Reinterpreting Answers after Shadowbringers

[Daralii]

I think for me I reserve judgement on whether what Hydealyn did was the right thing. There is an assumption that Zodiark is "evil" because he is darkness, but as we learned during Shadbowbringers, Light aspect is static and sterility, whereas Darkness aspect is growth and change. The question remains unanswered as to whether Ascians were Darkness Aspected due to their ability to create or if this was simply due to their tempering by Zodiark. We are told that Zodiark is evil because he wishes to cause the rejoining, and he consumed half the lives of the ascian civilisation to summon. However, as seen in the second dungeon, the Ascians seemed willing to give up their lives to bring forth their creations.

My interpretation on the Ardor is that the Ascians, Lahabrea, Elidibus and Emet Selch only wanted the Ardor to restore the souls of their people who had been spent to create Zodiark. I have never seen any direct reference that Zodiark itself wants the Ardor, or indeed that he couldn't be woken up without it. While I am not averse to Zodiark being 'evil' I don't think that is likely. We know that a primal's essence, will and personality reflect the nature of their summoners, what then would the combined will of half the ascian population have spawned?

We know Hydealyn was created to balance and limit the chaotic nature of Zodiark's influence. But What she has wrought isn't really balanced at all. For me, I think that until we actually meet and speak with Zodiark, it is difficult to surmise the motives of both Primals. There is the added question of where Zodiark actually is. If he is the manifestation of the star's will, that would make him the planet itself. Which therefore begs the question. Where is Hydealyn? and what is she exactly?

I am certainly looking forward to the patch MSQ's - hopefully - if Yshtola's hint is anything to go by, more will be revealed.

Hades was very candid about the fact that Zodiark's presence immediately tempered His summoners, and they then proceeded to sacrifice half of the remaining population to Him. It doesn't really help Zodiark's case. The necessity of the sacrifices is also a complete enigma, as one member of the Convocation and some portion of the surviving quarter of the population was sufficient to summon a primal powerful enough to break Zodiark and imprison Him for 12,000 years and counting.

[Anvaire]

Hades was very candid about the fact that Zodiark's presence immediately tempered His summoners, and they then proceeded to sacrifice half of the remaining population to Him. It doesn't really help Zodiark's case. The necessity of the sacrifices is also a complete enigma, as one member of the Convocation and some portion of the surviving quarter of the population was sufficient to summon a primal powerful enough to break Zodiark and imprison Him for 12,000 years and counting.

That Zodiark tempered his summoners isn't very surprising, we already know that Primals by their nature do that, whether they want to or not. Ramuh himself said that. We know that Zodiark was created to rewrite the laws of creation, perhaps, that was the reason so many needed to be sacrificed? We also know that the Ascians sacrificed themselves willingly, or at least initially they did - I lean more towards Zodiark being a morally grey construct rather than the black evil he is painted as, similar to many ways to the Ascians. They seem evil on the surface, but their intent isn't inherently so, only their methods. I suspect that before the end, Zodiark and Hydealyn will be similar in this regard. They certainly feel to be set up as two sides of the same coin.

Another thing I wonder is whether the half sacrificed is the entire population or just those who resided in Amaurot. Seems that there is a lot of discussion around other cities and other cities creations as though the original star populations were split into city-states. By that reckoning, though the sacrifice is horrendous it isn't as large as it originally seems. It would therefore by extension mean that perhaps Hydealyn was summoned in the same manner but by one of the settlements across the sea.

I think the question that needs to be asked is whether those that sacrificed themselves after they were tempered did so because of the tempering, or if they did so because it was the only way to ensure their people's survival. It seemed to me, that while Ascians were tempered, they are by no means mindless as those tempered by Ifrit, Garuda or leviathan are. Which brings into question, what tempering actually is and if is effects vary and can be altered by the primal tempering them.

There is certainly ample evidence to suggest the WOL is tempered by Hydealyn but still retains free will.

[Raiya]

There is certainly ample evidence to suggest the WOL is tempered by Hydealyn but still retains free will.

Another way of looking at Hydealyn is that she is essentially an ANTI-Primal, created far differently than Zodiark who was the First. Zodiark was an attempt to stabilise the world and restore it after the End of Days/Terminus but to do so he needed fuel to be able to act which meant more Aether etc, the problem is that eventually with half the surviving population lost to create zodiark and another half of those lost to restore life to the world that eventually there would be nothing left. He even has to bend the will of people by Temperment possibly to stop disintegrating or simply to stop the survivors basically being scared shitless into summoning monstrosities by accident which looks to be the original cause of the Termination: Some horror appeared and murdered people and those witnessing it were so terrified they ended up accidentally creating more by mistake which kills others which ends up triggering a runaway effect.

Those who survived realised that if they kept just offering up more to Zodiark it would possibly end up consuming everything so they summon Hydaelyn, she's summoned but her tempering doesn't enslave people in a traditional sense but rather acts the opposite: Her influence shield's the person's will from any external interference. There's likely more to her as well as Zodiark being the first should have had vastly more power than a newlyborn Hydaelyn but not only did she win with a fraction of the power Zodiark had but ended up hitting Zodiark so damn hard it shattered reality into 14 different worlds. It will be interesting to see what happens down the line but I expect both Zodiark and Hydaelyns true power and abilitys to be drastically different from the regular run of the mill primal which are essentially cheap knockoff's of other original beings.

