What difference did the Twelve tangibly make?

[Wix]

Ishgardian Elezen who use Duskwight models aren’t Duskwights. Duskwights and Wildwoods only exist in Gridania but they never made separate Ishgardian Elezen models so they share.

The whole Ishgardian thing is sloppy, and people will never agree on it, so I won't directly address it, but I'll point out that there's at least one Duskwight-model Elezen in the Shroud who was also retconned to be a Wildwood (Mother Miounne).

Duskwights and Moon Keepers are fairly prominent in Gridania storylines

They're really not. You probably remember the Lancer questline, and the two Duskwight NPCs in Gridania ("Damnable Duskwights!" and the airship ticket guy), but go do the rest of their quests and you'll see they're not prominent at all. In fact, they're pretty rare flat out in ARR onwards. There's a handful who are nameless and will briefly show up for a one liner in a delivery quest, but beyond that, it's basically two Duskwights per zone, tops, usually one, sometimes none, outside of the South Shroud and Sharlayan.
I'm not even joking. Finding the token Duskwight in each city is like playing Where's Waldo.

they only exist in The Black Shroud

In theory, but not in practice. In fact, the most prominent Duskwight family in the game actually had a seat on the Syndicate, and were located in Ul'dah, but SE made a point of killing them off going into ARR, though the son survived. He gets a brief cameo in post-ShB questing and a holiday quest you can no longer access, which makes him the only Duskwight in the entire game with a voice line. You can still pick up vague references to the family whenever alchemical things come up in Ul'dah, or their abandoned mansion in Thanalan that a Lalafell gang moved into, but that's about it.
Ironically, outside of certain parts of the South Shroud, the place you'll see Duskwights most prominently is among Garlean forces and Sharlayan groups. There's also an argument to be made that they existed in both La Noscea and Rabanastre, but those are yet more instances where it's messy and we don't have enough information, so people will argue whichever interpretations they like.

/DuskwightGrievanceRant
*cough*
Buuuut yeah. The conclusion of MotR wasn't exactly what I was hoping for either.

[MikkoAkure]

The whole Ishgardian thing is sloppy, and people will never agree on it, so I won't directly address it, but I'll point out that there's at least one Duskwight-model Elezen in the Shroud who was also retconned to be a Wildwood (Mother Miounne).

I wouldn't call the whole Ishgardian thing sloppy and I don't know what there is to disagree on. It's explicitly stated that Duskwights are all descended from Gelmorran Elezen who remained underground even after Gridania was established. The ones who remained in Gelmorra after the Hyur and what would become known as the Wildwoods left the caverns are the ones who became the Duskwight and have adaptations specific to living in that subterranean environment for a long period of time. Only the descendants of Gelmorran Elezen who stayed in the remnants of Gelmorra are Duskwight so while individually they could have traveled to other places, there are no Duskwight from anywhere else. What makes them unique only happened to a select number of people in a very specific place at a certain point of history.

Ishgardian Elezen are a completely separate lineage that had nothing to do with Gelmorra and the Elezen who lived in the forests other than a common origin on the Eorzean plains.

Mother Miounne could just have Duskwight ancestry just like how F'Lhaminn is a Sun Seeker who looks like a Moon Keeper and was stated as having interclan ancestry. Other NPCs may use Duskwight models but that doesn't necessarily make them Duskwights. Just like with F'lhaminn and also with Lyse, Yda, and Minfillia, what clan an NPC looks like doesn't mean they're actually that clan. For that reason, I wouldn't count an NPC using a Duskwight model as one unless it's explicitly stated they're a Duskwight. The Elezen in Ishgard who use Duskwight models are stated as being "Ishgardian Elezen".

They're really not. You probably remember the Lancer questline, and the two Duskwight NPCs in Gridania ("Damnable Duskwights!" and the airship ticket guy), but go do the rest of their quests and you'll see they're not prominent at all. In fact, they're pretty rare flat out in ARR onwards.

I was speaking about both Duskwights and Moon Keepers and in the context of storylines set in Gridania rather than anywhere else. The Archer storyline involved the treatment of Moon Keepers as well as a Postmoogle storyline. When the Dancer storyline came to Gridania it involved the Duskwights. Duskwights got a little mention (but not enough) when Palace of the Dead came out. But you're not going to find stories about Duskwights in La Noscea, Doma, or the New World because they don't live there.

There are still some named Duskwights around like Atelloune who is the world's most prominent living naturalist. And Valdeaulin who is from the Shroud but was on the wrong side of the wall when it went up and one thing led to another so he's with the Garleans. Similarly, Sadr Rem Albeleo is a Duskwight who was a thamaturge in Ul'dah who ended up with the Garleans and both give some level of believability for individual Duskwight being elsewhere outside of The Shroud and even Eorzea, but his family or at least his ancestors would still have to have been originally from The Shroud.

The problem is, is that Duskwights are stated to not really gravitate towards cities, to only be descended from a fraction of a population from a hidden group of people who remain mostly hidden still to this day, and are generally be said to be violent bandits when encountered outside the city of Gridania proper. They're probably the single rarest clan in all of the world and don't tend to mingle or interact with the greater world as a whole. That makes it very difficult to have very prominent characters in general who are Duskwight especially since the story has increased in scope away from Gridania which is the only place where Duskwights exist in any concentration and all our friends are Sharlayans.

