The State of the Ascians (Assume Spoilers as of TODAY)

[Kesey]

You questioned her directly before and she lied to you though.

She lied by omission. Its the things she isn't telling us (are we tempered? that she is a primal. Why was our Ancient self not siding with her or Zodiark? Why pick us as champion instead of Venet?). Everything else she says seems to be verified by the Ascians.

I've also mentioned this in other threads, and I know speculation is pretty dry at this point for how 6.0 will play out, but one thing we can guarantee will happen is another conversation with Hydaelyn before we face Zodiark. Or she reveals her true intentions after Zodiark is dead.

[Lauront]

She lied by omission. Its the things she isn't telling us (are we tempered? that she is a primal. Why was our Ancient self not siding with her or Zodiark? Why pick us as champion instead of Venet?). Everything else she says seems to be verified by the Ascians.

I've also mentioned this in other threads, and I know speculation is pretty dry at this point for how 6.0 will play out, but one thing we can guarantee will happen is another conversation with Hydaelyn before we face Zodiark. Or she reveals her true intentions after Zodiark is dead.

IMO, there's omitting details which don't really alter the story, and then there's stripping out details which completely alter the context. Although at the very abstract level, what she said was true (but only in some respects), it stripped away everything that explained the motivation of the unsundered Ascians. Although given how the story is written, the protagonist would still not side with them, it would certainly make matters easier for her by presenting them as little more than wantonly destructive minions of some dark (hence, assumed to be ebul) deity. I believe not presenting the full story is rather patronising on her part - if it was done knowingly - and betrays a lack of trust in her own champion's judgement, to an extent, so it can certainly be construed as a form of manipulation.

The really thorny issues to me are whether the sundering was intentional or accidental and whether, by keeping the present life forms ignorant of their true state, she is seeking to hide a huge mistake. Even if the protagonist would not necessarily side with the Overlords, clearly some sundered life forms do, by taking up the seats of the sundered Overlords , and they might do so when they realise the world is in a broken state and that she isn't all she is cracked up to be. Venat's namesake from XII, her insistence to be the heart and the decision to press on with the power to enervate, even as Zodiark was at the heart of the Underworld/Aetherial Sea, are all questionable elements here. I personally hope they don't just let her off the hook easily and they actually make use of these potential lore elements, including any detrimental effect having a light-aspected (stasis oriented) Primal in the heart of the Aetherial Sea might have. I am expecting/hoping for a division between the Primal, which may act benign, and its "heart"/controller, who may have more nefarious aims, or be in a similarly monomaniacal state to Elidibus, intent on "banishing" darkness and keeping all the events a secret. The latter would mean she is not malevolent, per se, but committed to a path that may no longer make sense, setting her on a route for conflict with her hitherto champion.

She was summoned in the old world, so she should at least know there was a world and people that existed before her and that she and Zodiark weren't the same being.


I have to ask, why do people give her so much benefit of the doubt as being a dumb robot that knows nothing and only acts according to extremely simplistic programming?

Even the modern Eorzean Primals, summoned haphazardly by a bunch of tribal cultures with hand-me-down rituals, are all sapient and cognizant beings. Ramuh even knew he was a Primal, actively didn't want to be summoned because he knew the ramifications, and returned to the Lifestream as soon as you prove to him that you're capable of protecting the Sylphs. I don't understand why people accept that she's so much more ignorant than other Primals summoned with quite literally a fraction of the knowledge and power that went into her creation.

Seconded on all your points. Just look at how sophisticated Primals like Sophia or Sephirot are - the latter of whom evidently tells you more about the truth of the world than she does, only you don't know it. In the end, she and Zodiark are of a kind, and I fail to see why the worst should be assumed of him and yet she gets off scott-free, suffering none of the consequences all the other Primals do. She's just a hunk of crystal on auto-pilot, and even if she is genuinely ignorant, she has a heart whose motives might not even be that great.

I'm giving her some benefit of doubt, because I don't think she's outright malevolent, but to pretend Zodiark is just some ebul blood good (when the bulk of the sacrifices were voluntary and necessary given the state of the world, and the final stage doesn't even lead Venat to question the benign intentions of the Convocation, implying it was parsable in terms of the ancients' moral code(s)), and she is perfection in crystal form, is just rather uncharitable at this point.

[LineageRazor]

I'm giving her some benefit of doubt, because I don't think she's outright malevolent, but to pretend Zodiark is just some ebul blood good (when the bulk of the sacrifices were voluntary and necessary given the state of the world, and the final stage doesn't even lead Venat to question the benign intentions of the Convocation, implying it was parsable in terms of the ancients' moral code(s)), and she is perfection in crystal form, is just rather uncharitable at this point.

