Wait a minute...is this a plot-hole (Austerities of Wind and Main Scenario-related)?

[Anonymoose]

Elder Primals are Primals that have been summoned since multiple Astral Eras without being vainquished.

We've since gotten confirmation that the underlined part isn't actually very important. The primary distinction between Primal and Elder Primal is the sheer number of years that have passed since mass-worship began (even if its since evaporated).

Koji: Basically it’s all a matter of length of worship. With primals, it’s all about how you have someone worshiping you and you become that primal and they believe in you and you get your power from that. For the Ixal or the Amalj’aa, it’s the belief that makes the aether combine to summon forth these primals—so when you look at Ifrit, and Titan, and the one’s we’re calling primals, they’re considered very young. They’ve been believing in them for a long time, but looked at in a span of all the eras it’s not that much time. <...>

Anwyll: <...> [So,] it’s just has to do with the length of time.

Koji: Basic length of time.

For instance, Belias was forgotten pretty much entirely since twilight of the Third Astral Era (as far as we know) and memory of him was re-awoken from a summoner job crystal and passed to Tristan by an Ascian - and there Belias was called Elder. There are, of course, hints that the Ascian manipulated Tristan quite a bit and never told him the whole story. The power of Darkness takes root in him throughout the storyline until he's basically just using Dark Aether Ifrit-Egi (assuming that's not what Belias is in the first place, of course) and Dark Aether Starstorm.

Kinda makes me wonder - if we didn't (presumably) put Tristain down, would he have opened himself up to the Darkness more and more, drunk on its power, until he simply died? Or could he have ended up a black-mask one day? But I digress.