[MikkoAkure]

To get back on track with the thread in general...

Like was mentioned already, revealing away mythology and the unknown in general feels like it diminishes the world. Just like when Elpis revealed away much of the flavor of the world as being "an Ancient did it".

I don't think the Twelve needed to be explained as anything more than memories of specific Ancients warped over time and their stories turned into myth and legend. Them being actual beings created by Hydaelyn from the memories or soul slivers of actual Ancients feels a bit weird, especially since nowhere else but Eorzea have the same pantheon.

But if you turned your brain off and just enjoyed it for what it was it was fun I guess.

[Kayetiln]

I am happy to be rid of the twelve to be honest with you. I feel like it was a holdover from 1.0 that dragged along with us. And as we meet more of the realms of the world, discover new beliefs and gods, having the twelve with any legitimacy of being gods feels like "Our gods are real, yours are just primals" which was part of the racism of Eorzea. The "Primal" was them discarding the beast tribe faiths as being nonsense, but the twelve were TRUE.

It was an imbalanced story for the concept of people being goodly at all.

[Cleretic]

To get back on track with the thread in general...

Like was mentioned already, revealing away mythology and the unknown in general feels like it diminishes the world. Just like when Elpis revealed away much of the flavor of the world as being "an Ancient did it".

I don't think the Twelve needed to be explained as anything more than memories of specific Ancients warped over time and their stories turned into myth and legend. Them being actual beings created by Hydaelyn from the memories or soul slivers of actual Ancients feels a bit weird, especially since nowhere else but Eorzea have the same pantheon.

But if you turned your brain off and just enjoyed it for what it was it was fun I guess.

I think an important part is to explain them so they actually get a clear origin, showcase them because the game is a crowdpleaser, and then to take them off the board because the game's universal respect towards religion for what it does for people rings hollow when the majority religion has Real, Actual Gods and the others don't. Explaining them also helped there; as I mentioned, we now know that Ramuh and Rhalgr have no functional differences., which significantly evens the theological playing field.

Technically speaking that's mostly solving problems that didn't exist before the storyline, but if we didn't have Myths of the Realm and instead had, like, a Chrono Trigger alliance raid series, there would be a crowd hankering to fight the Twelve. Probably not in this subforum so much, but with RPGs there's always a crowd that doesn't just want to punch out the biggest thing in the setting, but expects it as an inevitability. And after Hydaelyn and Zodiark got taken out, the Twelve held that role. (As an aside, I actually suspect this to be a root of the 'Hydaelyn Bad' crowd; a subset of them had spent years assuming that fighting Hydaelyn was inevitable, and so spent a lot of that time trying to find a justification.)

To a degree Myths of the Realm was sort of a necessary element of moving to a new story arc; they were the biggest form of baggage from the game as it's been so far, the elephant in the room to address. Without them, the only lingering Three Great Continents mysteries are small enough to not need big resolving stories.

I know it's because they hadn't come up with Myths of the Realm yet, but I'm actually kind of upset Hydaelyn manipulated Minfilia into killing herself in lieu of... I don't know, recycling one or two of the Twelve (not like they were doing much of anything anymore), or helping Herself to their 12000 years' worth of prayer aether (the Mothercrystal was also right there)...?

...That wasn't what happened at all, and I think you know that. Minfilia didn't 'kill herself', she arguably didn't even die at the point you're talking about; she just got caught up in the Flow spell, wound up near Hydaelyn as a result, and decided to work with her actual god. There's no indication at all that she was ever consumed for fuel.

Even assuming that Hydaelyn had an elaborate plan that needed a vessel and wasn't just working with the hand she's dealt, I doubt a member of the Twelve would've helped. Not only does Minfilia have personal strengths she called on, I don't think the Twelve were just sitting idle. As I said, I feel like the fact they were seen after Calamities suggests that they had a hand in disaster management; with a lot of those disaster-causers still on the table, I don't think it's a good idea to see what happens if the Ascians hit with, say, a Calamity of Ice and Halone's not around.

[Lium]

As someone who just finished the raids, let me just say as a history and mythology nerd I greatly appreciated this story and strongly disagree with those that say they feel bitter about the writers explaining the origins of the Twelve.

It had to be done when you have set up an entire story based on an all-powerful ancient civilization with the literal ability to create gods and to destroy entire worlds.

If the Twelve’s origins were never revealed, you can rest assured one of the very first questions people would ask was, “Wait what happened to the Twelve? Why would they let all this happen? Are they tied to the sundering in some way?”

Additionally, knowing what we know now about Endwalker, most people would have correctly theorized that the Twelve were the creations of Hydaelyn with or without the Myth of the Realm raids. It made too much sense. I saw threads guessing this very thing before the first raid was even playable.

It is impossible from a world-building perspective not to address the Twelve in the way they did. The writers followed their own rules in that regard.

