Thinking about Elidibus

[Anonymoose]

As someone who didn't trust Elidibus from his first cutscene, questioned every word he said, and called him "a snake" for years in the long-con hope that I would get to connect it somehow to the thirteenth zodiac and have a longitudinal brick pun land in the end, I feel uniquely qualified to make everyone who likes Elidibus angry at me all over again by answering this question.

Long story short: he lied.

Now let me admit right now that depending on how rigidly you want to define the word "lie", an argument could be made that Elidibus quite rarely did so. Rather, what he did most of the time was give his pawns just enough information to want to trust him and do what he says (because who else is giving out accurate, actionable intel?) ... but without enough context for them to realize that trusting him and doing what he says is in every way against their own best interest.

Example: If you are in a situation and there are five roads you could take - three to doom, one to Elidibus's best interest, and one to your best interest, Elidibus is going to tell you there are two roads out of this situation: doom or his best interest, which, according to him, just happens your best interest, too, so why not work together this time? The fact that you have a better option? You don't need to know that. That'd just complicate things. You need to shut up and help him accomplish his goals until he discards you like the worthless chess piece you are.

A REALM REBORN

The first thing that really put me off about him was that he acted in 2.1 to Minfilia and the Warrior of Light like he knew Lahabrea was a problem, then went right back to work alongside him doing exactly the same kind of stuff he was doing before. If anything, he was babysitting him to make sure he toed the company line without getting distracted. The problem for me was that apparently the company line was the same stuff he was doing before, but more efficient. Moreover Nabriales calls him out for visiting the Warrior of Light without telling anyone and Elidibus is like, "Chill. Zodiark just gave us different missions. We're on the same page."

This is a good time to point out that back in the A REALM REBORN era it doesn't look like SE had much of a solidified plan for these guys, yet, so who knows what the devs thought he was really alluding to there at the time (if anything). First and foremost, if you go back and look at those cutscenes, there are fourteen overlords PLUS Elidibus (and recall that now we know Emet-Selch was supposedly sleeping, and Azem was never raised, so who the seventh hell are these three extras?). Nabriales (in Japanese) acts as though there are only two Originals at this time, Lahabrea and Elidibus, while everyone else was resurrected within a shard they were assigned to, so I think a lot changed behind the scenes as they worked out who the Ascians "really" were and what they "really" wanted.

So anyway, Elidibus keeps being mysterious and helping Lahabrea set up what we later learn is Project Thordan.

The line that plagued me throughout this era was when Elidibus told Minfilia we would be "of one mind" if we knew the "true power of the echo".

But then...

HEAVENSWARD

Elidibus mostly takes a back seat for the Heavensward MSQ as Igeyorhm is assigned to help Lahabrea execute the final stages of the plan.

I suspect that at this stage of the game, SE planned to find excuses for the Ascians of "the other shards" to come here only to get ganked, but slowly abandoned the idea that there was one for each world because killing them was going way too slow.

But then what happens at the end of Heavensward? Lahabrea gives a rant about "the true power of the Echo" and becomes "of one mind" with Igeyorhm. Elidibus may not have lied, according to some, but he sure didn't tell the truth! This is when I decided he was "a snake". Why? Because I didn't trust him, anyway, but then Unukalhai came into the picture, and he's named after a star in the constellation that is the serpent in the 13th zodiac's grasp. I felt like I was setting up the best brick pun of all time, but ... it only ... really kinda 50% played out. It wasn't very satisfying if we're being honest. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Lahabrea's "crowning act of idiocy" is that he expects Thordan to take the primal-binding, dragon-enslaving tech of Allag and gleefully go home to start building the Holy Ishgardian Empire as God King Thordan (thanks for figuring out incarnate summoning, Nabriales, sorry about being dead, but it's your own fault). Now that primal should have been well within the Ascians ability to control. Sure, he'd kill all the dragons and temper a bunch of people - because they can't all be at war if they're all tempered to love just you - but then Garlemald could invade, the war would escalate, someone would trigger a calamity and the Ascians win again.

Except he didn't. He whipped out Nidhogg's "long-lost" eye and transformed it into a sword-vessel capable of drinking the Warring Triad's nigh infinite power so he could destroy the Ascians himself along the way to building his empire. (Not a bad plan, really!) But you kill Igeyorhm, Thordan kills Lahabrea, you kill Thordan before he can fully drink the Triad, and now Elidibus is left with a big freakin' mess.

