Shifting and Concerning Moods Regarding the Writing

[Alec97]

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.

Your correct with the analysis but it's actually down to the difference between the imperfect nature of the physical world and the timeless nature of the world of ideas. It's a god as much as a god can be in the physical world which by definition is imperfect. This has a lot to do with Plato's world of shapes/forms.

In our world there is no such thing as perfect, we have the idea of something being perfect but that can't exist in the real world. Even when it comes to zodiark he isn't perfect. When the idea is manifest it is brought forth using the understanding of the caster whose understanding of the concept has been influenced by their culture, religion etc as well as their natural talents and available resources but the fundamental nature of the concept hasn't changed and you can argue that the fundamental nature of concept itself directed them to perform the summoning which in turn would promote the concept. Aka do people have ideas or concepts or do concepts and ideas have people who use them to manifest the concept and spread its influence further?

The difference between the ancient method and what was later taught is that the concepts which manifested were stable concepts they didn't require constant sustenance. The concept of a god didn't really exist for the ancients because they themselves had no need for one in the traditional sense until they did which was to manifest the concept of salvation. You could also argue that concepts did eventually become more than sums of their parts because almost every enemy type we see in the game was a stable concept created by an ancient in Elpis with their own emotions, feelings etc.

It also comes down to how we define a deity or a true deity. Do we compare them to the incredibly human and imperfect pagan gods which fed on faith, sacrifice and ambrosia or do we compare them to the Godhead of the Abrahamic religions where God is the beginning and end, we they are all-powerful. All-knowing and ever-present. If that was the case the only person in the setting who could be considered a god would be Athena when she tried to transcend into an all-powerful being who tried to recreate reality.

The simple truth is a God is a being which is worshipped due to it being connected to ideals that people see as transcendent and universal such as justice, nature, war, love, desire, chaos, death etc. Also, almost anything can be used as an idol, to worship said God a good example in the Bible would be the Golden calf which was an eikon of the Egyptian bull god Apis.

Plato's theory of forms

“ These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them. Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality. Super-ordinate to matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms 's theory of forms”

Also on perfection of ideas

No one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly straight line, yet everyone knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato uses the tool-makers blueprint as evidence that Forms are real

... when a man has discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the material ....
Perceived circles or lines are not exactly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by definition they are sets of infinitely small points. But if the perfect ones were not real, how could they direct the manufacturer?

[Nayukhuut]

Oh, I don't doubt it. They'll probably address stuff in passing in the future in a similar manner to how Nidhogg was touched upon again briefly in the MSQ's and the Dragoon quests. To their credit, the development team do have a habit of bringing up events that have transpired in past expansions. This is particularly true of characters that prove to be popular. I believe a number of the developers themselves are on record citing some of the 'Amaurotine' characters as being amongst their favourites and the Ancients as a whole being something they'd like to see more of in the future.

Well, isn't that a horrifying thought. On one hand, the Ancients are my favourite thing in FF14. If you had asked me two years ago I would have loved an excuse to dive head first into their world. On the other hand, I don't really trust whoever is doing the writing now to do that well. I want to keep my love for them intact rather than getting another story about how all the Ancients I love were bad and oh here is how Venat and her followers helped out this time.

That said, should interest start to wane in whatever adventure we find ourselves in next, I have no doubt they will be brought back. Something like Amaurot ruins on one of the Shards, or perhaps even a secret pocket of Ancients who survived, or even just Sundered people who actually remembered after the Sundering and hid themselves away to keep the remnants of their culture intact. Maybe the bonds between the planets start to break down despite the best efforts of Venat and her followers, and we have to find a way to maintain them...

All those sound really interesting, and I would love any of them. Sadly, again, I do not trust the current writers to do them justice.

[MikkoAkure]

It really has reached WoW Shadowlands levels of too much cosmic nonsense, but the way to course correct was absolutely not to waste our time with a vacation episode expansion. It should have been to reground the story in a new home base, an Ilsabardian or Meracydian kingdom with the same strong fantasy elements that gave people something to catch their attention back in expansions like Heavensward or Shadowbringers.

