I want to talk about tempering

[ObsidianFire]

Nope. One thing all eikons have in common is that the will/desires the summoners have when they summon the eikon are a big part of the eikon's motivations. In Ga Bu's case, his frustration against his parent's murderer was what led to Titain being summoned. The very first thing Titian does is kill Ga Bu's parent's murderer.

This is why Zenos taking over Shinryuu is so shocking. The big desire Ilbred (and the rest of his followers had) when Shinryuu was summoned was anger against Garlemald. Zenos turns that on it's head.

[Remedi]

Yes but titan's eyes changed color after he was summoned, which I think it means something changed after he was summoned not before, it could be possible that Ga bu was foreshadowing what was going to happen with Zenos, if it ends up that he has the echo.
However it's true that everything points towards the summoning itself beign what fueled the change, so i guess it's something that they deliberately left out to make us wondering

[Eloah]

snip

You aren't wrong, per se, bit you have to remember each of these eikons has a distinct mythos that shapes the main part of their being. Think of them sorta like a SCHs faerie, and this will be a major simplification. They have their memories and core personality stored somewhere, that reforms when resummoned. But depending on the thought process when they are summoned, that will effect their actions; in a "similar" way to summoning Lily as either Eos or Selene. Again, an over simplification, but it conveys the notion.

[Iscah]

Tempering seems to be a deliberate act - it's not just caused by being near a primal, they have to directly target you with their aether or whatever exactly it is that they do. (eg. our fight against Lakshmi where we have to burst the aether bubbles before they can reach and temper our unprotected allies.)


Also worth pointing out - the terminology of "tempering" is a curious one, because it's used as a generic term but really should belong to the fire-themed Ifrit - and indeed it is used that way in some contexts. (eg. after the Odin trial at Urth's Fount, O-App-Pesi specifically mentions "Ifrit's tempered", "Leviathan's drowned" and "Odin's sundered", although gives no term to cover all of them.) Perhaps it's simply because that's the first primal we came across, and the concept has stuck.

The first thing Titan did, when summoned, was punish the two Kobolds by killing them, but he just pushed, not gently though, Ga Bu towards us. Titan sensed his own rage, and tried to, forcibly get his remaining child to safety. I may be reading into it more than needed, but it makes sense.

I haven't rewatched the scene, but that manifestation of Titan was called up entirely from Ga Bu's grief and anger, so it makes sense that it would protect him while attacking the kobolds that had killed his parents?

[Biridan]

That does bring up something I've been wondering since we killed Bismark. We're getting more and more eikons where everyone in the best tribe worships them even if they don't summon them as an eikon. Does the worship of the people who don't think the eikon is the actual god count for anything?

'Cause if the Garleans think it does, it would go a long way in explaining why they think religion is so bad...

I've been wondering about worship of the 12 in that regard. Well technically we've already seen the result of worship of Halone. It requires more than just worship. It requires crystals and a ritual. Although the SB primals kinda thumbs it's nose at the ritual part.


As an aside. These primals consume crystals and aether. Is that what is weakening Hydaelin?

[Jandor]

As much as folks give Lyse crap about that, it's not as though they just opened the doors to them. They took plenty of precautions to avoid a summoning. In a game of security versus intrigue, one side is going to win out over the other, and this time intrigue won - the danger came not from the delegates, but from the tempered HUMANS that they had secretly installed.

She gets crap for it because it was a dumb idea. You say yourself that they cannot be trusted and will betray any agreement they make as soon as they think they have the upper hand.

The Scions and Raubahn should have known better than to even entertain the idea IMO.

I've been wondering about worship of the 12 in that regard. Well technically we've already seen the result of worship of Halone. It requires more than just worship. It requires crystals and a ritual. Although the SB primals kinda thumbs it's nose at the ritual part.

I hope the writers have a reason why the summoning ritual isn't really required anymore, and that it's not just because it makes it easier to whip new primals up for cool fights.

