Thinking about Elidibus

[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

[Cleretic]

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

My guess is that Zodiark wasn't trying to. From Altima's crystal line in Etched in the Stars, the tempering started pretty much instantly on summoning. Remember that the only primal we've had a proper, full conversation with, Ramuh, was tempering the sylphs explicitly against his own will. It seems like tempering is just a natural effect of a primal's summoning and existence, regardless of intent.

This is your inference, not stated fact, and I think you may have it wrong.

From memory, Elidibus thinks on the idea of the Warrior of Light and remarks that they were a sundered soul. There is never any mention of him taking that form before.

It's more likely that it was an early incarnation of Azem's soul who started the legend of the Warrior of Light, and Elidibus's plan in Shadowbringers is to intercept the hero-worship still afforded to this lasting concept of heroism and salvation by taking on that form and claiming the title.

Uhm... no, actually. I think you're thinking of a different cutscene. I'm thinking of the Echo flashback of Elidibus in Anamnesis, before the Dream Amaurot bit. Transcribing the segment in question...

Ancient Elidibus looks at his own hands as they fade.

"It fades. Fades away into oblivion. Does the world no longer have need of me?"
"No. I am Elidibus. And I must--I will fulfill my duty."

Camera pans to FFI WoL-looking guy, facing away from camera.

"Sundered though you may be, you fought for the world's salvation. For hope. Hope..."

Elidibus reaches out the FFI WoL-guy, cuts to black.

"Ahh, it swells within me. Empowers me. Now--now I may carry out my mission."
"Why do I yearn for this? Why must I struggle so?"

That Echo flashback is hard to completely dissect for truth, because it's clear both that A: it is depicting at least two factual events, some significant time apart, and B: it is being SUPER non-literal, what with the lack of cuts and black background. But what is clear is that Elidibus definitely did possess an archetypal hero of the Sundered (post-Sundering, of course), specifically to rejuvenate himself. The mystery is when and where exactly this happened, and what may have happened beforehand in that world, but neither of those are tremendously important to figuring out the chronology of Elidibus' life. The only evidence we have suggesting anything on that is that a figure that looks like the FFI WoL appeared in the First's history, but given the same armor exists in the Crystal Tower somehow, it's hard to say that's a definite A-to-B line to draw.

Saying Azem is somehow involved actually has far less grounding.

[Iscah]

Uhm... no, actually. I think you're thinking of a different cutscene. I'm thinking of the Echo flashback of Elidibus in Anamnesis, before the Dream Amaurot bit.

No, that's exactly the scene I'm thinking of. And it is hard to interpret – so I don't think we can definitively say that Elidibus possessed the original Warrior of Light versus it being a very obscure version of him now recently hijacking that image to become "Ardbert the Warrior of Light".

As I understand it, Elidibus thought of the historical/legendary figure and concluded that the praise still targeted at him was the same concept (hope and salvation) that Elidibus needs to sustain himself.

Edit to add: I did sound more definite than I intended regarding the possibility that the legendary WoL being Azem. It's a suggestion others have made in the past, but nobody else I recall has interpreted it as Elidibus being the original WoL.

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Edit 6 June 2022: As this thread re-emerges, I look at my first sentence here and try to figure out what the heck I wrote. I think it was supposed to be "vision" not "version".

[Iscah]

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.

This is your inference, not stated fact, and I think you may have it wrong.

From memory, Elidibus thinks on the idea of the Warrior of Light and remarks that they were a sundered soul. There is never any mention of him taking that form before.

It's more likely that it was an early incarnation of Azem's soul who started the legend of the Warrior of Light, and Elidibus's plan in Shadowbringers is to intercept the hero-worship still afforded to this lasting concept of heroism and salvation by taking on that form and claiming the title.