An aside, but I'm kinda surprised SE didn't explicitly go back and clean up that, during the cutscene where Elidibus realizes all of this, he really - really - doesn't seem to care Lahabrea's dead. At all. AT ALL. I'm sure given what we know about his state, we could make a number of excuses for him, but that SE didn't clean it up is surprising to me.

So now Elidibus is in a pickle. He was trying to balance Light and Dark on the Source so he can trigger a calamity and Thordan just woke up three very powerful primals that are going to stomp all over his perfectly-balanced chessboard. So he reaches into his bag of tricks and thaws out Unukalhai, a Warrior of Light (the regular kind, not the Champion kind, as far as we know, I think) from the fall of the Thirteenth. Why? Because he if shows up right now asking the Warrior of Light to just shut up and cooperate, he's probably gonna have some freakin' questions, and he does not have time for that. But a child with a sob story about how he didn't accumulate enough friendship to kill god like a real Final Fantasy hero would? Warrior of Light's not asking him anything but, "Are ya ready to start winnin' son?" And while they're off doing their thing the kid can hopefully put some good PR in for Elidibus.

But here's the thing about Unukalhai...

Go back and watch the Warring Triad cutscenes again. That kid spends the entire questline sparring with Regula and talking trash about Garlemald because they're causing the very problem they claim to be trying to eradicate. If they want to stop the summoning of primals and bring peace to the Three Great Continents, their overall plan for accomplishing that is as bad as their results so far. Think about that in context of what we know today.

Elidibus might have had a spark of sympathy for the kid given that he, too, was once a child in a situation bigger than he was ready for (I'm not sure the devs knew that yet, but let's go with it). But he could have told Unukalhai at any time that Garlemald was run by his BFF, who was acting under his orders. He didn't tell that kid jack except what would make him a useful pawn just like everyone else.

So then the WARRIORS OF DARKNESS show up, and this is the classic Elidibus. He tells them only what they need to know to conclude it's in their best interests to try to Rejoin the First without giving them any of the context they'd need to realize that's a terrible idea. Urianger has to bring that plan down from within himself, using methods that made more than few fans angry at him for not giving Minfilia informed consent about how her life was going to turn out. (She forgives him, but still, DANG.) Urianger admits he would have made a great Ascian if he didn't have the one thing that prevents him from being a useful pawn: faith that there's always a better way, instilled in him by the Warrior of Light.

This is where I was sure that Elidibus does care about balancing Light and Darkness but only insofar as ensuring the Rejoining. He's loyal to Zodiark, but even Zodiark doesn't want a Flood. Balance matters. (Kinda.) Then the lore book came out and helpfully clarified that Elidibus's "loyalty to Zodiark is absolute", so what little willingness I had to doubt my course for the most part EVAPORATED.

Tangential rant, this is why I love Ilberd as a villain. Ilberd lied to my face TWICE and I bought it TWICE. There's a quest called "Traitor in the Midst" and the preview is a picture of Ilberd, and I was like "I KNEW IT, ILBERD'S A TRAITOR. THIS IS SUBTLE FORESHADOWING." but then we rooted out the Ivy and Ilberd said he'd rather cut off his own arm than betray a friend. And I bought it. And I hated him for it. And then he came back as the Griffin, and it was obvious that he was the Griffin, but Ilberd looked Elidibus dead in the eye and said he was trash because he fills his pawns with lies and false hopes and sacrifices them for nothing, whereas he was giving his pawns everything they wanted. And I cheered him on! And then he did exactly the same thing! HE GOT ME AGAIN. Man, I love how much I hate that guy.

STORMBLOOD

I don't think there's a lot to talk about here. Elidibus was pretty openly lying about some stuff by now, but he was clearly just setting Varis up to think it was in his own best interests to temporarily sacrifice two cities so he could gain the technology and status quo required to dominate the world, using his own unfit-to-rule-son as a lab rat, when really all they were doing was giving Eorzea time and opportunity to establish a military alliance capable of making Varis desperate enough to use Black Rose and trigger the calamity. Elidibus claimed he didn't care if Varis killed the Ascians in black, but even that wasn't really a lie, as part of Fandaniel's book of grievances is that Elidibus treated him like he was expendable. We know now that he cared about Emet-Selch's death (kinda, we'll get to that), but the others not so much. Classic Elidibus.

