The Summoning of Susano

[Anonymoose]

We've got a while before any new revelations are upon us, and this is a huge question mark for me. I think it's time Susano got his own thread.

What We Know About Summoning So Far... (Warning: Massive Crash Course)

SUMMONING

The Ascians teach (a specific form of) the art of fashioning entities from aether, often called (along with other dark arts) the "wisdom of the paragons".

Fundamentally, such entities are pretty much the same: extremely over-powered elementals whose manifestation and maintenance invariably draws upon the aether of the land until its balance is thrown into chaos. They corrupt the hearts and minds of those they blast with concentrated internal aether (or, in many cases, those who spend too much time hanging out close to them, within some kind of corrupting aura).

I use the word deiform to open an umbrella over all of these beings, because other words have unique and incompatible connotations.

Deiforms are the perfect tool for the Ascians' ambitions. If they are pitted against threats that might undo them (often one another), their patrons will become more desperate and zealous, striving to summon more potent incarnations. (Recently, Elidibus has seemingly taken to the idea that they can be so utterly defeated as to break the patrons' faith and drive them towards a new god. Hints to this come and go, but have not come to fruition.) Even if a deiform remains relatively inactive, however, maintaining corporeal form will still hurt the land in time. Therefore, it seems that the wisdom of the paragons is itself the problem, the methods designed to create such inevitably damaging beings.

A deiform summoning consists of three ingredients:

• The Beacon: Spiritual Aether: Faith, Prayer, Willpower - Desire.

• The Catalyst: Corporeal Aether: Crystals, Ambient Energy, the Land.

• The Essence: The de-materialized "soul" of a primal, cast into the Lifestream and shorn into uncountable pieces. Often (if not always), the aetherial "atoms" of a being that once lived are drawn together and re-materialized. In such a case, the original being is still dead; the summoned being is at best a shade of its former self and at worst a corruption so severe as to be unrecognizable. It is presently unknown if a deiform can exist without a core of something that once lived, or if essences can be manufacted ex nihilo and re-materialized from there.

THE SUMMONED

No matter what belief system is utilized in the summoning, the result is NOT THAT THING, but a deiform wearing its shape. It is a shade - a thoughtform. In many cases, evidence has later surfaced suggestive that a given deiform has a core of a specific mis-remembered and heavily corrupted historical being.

The appearance, behavior, and temperament of a deiform is determined not only by the faith of the summoners, but their present state of mind. Thus, the summoned being can be whimsical or calculating, philosophical or brutish, isolationist or expansionist, protective or vengeful, and anything in between.

However, while the wisdom of the paragons seems fit to corrupt any belief system, nuances tend to manifest.

The beast tribes of Eorzea believed in primals, elemental beings that existed at the dawn of time and gave birth to the world as they know it. While we still call all summoned beings by this name, only this subset seem to be the "true primals", the Banshin.

Shiva put a spin on this, with Ysayle and her heretics being manipulated into combining the knowledge of primal existence and basic summoning theory with Iceheart's understanding of Saint Shiva's soul and her personal interpretation of Halone. She became a vessel for this essence through the power of the Echo.

This process was replicated with King Thordan. The archbishop (who to this day I suspect was granted the Echo by Elidibus) harnessed 1,000 years of deifying and worshipping Thordan I and his Knights Twelve as an Ishgardian saints.

The Phoenix was implied to be a "pseudoprimal" (that specific word only used in one client language), or manifested as "primal-like power". A massive amount of free-floating aether (drawn by Tupsimati but fed into a spell broken by Bahamut) resonated with the prayers of Eorzeans and were focused on Louisoix, infusing him with power that took the form of the legendary phoenix, a symbol of his deepest desire: Eorzea's rebirth from the ashes. The Leveilleur twins seem to fear that if the truth of the Coils was revealed, the commonfolk would try to re-summon Phoenix to complete its restoration of the realm, thus re-materializing their grandfather's soul and corrupting him into a true deiform.

The false Shinryu seems to be a similar case; the aether of Nidhogg's eyes and the battlefield, combined with the raw desire for vengeance against the Empire by the deceived and broken Resistance, triggered with Ilberd's focus and death. However, because Ilberd was not a mortal infused, who retained sentience and subsequently died, it is likely that Shinryu is much closer to, if not, a true deiform.

Alexander's origins are complicated; a deiform summoning was simply the most convenient way for the Illuminati to bring their warped understanding of the Enigma Codex to fruition. It was based on the ideals of Quickthinx and ostensibly benevolent (Light, Creation, Judgement, etc.), but any bias or nuance that might inherently have existed in the primal seemed to have been overridden by its status as a perfect calculator and time traveler. Finding no way to perform any action or make any change to reality without doing more harm than good, Alexander set into motion events that would undermine its own existence and render it trapped in a contained and stable time loop, minimizing the damage to the inevitable.

In the Third Astral Era, various beings were summoned as representative champions, warring against one another and later used to resist the Allagan Empire. These were called the warring gods, or Toshin. Allag called them Eikons (icons, false gods), a name that Garlemald co-opted and used to describe the deiforms of Othard and Eorzea. The three greatest warring gods were dubbed the Warring Traid, but far more existed. Many were defeated by Allag, some may yet be bound.

