Primals Unquestionably Bad

[Skies]

it may be that Ishgard tried to conquer dragon land

They didn't try.
Ishgard was a city founded on the divine crusade against dragons. Ishgard was founded right into dravania, the dragon lands.
They did.

[jomoru]

Look at who taught the beast tribes to summon, its even implied if the same method would have detrimental effects if used to call forth one of the 12. I think its distinctly possible that when interacting with them in a method that doesn't call upon this corrupted influence that the primals might be quite different.

[WellFooled]

Not all the Primals are evil. I'm sure of that.

Ramuh and Titan for sure are not.

I don't think we should jump to this conclusion so easily. We literally have no first hand experience with Ramah of any kind and only limited contact with Titan. However even without that experience we know that they both ignore the free will of sentient creatures by enslaving their minds. Even if that was the worst thing they've ever done, that still makes them pretty evil. But it hasn't been the worst, Ramah's followers in particular have been continuing this by trying to temper the Slyphs of Little Solace.

[Skies]

Ah, but WellFooled, Titan's case, at least, is particularly different.
It is very explicitly stated, Titan does not tempers anyone. Which is the only reason the Company of Heroes actually managed to defeat Titan, because he didn't do that to them.
Otherwise, only us chosen by Hydaelyn are able to fight Primals because of that.

[WellFooled]

Ah, but WellFooled, Titan's case, at least, is particularly different.
It is very explicitly stated, Titan does not tempers anyone. Which is the only reason the Company of Heroes actually managed to defeat Titan, because he didn't do that to them.
Otherwise, only us chosen by Hydaelyn are able to fight Primals because of that.

Can you point me to where its stated that Titan doesn't temper his subjects? I'm afraid during my questing I don't remember coming across this info, but then I never played 1.0 either. Granted, I couldn't think of anywhere its expressly said he does either. What I did find was the conversation between Yshtola and the Company of Heroes captain--

Yshtola: Be not so quick to judge. Long have I labored for the well-being of you and yours. And my associate here has bathed in Ifrit's hellfire and lived. Rovec is blessed with a power that protects him from primal influence. Thus was he able to lay low the Lord of the Inferno.

Wheiskaet: A man who can't be tempered? Useful...but it will not be enough.

I guess my argument is why would they even bring tempering up unless Titan tempers? And why would the captain even consider it useful in that case?

[Pentacus]

it's possible that titan shares the same point of view on tempering as garuda, she seemed to treat it at the worst punishment she can give, and was very much aware that it was a fate worse than death, remember that she only attempted to temper you when you REALLY angered her by trying to kill her, she was perfectly happy to just kill alphinaud and cid. the only primal we've seen with a "temper as many as possible" attitude is ifrit, and that completely fits with him being the embodiment of fire since it's natural he'd want to consume as much fuel as possible.

I guess it kind of makes sense, if a primal tempers someone, there is no difference in mindset between a tempered person and a beastman, so they would have no reason to treat them any differently, most likely, the idea of having a non ixal/kobold under their protection would make garuda/titan sick

as for ramuh, I get the feeling like his immediate tempering of the sylphs was a bit of a knee jerk "OMG GUYS! YOU NEED TO STAY WITH ME WHERE IT'S SAFE!", and attempting to temper the other sylphs is an attempt to get them back in the sylphlands and under his protection, frixio even points out that ramuh won't do anything as long as you don't do anything to him or his sylphs (which suddenly makes the sylph faction quests seem like a VERY BAD IDEA)

[Skyhound]

There really isn't even any indication of Hydaelyn being good or the Primals being evil. Hell, we don't even know if the aether being drained from the planet would be such a horrible thing. Most of the denizens in ARR simply assume that because they rely on aether so much. I am personally going to wait an more information to be released, either from the Ascians or the Garleans. I feel like the Garlean Empire has some sort of information on the Primals that we don't have, maybe they know the full effects of Primal influence.

[dragonflie]

I think that it's perhaps the nature of those who summon the primals that give rise to whatever personality they gain.
From what we know of King Mog, he was a benevolent king to his moogles in his legend, yet when summoned, he was more evil, most likely a twisted version of what he used to be.

From what I understand in the King Mog quest, the primals are summoned from the wishing power of the collective mind and giving form through the use of all the crystals gathered.
Since most of the time they are summoned for protection, they are thus given the personality of one who wishes to smite his enemies and conquer others.

My theory is that if the good faction of say the Amalj'aa were to summon Ifrit, perhaps he would be more benevolent.
Of course, due to the use of aether, they would probably never do that.


Anyway, I learned from reading Anymoose's resume of 1.0 that the ritual to summon the 12 during the battle against Bahamut was akin to a primal summoning. Since the ritual needed the prayers of the people in order to appear, this itself was destructive to the world due to the high amount of aether needed.

[Namir]

Being evil is just a matter of perspective, we view the Primals as evil because the beast tribes may use them to attack our cities and just because their mere existence causes an imbalance in the world, but the beast tribes certainly don't consider them evil, especially in the case of the kobolds, Titan isn't shown to be evil, simply protective of his children. Also, let's not forget that Limsa was the one who broke the agreement with the kobolds and took their lands. To put it into our real world perspective, during the age of the American colonies, were the native indians evil because they were fighting against the colonists? No, they were simply protecting their lands from invaders, to them, the colonists were "evil", simply because their existence and actions threatened their homes. Ramuh is also not shown to be purely evil, at least from what we have learned from the main story. The only Primals that are explicitly shown to be evil are Ifrit and Garuda.

Also, going back to the game, couldn't the imbalance in aether argument be used against the twelve as well? If I remember correctly the reason Alphinaud's grandfather didn't fully summon them during the ritual to seal back Bahamut was because their manifestation in the realm would cause an immense imbalance in aether, possibly causing more harm than good.

[myahele]

I wouldn't call the primals evil. Sure, some are worst than others. However, thier very existence is a threat to the world due to thier over consumption of aether.

I believe in the ala mhigan quest there were a groups of people that wanted to summon rhalgr. The method was similar to summoning primals in that they needed vast amounts of crystals. From what I gathered summoning them was BAD idea.

Maybe summoning the 12 in that way will corrupt them? I also think what separate them from primalsnis due to the fact that they have tons of worshippers compared to the smaller beast men tribes