SHADOWBRINGERS

We spend most of the set-up with Emet-Selch, but when we finally kill him, he has a moment of clarity and asks us to remember the Ancients and how much they loved their world, not just the Ascians they became and the atrocities they committed. This was also partly a message to Elidibus, Emet-Selch realized in his final probably-untempered moments that their plan had gone awry before even the Great Sundering, and that we might be worthy inheritors of the world after all.

Elidibus, probably still quite tempered (if we want to call it that; I mean he's according to Y'shtola a primal-esque being, so he can't be anything other than what he was summoned to be, which is not unlike what Zodiark would temper him to be, so...whatever it's moot for these purposes, lol.), is furious about this. Depending on the language play the game in, Elidibus straight-up says that his job is to make sure people think the right way, that he would have put Emet-Selch back in his place, and that if Emet thought for a single moment that Elidibus would ever work with you or cede his mission, he was "unworthy of the name Original" and even if it were his dying wish, he denies it.

I literally cheered - outloud - when Elidibus said there was never any common ground to be found between us. I was so worried it wouldn't all pan out in a way that made sense to me, and that moment was perfect. Elidibus and Emet-Slech made a FANTASTIC case for why they did what they did, and in the end a HORRIBLE case for that we should let them do it.

In his final, probaby-un"tempered" moments, Elidibus realizes that there is nothing left to fight for, and the mission had probably failed before it had even truly begun. Now, I think the line "The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it." is perfect. It's beautiful. It's devastating. However, there is another way he says it that I think makes it even clearer where he's coming from: "My friends, how could I have been the last to go? To abandon you all to linger here as you went on alone?"

SO, in the end Elidibus ended up being pretty consistent after all for a character that had ... like, no flavor at all for like, many years. He did care about balance: the balance needed to complete the rejoining, kill the sundered, restore the Source, bring back Zodiark, sacrifice a ton of living things, and resurrect his brothers.

The greatest tragedy of Elidibus is that his one job was to chart the best course forward for his people, arbitrating disputes by being able to foresee outcomes, and all his great talents were weaponized by his accidental tempering to serve Zodiark alone, and he never. put it. together. Until his last moments, He thought his predicting of outcomes and manipulating people and sacrificing pawns was the right thing to do, and after all this unpleasantness his friends smiling faces would be staring back down at him and this nightmare would finally end.

So when it comes to everything we thought we knew about him, he lied.

And he meant well.

But he was wrong.

[Mieck]

HEAVENSWARD

Elidibus mostly takes a back seat for the Heavensward MSQ as Igeyorhm is assigned to help Lahabrea execute the final stages of the plan.

I suspect that at this stage of the game, SE planned to find excuses for the Ascians of "the other shards" to come here only to get ganked, but slowly abandoned the idea that there was one for each world because killing them was going way too slow.

I wonder whether, with the fall of Loghrif and Mitron on the First, Elidibus felt the need to be on hand on that Shard, ready to jump into the path of Ardbert's party and give them his context-anemic pitch? Timey-wimey stuff notwithstanding, time still moves in the same direction and I could see those events being losely contemporary with Heavensward (particularly because of the stinger at the end of 3.0!)

[PangTong]

I wonder whether, with the fall of Loghrif and Mitron on the First, Elidibus felt the need to be on hand on that Shard, ready to jump into the path of Ardbert's party and give them his context-anemic pitch? Timey-wimey stuff notwithstanding, time still moves in the same direction and I could see those events being losely contemporary with Heavensward (particularly because of the stinger at the end of 3.0!)

Now that I think of it, this is something else that's kind of confusing to me. My understanding of how calamities work is that there needs to be a large imbalance towards a particular element or elemental "charge" in both the Source and one of the reflection worlds, and that it needs to be the same element/charge for the absorption to happen correctly. Then, some massive destructive event on the Source triggers the rejoining and the aether of the reflection world is absorbed into the Source as the Source's aether surges to repair the damage.

