Revelations from SHADOWBRINGERS

[QT_Melon]

Question regarding a line from a certain shade:

Do the pronouns in this line from Hythlodaeus depend on your character's gender or not? I can't tell given the context.

Yes the gender changes.

[Ilenya]

I've noticed a lot of people have been saying "He" and "him" in that context, so I am guessing yes, Can't promise, though, I ran as a female.

[QT_Melon]

I'm kind of wondering since we know primals to summon take aether why do people think Hydaelyn is somehow different than other primals.

I don't mean personality - but I mean the means in which she operates. Obviously she has a personality that doesn't muster up negative tones, but she wasn't entirely straightforward either. Obviously she becomes weaker during each calamity - and not I particularly want them to happen (due to death)...but obviously it levels the playing field when they happen.

Urianger seems fit on poisoning the well with some of his statements during MSQ or at least food for thought, not just about Umbral and Astral aspects, but I distinctly remember him mentioning about a "what if" in regards to being tempered. At least Emet freely admitted that's exactly what happened and so far said that's the nature of primals.

I just wonder what is the endgame here, defeating all the Ascians and then what? She is gonna slumber?

Then of course there is the matter of the WoL and the souls, is it gonna become a desire to make ourselves "whole" or do we decide that we were better off being sundered"

The random dark though entered my mind that what if we were really just a giant farm. I mean obviously your caretakers want you to be at your healthiest so you can be most delicious :P

Granted she's been our helper but I still don't see how she would be different from any other primal that tempers their followers. I mean is it a play or allegory on society? From our perspectives of the tempered she's done good things? If she was created as a failsafe, I believe the same flaws in Zodiark can be found in her since she was summoned by the Ancients. I don't see how she suddenly becomes an exception in all this.

What if WE the WoL ARE the failsafe. Those that summoned her also put in the "Hear Feel Think" so that when the time comes we can remove ourselves from being tempered?

[Alleo]

I'm kind of wondering since we know primals to summon take aether why do people think Hydaelyn is somehow different than other primals.

My view on that:

Because she does not behave like normal primals do. She does not force people to be her servants, heck even those with the echo dont need to do her thing. Even now barely anyone even knows that she exists, which goes quite against what a lot of other primals did, because to exist they needed more people that pray and sacrifice to them.

And she is really old. Lost quite some of her powers thanks to the Ascians yet seemingly she does not take (as far as we know) immens amount of Aether. If the existance of Alexander alone would have been horrible for our realm, how can Hydealyn exist thousands upon thousands of years without destroying the planet? Of course we could later find out that all is a lie and she is eating everyone but then how would new life even be born? How can we as the WoL for example have all the souls of the rejoined shards combined in us if she ate them?

I also dont think that those who summoned her as the enemy to Zodiark would do this with the same methods. Maybe they found another way on how she can sustain herself without causing problems..because otherwise those summoners were idiots too..

And maybe a bad example but still one for me: Minfilia got her power, she was one with her, knows about everything and was even her voice for a time and yet is still on her side. Of course one could argue that she simply was tempered but if she only was tempered then, than that means that Hydaelyn does not temper otherwise which makes her a big difference to the other primals and even Zodiark himself.

All of this could of course be wrong and she could just be something evil..but other than one time not being 100% truthful to us, she has been shown as good.

[dragonflie]

This topic about Tenzin got me thinking.

Is Ryne actually a reincarnation of Minfillia or not? She gets her power and all, but once she did awaken, she had red hair and green eyes, which made me wonder if those were her true colors. If she is, then I guess Tenzin could be previous WoL incarnation. But it's hard to say without knowing how the souls works in FF14.

[Rannie]

This topic about Tenzin got me thinking.

Is Ryne actually a reincarnation of Minfillia or not? She gets her power and all, but once she did awaken, she had red hair and green eyes, which made me wonder if those were her true colors. If she is, then I guess Tenzin could be previous WoL incarnation. But it's hard to say without knowing how the souls works in FF14.

Well seeing as how....

Ardbert is a part of the Wol's soul and looks nothing like the PC unless you made them look like that.... then it's possible

[Kallera]

My view on that:

Because she does not behave like normal primals do. She does not force people to be her servants, heck even those with the echo dont need to do her thing. Even now barely anyone even knows that she exists, which goes quite against what a lot of other primals did, because to exist they needed more people that pray and sacrifice to them.

And she is really old. Lost quite some of her powers thanks to the Ascians yet seemingly she does not take (as far as we know) immens amount of Aether. If the existance of Alexander alone would have been horrible for our realm, how can Hydealyn exist thousands upon thousands of years without destroying the planet? Of course we could later find out that all is a lie and she is eating everyone but then how would new life even be born? How can we as the WoL for example have all the souls of the rejoined shards combined in us if she ate them?

