Quote Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC View Post
Or it could be, you know, character development based on the death of Ysale, Ishgard's recently unburied peaceful history with dragons and how their holy crusade was a shame, seeing how his hatred of dragons paralleled Nidhogg's rage and seeing saw how it consumed the great wyrm, the idealism of Alphinaud and being saved by the wills of Ysale and Haurchefant, and, you know the entirety of the events of Heavensward.

In what world would him being "tempered" make more sense than that? Hell, we know how tempering works and it doesn't work like that. Tempering requires the alignment toward a particular aetherial aspect and the suffusion of memories of serving the source of the tempering. If he were tempered by Nidhogg he'd be violent against humans, not nice towards dragons.

Hell, Esteinien was already influenced by Nidhogg, for far before any of that, no need for tempering, and he was not kind towards dragons. Remember the A Realm Reborn dragoon quests where his rage synchronized with the Nidhogg's eye? He's literally overcome by the will of Nidhogg and goes on to still be incredibly hostile towards dragons for the next expansion. The reason he doesn't go on to become hostile towards dragons once he becomes free of Nidhogg's shade is because he himself went through a whole ordeal. Whole ass character arc, even.
And that is fine too. Estinien being immune to the effects of Nidhoggs corruption is cool. Guy is a badass.

Getting conflicting arguments. Was Estinien influence by Nidhogg's aether/possession in a permanent manner or not?