[Anvaire]

Another way of looking at Hydealyn is that she is essentially an ANTI-Primal, created far differently than Zodiark who was the First. Zodiark was an attempt to stabilise the world and restore it after the End of Days/Terminus but to do so he needed fuel to be able to act which meant more Aether etc, the problem is that eventually with half the surviving population lost to create zodiark and another half of those lost to restore life to the world that eventually there would be nothing left. He even has to bend the will of people by Temperment possibly to stop disintegrating or simply to stop the survivors basically being scared shitless into summoning monstrosities by accident which looks to be the original cause of the Termination: Some horror appeared and murdered people and those witnessing it were so terrified they ended up accidentally creating more by mistake which kills others which ends up triggering a runaway effect.

Those who survived realised that if they kept just offering up more to Zodiark it would possibly end up consuming everything so they summon Hydaelyn, she's summoned but her tempering doesn't enslave people in a traditional sense but rather acts the opposite: Her influence shield's the person's will from any external interference. There's likely more to her as well as Zodiark being the first should have had vastly more power than a newlyborn Hydaelyn but not only did she win with a fraction of the power Zodiark had but ended up hitting Zodiark so damn hard it shattered reality into 14 different worlds. It will be interesting to see what happens down the line but I expect both Zodiark and Hydaelyns true power and abilities to be drastically different from the regular run of the mill primal which are essentially cheap knockoff's of other original beings.

I think what we are missing is knowing what exactly tempering is. We know from Ifrit NM that it can affect the mind, from Ramuh that it isn't a conscious thing and from Satasha Hard Mode that repeated tempering causes the aetherical form of the body to mutate (the pirates from the original Satasha were repeatedly "drowned" by Leviathan and mutated into fish men)

There is also the added caveat of elemental polarity - Astral active is Growth and change and Darkness, and Umbral passive is sterility and light. We know Zodiark's original purpose was to rewrite the rules of creation and restore life. Whereas Hydealyn was summoned to limit His power and did so via the sundering. I think, however, that this was a side effect of her battle and not the intended purpose of her power.

If we surmise that Zodiark is growth and Hydealyn is the counter Sterility, then it is not necessarily unthinkable that she would win. Her power and purpose were built around containing Zodiark. Whereas his was built around restructuring the laws of the cosmos and facilitating growth and evolution(assumed).

In this regard it makes sense why to bring him into being they needed half the souls, and then to facilitate growth needed another half of what was left. What we do not know is the scope that half pertains to. Is it the whole planet? or just the Amurotians? Going further, there is no evidence to suggest that had Hydealyn not been summoned, he would have bled life from the star itself.

The Amaurotian Creations seem different from primals due to the vast wells of Aether they naturally had. If I recall Alphinaud or Urianger touch on the subject saying it would be impossible for them without a vast horde of crystals and aether. I, therefore, wonder if the essence of Zodiark and Hydealyn boils down to souls. Zodiark is said to still hold the sould of the sacrifices, my question is why? Surely those souls would have dissipated and been used up. But Emet Selch specifically spoke about retrieving them following the Ardor. Which makes me wonder whether there is a relation between the soul (which was referred to as the spark of life) and Aether. One theory I came up with is that souls naturally produce or draw aether to itself, therefore sustaining the primal. This is pure speculation on my part, but I think it would make sense if this was the case.

The biggest flaw I can see in the argument that Zodiark had to be stopped because he needed an endless sacrifice to sustain himself, is that he hasn't had that sacrifice for a long time, and by all accounts still exists. If the souls draw or create Aether then it would make sense that he does still exist without sacrifice, unless with each rejoining the aether of that shard goes to Zodiark as the will of the star, rather than Hydealyn- its custodian.

[Theodric]

Hydaelyn is very likely to be just as dangerous as Zodiark. We already know that Primals interact with their followers differently. Some show very little care and use them as pawns, others seek to protect them - at a cost.

We already know that Hydaelyn's actions came with a significant cost and to top it all off she refused to be open and honest about what happened. All the while whispering vague promises and sweet nothings.

The game has never shied away from painting blind faith as a very bad thing. That goes for both Zodiark and Hydaelyn. The question, now, is how do we eliminate them in a way that doesn't cause irreversible damage? I suspect that will be the end game for the Zodiark and Hydaelyn story. Especially with the strong narrative focus on Light and Dark not necessarily being equal to good and evil.

[Enkidoh]

The thing to remember is (and this fits into what Moose said), is that Answers was written specifically for the original 1.0 story (1.0's original concept/story was also written by a team member who no longer works for SE), where current revelations and concepts in the story... actually did not exist or where at least had not yet been developed in any really meaningful way (Zodiark did not exist at all, there was no 'Blessing of Light'/'Warriors of Light'/'Crystals of Light', the whole Source/Shards split did not exist, the Ascians were limited to just two mysterious beings with virtually no explanation, the Allag were just a mysterious name given to a ruined road in Thanalan and strange runestones that Rowena was being paid to find, Hydaelyn's very existence was hinted at vaguely but never outright named, even Dalamud was originally planned to be a final dungeon the player was meant to travel to, according to Yoshi), so sadly it is too much of a stretch to try and retcon these new recent story concepts into Answers' melancholy lyrics.

Lets not also forget the development already revealed ages ago that the meaning of Answers is simply a call and response between the adventurer and Hydaelyn and the struggles they face in an unforgiving world and remaining resolute even in the face of certain death and destruction.

Having said that however, it is vague enough to fit in new ideas fairly easily without 'breaking' the pre-existing meaning so I don't know. I guess I'm happy with the original meaning and don't need to re-examine it any further based on new information from Shadowbringers.

[Grimmelnoob]

Please tell me what you think about what you said after finishing endwalker, good frekaing job tho!!