By contrast, the reaction to this beach episode vibe has been complete and utter apathy from most with some players choosing to play defense saying things like their WoL needs a vacation – but as these same sort of players are generally averse to storytelling with significant consequences at all, as ultimately neither Endwalker nor its patches had much for the main cast, I am indifferent to their opinions. The WoL does not deserve a “break” after having so many victories handed to them on a silver platter while their allies get away without a scratch. Sorry.

Who is this "most"? Can you definitively prove that's the opinion held by most players? Or is it just most players in you personally know?

Personally what I've grown apathetic of is the whole everything with Ascians, Ancients, Garleans, and Allagans. Had the plot of Endwalker been extended into two expansions instead of the one, we would have had to suffer through Zenos for FOUR expansions when he should have died at the end of the base Stormblood. Y'all criticize the Scion cast for staying the same and not dying when they should've while the villains have the same problem. Going to a faraway place without a conflict started by the same usual suspects, in an aesthetic and cultures that are usually ignored in most Euro-centric fantasy is going to be a refreshing break.

This fresh start in a new place with nothing to do with anything else is what this story needs. All the ex-Garlean lands need a break before we come to them for them to be interesting. Otherwise it's just going to be Stormblood 2 with the same themes and the same types of conflicts.

I don't disagree that the cast should've been refreshed and that at the very least the 1.0 Scions Thancred, Y'shtola, and Urianger should've retired for the younger ones like G'raha, the twins, Estinien, and Krile to take over with the addition of new Tural characters to fill out the old slots. But they seem to have made their decision about turning them into main characters a while ago, which I can understand even if I don't prefer it.


Also, Meracydia never was and shall never be your European castles and knights fantasy. It's been described since 1.0 as a place with witch doctors and West African cultural items. And over the years has included North African fauna and cultural items as well as kangaroos and koalas for some reason. Other than that we're told it's mostly a wasteland with violently xenophobic inhabitants. I personally think we're going there in Dawntrail based on the cloud shapes on the world map shown to us but I don't think it's going to be anything you like.

[Nayukhuut]

I wouldn't actually mind less G'raha. I liked him as the Crystal Exarch, and I was meh on him in the original Crystal Tower quests, but since coming back home to the Source he always just seems way too much like an overeager fanboy with a crush. I am sure that is exactly what some people want, but I wince every time I see him come on to the screen now.

Edit: That angle would even be okay if the game gave me some dialogue options to shut it down, too. Let the people who like him choose the favourable ones, and let people like me tell him to back off a little, but the game gives you no options. Just sorta assumes you are not completely uncomfortable.

[Absimiliard]

Stuff

I believe you're overthinking it a bit. The game has already drawn a line between what constitutes a god and what does not. Per this game's lore, something being worshipped as a god does not in fact make it a god. A given creature and those faithful to it can proclaim it a god all they want, but that will not make it meet the criteria for godhood as put forth in-story by the writers. Even Zodiark, for all his power and despite the Ascians referring to him as a god on so many occasions, was no god at all. He was just a primal, albeit the original upon which all others were based.

What real life religions and/or philosophers have to say on the matter of forms and deities does not play into it beyond whatever inspirations they drew from when coming up with the lore in the first place.

The difference between the ancient method and what was later taught is that the concepts which manifested were stable concepts they didn't require constant sustenance. The concept of a god didn't really exist for the ancients because they themselves had no need for one in the traditional sense until they did which was to manifest the concept of salvation. You could also argue that concepts did eventually become more than sums of their parts because almost every enemy type we see in the game was a stable concept created by an ancient in Elpis with their own emotions, feelings etc.

I don't know that I would call Zodiark a manifestation of the concept of salvation. From what we're told, they took a very scientific approach to his creation, purpose, and the plethora of abilities he received. He was initially regarded as nothing more than a unique and inordinately powerful creation made to some exacting specifications. The worship didn't kick in until afterward, driven partially by utter desperation and partially by incidental tempering.

There were two major creation categories; those with souls, and those without. Creations the planet chose to impart with souls by definition grew beyond the sum of their parts, but the ancients had no actual control over this phenomenon. They could create a form they'd seen the planet grant a soul prior and hope for the best, but that was it. Those without souls were known as arcane entities, and they had no capacity for growth beyond their initial stages. In other words, those enemy types you refer to are basically just standard animals whose origins happen to lie in Elpis. They can adapt and evolve with time like any living creature, but it's worth noting few if any of them actually changed all that much. They for the most part retain the same forms, mannerisms, and intellect or lack thereof. It was their progenitors being granted souls that permitted them to propagate unassisted in the first place.

