Just how responsible for the Flood of Light was Hydaelyn?

[MrThinker]

And what of Urianger's far more recent comments on the subject?

In the quest "Unto the Truth" when you reunite with Urianger, he explains the following:

The phenomenon of aetheric thinning observed in the Source is the consequence of Light─the power of stasis─flowing in from the First to stifle the movement of aether within the land.

That appears to me to be a more of a "fix the First, fix the Source", and since there is no longer excess Light to flow through to the Source, the aetheric concentrations of the land should remain stable, if not eventually revert to the way it should be.

...and I can't remember him saying anything else on the subject of balance on the Source tbh.

[Alleo]

Do keep in mind that it has been implied on a number of occasions that the Source could meet the same fate as the First if the Warrior of Light continues like they have. The fact that Hydaelyn entreats (or compels, depending on whether or not you accept the possibility of tempering) the WoL to keep at it is intriguing, though we do not know for certain if Hydaelyn is even aware of the fact that the scales are starting to tip too far.

We dont know if the source even acts under the same ways than the shards do. Also Hydealyn does not force us to keep going and it was not her that did it to Ardbert and his group. It was fully on the Ascians that used Cyella to create the necessary conflict that would then create crystals of Light as a result of stopping it. Hydealyn seemingly had nothing to do with it and after she found out she outright sent Minfilia and them back to stop it because she herself cant do stuff there.

We also have to remain skeptic until we know for sure if Elidibus is even telling the truth. Why for example would a flood of darkness on the 13th shard create a imbalance on the first? If that is the case were are the imbalances for the other shards? Wouldnt they be unstable with all the rejoinings? The flood of darkness also happened at the very start before any other rejoinings. Which means many many years ago, yet seemingly the first was not the second one where they tried the rejoining, how very strange if it was in danger because of that imbalance...

[YianKutku]

Urianger has also expressed concerns for the state of the balance. While I would tend to take what Elidibus and Lahabrea say with a grain of salt until proven or disproven, we know that Urianger is an exceedingly well learned individual that has the Source's best interests at heart.

You may have conflated Elidibus's words with Urianger's words. Elidibus tells us that if we continue on as we do on the Source, ie righting wrongs and saving people, the Source will have an imbalance towards Light. Urianger later says that there seems to be an odd imbalance of the Source's aether towards Light (or at least Umbral), which worries him.

So the assumption a lot of players made, which is probably similar to that of the in-universe characters, is that the Warrior of Light's actions were directly responsible for this potential imbalance towards Light.

Except this is playing right into Elidibus's trap of saying cryptic things that are technically true, but not actually the whole truth. Elidibus is technically correct in that if we continue righting wrongs and saving people, the Source will have an imbalance towards Light, because the Ascians will make it so. And our "path" will bring us into conflict with the Garlean Empire (who does plenty of wrongs and produces many people to be saved), and it is the Garlean Empire who will unleash Black Rose to stave off their own defeat, because the Ascians manipulated them to do so. This is proven to be true in the Exarch's Bad Future, courtesy of our Echo-vision, so we can take it as more or less objective fact.

Meanwhile, Urianger's concerns over the imbalance on the Source is just that: his own (rightful) concerns, but also simply taking into account the current consequences of the link between the First and the Source resulting in an over-abundance of Umbral polarity, devoid of any causation. (We now know he was keeping his secrets about what the Exarch told him, but that's not really relevant.)

In other words, it is technically true that if we "continued on our path" the Source would have fallen to an imbalance of Light, but that leaves out the more pertinent truth that it is all due to Ascian meddling. Without Ascian involvement, our own actions would have been perfectly fine. With Ascian involvement, our actions would have made only a minor effect at most, since the Ascians (via Emet-Selch) told us that they would have done the Light-rejoining anyway, sooner or later.

In other words, we (or Hydaelyn) are not responsible for the Flood of Light in any way. It's all Ascians.

[Absimiliard]

It's a bit more nuanced than that. The Source does not actually have any kind of special protections that prevent it from succumbing to the same catastrophes that have been unleashed on its shards. The Warrior of Light really could tip the scales too far, just as Ardbert and his group did in their own world. The imbalance of light was, as we know now, primarily due to the growing light on the First. That doesn't mean the Warrior of Light wasn't making it worse through their actions on the Source. People are mistakenly assuming that this is not the case. It is entirely possible for a calamity to happen independent of the Ascians, which is why one of their tasks is to prevent these things from happening outside of circumstances they themselves provide.