Elibidus and Emet-Selch both intended to use the First, which had fallen to Light, to trigger the 8th calamity. Doesn't this mean that the Source would also need to be leaning towards Light (or all elements charged umbrally)? Emet-Selch's plan to use Black Rose made sense since it was explained that Black Rose works by stagnating the ambient aether i.e. shifting it so far umbrally that life can no longer survive.

But what was Elidibus' plan here? Using the Warriors of Darkness to continue the whole cycle of pressuring beast tribes into summoning ever stronger primals seems like it would not align the Source's aether with the First at all. Primal summoning seems like it's associated with astral charge/Darkness, although I don't know if that's actually true.

Am I misunderstanding something here?

[Mieck]

Now that I think of it, this is something else that's kind of confusing to me. My understanding of how calamities work is that there needs to be a large imbalance towards a particular element or elemental "charge" in both the Source and one of the reflection worlds, and that it needs to be the same element/charge for the absorption to happen correctly. Then, some massive destructive event on the Source triggers the rejoining and the aether of the reflection world is absorbed into the Source as the Source's aether surges to repair the damage.

I would think the semantic difference between imbalance and dangerous imbalance is key. Prime the Source towards the element or polarity, but not so much you trigger a Flood of (element / polairty) on the Source. Concurrently, prime a shard towards the same element or polarity and bring it to the brink. Then cause an event on the Source that - in and of itself - would not be as terrible as it could be, but due to being of the same element or polarity, the weight of water on the other side of the dam is enough to push a brick through, and the shard is washed away into the Source. I don't think a further big event on the Shard was necessary - Emet-Selch put Vauthry in place to break the will of the remaining people of Norvrandt. To keep them in idleness and not think about looking for a way out of their situation. The First in its Light-drenched state constituted a significant headwater, just waiting for the crack in the dam, until the WoL and Scions go about merrily killing Lightwarderns. Emet had to recalculate, and fast.


Side pondering, I wonder if all the other Rejoined shards endured a very bleak extended doomsday period akin to the state Norvrandt found itself in during the decades and centuries before they were washed away?

[PangTong]

Thanks for the response. I think I more or less get it, the one thing I'm still not sure on is this point:

So now Elidibus is in a pickle. He was trying to balance Light and Dark on the Source so he can trigger a calamity and Thordan just woke up three very powerful primals that are going to stomp all over his perfectly-balanced chessboard.
...
He did care about balance: the balance needed to complete the rejoining, kill the sundered, restore the Source, bring back Zodiark, sacrifice a ton of living things, and resurrect his brothers.

To what extent is balance between Light and Dark needed to trigger calamities? This is the first I'm hearing of it. Like, we know that the 7th calamity was "astral" in its element i.e. all elements aspected astrally, which while not the same as Darkness, we know to be intrinsically related to Darkness and thus one would assume required (or at least caused as a natural consequence) an imbalance towards Darkness. Same thing with the 8th Calamity but towards umbral/Light. Is this not the case?

Or do you mean balance only to the extent necessary to avoid a Flood? In this case, why does Elidibus take issue with actions that push the Source towards Dark/Light, if this itself could be used to trigger a calamity? Or am I mistaken about that and he was just mad about the WoL messing with the Ascians' plans?

Also, if Elidibus was concerned with balance only to the extent necessary to accomplish the mission of the Ascians, that doesn't really make him any different to the other Ascians with regards to attitudes towards balance, right? So am I understanding you correctly in that his whole shtick of being the "balance guy" was just to con mortals into doing his (Zodiark's) bidding?


This is unrelated to my original question, but when you said:

Emet-Selch realized in his final probably-untempered moments that their plan had gone awry before even the Great Sundering, and that we might be worthy inheritors of the world after all.
...
Elidibus realizes that there is nothing left to fight for, and the mission had probably failed before it had even truly begun.

What makes you think that the Ascians' plan was doomed from the start?

[Anonymoose]

To what extent is balance between Light and Dark needed to trigger calamities?

Typically, just enough so that neither the Ascians nor Hydaelyn's chosen go overboard and tip the scales too much too fast. Igeyorhm went overboard on the Thirteenth, the Warriors of Light overthrowing Cylva's plan tipped the scales too much too fast on the First. If that happens, you get a Flood. Nobody wants a Flood.