Modern primals, aside from those embodied in an individual (Iceheart/Shiva, for example), are basically just glorified arcane entities. They have zero capacity to grow beyond their summon state, whatever it may be.

[Theodric]

Well, isn't that a horrifying thought. On one hand, the Ancients are my favourite thing in FF14. If you had asked me two years ago I would have loved an excuse to dive head first into their world. On the other hand, I don't really trust whoever is doing the writing now to do that well. I want to keep my love for them intact rather than getting another story about how all the Ancients I love were bad and oh here is how Venat and her followers helped out this time.

That said, should interest start to wane in whatever adventure we find ourselves in next, I have no doubt they will be brought back. Something like Amaurot ruins on one of the Shards, or perhaps even a secret pocket of Ancients who survived, or even just Sundered people who actually remembered after the Sundering and hid themselves away to keep the remnants of their culture intact. Maybe the bonds between the planets start to break down despite the best efforts of Venat and her followers, and we have to find a way to maintain them...

All those sound really interesting, and I would love any of them. Sadly, again, I do not trust the current writers to do them justice.

Yeah, I share similar sentiments. Personally I wish the development team had deployed a slow burn over the years and taken the time to work with what they had established instead of rushing through it with increasing speed. Heavensward and Shadowbringers at least took place in regions all directly connected to each other with some side content taking place elsewhere. Ala Mhigo and the surrounding region could have served as its own expansion with more of Othard being given its own time to shine in its own unique expansion.

Really, instead of trying to tie so many different aspects of the game together they should have simply had each expansion serve as a standalone experience that mostly dealt with unique regional issues whilst serving to uncover more pieces of the greater narrative that they had in mind. As it stands, by choosing to rush to a premature conclusion they've now effectively sowed the seeds of division. Some people want more of what was squandered or cast aside. Others want something new. Yet more - myself included - would prefer a healthy balance of both.

I wouldn't actually mind less G'raha. I liked him as the Crystal Exarch, and I was meh on him in the original Crystal Tower quests, but since coming back home to the Source he always just seems way too much like an overeager fanboy with a crush. I am sure that is exactly what some people want, but I wince every time I see him come on to the screen now.

Edit: That angle would even be okay if the game gave me some dialogue options to shut it down, too. Let the people who like him choose the favourable ones, and let people like me tell him to back off a little, but the game gives you no options. Just sorta assumes you are not completely uncomfortable.

Agreed with that as well - I don't particularly like the character to begin with and his behaviour borders on outright creepy at times. He's far too clingy and most games with romance options or deeper friendships usually grant players the agency to consent to leaning into that sort of thing.

I don't like the canon crush displayed by Alisae, either. For starters she's a sixteen year old girl and thus underage but both myself and my character are gay with my character even having an Eternal Bond to another guy. It's rather immersion breaking for the game not to acknowledge that in any way. There should be an option to gently let her down at the very least.

[Nayukhuut]

Yeh, Alisae's fangirling weirded me out at times too. I am not actually against romance or hints of romance in games, but it feels weird when it feels forced on you. Dissenting dialogue options would be perfect, even though none of it would mean much since the story is written in such a way that it has to stay on the same track. But hey, even the illusion of choice is better than no choice.

[Absimiliard]

Yeh, Alisae's fangirling weirded me out at times too. I am not actually against romance or hints of romance in games, but it feels weird when it feels forced on you.

Even weirder when it's coming from a child. That's a whooolllleee lot of nope considering the undertones of some of what she says/days.

[Nayukhuut]

Agreed as well. I understand that it was meant to be innocent child looking up to her elder kinda thing, but it still made me feel uncomfortable with the attention. I meant to agree in my original reply that it wasn't only the familiarity that felt strange, but also her age. Thankfully we moved off that and have fully boarded the G'raha train. Well, thankfully of a sort I guess. G'raha's constant fanboying makes me feel amazingly uncomfortable too, he's just not a literal child. Although it does look like he will be a large part of the next expansion... so woo.

Do not think I have seen anything that made me less excited for an expansion than G'raha biting into that taco.

