Insane Theory: Are YOU a Primal?

[Violyre]

As the title suggests, first, this is me going through a lot of insanity, and secondly, are you, the player character, a primal?

So there's a couple things to note as I go on, basically a cliffnotes of "I'm getting to it, give me time:

There be spoilers ahead.

Let's take a few things into thought, regarding our existence and the existence of primals..

• No one knows where you character comes from. Not even you. You just showed up in a carriage one day, or a boat, or whatever. You just appear.
• Primals require a massive amount of prayer to summon. As we know from Hreas
• Primals require a large source of aether, like a ton of crystals, to be summoned.

So the first point is self-explanatory. You appear out of nowhere. Kind of like primals.

For #2, where would the large amount of prayer needed to summon a primal come from? And through the plot of Heavensward, we find out that a primal is nothing but a shadow of the original via Hraesvelgr and Tiamat, how would anyone have any idea what it looks like?

What if people had some form of collective amnesia? Such as one that could make everyone forget what their heroes look like, are named, and such? What's that, you say that's in the ARR storyline? Very good. People tend not to know what their dieties actually look like in truth, but enough imaginative people together and you get...you.

Why would they be praying enough to cause a primal to appear? Maybe there had been a major catastrophe that happened, or was about to happen?

The Calamity, mayhap?

Beastmen don't really need a very good reason to summon their primals. Some of them just want to have them all the time to destroy their enemies (Amal'jaa, Gnath), some look to them for protection (Sylph, Sahagin, Kobold). If they want to summon it, they're going to summon it. And as we all know from Shiva and Good King Moggle Mog, a primal may not necessarily be a "primal" as thought, but still a manifestation of enough prayers to convey the strength of a primal.

Onto #3. How can I explain the amount of aether we would need to sustain ourselves for this long? Crystals can only work for so long, right? And wouldn't we eventually be a drain on the planet? That's one of the things the Scions fight against.

What if I told you we needed only one crystal? One crystal that has the power to sustain both you and the planet?



Oh look. It's Hydaelyn. She's a crystal. You know what else is named Hydaelyn? The planet. You have numerous interactions with her throughout your journey.

And you can't forget, if you want to power up a primal even more, give it more crystals~



So now we have both a source of prayer and a source of aether. We have an explanation of where we appear from. We have a way to become a stronger primal.



Now, there are a couple points in the storyline that may discredit this entirely, but here's my thoughts on it.

1. At the end of the Praetoreum, we're shown a cutscene of Hydaelyn covered in darkness. Not much mention is made of this other than Minfilia commenting that the crystal hadn't spoken to her, until the end of 2.55. We're not cut off from our aether source, but I do believe something else is going on. Something that's not brought up until the end of the 3.0 storyline, when Elidibus summons the Warriors of Darkness.

We know there's something off about them. They look just like the guys from all the promos. You know, Derplander & Friends. What if I told you that the darkness surrounding Hydaelyn was them being extracted? There's a couple different things that could've happened here.

In "End of an Era," we see Louisoix teleport them away, where we assume that they were transported five years into the future to become the future Warriors of Light and it's all designed because promos.

I believe that Louisoix actually dispersed their aether, alongside the player character (Who was, if I understand the story timelines right, fighting Nael on Rivenroad as Dalamud crashed.). This acted much like dismissing a primal, where you no longer have a physical form but it takes the prayer to bring them back to physical form. Any of them could've become the Warrior of Light, but you got selected.

Upon Lahabrea's expulsion from Thancred's body in the Praetoreum, it's a potential possibility that, as Elidibus seems to like to watch everything we do, that he managed to sneak into Hydaelyn's dimension and start extracting the other forms of the "primals" that Louisoix created.

Yes, the primal Phoenix created other primals based on the hopes and dreams of the heroes. We know that there are basically three places to be in regards to the Lifestream. I forgot what they're called, but basically living, being converted into aether to be transferred to a new life, and that thing in-between that the Ascians exploit to keep themselves alive.

You were kept in that final place, a place we know little about. It'd kind of like a little filter dimension, and your spirit got stuck in the filter as the aether continued on to be restored to the Lifestream.

Oh sure, you could be an Ascian, but have you ever seen an Ascian think of anything other than making things suffer and summoning Zodiark? I'm sticking with primal here.

Back to the point though, you were chosen as the Warrior of Light. The others were stuck. As we don't know much about that in-between part of the Lifestream, I think it's safe to consider it a filter, of which Hydaelyn is the filter. I'm still working on that whole "how can the Ascians exploit a world where Hydaelyn is the filter" issue.