And after that confusing debacle that was the Nier raids, this one was a breath of fresh air. In that I could actually follow it.

[Eisi]

Coming back to this the Twelve must have had a tangible influence in people's lives beyond just stabilizing the star or whatever.

Praying to the Twelve must have effects, because else the prayer machine doesn't make any sense. So unlike the other gods, the Eorzean gods actually helped people in their lives if they are being prayed to. So the message is that either Hydaelyn wanted the people of specifically Eorzea to have supernatural helpers to guide and assist them or the Twelve reject Hydaelyn's stance on mankind having to be on their own and want to actively help people. Right? Sry, this story is more confusing than even NIER.

Maybe the Twelve can be seen as a counterbalancing force to the Ascians in favor of Hydaelyn over Zodiark? Where Allag and Garlemald were helped by the Ascians instead. But now the Ascians are gone but the Twelve still help people with that machine thingy. I don't like it! If they wanna help people, they should help everyone, not just people who specifically pray to them.

[MikkoAkure]

As someone who just finished the raids, let me just say as a history and mythology nerd I greatly appreciated this story and strongly disagree with those that say they feel bitter about the writers explaining the origins of the Twelve.

It had to be done when you have set up an entire story based on an all-powerful ancient civilization with the literal ability to create gods and to destroy entire worlds.

If the Twelve’s origins were never revealed, you can rest assured one of the very first questions people would ask was, “Wait what happened to the Twelve? Why would they let all this happen? Are they tied to the sundering in some way?”

I still don't think the setting needed near-literal gods that were left behind by Hydaelyn to watch us and the whole thing sort of comes out of left field.

Creating Zodiark and Hydaelyn were one thing, and the setting made it out that creating actual gods required heavy sacrifice and were a big deal, but the Twelve being "real" comes out of left field when we've spent 10 years putting down primal fakes from other peoples' mythologies. It was already established in the setting by Gaius very famously when he treats our Twelve as no different than anyone else's religions in that it's just empty belief and to call them down is the same as primal summoning. I don't many players after that actually believed the Twelve were real gods doing stuff or responsible for anything at all, let alone the Sundering. It's one thing to have them be half-rememberings of Ancients, but another to be actual Ancient themselves or at least a sliver of their soul as a real-ish god created by Hydaelyn just for 1 region of the world.

It's just really awkward to come back from "gods are all myth" to say "Actually the gods in this one backwater region of the planet are actually real". Especially since they don't actually do anything except accepting prayer and they have no real, tangible impact on the story or the setting before or after they leave.

Not everything in a story requires explanation and it can make the setting feel smaller if there are no mysteries or mythologies.

[Lium]

It's just really awkward to come back from "gods are all myth" to say "Actually the gods in this one backwater region of the planet are actually real". Especially since they don't actually do anything except accepting prayer and they have no real, tangible impact on the story or the setting before or after they leave.

Except they do have a tangible purpose. It was to keep the world stable after the sundering, and then the calamities after that. This is explicitly told to us during one of the cutscenes.

Also, the name of this raid series was literally “Myths of the Realm.” It was about Eorzean mythology and the actual story behind those myths.

It’s only out of left field if you haven’t been paying attention to the story over the last 10 years. In one of the expansions, I think it was Shadowbringers, Elidibus or Emet-Selch says that the Twelve are real but they don’t elaborate.

After the events of Endwalker, it made perfect sense that the Twelve would be constructs of Hydaelyn. Like I said in my previous post, people were already guessing that’s who they were before anyone even played the first raid.

That’s why I’m having a difficult time understanding how it could be seen as out of left field. People were literally saying they were created by Hydaelyn.

That was the story that had been established. Everything revolved around this all-powerful ancient civilization, and how one of their own rebelled against the others to save the star.

[MikkoAkure]

snip.

Before the existence of Myths of the Realm, the Twelve were just myths and there was no foreshadowing to their existence being real beings beyond being able to be summoned as primals like all fake gods could. Like I said before, Gaius calls them out as being make believe too way back in ARR. You say I haven’t been paying attention for 10 years but I can’t think of any mention from ARR to the very end of EW that says anything about them being real out side of Myths of the Realm. If there is, please share it.

It came out of left field because while Emet-Selch at the end of EW says we don’t know the true identities of the Twelve, nothing else in EW mentions them and there’s no supporting lore bits or groundwork done to lay down a foundation for the raids. Especially anything about them being creations or otherwise real beings. Before the raids and even before EW, people speculated that they weren’t real and were just misremberings of Ancients and particularly the Convocation. He also doesn’t say anything about them being real gods unless you can find that somewhere.

We spend the whole game putting down fake gods around the world and seemingly established that all religions are little more than myth and even the big 2 secret gods most people don’t know about were actually primals. So for the game to suddenly turn around after 10 years of that to tell us that actually ours are real feels a little awkward and out of place.

In the context of the raids it makes sense that they’re her creations and where they came from but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m questioning why these raids and this story were even necessary and how turning myth into reality can diminish the lore instead of the enrich it.


Also, the Twelve stabilizing the world after a Sundering solves a problem that did not get alluded to or was known to exist before the storyline did.