Quote Originally Posted by Cilia View Post
They probably aren't skilled combatants like we are. Our sheer martial (or magical) prowess is our main asset in fights against primals; the Echo just prevents us from being tempered. Ordinary people can and have defeated primals in the past before, it just takes human wave tactics to exhaust the primal's ability to temper before the real fighters can go up against the primal.

Put bluntly, even with the Echo a primal will still murder your ass if you can't fight. *glares at Minfilia*
This might not actually be the case. It is told to us that the echo shields us from Primal influences; however, we do not have the echo during every Primal Fight. The echo is at low power during both Ravana and Bismark fights, so I don't think that the echo is the sole means of defense against primal influence.
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Further proof of this is Thancred. It is never said that he has the echo; however, it is implied several times that he was immune to Tempering before the Ascions got their claws into him. There are a couple of occasions where, if you talk to him before a primal fight, he apologizes for not being useful to you in the fight, because he is no longer immune to Primal influence. Why was he immune before? He didn't have Echo to protect him, so what gives?

I think that the baseline defense against Primal Influence is a strong and indomitable will, not the echo. This could be further shown by the old fart and the Garlean he/she (nael) creature who were taken by Bahamut. They did not get tempered until after they were left weakened. If you show weakness, the Primal can get you. I think it's that simple... which means that no one else can fight Primals because they're all weak minded and weak bodied. We are the only ones who are "strong.