Sharlayan origins and the Endwalker Trailer

[Cleretic]

Fun Fact: Team Hydaelyn has never saved the world in FFXIV.

...no? Very no, actually. This is abundantly untrue. 'Team Hydaelyn' has actually saved the world several times, and to say they haven't is either insane goalpost-moving or blatant ignorance of fact. Their main problem is that they've confirmably failed six and a bit times over the ages.

On-screen, I'm very happy to credit 'Team Hydaelyn' with averting Calamities wrought by the Ultima Weapon, by King Thordan (on both ends), and by Hades (on the other side from usual), as well as giving partial credit for Dalamud. And that's only when Hydaelyn herself influences the fight; if you want to say 'Team Hydaelyn saves' only require Hydaelyn-aligned people stopping potential Calamities without influence from The Big Lady, we can chalk up Alexander, Eureka, and potentially the Crystal Tower. And if you wanted to notch up Shinryu too, you wouldn't be entirely unfounded in doing so.

And there's also an uncountable factor: you don't know how many Calamities that previous people with the Blessing of Light stopped. Since there's no evidence Hydaelyn started picking people recently, and we know of heroes in ages past, it's only natural to assume there were 'Team Hydaelyn' people in previous eras.

It's incalculable how many times Team Hydaelyn have saved the world. The problem is that over the thousands of years of trying, the Ascians have beaten them a handful of times, and not only are those failures very countable, but she's only got so many chances.

We know she smashed the Ancient world, but personally, I very much doubt that it was intentional, because nothing we've seen has ever suggested a desire to. And personally, I suspect some Zodiarkian shenanigans; if someone turns up wanting to punch you in the snout to stop you doing whatever you want, you're gonna resist.

[Veloran]

...no? Very no, actually. This is abundantly untrue. 'Team Hydaelyn' has actually saved the world several times,

It's not a team effort when someone never even shows up for the huddle. The only credit I can give Hydaelyn was shielding WoL against Ultima at the end of 2.0 and then blasting Lahabrea, and ultimately his design was to weaken Hydaelyn rather than cause a Calamity so by expending all that power she arguably did what he wanted anyway. Aside from that her best showing was sending Minfilia to the First, and it's debatable how much of that was by her own power. Every other instance of WoL saving the world was down to WoL themselves, and as people are so fond of pointing out in relation to the tempering argument WoL would always be doing that with or without Hydaelyn's blessing. And as an aside most of what you reference on this front weren't shaped up to be Calamities.

And there's also an uncountable factor: you don't know how many Calamities that previous people with the Blessing of Light stopped. Since there's no evidence Hydaelyn started picking people recently, and we know of heroes in ages past, it's only natural to assume there were 'Team Hydaelyn' people in previous eras.

The issue is we have no evidence for previous Warriors of Light ever stopping any Calamities. Historically they're known to appear on the eve of an Umbral Era, which implicitly suggests that they have a very low success rate. Even the instances where we know they've done heroic things, such as with Tenzen or Ramza, we neither know if those situations would have developed into Calamities (as Ascian involvement looks to have been zero), nor to what degree Hydaelyn was even involved.

We know she smashed the Ancient world, but personally, I very much doubt that it was intentional, because nothing we've seen has ever suggested a desire to.

Maybe it was an accident, but as it is there is surely more evidence that it wasn't. Not to mention she's shown a very strong motivation to keep the cosmic dynamics as they are now, what with the great dimensional barrier and the Warriors of Light and everything. And as Vyrerus pointed out, if you look at what this state of being is responsible for and conclude that it is unjust, then Hydaelyn is responsible for perpetuating no small amount of suffering herself.

[GoldStarz]

It's not a team effort when someone never even shows up for the huddle. The only credit I can give Hydaelyn was shielding WoL against Ultima at the end of 2.0 and then blasting Lahabrea, and ultimately his design was to weaken Hydaelyn rather than cause a Calamity so by expending all that power she arguably did what he wanted anyway. Aside from that her best showing was sending Minfilia to the First, and it's debatable how much of that was by her own power. Every other instance of WoL saving the world was down to WoL themselves, and as people are so fond of pointing out in relation to the tempering argument WoL would always be doing that with or without Hydaelyn's blessing. And as an aside most of what you reference on this front weren't shaped up to be Calamities.

Except she very clearly is trying to contribute. Do you think it was solely Minfilia's idea to leave Ardbert behind rather than use his energy to stay the flood? Minfilia is a very smart and capable person, but I doubt she has the ability to recognize that someone's soul is the same as another's or the ability to pre-plan to such an extent that she can make a split second choice that affects 100 years down the line. I'm positive that either before or after she was sent on her way, Hydaelyn sent her a memo not to use Ardbert's soul.