As for what Emet-Selch said, we have no way of knowing how much blame the Warrior of Light would've had if things had continued into a full rejoining. To simply dismiss their potential involvement in shifting the balance is a bit much, in my opinion. Ardbert and his party doing so much good - granted, as a result of Ascian manipulation - is what brought their realm to the cusp of the Flood of Light. Them choosing a path the Ascians did not think they would is what then caused that to go too far. Rather than rejoining, their world would've been destroyed completely if Minifilia hadn't been able to stop the Flood of Light before it could completely consume everything. This is also the reason Ardbert and co. came to the Source initially; they wanted to cause a rejoining before their world's final moment came, as that was the only way they knew of at that time for it and everyone on it to continue existing in some form.

Blaming the Ascians for every little thing is a bit extreme. They may be responsible for setting a lot of the houses of cards up, but Hydaelyn and her champion aren't exactly innocent of having a hand in kicking a few of the walls down.

Having said all this, I ask one question: If the Ascians were to botch their machinations and end up with the Warrior of Light (and by connection Hydaelyn) continuing to stamp out each and every manifestation of darkness they ran across, as Ardbert and co. had before, who would be to blame for the resulting Flood of Light? Would Hydaelyn and the WoL somehow be absolved despite that it was enabled primarily through their actions? Ardbert and his company certainly weren't absolved.

[YianKutku]

It's a bit more nuanced than that. The Source does not actually have any kind of special protections that prevent it from succumbing to the same catastrophes that have been unleashed on its shards. The Warrior of Light really could tip the scales too far, just as Ardbert and his group did in their own world. The imbalance of light was, as we know now, primarily due to the growing light on the First. That doesn't mean the Warrior of Light wasn't making it worse through their actions on the Source. People are mistakenly assuming that this is not the case. It is entirely possible for a calamity to happen independent of the Ascians, which is why one of their tasks is to prevent these things from happening outside of circumstances they themselves provide.

Based on what we know, it is very difficult for a Calamity to somehow coincidentally happen independent of the Ascians. It would require a shard becoming aetherially unbalanced at the same time as the Source experiencing a major disaster of that same element (or polarity, as the Seventh and thwarted Eighth would be). Without that, it's "just" a very severe earthquake or widespread flooding. With that, it's the Fourth and Sixth Calamities respectively.

So yes, it is "possible" for a Calamity to happen independent of the Ascians, but that assumes far too many variable factors, and is about as helpful as saying that a Calamity could happen because some unwitting Culinarian on a shard cooked a tasty hotdog. It has the same amount of evidence for it.

And based on what we know now, nothing we have done on the Source was directly tipping any cosmic scales too far in any direction. We certainly tip lots of political scales (and plenty of local scales), but the closest to any scale-tipping on an aetherial sense was Thordan, whom we stopped, and Black Rose, which Estinien and Gaius attempted to stop (the former on the orders of the Scions, the latter because Gaius is as usual full of himself). So if anything, we helped prevent scale-tipping. (Which Emet-Selch implied.)

As for what Emet-Selch said, we have no way of knowing how much blame the Warrior of Light would've had if things had continued into a full rejoining. To simply dismiss their potential involvement in shifting the balance is a bit much, in my opinion. Ardbert and his party doing so much good - granted, as a result of Ascian manipulation - is what brought their realm to the cusp of the Flood of Light. Them choosing a path the Ascians did not think they would is what then caused that to go too far. Rather than rejoining, their world would've been destroyed completely if Minifilia hadn't been able to stop the Flood of Light before it could completely consume everything. This is also the reason Ardbert and co. came to the Source initially; they wanted to cause a rejoining before their world's final moment came, as that was the only way they knew of at that time for it and everyone on it to continue existing in some form.

Similarly, Cylva manipulated Ardbert and his crew into tipping the First too far into Light, under the orders of the Ascians, who heavily implied that it was a way to atone for her failing to save the Thirteenth, while conveniently leaving out the fact that the Ascians were the ones responsible for the Thirteenth falling into Darkness in the first place. And Ardbert clearly wasn't aware that the Ascians were responsible for the Light imbalance on the First when he first came to the Source as the Warrior of Darkness, since he expresses his regret about that early on in Shadowbringers.

It all comes down to Ascian manipulation, from beginning to end. Just because they set up an elaborate Rube Goldberg mechanism that will set off a Flood of Light the moment anyone so much as looks at it doesn't mean the person looking is in any way to blame.

