The Summoning of Susano

[Alberel]

I'm hoping this is something explored in the future. We don't see any Ascian influence there now, but we're late to this party. Othard was summoning primals and going to war over twenty-five years ago. The Source's overlord was (presumably) ganked and his minions vaporized or scattered to the wind this year. Did Ascians play a part back then? Are we seeing lingering effects?

There's also the less likely possibility that some remain and are just working unseen. The Ascians have almost always remained hidden and worked in secret; the first thing you hear about them in 2.00 is that the Scions can't fathom why they would be so brazen now. Maybe with Lahabrea missing and Elidibus focusing on major players, there are still a few black-masks wandering around acting as they did in the old days.

Well we do at least know that the Ascians have a presence in Othard as the whole Shisui of the Violet Tides timeline traces back to the appearance of a rather obvious black robed individual. The Ascians work to encourage deliberate summoning, however, and yet these cases were both seemingly unintentional. I suppose it's possible that the Ascians may have still had a hand in the summonings in other ways though.

Much earlier in the game, between Minfilia's assertion that primals cannot exist when the world is stable, Lahabrea's rambling about the natural order coming undone, and the (then unconfirmed) theory that primals were just throughtforms, I considered the possibility of a positive feedback loop - that the first primals would be very difficult to summon (explaining why Travanchet went after the horn), but as more conflict arose, as the aether became more imbalanced, as Hydaelyn grew weaker, and chaos reigned, it would become easier and easier for mortals to tread on the domain of gods and cause will to manifest. It seemed like perhaps that was part of the point - that usually creation via volition is the domain of the Crystal, but that when Her laws were weakened, mankind could trespass on this act. I haven't revisited that possibility in a long, long time but Ga Bu, Susano, and Lakshmi have put it back in my mind.

This is sort of where my thoughts have been wandering as well. The act of summoning alone furthers the goals of the Ascians, that much is clear. They never really care when we strike down a primal. We know that the aether used to summon a primal is corrupted somehow but we've never had an explanation for what that corruption entails. Maybe this is the result? Aether that is more easily shaped by will? I have to wonder then if slaying primals is also part of the Ascians' plan. Summoning a primal corrupts the aether used but only slaying it returns that corruption to the lifestream...

[Anonymoose]

Well we do at least know that the Ascians have a presence in Othard as the whole Shisui of the Violet Tides timeline traces back to the appearance of a rather obvious black robed individual.

Precisely! While we can't be sure what's natural conflict, what's the lingering effect of potential meddling 25~ years ago, and what's fresh meddling, (in order of probability) we do have at least one example that shows that it is happening.

I have to wonder then if slaying primals is also part of the Ascians' plan.

Even if we turn out to be incorrect about a feedback loop existing, primals being slain is definitely part of the Ascian agenda, now and in the past.

When confronted with something that runs contrary to faith, it's more likely that the zealous will find ways to excuse, justify, or ignore that thing before they will actually cede their beliefs. The defeat of a primal thus only spurs its worshippers to reach for more power. It was only defeated because it needed more crystals. It was only defeated because it didn't have enough prayers. It was only defeated because it needs more worshippers. It was handicapped somehow. More aether, more prayer, more tempering, summon it again.

In this era, we were doing Lahabrea's work for him, which is one reason he arrogantly toyed with us rather than take us out when he had a better chance at it. He didn't even have to pit the primals against each other or an empire to make the tribes desire stronger incarnations, we just zipped from place to place inspiring it on our own.

This is why, when Elidibus wanted to break the tribes' faiths and redirect their beliefs, the Warriors of Darkness were meant to inspire incredibly strong primals and effortlessly slay them - to show there was no excuse, but their gods were insufficient.

Everything just seems to work regardless of whether the feedback loop is a thing, which makes it even harder to pin down. And that's to say nothing of the fact that the Ascians only need to give knowledge one time; it can be used immediately or years later, once or repeatedly. If you didn't know about the history of the Paragons acting in 1562 up through 1572, the Ascians wouldn't have seemed to have been involved in even Titan, Garuda, or Ifrit (aside from the latter name-dropping them).

[Nuach]

I don't think Susano was a Primal, of course we think of him as such but he didn't actually show any Primal characteristics while manifest in the world. He never hungered for aether since he never consumed other Kojin relics that probably held aether as far as we can tell. He never drained the land of aether, no Kojin were tempered, while there was faith in the kami as a whole that is not the same as beckoning your specific god to intervene, the Kojin only seemed to know his name after he announced himself. Yes, Lyse and Alisae said that he was a Primal, but they never took any actions to confirm that at all, no checking with an aetherscope, just the panicked assumption that Susano was a Primal.

