Shifting and Concerning Moods Regarding the Writing

[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.
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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.