Tempering seems to be a deliberate act - it's not just caused by being near a primal, they have to directly target you with their aether or whatever exactly it is that they do.

Tempering can be a deliberate act, but it will happen eventually anyway if someone spends enough time in the Primals presence, regardless of if the Primal wants to.

[Remedi]

So far it was a deliberate act on screen if I remember well.
Ifrit and shinryu used blue flames
Laskhmi used blue sphere and fireballs
and Garuda used wind on us
The devs also confirmed Ramuh to only temper on request
I don't recall other instances where we assisted to direct tempering, but I would say that tempering requires a direct contact with the primal aether in some form.

[Iscah]

She gets crap for it because it was a dumb idea. You say yourself that they cannot be trusted and will betray any agreement they make as soon as they think they have the upper hand.

The Scions and Raubahn should have known better than to even entertain the idea IMO.

It's political though. I looked up the quest dialogue when this came up in another topic recently. They had to invite the Ananta to be polite, and show they were involving all the local tribes, and expected they would refuse to come - so they were caught by surprise when the Ananta actually came.

Even then it's better to stay on good terms with your not-outright-aggressive enemies, rather than give them a reason to be offended and retaliate, and so honouring the invitation while ensuring there were no crystals available for summoning seemed to be a sensible compromise.

Also Lyse shouldn't be getting crap for it because it probably wasn't her personal decision to invite them, unless there was other dialogue that I missed.

It's not reallly any different to the sylphs in ARR where we decided that they weren't an immediate threat and should just let them be for the meanwhile.

Tempering can be a deliberate act, but it will happen eventually anyway if someone spends enough time in the Primals presence, regardless of if the Primal wants to.

Where does it say this? We haven't seen anyone just living around a summoned primal long enough to know that this happens, have we...?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Unless I remember wrongly, there's a difference between primals and eikons, and it's not just a mistake in etymology by the Garleans.

The Allagans used "eikon" to refer to a particular class of entities -- the Warring Triad, for example -- but, admittedly, it's still not clear exactly how eikons differ from primals.

It seemed, though, that with regard to the Warring Triad, all three eikons were capable of inadvertently tempering individuals who came too close to them.

Frustratingly, Odin/Zantetsuken is also an eikon, by Allagan reckoning, but its tempering effect appears to be more deliberate.

So, in short, there are different varieties of tempering, and it does appear to be deliberate in many cases. The Scions who encountered Ramuh, for example, were not affected, because the primal chose not to temper them.

[Jandor]

It's political though. I looked up the quest dialogue when this came up in another topic recently. They had to invite the Ananta to be polite, and show they were involving all the local tribes, and expected they would refuse to come - so they were caught by surprise when the Ananta actually came.
Even then it's better to stay on good terms with your not-outright-aggressive enemies, rather than give them a reason to be offended and retaliate, and so honouring the invitation while ensuring there were no crystals available for summoning seemed to be a sensible compromise.

Politeness seems a very poor reason to invite a group that will kill or brainwash anyone who gets in the way of their goal to summon an entity that would eventually kill the land.

It was a meeting between leaders of all the various factions in Gyr Abania, and risks were taken with their lives and therefore with the future of Ala Mhigo, for what was essentially a PR stunt.

Also Lyse shouldn't be getting crap for it because it probably wasn't her personal decision to invite them, unless there was other dialogue that I missed.
It's not reallly any different to the sylphs in ARR where we decided that they weren't an immediate threat and should just let them be for the meanwhile.

We decide they're not an immediate threat, they're still a threat though, and we don't treat them as anything else. We certainly don't invite them to Gridania for a cup of tea and a chat with everyone of importance.

Where does it say this? We haven't seen anyone just living around a summoned primal long enough to know that this happens, have we...?

I vaguely recall it being one of the reasons Ramuh didn't want to stick around any longer than he felt he had to, I'm not in a position to check at the moment though. Will trawl the dialogues next time I'm at my PC.