A Part, and yet Apart

[Februs]

Not true. If you rewatch Minfilia and Thancred's debriefing post-Ifrit, they specifically point out that the Echo is what gives you the power to resist tempering. We lose Hydaelyn's Blessing of Light after the Keeper of the Lake, but Middy let us keep the Echo.

I am aware of what the post-briefing says. They do clearly say that the echo is the shield against Tempering; however, the game seems to contradict this statement with the words and implications of other events and conversations in the game.

It's a fact that Thancred is said to be somehow more susceptible to the influences of Primals after his run in with Lahabrea. Yet, Thancred is never stated to be blessed with the Echo in the first place, so how is he somehow more susceptible? It doesn't make sense, but they exclude Thancred from a lot of Primal related content after MSQ because of fears that he could somehow be tempered... as if that couldn't happen to the rest of them just as easily.

Also, Louisoix, as far as I know, is never stated to have the Echo. He seems to get a blessing of light, allowing him to go super saiyan, but as you stated that's not the same thing. Yet, Bahamut does not temper him before he gets a fist full of super saiyan. He only does it after. Also, the company of Hero's are said to have lured Leviathan into a cove in order to defeat him. None of them are said to have the Echo, but none of them were tempered by the lord of the whorl. Further still, Alphinaud and Alisaie both stood against Bahamut with no fear of tempering... so, what gives?

My point is that, despite them being crystal clear about the echo being required for resisting Primal influences, there have been countless people who have come across primals and not been tempered with no proper explanation as to why. Ifrit displayed quite clearly that it is a quick process (it took him, like, a second to brainwash an entire squad of guys), so time restraints or improper preparation is not a good enough reason.

There are only two possible explanations, either 1, SE has seriously overlooked their own lore and failed miserably at implementing it consistently in this regard, or 2, there is more to resisting Primal influence than echo alone. Despite them not saying it directly, it would seem that a committed will to resist is enough. Otherwise, Alphinaud, Alisaie, and the company of heroes would all be mindless slaves to their respective primals.

[Kaiser-Ace]

I am aware of what the post-briefing says. They do clearly say that the echo is the shield against Tempering; however, the game seems to contradict this statement with the words and implications of other events and conversations in the game.

It's a fact that Thancred is said to be somehow more susceptible to the influences of Primals after his run in with Lahabrea. Yet, Thancred is never stated to be blessed with the Echo in the first place, so how is he somehow more susceptible? It doesn't make sense, but they exclude Thancred from a lot of Primal related content after MSQ because of fears that he could somehow be tempered... as if that couldn't happen to the rest of them just as easily.

Also, Louisoix, as far as I know, is never stated to have the Echo. He seems to get a blessing of light, allowing him to go super saiyan, but as you stated that's not the same thing. Yet, Bahamut does not temper him before he gets a fist full of super saiyan. He only does it after. Also, the company of Hero's are said to have lured Leviathan into a cove in order to defeat him. None of them are said to have the Echo, but none of them were tempered by the lord of the whorl. Further still, Alphinaud and Alisaie both stood against Bahamut with no fear of tempering... so, what gives?

My point is that, despite them being crystal clear about the echo being required for resisting Primal influences, there have been countless people who have come across primals and not been tempered with no proper explanation as to why. Ifrit displayed quite clearly that it is a quick process (it took him, like, a second to brainwash an entire squad of guys), so time restraints or improper preparation is not a good enough reason.

There are only two possible explanations, either 1, SE has seriously overlooked their own lore and failed miserably at implementing it consistently in this regard, or 2, there is more to resisting Primal influence than echo alone. Despite them not saying it directly, it would seem that a committed will to resist is enough. Otherwise, Alphinaud, Alisaie, and the company of heroes would all be mindless slaves to their respective primals.

Ok, about tempering, The Primal Itself has to temper you thus the need to actually WANT to temper you. Only Ifrit seems to do so willy nilly and we've only seen ifrit, Leviathan, and Rahmu temper at all, Leviathan being a form of punishment and Rahmu only doing so upon request though he himself admitted to taking no pleasure in it.

Thancred was possessed by an Echo User's Soul (Lahabrea) and thus had his will damaged. He was a liability until he got over his Emo-Ness and regardless still didn't go with us into primal dens as he didn't have the Echo. We and 3-7 OTHER ECHO USERS are who take down the primals not the other Scions.