There's only so much you can do when you quite literally have no way to speak to people, let alone actively influence events.

[MikkoAkure]

The issue is we have no evidence for previous Warriors of Light ever stopping any Calamities. Historically they're known to appear on the eve of an Umbral Era, which implicitly suggests that they have a very low success rate. Even the instances where we know they've done heroic things, such as with Tenzen or Ramza, we neither know if those situations would have developed into Calamities (as Ascian involvement looks to have been zero), nor to what degree Hydaelyn was even involved.

A lot of the problem with making conjectures regarding the past events is that all of this is being told in the medium of a video game and not a chronicle of events of another world with no "plot". If past WoL were very successful at stopping calamities, then there wouldn't be much at stake would there? As much as I like the game and its lore, I don't think that it's meant to be thought about this much. Besides, the writers can always say that the successful attempts at stopping calamities were so successful that we didn't hear about them. Hydaelyn herself is so secret that the general populace of the world doesn't know of her existence, let alone mystical magical warriors who fight against the powers of Darkness.

The Ascians are always doing things in the background too, they don't make just 1 plan and throw all their eggs in the basket. Look at the whole plot of Heavensward. That was kicked off because 1000 years ago an Ascian told king Thordan I that you can get power by eating dragon eyes, and then he left and the whole region fell into chaos. I don't feel like that was done specifically to cause a calamity, but they're certainly trying to make a mess of things and reap their harvest down the line depending on what has grown from the seeds they've sown. The thing with the Ascians' goals to cause a calamity is that they only have to win once.

It's the hypocrisy that bothers me.

Well I guess we'll all find out in a few days what happened since we don't have the complete story yet and we're jumping at conclusions right now without all of the facts. My current stance is that when a primal tells its indoctrinated and tempered followers that it will totally return all of the souls of the summoned in exchange for more aether, I'm disinclined to believe it, as I'm sure Venat was as well. Some of the Ascians definitely seemed to have been drinking the kool-aid more than others since Lahabrea outright referred to Zodiark as a god despite the fact he more than anyone else should know better while Emet-Selch treated his tempering casually as a matter of fact.


On topic, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ascians had something to do with Sharlayan, for the same reason I mentioned above for the Ascians starting the Dragonsong War. Their reasoning with Sharlayan will probably be a lot more subtle than that but we'll know this weekend.

[Rulakir]

My current stance is that when a primal tells its indoctrinated and tempered followers that it will totally return all of the souls of the summoned in exchange for more aether, I'm disinclined to believe it, as I'm sure Venat was as well. Some of the Ascians definitely seemed to have been drinking the kool-aid more than others since Lahabrea outright referred to Zodiark as a god despite the fact he more than anyone else should know better while Emet-Selch treated his tempering casually as a matter of fact.

Primals are the will of their creators made manifest. There was no reason not to believe Zodiark could return the sacrificed Ancients when he'd succeeded in carrying out the Convocation's previous requests to cease the Final Days and restore life to the world. It's also been presented that primal tempering is essentially involuntary. It's for this reason I believe Hydaelyn tempers and will be rather irked if she's somehow the sole exception to a rule of basic survival instinct for every other known primal.

My opinion is everyone should be a lot more concerned that we've been carrying out a primal's will not only without question but with devotion when we don't know what Hydaelyn's will is. I've theorized that her primary objective is to stop Zodiark no matter the cost as opposed to protecting life as I'd argue the sundering was a violent act against nature, but it did serve to suspend Zodiark.

[MikkoAkure]

Primals are the will of their creators made manifest. There was no reason not to believe Zodiark could return the sacrificed Ancients when he'd succeeded in carrying out the Convocation's previous requests to cease the Final Days and restore life to the world. It's also been presented that primal tempering is essentially involuntary. It's for this reason I believe Hydaelyn tempers and will be rather irked if she's somehow the sole exception to a rule of basic survival instinct for every other known primal.

My opinion is everyone should be a lot more concerned that we've been carrying out a primal's will not only without question but with devotion when we don't know what Hydaelyn's will is. I've theorized that her primary objective is to stop Zodiark no matter the cost as opposed to protecting life as I'd argue the sundering was a violent act against nature, but it did serve to suspend Zodiark.

If that were completely the case and Warriors of Light are Hydaelyn sleeper agents, then it wouldn't account for Ajora summoning Ultima, Cylva basically causing everything bad that happened on the First, or the Warriors of Darkness joining Team Rocket to kick puppies and shoot children with poison arrows on the Source. Also Hydaelyn willingly giving up most of her energy basically every meaningful encounter we have with her, to the point where even Midgardsormr is kinda like "I don't know about this". She's definitely a complex program, but there must be something about her that values free will to a fault. It's even in her song.

