Shifting and Concerning Moods Regarding the Writing

[Zaniel]

Zero was okay, but to make all the gods basically humans from before was a bit of a let down. Like they GUTTED the magic of a magic world.

I don't see this as a problem, like literally EVERY divine being since ARR has been a primal/aether+belief empowered entity, I mean using people as primal cores started with Ysayle in HW, in the FF14 universe there are actually no such thing as gods.

[Alec97]

I don't see this as a problem, like literally EVERY divine being since ARR has been a primal/aether+belief empowered entity, I mean using people as primal cores started with Ysayle in HW, in the FF14 universe there is actually no such thing as gods.

Yeah except the ancients who could create anything and are an allegory for the heavenly host, along with the primals who can do the same thing as well.

The gods in FF14 are akin to pagan gods and representations of pagan gods in literature. I dont know where you get the idea that there is no such thing as a god in the setting as it's simply not true. What you have done is say that God is made and influenced by aether and thought. Therefore, they couldn't be a god is a really weird line of logic as you as a person are, made of the materials of the world and are inherently influenced by those around you, you act differently and beleive different things based on others so why wouldn't a pagan God? Is there no such thing as a person now?

These gods are not godheads they are individual beings that are manifestations of functions of the world/universe. That's a god. Zeus constantly changes his mind and is influenced by man is he suddenly not a god, or is a god only a being similar to that of the father where He births the universe where He sees, knows and is all things?

The gods in FF14 and other works are more than just summons they are the embodiment of universal and eternal ideals that existed long before man and were enacted by them. They will still exist even if we stop believing in them and our interpretation of these fundamental rules or truths will evolve with us, does that mean the Gods have changed or has our understanding of them changed?

[Zaniel]

Yeah except the ancients who could create anything and are an allegory for the heavenly host, along with the primals who can do the same thing as well.

The gods in FF14 are akin to pagan gods and representations of pagan gods in literature. I dont know where you get the idea that there is no such thing as a god in the setting as it's simply not true. What you have done is say that God is made and influenced by aether and thought. Therefore, they couldn't be a god is a really weird line of logic as you as a person are, made of the materials of the world and are inherently influenced by those around you, you act differently and beleive different things based on others so why wouldn't a pagan God? Is there no such thing as a person now?

These gods are not godheads they are individual beings that are manifestations of functions of the world/universe. That's a god. Zeus constantly changes his mind and is influenced by man is he suddenly not a god, or is a god only a being similar to that of the father where He births the universe where He sees, knows and is all things?

The gods in FF14 and other works are more than just summons they are the embodiment of universal and eternal ideals that existed long before man and were enacted by them. They will still exist even if we stop believing in them and our interpretation of these fundamental rules or truths will evolve with us, does that mean the Gods have changed or has our understanding of them changed?

You're free to have your own take but this is getting into real head canon territory. The whole story line of FF14 has been pretty explicit that "gods" are constructs of faith/willpower and aether, they only take embodiments because living believers think they should, they ARE just a form of (powerful) summons. The FF14 universe is pretty scientific and mechanical, it's not some spiritual take on religions from Earth's history even when it uses references like Greek myths to anchor the player's engagement with something familiar.

[Alec97]

You're free to have your own take but this is getting into real head canon territory. The whole story line of FF14 has been pretty explicit that "gods" are constructs of faith/willpower and aether, they only take embodiments because living believers think they should, they ARE just a form of (powerful) summons. The FF14 universe is pretty scientific and mechanical, it's not some spiritual take on religions from Earth's history even when it uses references like Greek myths to anchor the player's engagement with something familiar.

It's not head cannon when it's fundamental theological metaphysics that applies to the real world. The primal while, yes, being constructs of aether are physical manifestations of said being in the world. You are separating the method of its summoning and the actual idea it's being summoned from, which is a genuine god; therefore, you are stating it's not the real thing when it's a distinction without a difference. The primal is the manifestation of the divine brought about through the worship of its followers, aka prayers and holy rights. These primals act like the god, convert in the name of the god and want to expand their sacred doctrine as all religions and gods do.

No final fantasy is not scientific in any way. It's occult. Even the most scientific aspects of the universe are magical. You are conflating a hard magic system that you see almost nothing of and that of science, which isn't the case.

