So in the research I've been doing around this forum, I've seen conflicting opinions about tempering, from the thought that it erases all sense of self and leaves only the desire to serve the primal, supported by the group tempered after Ifrit's initial summoning, to the suggestion that not all tempered lose coherence and thought, supported by the Serpent Reavers - but the fact is, based on pure hard ingame facts, it seems we know fairly little.

I think my biggest question here is, do we actually have evidence that ALL Serpent Reavers are tempered...? Or are some of them actually just following Leviathan of their own free will?

Bit of an out there suggestion around here, it seems, but hear me out. If there is any direct ingame dialogue that says that, in fact, that all of them are without a doubt tempered, please direct me to it, but otherwise I'm seeing a bit of inconsistency in assuming so. First of all, we'll start with the definitive tempered we fight. Leviathan's tempered, in particular, are called "Drowned", as evidenced by their enemy names - Drowned Butcher, Drowned Diviner, etc. Without a doubt, these men and women have been tempered by the Sahagin or by Leviathan himself, and seem to be Serpent Reavers as well, bearing the same blue face tattoos. Why, then, if all Reavers are tempered, do they not share the Drowned distinction in battle? Instead, we get Sastasha's lot: Shalloweye Reaver, Shallowscale Reaver, etc., and Sapsa's, the Shallowclaw/Shallowtail/Shelfeye/Shelfscale Reavers. (They could easily be Drowned Shalloweye, etc., right?) Notably, every Reaver encountered in the game seems to be as coherent as anyone, down to the one in the Garuda questline that pretends to be someone else in order to steal a shipment of crystals.

Then there's also the issue of the cutscenes in Sastasha itself, where Captain Madison is killed by Denn the Orcatoothed, beginning the fight against him. If Madison was tempered, why would Denn kill him? Madison was, without a doubt, a Reaver captain, and we all know that the more tempered there are, the stronger the primals become. Why willingly weaken his own primal? Unless Madison was, in fact, not tempered, and simply acting in his own interests, which for whatever reason coincide with following Leviathan of his own will.

Overall, the Reavers strike me more as a really bad group of pirates than a bunch of tempered men and women. They have no scruples about serving Leviathan; perhaps the Sahagin pay well, in coin or goods of some kind? They hold no love for Limsa, so they'd see no reason to care if it's flattened by a primal; and perhaps by buying Leviathan's favor, they hope for exactly that, the chance to do what the want without the interference of the Maelstrom and her ships.

What I'm really getting at, at the base of all this, is wondering exactly what the nature of tempering is, and what it does to those who fall victim. Personally, I'm inclined toward the thought that Ifrit's tempered are the best example we're likely to get, driven by nothing more than the devotion to their "god". Thoughts?