Is 'Hydaelyn' a misnomer based on a misconception?

[purgatori]

I think the statement was misleading, but not necessarily deliberately. I think that its just as you said: they are much better crafted primals. So much better in fact, that many rules we apply to run-of-the-mill primals don't apply to them. He was just using words that we can understand easily.

It does bring up some interesting questions about creation magic and its limits though. But thats for another thread.

Regardless of the degree of sophistication involved in their construction, the fact remains that they are not ontologically necessary, non-contingent beings upon which all non-contingent phenomena depends. They are themselves part of the created order. In fact, until contrary evidence emerges, I would hypothesise that these beings are not even capable of the sort of free exercise of creation that the Amaurotine engaged in. They may be extremely powerful, but in every way that matters, they're nought but false gods.

If you're looking for a hard no about the possible of her having tempered the WoL or associates, we don't have that.

What we do have is logical inference. We have no known instances of anyone being tempered by Hydaelyn herself. Some tempered are able to display a degree of self control most seem to have no problem admitting to being tempered. See in particular Emet-Selch and the Anata from Ala Migho council quests.

We do know that the WoL from the first shard and WoL from the thirteen shard are able to act against what would be considered Hydaelyn's goals and motives while cooperating with Ascians. While as this is quite circumstantial, it is a decent amount of evidence that discredits the "Hydealyn Tempering" theory.

I think it most likely that you're correct, but I wouldn't be totally caught off-guard if it turned out that Hydaelyn engages in tempering. After all, we don't know what the subjective experience of being tempered is like. Perhaps when Hydaelyn was speaking to us, this was itself a symptom of tempering. As we know, though, she has grown weaker over the course of the game and no longer speaks to us, which may be a sign that her hold over us, and other WoLs has diminished, and they are able to act in ways contrary to her intent.

On the other hand, tempering has been shown to persist even when a Primal has been vanquished, so this theory probably doesn't hold water.