The questions I want EW to answer the most: WHY and HOW was the world sundered?

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

As an aside to this, it's very interesting how they share the haloes. First it starts with Zodiark having two, then Hydaelyn being summoned and them both having one, then Zodiark being defeated and Hydaelyn having both. Basically, it's like their divinity is shared.

Excellent observation! I didn't even take that into account but If I had to posit a guess maybe it has something to do with Hydaelyn saying "light and darkness were once one" If Zodiark and Hydaelyn draw from the source and the formers summoning tipped the balance it would explain why he starts with two, Hydaelyn is summoned to balance him out and when she succeeds him as Will of the star made manifest she gets both Halos.

So Halo would equal "divine" right to rule so to speak

[Lauront]

IMO, the crossed arms and (double) halos probably are traits the ancients saw as signifying divinity or at least sacred beings, which would fit with the way they revered the star itself. The halos remind me a bit of the way the crescent moon that behind Tsukuyomi forms - a symbol of the primal's power/status, perhaps. The fact that the double halos symbolically halve when they're both around does suggest some kind of conjoined existence, where one (her) was derived from the other (think Adam and Eve), although I suppose it is consistent with Zodiark weakening as she enervates him and some of that (shared?) power flows to her. Light and dark differ a bit to the elements in that they're energies that map over to the astral and umbral polarity, so whether they truly stand in opposition as the way that say, fire and water do, or whether they have a more "fluid" nature, is an open question. This goes back to Ramuh's comments, but also lore in the 1.0 CNJ quests.

In a FFXIV context, you have them with the two eldest of primals (but also the statue of the High Seraph - this conceptualisation of the sacred may have survived in the collective unconscious), and of course Necron from IX with his double halos (the art here having features split over both Primals here), as well as XIII's Bhunivelze, and probably many others besides. Like HiraishinNoJutsu said, they're symbols of divinity in a lot of religions.

[Cleretic]

I know it's kinda off-topic (sorry orz) but I wondered if anybody can link me a thread or copy paste an explanation where this theory is debunked?

Because tbh as a lore noob I had the same exact theory when Hydaelin's nature as a primal was revealed. Something like "Ohhh, what if she was the evil manipulator all along, making us do what she wants us to do and making us immune to other primals because we are already possessed by her".

All of this comes from the perspective of a player who has only very superficial lore understanding with big breaks between my playing periods and only learning about the story from the MSQ. That's more than a shaky background of course so I'd love to read the takess of people who actually understand the lore, unlike me.

I've made a video for exactly this myself, very recently! More broadly talking about the Blessing of Light, including what exactly it's capable of and that it isn't the things it gets confused for (both tempering, and the Echo).

I think the main problem is that the actual refutation is very early in ARR, and then the entire story afterwards was just written as if everyone recognizes that as truth that nobody needs to talk about it, despite it being A: before everyone has a full grasp on what's going on and being told to them anyway, and B: in the period where everyone claims 'nothing happens you can skip it'.

[Vyrerus]

Do the rings behind godlike characters hold special meaning? I always thought it was just iconography that represents a higher power.

As far as I know, no. First time they're used in the series to my knowledge is for Seraph Sephiroth. Then on Necron(though his were like, not floating but part of his extra set of arms attached to him).

It's definitely just a divinity thing, but I personally get a big nostalgia wave seeing them float in relatively the same position behind the heads just looking at Zodiark and Hydaelyn.

Course, given the launch trailer, incomplete Zodiark be looking like a blood red Necron with the icon replacement for the crescent moon on the Mirror Shield for a face(From OoT remakes).

[Rulakir]

Regardless of whether or not Hydaelyn technically tempered the WoL, she along with the assistance of everyone else who reveres her indoctrinated, manipulated, and groomed them into being her champion and carrying out her will. It wasn't questioned because Hydaelyn had always been viewed as an unquestionably benevolent force of good to the point of zealotry even among the Scions and the Echo a gift from her.

Now that we know the Echo has nothing to do with her, that she triggers star showers to find those with it and immediately sends them all a mass guild invite, it's decisively shady especially given that only Ancient souls can have it and all of the Ancients didn't approve of nor support her. I find this particularly insufferable with the WoL who, as Azem, refused to join with Venat, but in their current reincarnation has been unwittingly forced into it regardless.

Add onto this that she's a primal and it's so much worse. She's no goddess, but the manifestation of an agenda of a dissident and we still, frankly, don't know what that agenda is.

[Darkstride]

And I'm wondering if perhaps that'll actually be Fandaniel's role. Whatever it is he truly wants, 'the return of Amaurot' is the absolute last on his list, despite being one of the few that has a pretty solid idea of how it was. Does he not want that because he's just generally not put-together mentally, or does he not want that because his different perspective has shown that Amaurot was some kind of secret hellhole?.

Interestingly, Fandaniel's dialogue in the launch trailer suggests that he does in fact want to restore their "paradise".

