What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Causante]

I mean, they are different situations.

Venat/Hydaelyn however doesn't fall into these pits. She has no need to possess bodies, until canocially very recently and even then it's short enough that she wouldn't suffer ill effects, she doesn't have Emet's sense of exhaustion and need to rationalise her deeds, she knows exactly what she's done, and all the good and ill that's come of it and she never put herself in a situation where she'd lose sight of why she was doing what she was doing the same way Elidibus did.

Besides she and Zodiark while being, as Emet called them "the eldest primals" they are for the most part just powerful creations. Zodiark's tempering wasn't even intentional, it was a side effect of how big a creation he was and the large scale he was designed to act on. Venat meanwhile is noted to have been a smaller creation, so of course unintentional tempering wouldn't happen.

You do make resonable arguments, but I'm not sure if I agree. While she has no need to posses bodies and isn't afflicted with alzheimer's disease like Elidibus, she is still responsible, at least partially (~70% in my opinion) for the fall and erasure of her beloved civilization. And after that she has to witness 12k years of sundering life with great periods of war, disease, tragedy and death that didn't exist before and were direct results of her actions. That would require some rationalisations.

About her tempering capabilities, I do agree that Zodiark was the superior summon by far, but Hydaelyn still is an unsundered primal summoned by unconventional strengthening methods (soul sacrifice) so I still think it's very odd how most primal rules don't apply to her specially in regard to sundered life given the strong difference in aether.

[MikkoAkure]

About her tempering capabilities, I do agree that Zodiark was the superior summon by far, but Hydaelyn still is an unsundered primal summoned by unconventional strengthening methods (soul sacrifice) so I still think it's very odd how most primal rules don't apply to her specially in regard to sundered life given the strong difference in aether.

It's much in the same way that the "fixed" primal summoning we do using up the Mothercrystal, aether that Hydaelyn has literally been sitting on for eons, and techniques untainted by Ascians don't temper anyone. The Lopporits say that the primal summoning we had seen up to that point were purposefully designed to temper people. Zodiark tempered because he was built on such a massive scale with his aether deeply aspected to darkness that he couldn't help but make the aether of those around him tip into darkness and thus be tempered. Hydaelyn wasn't on the same scale, though was built the same, and she also doesn't physically roam around the world greeting people in person so there's not really any point where she could have tempered people.

If she could temper people from the Mothercrystal, then literally the entire world is tempered because the lifestream all congregates around where she lives and everyone's aether would be marked with hers when they die and are eventually reincarnated.


Granted, a lot of the explanation of tempering and primals that was brought to light in EW sounded like the writers trying to write themselves out of a hole of their own making, but at least they tried explaining it and didn't leave it completely to wild interpretation.

[Causante]

It's much in the same way that the "fixed" primal summoning we do using up the Mothercrystal, aether that Hydaelyn has literally been sitting on for eons, and techniques untainted by Ascians don't temper anyone. The Lopporits say that the primal summoning we had seen up to that point were purposefully designed to temper people. Zodiark tempered because he was built on such a massive scale with his aether deeply aspected to darkness that he couldn't help but make the aether of those around him tip into darkness and thus be tempered. Hydaelyn wasn't on the same scale, though was built the same, and she also doesn't physically roam around the world greeting people in person so there's not really any point where she could have tempered people.

If she could temper people from the Mothercrystal, then literally the entire world is tempered because the lifestream all congregates around where she lives and everyone's aether would be marked with hers when they die and are eventually reincarnated.


Granted, a lot of the explanation of tempering and primals that was brought to light in EW sounded like the writers trying to write themselves out of a hole of their own making, but at least they tried explaining it and didn't leave it completely to wild interpretation.

I do think that Hydaelyn should be capable of tipping the sundered aether into light since she is able to interact with the player character, possess Krille and even vanish Minfilia. The people that were exposed to her powers should show some signs at least. But it is indeed the truth that they tried to give a reason why the tempering does not happen in some cases. I just found it hard to reason with and very unsatisfying.

In the end, I don't think it would be better if it had happened either, but I also think that making Hydaelyn a primal was a mistake if this was the kind of story they were going with. Because in the end, the game tells you constantly that summoning primals to solve your problems is bad and should be avoided at all costs, but just in this very specific case that they show right near the end of the story arc when the right people do it the right way it is okay.

I would also like to thank you for your thoughtful reply that made me reflect on things that I did not think on too much before.

[myahele]

About her tempering capabilities, I do agree that Zodiark was the superior summon by far, but Hydaelyn still is an unsundered primal summoned by unconventional strengthening methods (soul sacrifice) so I still think it's very odd how most primal rules don't apply to her specially in regard to sundered life given the strong difference in aether.

According to the Watchman, Hydaelyn also sundered herself too.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

According to the Watchman, Hydaelyn also sundered herself too.

That's dumb, since how would she continue in her purpose if she forgot what her purpose was? Unless she created an attack for a specific purpose and instead of making it not affect her at all, she just made it not wipe her memory nor regress her brain back to stone age. Regardless, that's freaking dumb.

[RyuDragnier]

That's dumb, since how would she continue in her purpose if she forgot what her purpose was? Unless she created an attack for a specific purpose and instead of making it not affect her at all, she just made it not wipe her memory nor regress her brain back to stone age. Regardless, that's freaking dumb.