The Warriors from Cartenau, however, were taken out by the Ascians, as primals of their own, and also sustained by Hydaelyn (She has a LOT of aether I'd assume). I assume whatever method created the Ascians could also be used to explain the corruption of the Warriors of Darkness. I'm also still working one explaining why it took so long for the Warriors of Darkness to appear, especially since they did it after we reconnected with Hydaelyn.

2. Midgardsormr's disconnect of the Blessing of Light is another thorn in my thoughts, seeing as how you'd eventually dissolve with nothing to maintain you. I don't necessarily believe that Midgardsormr works under the same logic as most things. He has his respect for Hydaelyn, but he wants to see you deal without it, and he makes a pact with you. It's possible your new source of aether is Midgardsormr himself.

He can make that disconnect with the crystals just like that. Even the Ascians had to wait for that to be gone before they could take Tupsimati from the Rising Stones. This suggests that he may be a being on par with Hydaelyn. He did manage to resurrect himself, after all. Unless you want me to start calling Midgardsormr a primal too.

Because your power-up crystals were depowered at the same time, that counts them out of the reasoning, but it could also be that the power-up crystals are a physical embodiment of hope and prayer. You gain most of them because someone looks to you with hope (the wind crystal may be an issue in this theory.). How do you repower them? Giving hope to things.

More plot issues may appear here later...

I have a ton of random other thoughts regarding this matter, but for now, I want to check to see if this could be something interesting, or if I'm just reading things wrong. When I collect more thoughts together, I'll make a new reply for it, and edit it into this post as well.

[Alahra]

I don't know if we're primals per say, but there's definitely something up. I've felt that way ever since that scene in the mid-40s where Cid speaks to you of a vision in which he saw the player character and it encouraged him to do something or other (it's been a long time).

[FinalWolf]

Slowly but surely turning into a true god.

[Esp]

Call me crazy too, but at times it does seem that people are generally drawn to our characters sometimes, almost as if they were "tempered" by us, but then again it could be some kind of different form of it. Not to mention a few times certain people hav3 unexpectedly come to out aid as if they had a sense we were in danger.

I have had a feeling that our appearance could have been the prayers of the people looking for someone to save them from the calamity, or in the case of ARR, the empires reign.

Then again, could be all crazy talk I'm speaking...

[Pence]

I don't think we're primals....someone has to be summoning us and no one knew who we were prior to our heroic deeds, and some of us had been completely forgotten after meteor. And we'd be draining the planet if we were summoned, and surely the Primals would be able to sense it and have said something.

But I do think we're being given strength from somewhere bad and we are a puppet. No Final Fantasy is complete without us going completely rogue from the 'good guy' to win the day.

[Violyre]

I don't think we're primals....someone has to be summoning us and no one knew who we were prior to our heroic deeds, and some of us had been completely forgotten after meteor. And we'd be draining the planet if we were summoned, and surely the Primals would be able to sense it and have said something.

Did...did you read my post? I explained a reason for almost all of those...

[PArcher]

Hey look, its this thread again...

Topic has been discussed to death several times over in the lore forum.

Basically, there's one key thing to remember that proves we're not a Primal; none of the Scions detect we are. And they can tell a Primal is nearby (especially Y'stola after she's blinded; she can see the aether in and around something, and knows if something is a Primal or not. Heck, she knows Thancred can't use magic anymore due to the same ability).

EDIT: I may make a post to go into more detail about your OP. Maybe not (its late )

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I still refuse to believe that WOL=primal just because of similarities. Heck, it'd anger me more if it turns out that the WOL is a "special" kind of primal where they can BE a primal without having the associations and problems primals bring. There is something more to this, something beyond the primal theories people keep bringing up, but I rather wait for more patches to bring in the story than to keep guessing.

[Jim_Berry]

Now you got me needing to research, because I thought we were one of the guys who was teleported (from the ARR intro).

[Belhi]

Yeah basically there is very little chance that you would have a primal hanging out with the Scions and none of them would recognise it. The WoL's powers aren't completely unique either. The echo and the blessing exist in one form or another for other people though in the case of the blessing, to a weaker extent.

Primals are Aether Vacuums. Their presense is very obvious. Even the ones who don't require worshipers. So much so that you can detect the presence of a primal just from the Aetheric signature they leave in the area around them.