Louisoix also wasn't tempered (until later by Bahamut anyway) because he BECAME the primal Phoenix in the same way Thorden VII became God-King Thorden (he and the knights ALSO lack the Echo), and Ysaele, aka Iceheart, became Shiva but at the same time used the echo to keep from becoming her completely thus allowing her to come back unlike Louisoix and The Knights of the Round.

So all in all, I don't see what you're getting at in regards to the Echo. It's a Soul Powered Wall around our existence that allows us to interact with the souls of other beings with out being influenced by them. (Thus immunity to tempering)

Also, remember as it is frequently forgotten, The Blessing of Light is a different power granted by gathering all 6 crystals of light, a feat of which we (The Main Protagonist) alone have achieved to the point that we rival the power of Gods. Even Minfilia and Iceheart don't have the blessing of light just the Echo.

[Februs]

Snip.

1. I'm not sure what your point is with this one. Not wanting to temper someone is not the same as not being able to. Regardless of the Primal's personal feelings on the subject (which ... is an odd thing to consider, given the character foils we're dealing with) it would not change the fact that it would be a tactically sound thing to do if you wanted to stop someone from messing with you. So, the both Alphinaud and Alisaie would have been nothing but a minor inconvenience to Bahamut during T13, but we're expected to believe that he let them do as they wanted because he just wasn't in the mood to temper them? Right.... sure...

Worst case for Bahamut in tempering the twins was that he'd get two mindless drones he didn't want. Big whop. If it bugged him so much he could just command them to throw themselves off of a cliff, or feed themselves to one of the many monsters we were protecting them from just to get them there. The worst case in not tempering them was, oh, right, we killed him.

See the point yet? For some non-echo related reason, the two of them walked out fine when it would have been in Bahamut's best interests to use the easiest means of disposing them. He would have still had to deal with us, sure, but no more twins to divide his attention.

2. The Thancred thing is a small issue, since it's in tiny snippets of personal dialogue, but the fact is that there was some dialogue parts that implied he was more susceptible to tempering after the Lahabrea incident. The problem is with the wording here. If echo is the be all end all defense against tempering, than it's pretty black and white. You can't somehow be "more" susceptible. You either are or you aren't. So, again, what were they getting at here? Maybe just a mistranslated piece of text, who knows?

3. Louisoix was tempered. The fact that it happened after he turned himself into Phoenix is the part that is even more confusing about the echo business for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the fact that Louisoix could turn himself into a Primal and back again without the echo makes no sense given what we know about it. Supposedly, the only reason Iceheart could achieve this without losing her marbles is because of the echo, so, what is Louisoix's secret?

Secondly, Bahamut successfully tempered Louisoix after he used his primal powers to punch a hole through Bahamut's chest. So, either Bahamut was capable of tempering another Primal (which is unlikely) or Louisoix was somehow weakened after his transformation, which leads back to the idea that echo is not the deciding factor in this case. Further, going back to your idea that some primals simply don't "want" to temper people, the timing of Louisoix's tempering makes no sense either. Bahamut was clearly capable. He successfully tempered Louisoix which, according to you, means he must have "wanted" to temper him in the moment. Yet he waited until AFTER he got falcon punched. WHY? How does this make sense? If Bahamut was capable of tempering Louisoix any time he wanted than, by rights, he should never have gotten a fist full of Phoenix in the first place. He could have just tempered Louisoix and been done with it.

4. Lastly, your point about the Knights of the Round and Louisoix not being able to turn back is actually baseless. Louisoix did turn back. He is seen walking around in human form throughout the entire coils. He also retained his personality, as we have a full blown conversation with him in the Final Coil. The same goes for the Knights of the Round They are seen frequently turning back and forth between their primal forms and their human forms in both the Vault dungeon and several cutscenes, and Theodan himself retains his personality during the KOTR fight, and yet not one of them have been confirmed to have the power of the echo.

So, all in all, I'm not sure what you were getting at with any of your examples...