[Cleretic]

Interestingly, Fandaniel's dialogue in the launch trailer suggests that he does in fact want to restore their "paradise".

Yeeeeeah, I don't know what to think about that. Partly because that sounds boring as hell if that's exactly what's going on, but mainly because it actually stands completely at odds with Fandaniel's big scenes, where he's been very willingly destructive. I did put a prediction that I think would square all of this in the speculations thread, though, that I'll throw in here under spoiler tags.

A theory I've got, now that we've heard some Fandaniel lines that are weirdly at odds with how Fandaniel has actually been talking and acting in front of us.

First of all: we know that Fandaniel's soul crystal is broken and weird (its lines are fragmented in Etched in the Stars rather than complete sentences). We also know that he's one of the extremely small amount of characters that actively changes between outfits over the story, going between the white Facet healing set and the purple Cryptlurker healing set. And for what it's worth, the Warrior of Light has never met him wearing white; he was in the purple outfit both at the Ala Mhigan palace in 5.4, and the Borderland Ruins in 5.55. He's worn both in Zenos scenes, though.

What I suggest is that while we're technically dealing with two 'Fandaniels', only the white one is the real Ascian. The soul crystal's broken nature meant that when awakened, Fandaniel wasn't in complete control, and so he occasionally lapses into another, more 'human' personality--the purple one. As to who that is, I have two sub-theories.
1. The original person who was awakened, who had their life hijacked.
2. Asahi, his soul mistakenly brought back when his body was.

Whoever Purple Fandaniel really is, he's the one that desperately just wants to break everything and destroy the planet, because life has treated them pretty bad, and they've been given an unwilling front-row seat to both the horrors of the Source and the dark shadows of Amaurot (whatever those are), and has realized he's not getting a win either way. White Fandaniel is still trusting in the Ascian gameplan, and trying to get that rolling through alternate methods, and both of them are going along with the starting steps of the plan they've had to cook up by themselves, while intending to take control and steer the ship in what they believe is the right direction when the pieces are in place.

The fact that Purple Fandaniel is on the moon during that speech is a trick of editing; they're different scenes, and it's actually White Fandaniel speaking.

It could also open the door to a fun as hell dynamic, where both White and Purple Fandaniels attempt to set up the WoL and the Scions to sabotage each other, and the Scions have to play both sides because they provide the tools for each other's destruction.

[dreamfisher]

First of all: we know that Fandaniel's soul crystal is broken and weird (its lines are fragmented in Etched in the Stars rather than complete sentences).

I like this theory a lot. I've also posited it in the past.

I hope you don't mind me un-spoiler-tagging this section, but I wondered if we actually know this. My initial interpretation of that scene was that the words weren't clear because we weren't prepared to listen to soul crystals.

When you pick up the next set, it says:

You focus on the crystals, and find that the words they hold ring clearer than before.

I'm going off of the English text only, but Fandaniel's crystal is not explicitly outed as an anomaly, here. I took it to mean that our focus was the problem; not the crystal.
I'm not opposed to it as speculation, but is there something I'm missing that confirms that the crystal is an oddity, like an interview or French localisation or something?

[AlexionSkyllark]

we still need to find out why only 3 Ancients survived.

I actually have a guess on that: They escaped the sundering on account on being at the Moon when it happened.

Regardless of whether or not Hydaelyn technically tempered the WoL, she along with the assistance of everyone else who reveres her indoctrinated, manipulated, and groomed them into being her champion and carrying out her will. It wasn't questioned because Hydaelyn had always been viewed as an unquestionably benevolent force of good to the point of zealotry even among the Scions and the Echo a gift from her.

Add onto this that she's a primal and it's so much worse. She's no goddess, but the manifestation of an agenda of a dissident and we still, frankly, don't know what that agenda is.

And let's not forget that we just went through an entire expansion that basically said "Being aligned with the Light does not make anything intrinsically good."

[dreamfisher]

I actually have a guess on that: They escaped the sundering on account on being at the Moon when it happened.

You know, something I always found interesting was that the lore book says that (based on our accounts)

... The will of Light—Hydaelyn—passed judgment that Darkness should be physically excised from the planet, and cast the will of Darkness—Zodiark—into space, where it became the moon.

and later

... forcing Hydaelyn, in an act of self-preservation, to banish him to the distant heavens as a moon, bound.

and in the game, The Word of the Mother tells us

Thus was I forced to banish Him unto the distant heavens, to forever remain apart. A moon bound.

No comma. I have a few explanations in mind:
- "The scions misunderstood what they were told."
- "The scions just worded the account poorly, twice, in two different ways."
- "Hydaelyn lied to us."
- "It's just an error in the book."

The first one seeming the most reasonable to me, since it's easy to hear a comma where there isn't one, I guess.
And errors do happen more often than we seem to like to acknowledge, but I still have a difficult time dismissing the possibility that the moon was created as a part of the sundering.

Does anyone have irrefutable proof they could point me toward?