A Theory of Light and Darkness [ShB Spoilers]

[FaerieAura]

So, I've been kicking around a lot of thoughts in my head lately on the nature of light and darkness, and the revelations on the nature of the two forces given what we've learned in Shadowbringers. We've basically had the revelation of the two following truths:

• Darkness is a form of creation, chaos, and energy, and represents the power of Zodiark.
• Light is the power of entropy, stability, and rest, and represents the power of Hydaelyn.

Given what we know about the nature of the Terminus, we can theorize that the Ascians' society, prior to the Terminus occurring, was one that had nearly untamed control over dark energy and dark matter. With little more than one's personal aether, one could create nearly anything from that aether - a griffin formed in the mind's eye could be formed out of the elemental energy around onesself.

There are a number of sources that indicate that it was this very control over darkness and creation that led to the Ascians' downfall. The ability to control darkness was something that the Ascians mastered to such a degree that they could not stop themselves. Once they began to fear - fear death, fear pain, and most importantly of all, fear being erased and forgotten, they began to create beings that could cause those fears to become true. And once those beings began to form from the chaos of creation energy, it was like a runaway train - there was no means of stopping the fears of the populace from spawning more and more creatures that could continue to stoke that fear, and thus the world faced ruin.

This, to me, is the nature of the Terminus - not some external threat that led to the world's ruin, but something endemic to the nature of Ascian society itself. Because it was so steeped in control over Darkness, with no Light to bind it, there was no stability or entropy to stop it once the train started rolling down the proverbial hill.

In their desperation, because they had no other concept for how to stop the Terminus, the conclave of Fourteen attempted to think of ways to use Creation magicks to stop the runaway fears that were leading to their doom, but nothing could be thought of. Until, of course, someone came up with the idea of creating Zodiark - an imposed will, comprised of the aether of countless souls, still made of Dark energy, but able to control the aether by virtue of the fact that possessing the aether of half of the race of Ascians would give it the power to outweigh the wishes of the remaining half.

I believe, at this point, the fourteenth member, our character's forebear, realized the folly of such a plan. It was by the very nature of the Ascian race and its control over the world that the Terminus was occurring. By continuing to rely on chaos to control the world, they could be creating a creature that would merely continue the Terminus, or worse, impose a far darker future on those that remained.

Nevertheless, Zodiark was created. And I feel that the sacrifices it called for proved our forebear correct. And so, there was research done into an alternate path, an alternate way forward: a way of creating stability for our future. Light.

By the time the plan was conceived, Zodiark had grown so strong as to have completely dominated most of the world and the laws of the new world that had been created in his image, and so the few left to create Hydaelyn knew that their world had to be irrevocably altered once again in order to rid it of Zodiark's influence. She was imbued with the will to create a world where a new Terminus could never be created, where Zodiark's followers could never reform their God, and where sacrifices such as the ones He demanded could never again be forced upon the peoples that would be created in the new world. Fourteen worlds, fourteen shards, fourteen chances to build a future where the terminus could never again threaten the Ascian's progeny. A world where Zodiark's hunger for aether could never again demand the lives of countless people.

Light is the only answer to the Terminus and to Zodiark, because it offers a counter to unchecked Darkness. It offers stability where darkness offers chaos. I believe, personally, that by the very nature of Zodiark and the Terminus, and even the society of the Ascians, that their society if recreated would simply be doomed to repeat the same mistakes, over and over. And I think that you can see that in the fact that the Ascians, themselves, are simply repeating the cycles of history, over and over. A Calamity nearly wiped out their civilization, and what do they do? They cause Calamities, over and over, for the new civilizations that have been created, in a desperate attempt to recreate the past.

Their fear continues to drag them to their past, because they still fear. They still fear death, they still fear oblivion. That is the root of everything, and it has been since the time of the Terminus. They are immortal beings afraid that they will be lost to time, unable to accept that we are their children. I think that's why Emet-Selch smiles at the end of Shadowbringers, because he finally understands. We are his people. The people he's been fighting to bring back for thousands of years? We were standing in front of him, all along. And we won't forget him, or the Ascians who gave us this future.

I could be way off, but I felt like I needed to at least put this theory out there. I feel like a lot of people think Hydaelyn must be evil and sinister in some way, but I feel like she was created as a hopeful being, not one of enmity and evil. A primal is influenced by the will of its creators, after all. Zodiark was created out of fear of loss, out of desperation. I personally believe that Hydaelyn was created out of hope. Hope that tomorrow could be better, that the future could be better than the past. Too much light may be a bad thing, but that doesn't mean that light is bad; stability is just as important as creation.