When I use references to European mythology, the vast majority is a copy-and-paste job from said mythology. For example, in Celtic myth, if you want to bring forth a god of nature to receive its blessing, you will need to build it a vessel and perform copious amounts of human sacrifice, usually that of another tribe or the Romans invading your land. It's called a wicker man and was used to summon the Green man or father of the forest. The same happens in almost every other European pagan religion, and many of them cross over into each other. Ff14 isn't original and is heavily archetypal in how it portrays its characters
Aether, for god's sake, is just ripped out of Greek mythology wholesale as it's the fifth element that ancients believed made up the natural world and is otherwise known as spirit or ego, aka the soul.

So if they are very powerful summons, then the question is of what, and the answer is of course a god brought about by faith and prayer, which is made up of the material of the soul itself.

[Zaniel]

It's not head cannon when it's fundamental theological metaphysics that applies to the real world. The primal while, yes, being constructs of aether are physical manifestations of said being in the world. You are separating the method of its summoning and the actual idea it's being summoned from, which is a genuine god; therefore, you are stating it's not the real thing when it's a distinction without a difference. The primal is the manifestation of the divine brought about through the worship of its followers, aka prayers and holy rights. These primals act like the god, convert in the name of the god and want to expand their sacred doctrine as all religions and gods do.

No final fantasy is not scientific in any way. It's occult. Even the most scientific aspects of the universe are magical. You are conflating a hard magic system that you see almost nothing of and that of science, which isn't the case.

When I use references to European mythology, the vast majority is a copy-and-paste job from said mythology. For example, in Celtic myth, if you want to bring forth a god of nature to receive its blessing, you will need to build it a vessel and perform copious amounts of human sacrifice, usually that of another tribe or the Romans invading your land. It's called a wicker man and was used to summon the Green man or father of the forest. The same happens in almost every other European pagan religion, and many of them cross over into each other. Ff14 isn't original and is heavily archetypal in how it portrays its characters
Aether, for god's sake, is just ripped out of Greek mythology wholesale as it's the fifth element that ancients believed made up the natural world and is otherwise known as spirit or ego, aka the soul.

So if they are very powerful summons, then the question is of what, and the answer is of course a god brought about by faith and prayer, which is made up of the material of the soul itself.

You're just super-imposing your fascination with religion/real life religious lore over the game world where in literally dozens of cases the writers/characters specifically state that eikons aren't gods, I dunno what to say if you want to ignore this. And yes, FF14 has an extremely hard/scientific magic/mythology system. Magic is the subject of scientific study, its measured by instruments and quantified in textbooks, aether may as well just be electricity or dark matter or whatever given the level to which it is analyzable, compare this to other magic systems in other settings which are entirely mystical or spiritual where magic comes from spirits or actually gifted by the gods. On a comparative scale FF14's magic system is EXTREMELY codified and is essentially an adjunct to science, ceruleum engines are used next to aether-burners not to mention all the magitek and Allagan magic technology, you really can't get more systemised.

[Alec97]

You're just super-imposing your fascination with religion/real life religious lore over the game world where in literally dozens of cases the writers/characters specifically state that eikons aren't gods, I dunno what to say if you want to ignore this. And yes, FF14 has an extremely hard/scientific magic/mythology system. Magic is the subject of scientific study, its measured by instruments and quantified in textbooks, aether may as well just be electricity or dark matter or whatever given the level to which it is analyzable, compare this to other magic systems in other settings which are entirely mystical or spiritual where magic comes from spirits or actually gifted by the gods. On a comparative scale FF14's magic system is EXTREMELY codified and is essentially an adjunct to science, ceruleum engines are used next to aether-burners not to mention all the magitek and Allagan magic technology, you really can't get more systemised.

No I'm not nor did I say Eikons are gods, I said the summoning method is summoning a god and therefore it's a distinction without a difference. The word Eikon means representation. If I'm summoning the physical representation of a god I'm therefore summoning a god. If I chose to do it with a fork I would get a fork. It's that simple I don't need super impose anything on it.

What you are doing is saying that because the people in the setting can do summoning magic what they are summoning isn't a real representation of the idea which is false because they still manifesting the being in question it's just a matter of how limiting they are as individuals. The more powerful and intelligent the individual, the more flawless the representation of the idea will be.

