Are Sprites "wild" elementals?

[Anonymoose]

Just a disclaimer that I'm shooting from the hip here, but...

Beings lacking in sentience don't have very complex behavior. Rather being motivated to act by past experiences and reinforcement, they would simply react to external stimuli based on their needs and limitations. They would seek out and consume aether of their aspect to persist and grow, for example. That's usually what they're doing when we come upon them. However, there's noting to motivate them to be the aggressor. Chasing, battling, killing, and consuming us would be an extremely inefficient way to feed, it might even be a net loss - we're not even aspected.

However, if a sprite experiences stimuli such as coming under attack, expending the energy to defend itself ensures survival.

The exception might be that a sprite's interest might be roused by the use of magicks nearby and try to feed from the aetherial source. Elementals aggrod to magicks occasionally in FFXI.