Thinking about Elidibus

[PangTong]

Imagine that the Ascians decide to all retreat to the rift or to the shards, and let the WoL run roughshod over all the chaos in the world. When they come back once the WoL's life has ended, what's become of the world? What foothold in a powerful nation do they have? What keys for calamities must they now forge anew? What might seem like a quick 100 year nap might actually have several hundred to upwards of thousands of years of consequence for the Ascians. The WoL and the Scions might even develop a nation that keeps and disseminates the knowledge on how to kill them. "We know they're not gone, because they're waiting for us to die. When they come back, be ready." or something like that.

This is a pretty good explanation I think. Although it doesn't seem like it's THAT difficult for them to build up from nothing. As soon as one plan for a calamity gets shot down, they always seem to have another ready to go pretty much immediately. Emet-Selch built the Garlean Empire in like 50-60 years and actually managed to get a calamity out of it too. Almost two! The possibility of us cautioning future generations against the Ascians does seem like a significant enough problem that they'd want to nip it in the bud now. But on the other hand, there will always be greedy men tempted by power. They're pretty good at hiding their involvement, usually they just pull the strings a little and the mortals end up ruining themselves. Even with a 1000 year setback, what is 1000 years to an Ascian? They have all eternity to complete their mission (unless they don't and we just don't know about it).

I think pride and hubris is indeed a big part of why they choose to fight instead of play it safe.

[Bright-Flower]

I wonder, with them going for another calamity so soon after the Bahamut one, if they only did that because of Louis going phoenix allowing the realm to recover far faster than normal, and in general stopping the calamity from being as catastrophic as prior ones. (I'm sure it was bad for those five years we skipped, but considering prior calamities undid entire civilizations, the 7th really wasn't that bad by comparison.)

[PangTong]

I wonder, with them going for another calamity so soon after the Bahamut one, if they only did that because of Louis going phoenix allowing the realm to recover far faster than normal, and in general stopping the calamity from being as catastrophic as prior ones. (I'm sure it was bad for those five years we skipped, but considering prior calamities undid entire civilizations, the 7th really wasn't that bad by comparison.)

I think this is a big reason for why the Ascians got back at it again so quickly too. The way the lore book describes the other calamities, it's like mankind is sent back to the stone age with each one. The level of death and destruction is such that it probably takes hundreds or thousands of years before mortals are numerous enough and capable of wielding enough power that another calamity is possible. By comparison Bahamut wasn't nearly as destructive, most likely due to Phoenix.

[Veloran]

Throughout the entire game all the way up to Shadowbringers, Elidibus says his objective is to maintain the balance between Light and Darkness. The story goes to lengths to portray him as different from the other Ascians. He saves Unukalhai, who describes him as his master and who goes on to decide he wants to save the world, and helps defeat the Warring Triad for good, which seems opposed to the Ascians' goals.

Elidibus would rather the world wasn't devastated through the rejoinings. He wanted the perfect aetheric balance that would allow for the worlds to be rejoined, but not for the Source to be destroyed in the so doing.

For example, early in the game he encourages WoL's growth because that contributes to the aetheric light necessary for the rejoining with the First. But as time went on WoL grew too powerful and began tipping the balance too far towards the light, which led to him bringing in the Warriors of Darkness and then joining Garlemald as Zenos to try and tip it back the other way. We may actually see the effects of what he was trying to ward off in the Eighth Umbral Calamity timeline, where the Alliance and WoL win the war all the way to Garlemald's doorstep, presumably in so doing defeating Elidibus-as-Zenos, throwing the balance wildly into the favor of light to the point that when the rejoining occurred the world was utterly suffocated with umbral aether and all but obliterated.

Elidibus didn't want such an outcome, which is why he was plainly at odds with the more extremist Ascians like Lahabrea and Nabriales, who just wanted the ardor at any cost.

[Larirawiel]

One thing i do net get about Elidibus: was he a primal from begin of his existence? Or was he a normal Amaurotian and then he sacrificed himself to become Zodiark's heart which transformed him into a primal? I guess, he was always a primal but i am not sure and the revelations in the game confused me.

Cheers

[Tsiron]

I think he was a regular person until the whole Zodiark thing, and only afterwards did he become a Primal...? Though based on what we know of summoning, would it have even been the same Elidibus at that point, or just people's idea of him given form...?

I'll be honest I haven't been able to wrap my head around his whole deal even now, it's one of the weaker points of ShB in my opinion...

[Cleretic]

One thing i do net get about Elidibus: was he a primal from begin of his existence? Or was he a normal Amaurotian and then he sacrificed himself to become Zodiark's heart which transformed him into a primal? I guess, he was always a primal but i am not sure and the revelations in the game confused me.

Cheers

The general structure of that is:

1. Elidibus is a normal Ancient.
2. End of Days happens, he steps up to become the heart of Zodiark (and isn't even the first choice, but that's not important). Elidibus becomes that heart, part of a primal.
3. Elidibus gets lonely/needy/sees people need help/whatever, and descends as Elidibus again, whose form is also a primal.
4. Hydaelyn hits Zodiark with a leg drop from the top rope. Elidibus remains one of the few intact Ancients afterwards, his consciousness down with them instead of up in Zodiark, but Zodiark's body isn't doing much so it's inconsequential.
5. Elidibus, Lahabrea and Emet-Selch make the crystals of the Convocation, and elevate the rest of them as the Ascians.
6. Elidibus starts fading, because he's powered by literal hero worship since that's what Zodiark was made to be. At this point either the Source or at least one shard is in a roughly medieval-era age of heroism, and he possesses a guy that looks like the FFI WoL, and plays hero to both feed himself and manipulate the world.
7. All Known History goes here.
8. A Realm Reborn starts and we show Elidibus that he's a chump-tier hero no matter how many times he's worn the mask for sustenance reasons, and is equally chump-tier at picking good hosts or pawns.