Also no FF14s magic system isn't that codified you almost know nothing of how anything works, what you have done is take items which affect everyday peoples lives, weapons of war and resources with select properties and therefore you stating its really codified when the reality is you have no idea how any of it works because it's not important to the setting. In LOTR for example its magic system is soft and its even more detailed than FF14s is. However in Starwars for example it has an incredibly hard and rigid system with documentation on how almost everything functions from starships, shipyards, lightsaber parts, ideologies, species, their anatomy etc. Ff14s lore isn't really explained upon because it's not that important for you to know the minutia of how things operate.

Electricity is a form of aether in the setting because electricity as we know it doesn't exist because it's inherently magical in nature. Also, dark matter isn't provable yet even in our world so we don't even know if it exists, it could be completely made up. Science is derived from the scientific method to help us understand the natural world the setting is inherently different and therefore it doesn't exist. This world has aetherology and it is a source of academic study but it's not science and has very little in common with it philosophically because the rules of the world don't conform to ours. This is why I said it's closer to occultism because that's the closest real-world representation we have to it.

[Absimiliard]

No I'm not nor did I say Eikons are gods, I said the summoning method is summoning a god and therefore it's a destination without a difference. The word Eikon means representation. If I'm summoning the physical representation of a god I'm therefore summoning a god. If I chose to do it with a fork I would get a fork. It's that simple I don't need super impose anything on it.

What you are doing is saying that because the people in the setting can do summoning magic what they are summoning isn't a real representation of the idea wich is false because they still manafesting the being in question its just a matter of how limiting they are as individuals. The more powerful and intelligent the individual, the more flawless the representation of the idea will be.

A quick note here. The procedure for summoning eikons/primals/whatever you want to call them is confirmed to be a flawed form of creation magicks passed down by the Ascians. Individual representations of each primal vary widely one from the next not merely because they're being influenced by their summoners but also because they're quite literally being made anew with each incarnation. The belief systems of those carrying out the summonings do play a role in the end result, but they do not allow these creations to exceed the sum of their parts. In other words; no matter how hard people erroneously believe the thing they're conjuring is a god, the end result can never truly be a god.

A thing can possess the form of godliness without also wielding commensurate power and knowledge, as is the case with pretty much every primal to ever exist that wasn't named Zodiark. This is not a case of being limited by its summoners so much as it is a case of being limited by available aether and/or crystals. Prayer alone is not sufficient to conjure one of these things up, let alone grant it power.

Consequently, believing something is a god does not mean it's a god or even a proper representation of a god. It may be a god to you, but that in no way qualifies that entity as an actual deity. Or, put another way, summoning the representation of an idea or belief does not mean that representation is the real thing. The primal Garuda is just a creature that happens to carry the appearance and mannerisms of the Garuda believed in so fervently by the bird people, for example. That isn't Garuda, no matter how much the Ixal (and the primal Garuda itself) believe it is. There is no actual Garuda, and there never was. Like all primals, "Garuda" was born the first time she was summoned.

[Yencat]

I don't see this as a problem, like literally EVERY divine being since ARR has been a primal/aether+belief empowered entity, I mean using people as primal cores started with Ysayle in HW, in the FF14 universe there are actually no such thing as gods.

I sort of agree with Genbe on that part actually, though it's not a "problem" that's new to this expansion but already started in Shadowbringers and it kind of sucks the magic out of the setting.

The "Precursors" or "Elder race" trope isn't unique to this game but this is exactly why I don't really enjoy it in most media, almost every creature we encounter you're never going to wonder how or why that came to be because it's pretty much always going to be "the Ancients made it". And in the most boring, office-y, filing designs and needing permits sort of way as well. Usually the saving grace is leaving them and their motives somewhat mysterious but we don't have that anymore either because now we've met several of them and even went to hang out with some of them in the past.

The Gods? Ancients. Sin Eaters and Voidsent? Not intentionally created by them, but still Ancients-by-proxy.

Alien entities are a few things off the top of my head they didn't have a hand in so hopefully now that they, for better or worse, seem intent on wrapping up the Ancients chapter maybe we can get back to something largely unknown and malevolent like the High Seraph.