This post my age like a banana in a few days but I'd like to think the writers are better than 10 years of story ending with "you've been pranked!" and it turns out that we were tempered all along. I'm sure Zodiark might get some level of redemption, but I'm not banking on a complete flip either.

[Rulakir]

There have been a number of star showers throughout the game, and while the Echo isn't the rarest thing in the world, it's still uncommon.

I thought ShB was clear that having the Echo wasn't the determining factor as others stated even though it wasn't triggered for them they still felt an overwhelming sense of loss. Unless I missed where it was specifically detailed that no Echo = no Ancient, in which case I'd like to read the dialog where that was said.

Go ask Shanti and her daughter how that worked out for them.

I said they had no reason not to believe it was beyond his power, not that he could actually do it. Given that Emet can pluck souls out of the Lifestream I wouldn't think it outside the realm of possibility. There could be a few factors as to why Sri Lakshmi couldn't do it, including that the Qalyana wouldn't have had that knowledge to impart or she was simply too weak a primal to manage it.

Also Hydaelyn willingly giving up most of her energy basically every meaningful encounter we have with her

The WoL has acted in opposition to the Ascians since the beginning, so it's in Hydaelyn's best interest to protect us. Plus, as she/Minfilia said in HW, "As the Ascians must serve as instruments of Zodiark's will, so too must others carry out the will of Hydaelyn." We know she conjures star showers and sends out an automated message to recruit.

One of my gripes is how little free will the WoL seems to have compared to others with the Echo. I didn't see Ysayle acting on behalf of Hydaelyn, she had her own agenda to the extent of becoming a primal. The same could be said for Arenvald, arguably even Krile, etc. The only one who's been worse than us when it comes to doing Hydaelyn's bidding was Minfilia. Side note that I don't see how the Scions can claim she wasn't tempered after the tempering of Thordan's Twelve where they retained free will up to the point that they couldn't deny him. If Minfilia wasn't tempered then she was an outright zealot and may as well have screamed "My life for YOU!" when she stayed behind to get caught up in Flow. Anyway. :P

I don't necessarily believe the WoL is tempered, but we have been indoctrinated and groomed. I also don't believe Hydaelyn is good or evil and Venat probably believed in what she was doing, but that doesn't mean the end result wasn't excessive and horrific. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

This is all just my opinion based on what I've seen in game. I don't have any expectations of Hydaelyn (or Zodiark) being presented as anything but morally grey specifically because it would tick off a lot of players if that's not the case.

[SentioftheHoukai]

That was kicked off because 1000 years ago an Ascian told king Thordan I that you can get power by eating dragon eyes, and then he left and the whole region fell into chaos.

Minor caveat, Ascians had no involvement in the Dragonsong War. It was Ratatoskr herself who admitted to King Thordan the First of the power of a great wyrm's eyes. So in a way, she brought about her own demise by being perhaps a mite too trusting. It's just as well really, when as we see in the cutscene between Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr Nidhogg never trusted mortals from the start and was honestly (in my eyes at least) waiting for a reason to start shit with the weak races he thought unworthy.

[MikkoAkure]

Minor caveat, Ascians had no involvement in the Dragonsong War. It was Ratatoskr herself who admitted to King Thordan the First of the power of a great wyrm's eyes. So in a way, she brought about her own demise by being perhaps a mite too trusting. It's just as well really, when as we see in the cutscene between Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr Nidhogg never trusted mortals from the start and was honestly (in my eyes at least) waiting for a reason to start shit with the weak races he thought unworthy.

Ah well that's what I get for being lazy and double-checking my memory against the wiki and another reason not to trust it. Still doesn't change the fact that they attempted to use it to their advantage later on though.

[Vyrerus]

...no? Very no, actually. This is abundantly untrue. '

Here's the problem with your assertion. None of those were events that were going to destroy the world.

Ultima Weapon not stopped = Bad times for Eorzea, and perhaps an immediate 8th Calamity.

Thordan not stopped = Ultima had to have been stopped so that events play out the same way, but that means that Zenos has our Echo data and will receive the Resonance procedure, and then will have no trouble stopping Thordan, since that was something he did independently with data given to him by Gaius van Baelsar. Again, no planetary destruction.

I could keep going, but the fact is that none of it amounts to thwarting planetary destruction. It is you who have shifted the goalposts for the protagonists, when the setting has directly spelled out that until Fandaniel, none of the antagonists have been trying to destroy the world. Do it massive harm to enact a weird healing process, yes. Destroy it, no.