Well if she was going to try and not alter the timeline much at all due to knowing what comes, it'd be the best bet to avoid inconsistencies that could mess with the time loop needed for us to go back in time. Yes, this is convoluted as hell, and very silly.

[Teraq]

YoshiP's recent interview talking about how they're apparently still in the process of deciding what 7.0 will be about just... made me feel dejected about Endwalker even more. What, exactly, did you rush the finale of this 10-year story arc for, then? You don't even have a concrete idea of where you're going. Ishikawa is on record saying she could have written her story for 6.x and 7.x, maybe even 8.0, and it is very obvious the Endwalker we got was an awkward condensate of two storylines. What was this all for?

There is, however, one thing that gives me hope: they haven't finalised the writing of Pandaemonium yet. I am interpreting this as "might be open to feedback". I also happen to think the Omega side quest was, in part, intended as acknowledging backlash against Venat.

Therefore, look forward to me whining loudly about Pandaemonium if it treats Ancients with as much nuance as 6.0 did. I am not asking. You will look forward to it.

(At least they're finally giving us the minion we should have got in Shadowbringers to raucous applause. After all, why honor one genocidal maniac with an MSQ minion and not another? Hopefully Pandaemonium will give me the one genocidal maniac I actually want, though! I suffered through 6.0 and all I got was this lousy minion of a white robed Ancient who became the Heart of an elder primal and went on to commit genocide, AND IT WASN'T EVEN MY FAVE I S2G SQUARE ENIX)

but became enthralled by zodiark and just kept feeding themselves to zodiark because that was zodiarks will.

I hesitate to call you out on this because you might simply be talking about an hypothetical original timeline AU that might as well be completely ridiculous for all we care, as long as it results in the events we then go on to tell Venat broad strokes about... but that was never the case however, according to a shade of Hythlodaeus conjured by a literal world leader of the time who would very much know what the plan was, no matter how much Endwalker wants to make everyone believe Ancients were totally going to keep feeding their blood god. The plan was always to sacrifice a portion of the life that had grown back to exchange for the people still within Zodiark, and Zodiark was as much of a blood god than Hydaelyn was: his acting consciousness was Elidibus. The effects of Zodiark's tempering seem to be very weak at best, considering how much free will Emet himself demonstrates. Even the Sundered Ascians are stated to still be tempered through death, or at the very least "marked" by Zodiark (since Emet cites this as an argument for raising them in particular rather than any rando the Unsundered find), and that obviously isn't stopping Fandaniel either. The writing around tempering seems very flip-floppy.

Hydealyns purpose and the whole point of the sundering was to ensure life continued in the Final Days.

Which, again, relies on Dynamis, something she is quite ill-suited to judge because of her very nature. But I'm sure having Those Eight Guys prevail in a little fight against her will save the planet from the nightmarish scenes we saw in Vanaspati.

[Teraq]

Its not a hypothetical anything. Its what the game presents as even you recognize. I don't disagree that it isn't consistent with what would thematically be a characteristically accurate portrayal of what the Ancients would have done, or even with other presentations in the story of the motives and actions that ancients were taking, or even the control of Zodiark and enthralling the ancients, or even that Emet says they knew they were enthralled to a degree and still able to exert some form of control on themselves.the writing is the writing and there's no discussion that changes that.

Indeed, we agree the writing of Endwalker is either an awkward retcon at best, or incompetent at worst. It took a reasonable, if debatable action, then shamelessly strawmanned it because uuhhhh what is nuance. Though I would like to say Zodiark did not temper Ancients in general, just the Convocation. Who were indeed respected world leaders, though in the context of a society based on debating, it's arguable how much sway they would have had on the overall population if the decisions they were making were obviously deranged.

You'll have to explain what this has to do with Hydealyns reason for the sundering. Because regardless of the mechanics behind how the sundering occured, or what powered it, or what powered anything, it doesn't change the motive. And what 8 guys you are referencing, because insofar as the story is in Lore, the WoL faced Metion alone as the WoL faces everything story based alone, with the exclusion of dragon form zenos.

One of the reasons for the Sundering, beside condemning humanity to a never ending cycle of short mortal lives full of hunger, disease and conflicts motivated by self-preservation, was that making humans (and everything else, oops) less aetherically dense would enable them to directly interact with Dynamis. Which... has the unfortunate side effect of transforming people into ravenous monsters (which she totally knew about, we told her (and Hermes) as much), but it also gives the protagonists untold powers on the very plot because they have the Power Of Friendship, as well as the Power of God And Anime on their side. We know this was part of her reasoning, because it's what Y'shtola says, and Y'shtola is literally just the author's mouthpiece.

Dynamis is the general argument for why Ancients Simply Never Had Any Hope Against Meteion So Please Stop Arguing, because even in the hypothetical scenario where they would figure everything out about the Final Days, space travel and Hermes being a spiteful idiot, you can argue that they simply weren't built for Dynamis, physiologically, and thus could never actually fight Meteion. (Never mind, of course, that Meteion herself was literally made by an Ancient, meaning that even if Ancients themselves could not directly influence Dynamis, they could have made familiars that could, given enough information about the Final Days to motivate research into Dynamis.)

Hence, the prospect of Hydaelyn, a being as aetherically dense as one could imagine, testing anyone for their capacity to fight off a Dynamis based apocalypse and/or a Dynamis capable entity, is... a nice gesture from her, I suppose, but logically I don't see how she could be testing us, beside the generic "TEST OF WILLPOWER" trope.