I am really hoping that the full trailer shows us some actual story beats to look forward to, because the only part of that trailer that looked even slightly interesting was the shot of us exploring that ruin. The happy go lucky beach vacation filler expac vibe didn't win me over even slightly.

[Alec97]

I believe you're overthinking it a bit. The game has already drawn a line between what constitutes a god and what does not. Per this game's lore, something being worshipped as a god does not, in fact, make it a god. A given creature and those faithful to it can proclaim it a god all they want, but that will not make it meet the criteria for godhood as put forth in-story by the writers. Even Zodiark, for all his power and despite the Ascians referring to him as a god on so many occasions, was no god at all. He was just a primal, albeit the original upon which all others were based.
.

We are only discussing what constitutes a god. As I said in my previous post, if you were to summon an eikon of a fork, you would get a fork. Zodairk was a god after a fashion from Emit because he fulfilled the societal purpose of one as he became the embodiment and will of the star. In any other be mythos that would your Gaia, even Venat is—archetypically presented as the Lightbringer or Lucifer who betrays God, leading to the fall of man out of Eden/paradise which leads to a loss of our immortality.

I also didn't overthink it at all Plato was the defining philosopher for the majority of the ancient world to the medieval world and the impact he had on our society, especially on notions of what a human and the soul are is massive. FF14 is not original in how it portrays anything just as the world of warcraft or warnammer isn't, they all steal from the same playbook. This is why when you steal from Chinese mythology you should be surprised when Confucianism seeped into everything.

The problem today is most Westerners haven't received a proper education and couldn't tell you their nose from the arse. What you have instead is westerners being asked why the curtains are red instead of being asked to research the philosophical origins of the narrative because nothing is original.

I don't know that I would call Zodiark a manifestation of the concept of salvation. From what we're told, they took a very scientific approach to his creation, purpose, and the plethora of abilities he received. He was initially regarded as nothing more than a unique and inordinately powerful creation made to some exacting specifications. The worship didn't kick in until afterward, driven partially by utter desperation and partially by incidental tempering.

There were two major creation categories; those with souls, and those without. Creations the planet chose to impart with souls by definition grew beyond the sum of their parts, but the ancients had no actual control over this phenomenon. They could create a form they'd seen the planet grant a soul prior and hope for the best, but that was it. Those without souls were known as arcane entities, and they had no capacity for growth beyond their initial stages. In other words, those enemy types you refer to are basically just standard animals whose origins happen to lie in Elpis. They can adapt and evolve with time like any living creature, but it's worth noting few if any of them actually changed all that much. They for the most part retain the same forms, mannerisms, and intellect or lack thereof. It was their progenitors being granted souls that permitted them to propagate unassisted in the first place.

Modern primals, aside from those embodied in an individual (Iceheart/Shiva, for example), are basically just glorified arcane entities. They have zero capacity to grow beyond their summon state, whatever it may be.

The methodical approach to his creation isn't science, it would considered occult by our world as individuals have control over the fundamental forces of reality. This is actually the key philosophical distinction between occultism and science. Science is about understanding the natural world and how things work. Occultism is about having the innate ability to control and change the natural world.

He is explicitly linked to the need for salvation by Elidibus his heart or core constantly. It becomes his primary function to the point he's forgotten everything but his duty which is to perform his function. Anything with aether is made up of the building blocks of the soul. We don't actually know what constitutes a soul yet as seems to be something very specific but the fact that you can make one does say a lot. There is also only one line from Emit stating they were tempered but there is actually very little evidence to prove he was actually tempered as he shows almost no evidence of it and one would have to question his need for it because he was already driven by his duty to his friends and family, not a parasitic insemination of another beings aether. Tempering also seems to be one of the major differences between how the ancients constructed things versus the beast tribes as almost no ancient concept tempers people. Their ability to create seems to be complete and stable without the need for the concept to acquire more aether to sustain and grow.

When it comes to the primals you are correct they are glorified entities but that is actually what all gods are in the first place. I could make a chicken my god by worshipping it. This is why I said what grants Godhood is people worshipping an ideal that they find to innately have transcendent properties such as war, death, light, dark etc as it functionally important to their understanding of the world and their place in it. The 12 in FF14 setting are just glorified beings but they are still gods and perform the societal function of gods to the point they are moulded by this function.