I also dont think that those who summoned her as the enemy to Zodiark would do this with the same methods. Maybe they found another way on how she can sustain herself without causing problems..because otherwise those summoners were idiots too..

And maybe a bad example but still one for me: Minfilia got her power, she was one with her, knows about everything and was even her voice for a time and yet is still on her side. Of course one could argue that she simply was tempered but if she only was tempered then, than that means that Hydaelyn does not temper otherwise which makes her a big difference to the other primals and even Zodiark himself.

All of this could of course be wrong and she could just be something evil..but other than one time not being 100% truthful to us, she has been shown as good.

About hydaelyn:

In the end, Hydaelyn acts for hydaelyn’s interests, not the world. In setting about her own goals, her actions bear the result of damaging the star grieviously as well. At least that is what I got from the results of this story. In order for the people of this world to be truly free of the ruinius meddling of false deities, Hydaelyn needs to removed from its position. Even if it sounds like she is a being that has “learned the lesson”, she comes away from it still being an bad actor on the affairs of people. Roping people in with only enough so that they may get things done for her.

[Seraphor]

But, Hydaelyn is essentially still the creator of the world.
The world before the split, was a melting pot of creation magick, with a strict authoritarian civilisation that policed thought, because a wrong thought could create abominations.
Zodiark was summoned to police this further after the apocalypse, but required constant sacrifice to maintain. The Amaurotians basically had to castrate their very nature as creation mages, to an all-dominating soul vampire.

Hydaelyn sundered Zodiark and the world into 14 reflections, each diminished, but each… as much as our very own world, each with mortals, like us. These worlds, that imitate our own real world, were created by her.
Hydaelyn demands nothing for her efforts, she requires no worship, nor even knowledge of her existence, she merely requests that everyone live free.

In what twisted philosophy is Hydaelyn a villain or a threat?

At least, to anyone other than a self-aggrandizing, overly nostalgic Ascian.

10 characters

[FaerieAura]

In the end, Hydaelyn acts for hydaelyn’s interests, not the world. In setting about her own goals, her actions bear the result of damaging the star grieviously as well. At least that is what I got from the results of this story. In order for the people of this world to be truly free of the ruinius meddling of false deities, Hydaelyn needs to removed from its position. Even if it sounds like she is a being that has “learned the lesson”, she comes away from it still being an bad actor on the affairs of people. Roping people in with only enough so that they may get things done for her.

I don't think that's necessarily the case though. Keep in mind, everything we know right now, we've learned through the lens of a man who is tempered by Zodiark, a being who was created by a fearful and hopeless people. What do we know of primals? When created, they are influenced by the emotions of those who are doing the creating. Ga Bu created a Titan that was little more than a child throwing a temper tantrum, screaming and fighting for nothing but Ga Bu's confusion at this loss of his parents. Primals are simply a reflection of the will of the creators. My current theory - to me the only one that makes sense - is that the thirteen who stood to create Zodiark, in their fear of a world without creation magicks, created a being that would impose a will on the chaos of creation, but still allow creation magicks to continue. Their fear of a world where they no longer possessed complete control meant that they would pay whatever price this new deity deemed necessary - hence why they were willing to sacrifice, and sacrifice, and keep sacrificing in order to do it. Even their current plans require the sacrifice of all current souls to Zodiark in order to bring back a semblance of what once was, just because the Ascians are unable to let go of their fear of Oblivion. Our forebearer, the member of the conclave who decided that this plan wasn't worth the suffering it would cause their people, had to have left for a good reason. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was likely them who came up with the plan to create Hydaelyn in the first place.

Why did Zodiark need a check? All we have right now is this: he coveted power. We know, from Emet-Selch himself, that he required sacrifice. Their current plans require even more sacrifice. I think Hydaelyn wasn't created to control Zodiark, but out of the realization that the world as it was before was simply going to lead to a recurrence. The Calamity that befell the Ascians was due, in part, to their unchecked power over creation itself. And with the creation of Zodiark, there was no way to go 'back' to a time before His existence. His new Order had been imposed upon the star. So without fundamentally changing the nature of reality, there would be no future where anyone would have free will; all life would exist to serve the new order, with Zodiark controlling all of existence and all life sacrificing itself to please Him. Hydaelyn was created to break that cycle; to allow life, fundamentally altered, yes, but free - able to hear, feel, and think for itself. Hydaelyn's existence isn't to dominate or control - it is the exact opposite - to allow life to flourish without the necessity for divine intervention, and her only intervention is to choose champions who can allow that to happen. I do not see her as a sinister force, because she was created under the auspices of Hope - hope that the children of the future could live in a world where they could find some meaning for themselves, even if life is fundamentally different for them.