So then what was he? I have to take the Kojin at their word for this, I think Susano was a Kami made manifest. Why shouldn't the Kami be able to take physical form? What rules prevent them from doing that? This doesn't mean that Susano wasn't a threat and had to be dealt with, he was and we did. However it does mean that our understanding of spiritual phenomena is less comprehensive than we thought and biased in favor of just shoving all manifest beings under the umbrella Primal and not understanding that this may be a different phenomena altogether that looks like a Primal manifestation to the unobservant.

[LineageRazor]

*snip*

On the flip side of this, we don't know he WASN'T a Primal. We never witnessed him tempering anyone, but that doesn't mean he couldn't. We didn't check to see if he was Siphoning Aether, but that doesn't mean he wasn't. The conditions were sufficient for the summoning of a Primal; the Kojin's faith in their treasures is strong, and we were in the treasure room where there were likely high levels of aether among many of the treasures (and even if not, we'd just finished slaughtering a bunch of Kojin to get them riled up, so there were sacrifices being made).

I do agree that the possibility is there that Susano is a different kind of entity, but at this point there's not enough evidence to say one way or another. Personally, I believe that Susano is a Primal of the same sort as Odin, simply due to the fact that both are entities bound to artifacts - but that's just my personal opinion. There's plenty of evidence pointing in other directions, as well.

[Lutefisk]

Thordan. He used the Eye instead of Crystals to get what he needed.

But it's still something you have to lug around much like those those piles of crystals.


That aside, if Susano really is another primal like Odin, then are the three treasures also recreating the likeness of someone who died holding them like Zantetsuken does with Odin? A Kojin whose belongings were placed in the vault so long ago that his name was forgotten and the objects are now treated as the most sacred of treasures because no one remembers their real origin?

[Nuach]

Words.

I agree with you that it was made ambiguous, I think that our differing interpretations is just how we view the lack of evidence. Without clear evidence that Susano is a Primal, even a single behavior that is known to be taken by Primals, tempering, hunger, I default to the lack of evidence may be evidence of absence, though perhaps in this erroneously since Susano was only around for a very short time. Whereas, if you'll forgive the assumption, you see the lack of evidence not as evidence of absence but instead simply as the lack of evidence without any greater implications, and thus default back to the closest possible analogue, Odin. I don't necessarily believe that either method of dealing with a lack of evidence is wrong, though there are philosophical schools that disagree with me there.

[Anonymoose]

Without clear evidence that Susano is a Primal

Susano─a primal by another name

Are you choosing to write this one off as deliberate misinformation?

Such disinformation does exist, and it is up to us to isolate it. This one I have admitted accepted thus far, since it's a clause specifically tacked onto system text in order to provide clarification.

[Nuach]

Are you choosing to write this one off as deliberate misinformation?

Yes, I am. While written as an objective observer, the narrator of the duty finder has made lore mistakes before, such as the Ramuh EX description where it referred to a plurality of Warriors of Light while contradicted everywhere else with your character as the singular WoL. I cannot treat it as any sort of lore source itself, it has been shown to be wrong about previous circumstances and is ultimately not omniscient. Thus I refer only to the in-game script and the encyclopedia as valid lore sources as they can be debated on their own merits, rather than system messages that have been wrong before.

[Okamimaru]

The part that makes me wonder about if he's a primal or not is how shocked the kojin were at his spontaneous summoning... nobody called out to susano to intervene... it was more of a "omg it's susano!" Maybe the Kami are closer to the elementals than primals... but we as eorzeans can only default back to our past experience with beast tribes and primals... it felt more like susano was a genie trapped in a bottle... the battle with him was his "I'm finally free! Let's get rowdy!" party... on the flipside maybe his love of freedom keeps him from tempering his followers

[Alberel]

The part that makes me wonder about if he's a primal or not is how shocked the kojin were at his spontaneous summoning... nobody called out to susano to intervene... it was more of a "omg it's susano!" Maybe the Kami are closer to the elementals than primals... but we as eorzeans can only default back to our past experience with beast tribes and primals... it felt more like susano was a genie trapped in a bottle... the battle with him was his "I'm finally free! Let's get rowdy!" party... on the flipside maybe his love of freedom keeps him from tempering his followers

The Kojin were shocked because Susano isn't really the true primal, much as Odin isn't. The real primal is the imbued artifacts. Susano is merely an extension of them much as Odin is an extension of his sword. As for tempering, however, I belive you're very much correct; Susano values wild freedom above all else and so it would make sense that he exerts no control over the Kojin.