The Venat Cutscene

[Zero-ELEC]

I am curious if the information we learned about voidsent applies to primals.

That is, as I understand it anyway, that if a voidsent consumes another, there is lingering fragments in the host. And it is possible to “lose oneself” if consuming too much.

In the case of Hydaelyn it was indeed a select few with a specific purpose in mind whereas I imagine Zodiark involved more volunteers that didn’t really know the details beyond trusting those in charge. With so many fragments and voices, it is possible Elidabus just got lost in it.

…which also raises the question if the voidsent are just a variation of primal.

Well, voidsent are people corrupted by eidolon energies stored in auracite/memoria, so in a way they are the direct results of primal/eikonic corruption.

[Kozh]

Because SE is poor indie company with weird priority. Instead of showing us the most important scene, they spend their budget on animating foods and estinien's foot.

Or because showing Venat sneak-attacking Zodiark while his pilot was out and busy trying to mediate both sides will look bad on her. Can't have that for yoshi-p crystal mary sue.

[thegreatonemal]

Because SE is poor indie company with weird priority. Instead of showing us the most important scene, they spend their budget on animating foods and estinien's foot.

Or because showing Venat sneak-attacking Zodiark while his pilot was out and busy trying to mediate both sides will look bad on her. Can't have that for yoshi-p crystal mary sue.

It was a fight, a long one if according to Emet.

[Cleretic]

Again: that cutscene in question doesn't need a scene of Zodiark, in any way, and would probably have been let down by it. That's not what that scene's trying to do, it's not supposed to be a scene of spectacle, it's a downbeat emotional exploration of Venat's struggles and emotional turmoil. Spectacle would distract from it by overshadowing it, it would stop being a scene of Venat's struggles and would instead be the 'Hydaelyn Beats Zodiark's Ass' scene.

And on a raw informational level, that would be worthless to spend time and money showing instead. We already knew that fight happened, we already had a general description of it from Emet-Selch, we already saw Zodiark, and it wouldn't take long until we'd learn what Hydaelyn looked like--and from a meta perspective we'd already seen her. We have all the information to picture that one accurately, presuming there weren't additional elements we aren't aware of (and we have no evidence there was). What we didn't have was an exploration of Venat's view of and feelings around the events around the End of Days and Sundering; we had the Anamnesis recordings, but they were fairly matter-of-fact and only within a very specific, sort of isolated context, they didn't really tell us anything about the person in question. Why expend all the effort to show us the former when the latter was far more new and interesting?

In some stories, the fact of the matter is that the thing someone wants to see is sometimes not actually the thing they need to see. This is true both that sometimes the story doesn't go the way they desperately want it to go, but also in the sense that... well, sometimes it's just not worth showing some spectacle.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

It was a fight, a long one if according to Emet.

You can do a sneak attack without instantly winning. Maybe that sucker punch weakened Zodiark enough for infinitely weaker Hydaelyn win in the end.

[CheshCa7]

Nah, I think Hydaelyn was the more technical fighter. Zodiark, while stronger, was not created to fight. Hydaelyn was created to oppose Zodiark, so that is what she did.

[Cleretic]

Nah, I think Hydaelyn was the more technical fighter. Zodiark, while stronger, was not created to fight. Hydaelyn was created to oppose Zodiark, so that is what she did.

This is very similar to the way I've always pictured the Zodiark Vs. Hydaelyn fight, even before Endwalker; Zodiark's purpose is very broad and indistinct (it's hard to tell how much of the job they lumped onto the thing through sacrifices was part of its purpose creation, but even without that it's got a lot on its plate), and crucially does not involve fighting. Meanwhile, Hydaelyn was purpose-designed for beating the everloving crap out of Zodiark as a major part of her reason for being. Yeah, she had other tasks too, but winning a fight was a primary objective, and since Endwalker confirmed she had the capacity to outsource at least part of her greater plan, she could put even more attention behind it.

It actually even carries over into their fights themselves: even granted that the Zodiark fight was being puppeted by Amon (probably fairly poorly), it's rather noticeable that Zodiark actually looks like he's bad at fighting. His only real means of direct attack are punches and some lasers, everything else is Amon using his power indirectly by creation magic and arena manipulation. He's got a lot of power, yeah, but very little capacity to use it in combat, and what ability he's got is clearly very slow. Compare to Hydaelyn, who's actually got combat techniques and some level of agility? She'd run rings around him, he wouldn't have a chance. ...which makes complete sense, actually; of course the primal made to fight Zodiark is gonna have advantages over Zodiark.

And while unrelated, writing this post just made me realize that I'm not sure how to approach Zodiark pronoun-wise. Hydaelyn was always a female form controlled by a woman, so that's easy, but for a long time Zodiark is basically just an empty mech suit; I kept wanting to use 'it'. The Ascians went for male pronouns, and I guess they're the authority, but there's point where that feels weird.

[Zero-ELEC]

Hydaelyn was always a female form controlled by a woman, so that's easy, but for a long time Zodiark is basically just an empty mech suit; I kept wanting to use 'it'.

Mobile Suit Zodiark

[Necrotica]

Does that mean Ysayle was just a much weaker version of Venat and Elidibus?

Starting to think WoL primal mode might be a thing in the future.

[kaynide]

Does that mean Ysayle was just a much weaker version of Venat and Elidibus?

Starting to think WoL primal mode might be a thing in the future.

Could be. I’m more curious of how a person can a) be turned into a primal (Elidabus-> Zodiark), and then b) exit the primal and both exist at once. Like..is it an Attack on Titan body summon thing?

Or is the Elidabus we know not actually original Elidabus, but a primal created by the other Ascians in an attempt to resurrect him? (I think this, personally)