Is anyone in this thread arguing that Zodiark is an ebul blood god? It's been a long, long time since I've seen someone assume Zodiark's evil. For my part, even before Zodiark was revealed to be a Primal, I was of the opinion that we just knew too little about the guy to say one way or another. We knew the ASCIANS were evil - or, at least, performing evil acts, and doing it in Zodiark's name - but it was unclear whether Zodiark sanctioned their activities, or was even aware of what they were doing.

Even after the big reveal, the story has gone out of its way, it seems, to avoid portraying Zodiark's character in any way, shape, or form. We've heard why and how the Convocation summoned him, we've heard what he did, and we've heard the sacrifices the Convocation continued to make to give him power, but we know nothing of Zodiark's agency in all of this. The fact that all of the Convocation were Tempered by him seems to indicate that he has SOME kind of will (since Tempering is basically an unresistable imposition of will), but not all actions taken by the Tempered are necessarily direct commands from their god.

At any rate, one thing to bear in mind about Hydaelyn is that the ONLY concrete evidence we have of wrongdoing or duplicity on her part is the misinformation we got from her regarding her and Zodiark's origins - and that, most likely, was written before the writers had fleshed out the TRUE origin that we now know. It may be hasty to assume that those words were intended as foreshadowing of Hydaelyn's eventual descent into a role as adversary. I honestly wonder if the writers even remember they wrote it (or if they're even the same writers). I believe that Koji Fox once stated that the writers really aren't much interested in keeping track of the lore except in the most broad strokes, and that it's up to him to try to mesh the things they write into the world's lore. What they wrote this time may have simply been too great a stretch for him to overcome.

Writers: Okay, so we've decided that Zo and Hy are Primals, created by the precursors of the Ascians!
Koji: Er, well, Hydaelyn told us she and Zodiark existed at the dawn of time before all else...?
Witers: Shush, we've got an awesome story going. *Writes it anyway.*
Koji: *Gets a biiiig headache.*

[ShadowMeowth]

Is anyone in this thread arguing that Zodiark is an ebul blood god? It's been a long, long time since I've seen someone assume Zodiark's evil. For my part, even before Zodiark was revealed to be a Primal, I was of the opinion that we just knew too little about the guy to say one way or another. We knew the ASCIANS were evil - or, at least, performing evil acts, and doing it in Zodiark's name - but it was unclear whether Zodiark sanctioned their activities, or was even aware of what they were doing.

Even after the big reveal, the story has gone out of its way, it seems, to avoid portraying Zodiark's character in any way, shape, or form. We've heard why and how the Convocation summoned him, we've heard what he did, and we've heard the sacrifices the Convocation continued to make to give him power, but we know nothing of Zodiark's agency in all of this. The fact that all of the Convocation were Tempered by him seems to indicate that he has SOME kind of will (since Tempering is basically an unresistable imposition of will), but not all actions taken by the Tempered are necessarily direct commands from their god.

I always had doubts that Zodiark would be "evil". Besides the too-evident-cliché, I specifically had in mind FFXII's Zodiark, whose bio states that he was the only esper created by the Occuria that did not revolted against them, but because they feared his power, they bound him and kept him eternally in an infant form. All of this has been properly portrayed, Elidibus being a child who volunteered to become His heart included. FFXII's Zodiark is also referred as the Keeper of Precepts, and with enough aether we do know Zodiark can weave the laws of creation anew. And it is curious, the story of the Ivalician espers, because the one who rebelled against the Occuria was Ultima, the Holy-elemental esper, and the one who never took part in anything, perhaps because he was an infant, was Zodiark, the Dark-elemental esper.

Whatever the case, becoming the Heart of an elder primal such as Hydaelyn and Zodiark might be the same principle as what Ysayle, Zenos and Yotsuyu did. Zenos says that with full control of the Echo, one can bend a primal to their will, and he demonstrates with Shinryu. Of course, Hydaelyn and Zodiark are way more powerful, but I would say that with Elidibus as His core, Zodiark would have hardly any bad intention. Venat... well, we do not know much about her. She is a complicated character in FFXII and I suspect it will be the same here, but if Hydaelyn's command is "banish the darkness", I have to wonder if that will not put Her at odds with us, fully acknowledged Warrior of Darkness by Elidibus-Heart-of-Zodiark himself.