protect the new life it would makes sense that she would see them as her children, right? And suddenly it turns from using some kind of lifeforms into them wanting to destroy sapient life. Also these ancient ones gave their life willingly for the future of the planet, would they truly be fine if they came back and see what they have done? Would the Asicans stop? What if the sacrifice would have destroyed part of the ecosystem and thus a cycle of sacrifice would begin.

Also we have no hint that these souls even still exists in there. We know from our primals that they cant bring back the death, just soulless copies of them. We also know that Zodiark needed their lifes because of the massive amount of energy necessary to stop the calamity and afterwards to restore the planet. I see it as a much bigger chance that these people are gone and that this was just a way to get more power.

In the end without the sundering these lifeforms would have been killed and taken into Zodiark (thus taken away from existence completely) while Hydealyn changed their existence but they were still alive. You might see this as the same acts but for me, her part was less bad than his and at least the life had a chance of going on.

About our character: Yes we can decide a bit how the character plays but at a basic level this is still SEs character. You cant just say "I give up" or "I will join side x", you are always forced into certain actions which define your character. And seemingly Seto and others see Ardbert and our character as similar. Not the same of course because of different memories and lifestyles but the basic seems to be the same. So who knows what we completely lost with the sundering. I mean if the spoken races existed at the time they would still need some kind of basic knowledge otherwise they would have all been like newborn babies and died because they could not take care of themselves.

They are trying to kill us, but some of their leaders are actually in the right. The Twelve really are slowly bleeding the land dry, Eorzea's leaders really are pretty awful at their jobs a lot of the time, and lasting peace can only be maintained through a willingness to use force. Of course, there are just as many Garleans (likely more, in fact) that just have a massive chip on their collective shoulders because of how much abuse their race suffered prior to its discovery of ceruleum.

Where is this stated ingame? I dont remember any dialogue that says that the twelve are bleeding the land dry, because for that to happen they would have had to be summoned right? Eorzeas leaders are not perfect but maybe they would be able to create a more stable future for their countries if Ascians and Garlemald would stop creating more calamites and other horrible stuff. We cant forget that a lot of the land was destroyed or "hurt" by Bahamut and thus a lot of problems even started thanks to that. Also being constantly at war with a nation that wants to conquer you and maybe even genocide the beast tribes surely does not help. Yet even if they are not perfect and cant solve every problems they are at least trying to turn Eorzea into a better place and thanks to our help they are quite united. They also use force if necessary (or who is fighting right now against Garlemald) but there is a difference between using force as the last resort or just going around the world believing that you have the rigth to own countries and people and force them under your rule.

[odym82]

This part about the Twelve “bleeding the land dry” is actually stated in game on numerous occasions during the ARR campaign, mostly by Gaius. Primals receive aether via prayer and devotion, as well as from crystals even when not physically summoned (paraphrasing). But the whole concept of the Twelve kinda fades into the background and is never really addressed directly like this after ARR

[QT_Melon]

To give a more visual specific context

Take a special note of the plural form. Not Singular.

[Erendis]

This part about the Twelve “bleeding the land dry” is actually stated in game on numerous occasions during the ARR campaign, mostly by Gaius. Primals receive aether via prayer and devotion, as well as from crystals even when not physically summoned (paraphrasing). But the whole concept of the Twelve kinda fades into the background and is never really addressed directly like this after ARR

So it is, but he got no clue what he is talking about... Probably just blindly believing what Solus said.

[QT_Melon]

So it is, but he got no clue what he is talking about... Probably just blindly believing what Solus said.

No it's also mentioned in Tales from the Calamity.

https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/anni...?rgn=na&lng=en

[Brightamethyst]

Primals receive aether via prayer and devotion, as well as from crystals even when not physically summoned (paraphrasing).

Where does THAT assumption come from?