[Frederick22]

Snip

The answer is very simple Februs.
1. Bahamut was really angry, he had no interest on tempering, just to kill them. Besides I noticed that when a primal wants to temper someone, he does not doing it with an atack that can kill someone. Remember ifrit is blue tempering fire or garuda is weird winds. You can notice when a primal wants to temper and when not. Bahamut was just focus on killing the twins and the WoL.
2. The best result we can get about, iceheart, the heaven's ward and louisoix is that you dont need the echo to become a primal.
3. Thancred wasnt thinking right, we has so blind and dessesperate to follow the setps of louisoix that he was easely caught off guard
4. We arent sure how much powerfull was Bahamut, we still dont know if a primal can temper another primal but Louisoix wasnt actually a pure primal. There is a different between the ones like ifrit and the orthers that are humans that can transform themselfs into a primal. Also sure that Louisoix was weak too.

PD: a primal's tempering atack is active not passive. Thats the reason why people taht doesnt have the echo can confront a primal with a good startegy, also depending how the atack is, it can be avoidable, but if you are hit you are done. Also if the primal is hurt enought to not being able to temper someone well, do i need to explain more? xd

Honeslty i think you are going too far with this saing that the develop team has made sereval flaws with this, they didnt.

[Kaiser-Ace]

The answer is very simple Februs.
1. Bahamut was really angry, he had no interest on tempering, just to kill them. Besides I noticed that when a primal wants to temper someone, he does not doing it with an atack that can kill someone. Remember ifrit is blue tempering fire or garuda is weird winds. You can notice when a primal wants to temper and when not. Bahamut was just focus on killing the twins and the WoL.
2. The best result we can get about, iceheart, the heaven's ward and louisoix is that you dont need the echo to become a primal.
3. Thancred wasnt thinking right, we has so blind and dessesperate to follow the setps of louisoix that he was easely caught off guard
4. We arent sure how much powerfull was Bahamut, we still dont know if a primal can temper another primal but Louisoix wasnt actually a pure primal. There is a different between the ones like ifrit and the orthers that are humans that can transform themselfs into a primal. Also sure that Louisoix was weak too.

PD: a primal's tempering atack is active not passive. Thats the reason why people taht doesnt have the echo can confront a primal with a good startegy, also depending how the atack is, it can be avoidable, but if you are hit you are done. Also if the primal is hurt enought to not being able to temper someone well, do i need to explain more? xd

Honeslty i think you are going too far with this saing that the develop team has made sereval flaws with this, they didnt.

Thank you Frederick, those are the exact points I wanted to make but summed up much better than I could think of how to word. My explination was going to end up long, rambly, and probably look semi-hostile with it's wording despite it not being the intent.

[lokoxDZz]

snip

Pretty sure its a passive thing(that they have control of course), much like they get aether just from nature and crystals. The thing is that they CHOICE to not temper others, primals come from pray from others, and in a example a sylph wouldnt want ramuh to temper a sahagin.

On the topic i think the WoL is kinda like a abstract personafication of rightousness like in the last boss of 3.* he asks directly what we are and certainly we can think this way, the WoL is like a legend personifcated, perfect in all senses.

I would as far as think WoL as a abstract existent as Neo-Exdeath. We are nearly perfect yet we are always get behind by others, we are like the legends yet we are above, the one who recognizes us see us a powehouse instead of a living being, our enemies fear we entering on the realm of gods.

[Frederick22]

snip.

If primals have choise to who and who not temper then is active not passive.
Lets make an example. If it was a passive ability, everyone who stay near primals would get tempered, but we know thats not the case. Their temper abalities are a tipe of action. Ifrit for example again, he have fire skills right? His temper skill has the form of a blue fire, that doesnt damage his victim but it gets temperise.

[Februs]

Snip.

1. Again, he could have just tempered them and forced them to kill themselves, or killed them on the spot while they were willingly bowing their heads. It's not like we haven't seen followers of Primals sacrificed to their respective gods in the past. Seems to me this would have been much easier given that the twins would have had absolutely zero defense against it.