I came to this conclusion mostly through listening to Answers after playing Shadowbringers (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Shadowbringers), as well as listening to Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Both songs seem to be from Hydaelyn's perspective, and both seem to back this interpretation up. We are the inheritors of the Ascians' legacy, and while they want to drag our worlds back to the past, we have been and will keep taking our stars forward - to the future, to tomorrow. I think that's what Hydaelyn was created to do. Without the Ascians constantly repeating the cycle of the first Calamity - each Calamity that Eorzea has experienced has literally been caused by their unwillingness to allow their society to fade into oblivion - Hydaelyn likely would cease to exist, and she would fade into the lifestream. But as long as the Dark continues to cling to the past, the Light must needs answer. Because we can't just keep reliving the past; it'll just give our entire planet to Zodiark, and let him take control of everything. Life deserves more than that.

[Alleo]

About hydaelyn:

In the end, Hydaelyn acts for hydaelyn’s interests, not the world. In setting about her own goals, her actions bear the result of damaging the star grieviously as well. At least that is what I got from the results of this story. In order for the people of this world to be truly free of the ruinius meddling of false deities, Hydaelyn needs to removed from its position. Even if it sounds like she is a being that has “learned the lesson”, she comes away from it still being an bad actor on the affairs of people. Roping people in with only enough so that they may get things done for her.

About Hydaelyn

How do you know she only acts in her own interest? First if the is truly at the basic a primal then they are formed in the view of the summoners. After Zodiark I would be quite sure that they would not summon another being that is against their life. Heck maybe their plan even was to shatter the world so that something like that can never happen again.

We know her view from Answers where she is kind but not understanding why we still fight. But her words in this are that we should move forward. Her actions to protect us has weakened her quite a lot, so much that she needed Minfilia to even be able to talk. As soon as she was able to she gave Minfilia free, together with a huge power to protect the first shard. Why would she do that if it was only about her? Yes one could argue that one more rejoined shard would bring Zodiark even closer to being awake, but she could have used the power jsut for herself too. Yet she did everything to help them and as we know she was not the one starting the flood either.

In the end quite a bit of the remaining Ancient ones decided to summon her. Gave her the power to split things like that. Maybe it was their view that it would be better to live like that, so that future generations can have their chance..something which would not happen under Zodiark and his constant sacrifices.

Life might not be great for the remaining Ascians, but is it bad for the people?

Also what people did she truly rope into this? People with the echo are free to do whatever they want. Its us who decides if we help her or not. Even Minfilia could have just walked on, on that day and would have never gotten to her. She has no deep reach into our world and before Minifila even had no emissary either. We are helping her out of our own believe.

To counter below.

Echo is not really a gift of Hydaelyn. So not sure why that would be the argument. There are quite a few primals that behave differently, Ramuh being one of the biggest ones. Alexander was another.


Not sure why old is an argument either Zodiark is older. The reason Zodiark even needed more power is because it was to keep to the demands of restoring the world. It's been said multiple times Primals need the aether to do so. Even Hydaelyn was born from the very same sacrifice.


Being an Avatar/emissary doesn't equate to knowing everything or was bestowed that knowledge. She was a mouthpiece.

We do not know exactly what the echo is right now or where it came from. Is it something that every ancient one had? But if that is the case, why does not everyone on the source has it either? The limited amount of people having this gift could well point out that this was received by the souls of those that summoned either Zodiark or Hydaeyln. But unlike the Ascians who tell us that they are tempered, we do not know the same about us. At least nothing right now truly indicates that we are.

My point with being old: In the short amount of time that Alexander was summoned (who is not an elder primal like the crystals) they already feared that he would turn the country into an wasteland. How would the planet still exist if Hydaelyn constantly needed huge amount of aether? The calamities are quite a bit apart and we do know that the shards are not "eaten" by her but that the force of the crack in the source after a calamity would cause it. She is also losing the battle with each rejoining and with each death WoL. She is so weak after shielding us from Ultima that she cant even speak to us directly anymore. How is all that possible without sucking the planet dry? Maybe we find out that she might get some part of aether from us when we die (maybe our memories?) but until then we simply dont know how she can sustain herself. I would dare and say that these ancient ones would not do the same mistake again, that others did with Zodiark.

Minfilia herself said that she was one with Hydealyn and learned the truth. And she had at least enough knowledge to know that Ardbert needs to be saved for us. That sounds to me like someone that at least know quite a bit more than we do.