You need Light and Darkness to be balanced enough so that you can set up the elemental conditions for a calamity and not have it break anything. That's part of what makes the 7th and 8th calamities more difficult to understand. You're exactly right: Light and Darkness aren't elements. You can't have a LIGHT calamity but you CAN use Light to imbalance all of the elements at once. This is so Square Enix can follow the pattern of calamities in the prophecy of Mezaya Thousand Eyes - one for each element, with one for each polarity at the end. (Though no one ever did find the Eighth Verse as far as we know. That a recent addition to your basement, Sharlayan? Does it suggest Black Rose still? Is that why you're all weird about this? Anyroad...)

The Source has wobbled back and forth a few times, and while we know for sure now the Source was leaning too much towards Darkness after the Seventh Umbral Era, we don't know if the Warrior of Light ever really pushed it too far too fast towards Light or if Elidibus just said that to make people doubt. But for the sake of a fun story sure let's go ahead and assume the WoL actually was rocking Elidibus's boat a little too much for his liking.

Also, if Elidibus was concerned with balance only to the extent necessary to accomplish the mission of the Ascians, that doesn't really make him any different to the other Ascians with regards to attitudes towards balance, right? So am I understanding you correctly in that his whole shtick of being the "balance guy" was just to con mortals into doing his (Zodiark's) bidding?

More or less. He wasn't lying. He did sometimes work against Darkness. He did sometimes work against his friends. That was his job even on the convocation, to find the best path forward for everyone even if it means having to arbitrate a dispute amongst your own. It's just that the "best path forward" (in his mind) was still Zodiark. (Probably because "tempered".)

What makes you think that the Ascians' plan was doomed from the start?

Aside from them finding different ways to suggest it in their deaths, I can't give a overly specific answer to this yet. There's a big detail we don't yet know. Venat's faction was adamant that Zodiark was a temporary solution, and the Convocation, for reasons unknown (probably because tempered) were stubbornly refusing to hear debate about why Zodiark wasn't going to fix ALL of this FOREVER. We don't know why that was. We don't know why Zodiark was a bandaid. There are a few reasons I can think of, but none of them would change the BASIC tenet that once the Convocation were tempered, it was very unlikely if not impossible that their true goals would ever be fully fulfilled, which is why Hydaelyn was created by their own countrymen, leading to the first ever Amaurotine civil war.

Using the Warriors of Darkness to continue the whole cycle of pressuring beast tribes into summoning ever stronger primals seems like it would not align the Source's aether with the First at all.

Elidibus has been running a series of course-corrections ever since we upset the first major plan in A REALM REBORN. During this particular phase, he was setting the Warriors of Darkness up to break the cycle of primal summoning themselves; the plan was to make them inspire versions of the primals so strong that defeating them would convince the beast tribes to abandon them once and for all and look towards... a new god... (dramatic noises). We never got to see what it was. Urianger threw that whole plan in the trash when he sent Minfilia to the First and they started working on the next idea.

[PangTong]

Elidibus has been running a series of course-corrections ever since we upset the first major plan in A REALM REBORN. During this particular phase, he was setting the Warriors of Darkness up to break the cycle of primal summoning themselves; the plan was to make them inspire versions of the primals so strong that defeating them would convince the beast tribes to abandon them once and for all and look towards... a new god... (dramatic noises). We never got to see what it was. Urianger threw that whole plan in the trash when he sent Minfilia to the First and they started working on the next idea.

That's interesting, is this ever revealed in the materials or is it just an inference?

The part about Venat's faction opposing Zodiark because of practicality concerns is also new to me, I just took Hythlodaeus' word for it that the conflict was ideological in nature, with Zodiark's faction being those who wished to restore Amaurot to glory through sacrifice, and Hydaelyn's being those who wished to entrust the world to the new life. (edit: ignore me, I totally forgot the scene with Venat in 5.2 lol)

Also

More or less. He wasn't lying. He did sometimes work against Darkness. He did sometimes work against his friends.

It's kind of shocking that the Ascians were still careless about the balance of light and dark even after the monumental failure on the 13th that they'd need one of their own to intervene. Some superior race these guys are.

[Anonymoose]

That's interesting, is this ever revealed in the materials or is it just an inference?