And if we take Emet-Selch's words at face value (which I am admittedly reluctant to do, but it's one of the very few sources we have, so take it with plenty of salt), if the Warrior of Light had been allowed to continue as they were, the Rejoining would have been further delayed. As it was, our actions (as the Scions as a whole) had apparently delayed the Rejoining of the First significantly, even before we met Emet-Selch.

Blaming the Ascians for every little thing is a bit extreme. They may be responsible for setting a lot of the houses of cards up, but Hydaelyn and her champion aren't exactly innocent of having a hand in kicking a few of the walls down.

The Ascians are responsible for setting up a house of cards directly in the path of someone minding their own business, knowing full well that the walls will be kicked down simply through us accidentally blundering through them. Then they imply that we are to blame for the house of cards tumbling down. That is, at the least, entrapment, or perhaps insurance fraud.

Having said all this, I ask one question: If the Ascians were to botch their machinations and end up with the Warrior of Light (and by connection Hydaelyn) continuing to stamp out each and every manifestation of darkness they ran across, as Ardbert and co. had before, who would be to blame for the resulting Flood of Light? Would Hydaelyn and the WoL somehow be absolved despite that it was enabled primarily through their actions? Ardbert and his company certainly weren't absolved.

Our goals, from the very beginning, has never been simply to "stamp out darkness". It's been to help people and prevent suffering, which just happens to be caused by the Ascians, who primarily utilize Darkness and claim to represent Darkness.

And from everything we know based on Cylva's testimony (backed up by Echo-vision), the only way "helping people and preventing suffering" can cause a Flood of Light is if the Ascians deliberately made it so. Which once again lays the blame on the Ascians.

Ardbert was not absolved of the blame for causing the Flood of Light because nobody knew about the true nature of the Shadowkeeper. Even Cylva's presence in Ardbert's crew was not well-known. This is explicitly stated to not be the case going forward, because Cylva is going to try telling the truth (at least from her perspective) about Ardbert and his crew.

[Alleo]

And based on what we know now, nothing we have done on the Source was directly tipping any cosmic scales too far in any direction. We certainly tip lots of political scales (and plenty of local scales), but the closest to any scale-tipping on an aetherial sense was Thordan, whom we stopped, and Black Rose, which Estinien and Gaius attempted to stop (the former on the orders of the Scions, the latter because Gaius is as usual full of himself). So if anything, we helped prevent scale-tipping. (Which Emet-Selch implied.)

Which I am quite happy with because otherwise this could have meant that we would need to stop helping or stop winning to not tip the balance which was something I never liked as an idea. This way we now know that its mostly just on the Ascians and that we can kill them without causing the end of the world.

[SaberMaxwell]

Which I am quite happy with because otherwise this could have meant that we would need to stop helping or stop winning to not tip the balance which was something I never liked as an idea. This way we now know that its mostly just on the Ascians and that we can kill them without causing the end of the world.

To add, if our small victories were causing such huge imbalance toward Light (compared to the seven irreversible calamities the Ascians have won so far our victories have been relatively minor--even killing Ascians is now proven to be minor as Emet-Selch has stated new fragments of them can be risen up to take office, and though I don't have the quote, even wholly unrelated souls can apparently be risen to office), then we would have been written into literally an unwinnable situation.

Either we fight back and end everything, or we don't and all die.

[LindyFelmenia]

What I don't really understand is why Hydaelyn would spend some of her power to stop the flood of light on the 1st shard. From what we know, a flood of light on the 1st shard would actually turn out to be in her interest, as it would make the shard unrejoinable to the source (just like the 13th shard which was flooded in Darkness). This would make it harder to restore the former Star, and thus, harder to unseal Zodiark. Her primary objective (for which she was summoned), was to kill / seal Zodiark after all.

[QT_Melon]

What I don't really understand is why Hydaelyn would spend some of her power to stop the flood of light on the 1st shard. From what we know, a flood of light on the 1st shard would actually turn out to be in her interest, as it would make the shard unrejoinable to the source (just like the 13th shard which was flooded in Darkness). This would make it harder to restore the former Star, and thus, harder to unseal Zodiark. Her primary objective (for which she was summoned), was to kill / seal Zodiark after all.

Her primary objectives seem to be twofold which is to preserve life by binding Zodiark. However, I know this isn't outright stated in the game since Emet was talking about binding and shackling. It's implied through Hythlodaeus since he talked about the opposition of sacrificing the new life.

[Iscah]

Her primary objective (for which she was summoned), was to kill / seal Zodiark after all.

We don't know that was Her primary objective, only something She did to achieve it.

Overall it seems more likely to me that Her primary objective is to protect life, and the Sundering was a means to that end - whether the exact consequences were intended or not.