You do raise an interesting point that I've wondered about though. Each Primal seems to use their element to Temper. Odin uses his sword (technically, kinda... it's weird) ... what does Bahamut use?

and 2. I've already explained the gap in the story with Iceheart, Louisoix, and the Knights of the Round. I didn't say you need the echo to summon the Primal. They summon the Primals in the same way, lots of Faith and Prayer. You do, however, need the echo to protect yourself against primal influence. It's been stated that this is the only way. The Primals they summoned should have be able to influence them or full possess them, similar to the way Odin possesses his host, or the way Extreme Primals were summoned in the past. It doesn't matter that a real body was the host. If they don't have the echo, they are doomed to be overtaken by the primal. There's lots of in-game evidence for this.

Iceheart is protected by the echo, but Louisoix and the Knights of the Round are not. They should have been susceptible to full possession or tempering (similar to the way Odin takes over his host). This is a gap in the game lore/logic no matter how you slice it.

I also stated that I'd prefer to give the developers the benefit of the doubt, instead of assuming they made mistakes, but to do that it means I have to allow for the possibility that the Echo is not the only way to defend against primal influence. Relying solely on the gospel of "the Echo is the be all end all defense against Primal influence and nothing else matters" only leaves the story open to holes that cannot be explained.

[Frederick22]

snip

And again,

Bahamut wanted to kill the twins and the WoL. He has no intention to temper them. Even if he could, he didnt wanted. He was to pissed off. When he got free of Dalamud, why he desided to destroy everything instead of temper everyone? Is exacly the same thing.

No you dont need to echo to summon a primal into yourself and "become" the primal and also you would be able retain your free will. You misundertood what I said.
But even so if you pay attention to the story, even Iceheart, that she supposely has the echo, didnt get totaly unharmed. Remember that the white dragon told her that she was corrupted by the manifastetion she herself created, but not corrupted enought to realise her mistake.

[Cilia]

And the problem with focusing too hard on the rigid distinctions between the two is that the directorial intent in Final Fantasy XIV is rather clearly to conflate them. It's not that I don't generally agree with your analysis, just that the "message" embedded in the work and how it seeks to achieve that are frequently at odds.

While the game does try and present you as the protagonist, beyond your ability to kill foes that nobody else can, I feel it falls flat on that. Sort of. You are a protagonist, but not the protagonist. If you get my drift. It's not your story in the same way, say, X is Tidus' story; you are, in the end, just a drifter who brings hope to the world, but not really a character with flaws and faults to overcome, or goals and dreams of your own. You exist to make the impossible possible, but only for other people.

I think the rest is just a difference of how we view the story. I'd go further into detail, but I have to be up in like 5 hours for horribad factory werk. Maybe tomorrow, if I'm not busy with schoolwork.

snip

Most of these are in extraordinary circumstances. Plus, not all primals are so temper-happy like Ifrit (it's kind of his hat).

I don't recall anyone ever saying Thancred was more susceptible to primal influence after 2.0. Either way he doesn't possess the Echo, so him fighting most primals is out of the question when they can just throw us at it with no fear.

Louisoix is... complicated. I don't fully understand that one myself. My best guess is that after becoming Phoenix, Bahamut somehow infected him with his own aether while they were being dragged down into the Coil. As a newborn primal himself, tempering Louisoix should have been impossible... but again, extraordinary circumstance.

As for the Company of Heroes... many of them were tempered, just not the ones we see. The CoH's strategy for defeating primals was to use wave tactics: wave 1 runs in and gets tempered, wave 2 fights wave 1, wave 3 fights the primal. Without the Echo, that's the best anyone's got, and you know what happens to tempered people...

Alphinaud and Alisae are, again, a complicated affair. I believe, aside from nearby mortals when they are summoned, it takes a considerable amount of conscious effort to temper mortals and it can only be done at a certain rate of time. The Bahamut (on the material plane) encountered in the Binding Coil was an incomplete, unconscious, fragmented husk of the genuine article; his attack on Alphinaud and Alisae was more or less an unconscious defense.

If tempering was an instantaneous, unconscious, infinitely repeatable with 0 charge time ability, nobody would ever be able to defeat a primal except Echo users... which isn't true.

And, if all it took were willpower to resist tempering, it's highly doubtful the more forceful primals (Ifrit and Leviathan) would have as many spoken worshipers as they do.

(That's not to say there aren't holes in it, like how the entire Heavens' Ward are able to use primal super modes despite nothing anywhere stating they all have the Echo. But y'know. It's consistent enough, for my taste at least.)