Quote Originally Posted by Daralii View Post
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.