Quote Originally Posted by Cleretic View Post
...wait, why do you suddenly decide this one part is the result of a lie, when we take every single other thing said both by Ifrit and the priest in this scene as truth? Why is this one part suddenly the thing we don't believe?
Why? Because we're clearly not godless. We have Hydaelyn. You yourself have said numerous times that we cannot completely trust information given to us by the Ascians, so why should we trust secondhand info from Ifrit who is speaking with knowledge learned from them? In other words, the priest may have been correct on top of Ifrit who doesn't even know that he's correct. That's what I want to highlight. They don't actually know why we resisted Tempering, but those are their best explanations.


Let's go over what the Echo actually is, because that has some bearing on the situation at hand. It's likely more interesting to you than tempering theory, but I'll get back to that.

You might know in Japanese The Echo is actually a phrase meaning, "Transcendent Power." We've been given the truth of its origin, at least mostly. It's a power that comes from the soul and relates to them greatly. As we currently understand it, anyone with The Echo is possessed of an ancient soul that corresponds to Amaurotine society. While we don't have all of the details, we know that these souls are particularly robust with a specialness to them that allows individuals possessed of them all sorts of powers.

The most important power we've been shown is the fact that if one masters the Echo then they can resist the pull of the Lifestream, and avoid being sent to the Aetherial Sea to await rebirth, upon the death of their physical body. They may also then possess another's body, overriding the body and soul of a living being. While inside of a physical body they may resist primal influence, but outside of a physical body they are a ready supply of aether for the primal to absorb, per the Leviathan/Sahagin Priest cutscene.

What this means is that souls with The Echo are souls with agency. They can resist the "natural" cycle. They can co-opt any soul weaker than themselves, or any soul without agency. It's not ever stated, but I surmise that the reason primals may do the same(except for resisting death) is because they are large embodiments of the wills of many souls given form, and at the very least have the ability to interact with souls themselves.

Hydaelyn and Zodiark are a bit different. We know for a fact that they have Amaurotines, those imbued with the Echo, at their cores. According to Hades there is no resisting such power, and he along with the Convocation were tempered. The cave paintings in Qitana Ravel show the same for Hydaelyn's faction. By this we learned that even our adamantine soul is not immune, only staggeringly resistant.

While it wasn't shown on screen, we do know of one example of Tempered beings that's up in the air. The Beastmen and Dragons used in the Telo Towers. The story very much glosses over the fact that most of those captured were of tribes already tempered. We surely didn't get the Tempering cure around that fast, as the towers came about while we struggled to free one Kobold patriarch, so how are the towers doing this? They seemingly Temper beings to Garlemald itself. For the Garleans and resistance soldiers it's no big deal, but for those that already summon primals? Those already tempered to primals? Those Lunar primals and the Meracydian dragons? They fight for the Telophoroi and summon for the Telophoroi. At a minimum the towers are new, so certainly not beholden to the old "rules" but by being that way they throw the old into the air, dashing what we know against the rocks as so much dust into the wind. Except for, they haven't overcome a soul with agency, yet.

What all this means and demonstrates is that the story is rather more inconclusive at every turn than it ever is concrete. Every time they hammer down a nail, another pops out of the other side of the board. The Amal'jaa Priest says something that is seemingly true, we belong to Hydaelyn. Unreliable Ifrit makes another assertion, which many have embraced as correct for years in spite of the phrase, "Godless Blessed" being an oxy-moron. But over the years we learn that we resist Ifrit's Tempering, because we have a stronger will and a soul with agency. If Ifrit were on Hydaelyn or Zodiark's level, then he could have tempered us.

While you've been caught up with those words being law, I have been preoccupied with the actions of the story. I may very well still be wrong, but all I'm asserting is that the possibility of the WoL having been Tempered still stands open, and it will remain open until the story closes it.