5 and 6 could be the other way around, it's unclear, but also not important right now. So to answer your question, Elidibus has been a primal since the End of Days, but has been 'the primal Elidibus' since an unclear amount of time after that.

And chances are, the primal Elidibus was... well, the person Elidibus' idea of the person Elidibus rather than anyone else's, with some broken bits because primals have different needs. So he's mostly accurate, but not completely, in the same way that if you drew a self-portrait of yourself, you'd probably get a few things wrong.

[GoldStarz]

The general structure of that is:

1. Elidibus is a normal Ancient.
2. End of Days happens, he steps up to become the heart of Zodiark (and isn't even the first choice, but that's not important). Elidibus becomes that heart, part of a primal.
3. Elidibus gets lonely/needy/sees people need help/whatever, and descends as Elidibus again, whose form is also a primal.
4. Hydaelyn hits Zodiark with a leg drop from the top rope. Elidibus remains one of the few intact Ancients afterwards, his consciousness down with them instead of up in Zodiark, but Zodiark's body isn't doing much so it's inconsequential.
5. Elidibus, Lahabrea and Emet-Selch make the crystals of the Convocation, and elevate the rest of them as the Ascians.
6. Elidibus starts fading, because he's powered by literal hero worship since that's what Zodiark was made to be. At this point either the Source or at least one shard is in a roughly medieval-era age of heroism, and he possesses a guy that looks like the FFI WoL, and plays hero to both feed himself and manipulate the world.
7. All Known History goes here.
8. A Realm Reborn starts and we show Elidibus that he's a chump-tier hero no matter how many times he's worn the mask for sustenance reasons, and is equally chump-tier at picking good hosts or pawns.

5 and 6 could be the other way around, it's unclear, but also not important right now. So to answer your question, Elidibus has been a primal since the End of Days, but has been 'the primal Elidibus' since an unclear amount of time after that.

And chances are, the primal Elidibus was... well, the person Elidibus' idea of the person Elidibus rather than anyone else's, with some broken bits because primals have different needs. So he's mostly accurate, but not completely, in the same way that if you drew a self-portrait of yourself, you'd probably get a few things wrong.

I would argue that the first part of 6 happens as soon as or even before 3. And as for your last paragraph, I feel like that's pretty irrefutably wrong. The whole reason that Emet is basically "btw if I die, you can kill Elidibus" is because he's become so unrecognizably warped. Almost everything we know about OG!Elidibus (that he's excitable, pure-hearted, has a strong sense of justice, idolizes the other Convocation members) is not present in the current version and in some cases actually mirrored like where he completely dismisses Emet's final sentiments as being proof that he was already a failure. This is all what the line: “The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it," is meant to represent; 'Elidibus' is physically present, but Elidibus has been gone since the day he was sacrificed to create Zodiark.

[Cleretic]

I would argue that the first part of 6 happens as soon as or even before 3. And as for your last paragraph, I feel like that's pretty irrefutably wrong. The whole reason that Emet is basically "btw if I die, you can kill Elidibus" is because he's become so unrecognizably warped. Almost everything we know about OG!Elidibus (that he's excitable, pure-hearted, has a strong sense of justice, idolizes the other Convocation members) is not present in the current version and in some cases actually mirrored like where he completely dismisses Emet's final sentiments as being proof that he was already a failure. This is all what the line: “The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it," is meant to represent; 'Elidibus' is physically present, but Elidibus has been gone since the day he was sacrificed to create Zodiark.

So I put 'Elidibus starts fading, finds a way to keep living' at 6 because his solution is to possess a hero of the Sundered. Can't really have a hero of the Sundered to possess unless it's after the Sundering happened in the first place.

As to 'how much of the Elidibus we killed is the original one', it should be noted that the Tales from the Shadows story with both Emet and Elidibus is post-Zodiark and after Elidibus' return. So he didn't 'come back wrong', or at least, didn't come back wrong enough for Emet to notice. But you are right, he did change afterwards, as did all the Ascians, so he isn't a static image of himself. The question of Elidibus' development as a person after that point is interesting, and not something we'll ever see explored, most likely: he seems more of a sentient self-portrait than an actual person, but it seems that he developed in response to both external stimuli and his internal needs, both of which were different to the rest of the Ascians (the former because of his more 'on-the-ground' perspective as a faux-hero, the latter because he's a primal who needs different sustenance). So chances are he deviated pretty hard in different ways to the rest, and over time lost what would've been considered important details to anybody else.

If he started off as a self-portrait, over time, perhaps he's become more of an exaggerated caricature, redrawn and redefined by himself by what was considered important at the time.

[Larirawiel]

The general structure of that is:

1. Elidibus is a normal Ancient.
2. End of Days happens, he steps up to become the heart of Zodiark (and isn't even the first choice, but that's not important). Elidibus becomes that heart, part of a primal.

The next question is: why did Elidibus in form of Zodiark temper the other ancients? It seems that the heart of a primal has the control over them. Iceheart had the control over Shiva and it seems that Venat controls Hydaelyn.

Cheers