The "eternal string of course-corrections" part is inference based on that their new plan always starts from where the old plan failed and accounts for the new status-quo somehow. The thing he was having the Warriors of Darkness do was explained in multiple pieces across a long time, but, thank the Twelve, Ardbert just summarized it when he was falling for Urianger's "Hey, why don't you just kill the Warrior of Light instead?" misdirection.

Warrior of Darkness
You know, you're right. Mayhap it is time for a change of tack. Killing primals, tormenting beastmen, hastening the birth of a new god... It's all a bit much, isn't it? And, frankly, we don't have the leisure to do it. Killing the Warrior of Light, on the other hand─that would soon plunge Eorzea into chaos.

The part about Venat's faction opposing Zodiark because of practicality concerns is also new to me, I just took Hythlodaeus' word for it that the conflict was ideological in nature, with Zodiark's faction being those who wished to restore Amaurot to glory through sacrifice, and Hydaelyn's being those who wished to entrust the world to the new life.

The fact that a shade of Hythlodaeus created by a tempered Ascian still vouches for that this is why Hydaelyn was summoned makes me believe it. I'm curious if what happened was that Zodiark was not supposed to stay summoned forever, but once the Convocation was tempered and saw him as the One True God they felt that he was the answer to every problem, even his own intended impermanence. If they couldn't get rid of Zodiark, they could at least summon something to balance out His Darkness. Not that it made anything better in the end. But hey it did enable us to exist so there's that.

It's kind of shocking that the Ascians were still careless about the balance of light and dark even after the monumental failure on the 13th that they'd need one of their own to intervene. Some superior race these guys are.

It's kind of shocking that the Ascians were still careless about a bunch of things, lol. But it looks like the Ascians in black did tend to go overboard, especially the reincarnated ones. They seem to be a little glitchy.

[PangTong]

The thing he was having the Warriors of Darkness do was explained in multiple pieces across a long time, but, thank the Twelve, Ardbert just summarized it when he was falling for Urianger's "Hey, why don't you just kill the Warrior of Light instead?" misdirection.

Wow, that went over my head. I think when I read this line I assumed that the "new god" they were referring to was Zodiark, or perhaps the next primal to be summoned by the beast tribes, but with that context neither of those makes a whole lot of sense. I'd be curious to know if there were other clues I missed.

Thanks for all the responses. While I've got the ear of some experts there's one other slightly less serious thing I've always found a bit weird about the Ascians in the story:

At some point the Ascians decide that the biggest obstacle in the way of their goal is the Warrior of Light, and so they set about trying to find ways to kill us or otherwise use us. But it's like... the Ascians are immortal. The Warrior of Light is not. They've already spent thousands and thousands of years just on the seven calamities they've managed so far. Just... wait for us to die lol? Even if we assume the Warrior of Light/the soul of Azem will just continuously reincarnate, there must surely be periods of some years where they're not capable of much (presumably our character was a baby at some point). And wouldn't said reincarnation happen anyway even if the Ascians killed us? Seems a lot less risky to just wait a bit than trying to get stuff done while we're around, and getting permakilled in the process.

I guess you can just put it down to the Ascians underestimating us, or maybe they just think it'd be a shame to put all the plans they've been working so hard on on pause and potentially have their projects (like Garlemald) go up in smoke, but even so, they literally have all the time in the world. I suspect the real reason for this is "because the story needs to happen," so if they ever actually give a strong reason for why the Ascians are in such a damn hurry to cause the 8th so soon after the 7th, I'll be really impressed.

[Anonymoose]

I assumed that the "new god" they were referring to was Zodiark

For what it's worth, I thought the same thing, lol - maybe the time had come to divert energy towards that snowball. But maybe it was just a new primal to match the calamity plan. If an answer beyond that was there to be found it went over my head, too.

Just... wait for us to die lol?

Ahaha, I agree that Oda might say of this one, "Please do not think too hard about this." A video game needs a story, and we wouldn't get much of one if the Ascians said, "Hey, how about we just let him think he's won for now, and we'll time it so Hydaelyn's next champion is easy to just have hit by a chocobo carriage." I think we might be able to patch a "good enough" bandaid over it if we assume once the Warrior of Light slipped the leash Lahabrea thought he had them on, the Ascians had to kill them or outdo them but just leaving them alone they'd keep fighting until they caused a Flood.