FINALLY, LAKSHMI

Hand-waving the solo-summoning of Titan by Ga Bu seemed plausible enough. Titan had been summoned there many times before, a ritual to summon him was being prepared, those preparing the summoning were present, and Ga Bu's dead parents were being used as ritual foci. The pump was primed. Usually you need a group, but Ga Bu's Titan still had an unstable amassing of faith - and Ga Bu's Titan was itself weak and unstable.

Lakshmi is spontaneously summoned by a single Ananta after her daughter is slaughtered as a distraction by Fordola, who was trying to flee Castellum Velodyna. Many Ananta across the Qalyana and Vira worship Sri Lakshmi, but no ritual was prepared, few are present, and only the Qalyana broodmother beseeched intercession.

But even this I can handwave to a degree. The Ananta are profoundly adept at magicks. Yoshida went as far as to imply that the Allagan Empire specifically targeted them for use in creating the Lamia. As the inheritors of Lakshmi's fertility and beauty, they utilize these magicks to weave metal and crystal into jewelry that they believe are reflections of the soul. A powerful Ananta, wearing such jewelry, might be adequate to manifest the appearance of the primal which was then fed by others; especially once she'd tempered a few and had been gifted with crystals.

SO WHAT IS UP WITH SUSANO

Othardians believe in kami, spirits that dwell within all things, their numbers uncountable. Powerful kami prefer precious vessels, such as treasured antiques, sacred relics, exquisite masterpieces, and even the most notable of living things. We have no more proof that the kami are real than we have that the Twelve are real, though they do share certain similarities with the Elementals of the Twelveswood, which Gridanians believe are the most powerful of elemental spirits that exist in all things.

The Kojin collect and hoard any object that they believe a kami to dwell within; they protect and revere these treasures as their own. Among this collection is the great kami Susano, who is divided between the Yasakani-no-Magatama (a jewel), the Yata-no-Kagami (a mirror), and the Ame-no-Murakumo (a sword), so named for the imperial regalia of Japan. It is a set; the kami the sum of its parts, somewhere between "I" and "We".

When these three treasures are brought together, Susano simply appears.

The three treasures react to one another, the red Kojin beseech intercession, and Susano happily obliges. The blue Kojin predicted this, in a way. They knew that Susano was the Lord of the Revel and might delight in your mischief rather than take offense at your intrusion ... so long as you united the treasures and showed them respect.

However, Susano declares his loyalty to the red Kojin in the battle of wills that will be the celebration of your audacity, because they have been the "caretakers of his greater part" (the sword and the glass). He actually seems ignorant of the fact that Hingashi had been suffered to keep the gem until they tried to give it to the Empire.

Now, it's not so strange that spiritual aether would be abundant. The Kojin have likely been focusing belief and reverence on these objects for a long, long time. But how did they come to manifest corporeally a deiform? There was no summoning ritual. There was no gift of crystals. What in the seventh hell is going on?

I would like your theories on this matter. I have little aside from a hip-shot tentative guess.

The best answer I can come up with is to entwine Susano with the only other deiform that breaks the rules: Odin. Eikon...Elder Primal...Kami?

Odin has never truly been destroyed; it seems (as of now) that he was summoned into and/or as the sword Zantetsuken. This sword slowly accumulates aether and is capable of tempering and transforming anyone who touches it, fashioning them into a catalyst for the deiform's corporeal manifestation.

Thus, it seems that Odin has been able to fly under the radar for thousands of years because no one ever thinks to (or is able to) destroy the sword. At best, Urth and/or the Last Allagan Hero sealed it away in water and crystal. (Kind of reminds me of Silvertear Falls...) Instead, the apparent deiform seems to vanish when the host is slain, no longer causing fluctuations in the aether or overdrawing of the land. The sword then appears to slowly "recharge" on ambient aether and wait to begin anew. It's almost like a two-part summoning, with the sword continually repeating the latter half as its own battery, jump-starting its re-manifestation.

I posit that the Yasakani-no-Magatama is perhaps another such battery, created with different faith and thus behaving differently. Perhaps Susano was actually summoned long ago, but only manifests intermittently based on the Magatama's charge and the Kojin's desires.

Perhaps Susano's temperament as a whimsical spirit who cares only to revel, and only in things worth reveling, has co-existed with the Kojin's habit of quietly hoarding relics; he simply rarely appears or has any reason to. We had to put down his corporeal manifestation, and the Kojin don't seem keen to summon him again, but what if he's still in there?

Yet this opens up a terrifying prospect: Imagine that this were true. You could never, ever be sure how many objects were just sitting out there with a full charge, waiting to suddenly auto-summon and temper a new generation of worshippers. Perhaps it is not so difficult to fully destroy these objects if you know what they are and have sufficient power, but they may be capable of self-perpetuation under the right conditions...

Even more of a risk: Imagine how many people in the world might be tempted not to consider these objects slated for immediate destruction. "One must only create a set of circumstances whereby the object can be controlled - utilized when needed and rendered inert after - so as to not be a continuous threat to the land! These objects are tools! Gifts!" It'd be a whole new category of ignorance and arrogance.