ShB story did not go the way I thought it would. (Spoilers)

[Abomination713]

So before the game came out, all I knew was that light was taking over the first and it was the enemy. The Warriors of Darkness defeated the dark and now only light remained which almost destroyed their whole world. So I thought in this expansion the main enemy was going to be Hydaelyn. The trailer even said she was a primal. I was sure she was trying to absorb the first for her own power. We would have to fight her and in doing so she would take away the echo she had given us for protection so we would be defenseless. How would we fight against her and her forces without the echo? An artificial echo. That's how. It's been twice before with Zenos and the Bandit woman who's name I forget. Getting that and teaming up with the Ascians would be how we push back Hydaelyn and saved the first. We learn that from the beginning we have been a pawn for a god that is nothing more than a superior elder primal and their goal has always been to completely wipe out Zodiark so that she could take everything. After everything is done we learn that the light can not live without the dark. It's a balancing act and if one side gets too much of a hold, they will take everything.

Obviously none of this happened but it was fun thinking up how the story would go before the expansion came out. The story was great, but I'm still a sad it didn't have anything that I thought it would.

EDIT: I may not have all the lore correct, but you kinda get what I'm trying to say.

[Yshnal]

Hydaelyn was never intended to be evil. Primals are not evil per se (see Shiva, Ramuh, or that certain one in the kojin tribe quests), and both Zodiark and Hydaelyn are special cases at that, too, in the sense that -unlike other primals- they don't actually seem to be negative (drain) to the flow of aether just by themselves. Or at least Hydaelyn doesn't do it, as we don't know what would Zodiark do. Would he keep trying to get more powerful and, in the absence of sacrifices, drain aether like most of the other primals?

On the other hand, the Echo is not given by Her to the WoL. What Hydaelyn offers is the Blessing of Light, which is like a super power that she gives us, AKA the power of the crystal. The Echo is independent of it, and it's a remnant of power from our unsundered selves (Echo users are parts of the split souls of the Ancients) that protects us against tempering, allows us to see other people's past/aether, and other unknown perks, if we believe the Ascians. Also, it will be interesting to see if it has gotten more powerful now that we have absorbed another piece of our original soul, meaning Arbert.

Now, about what was happening with the First. We know from very long ago that Rejoinings are not for Hydaelyn to get more power, but quite the opposite. The Ascians were the ones behind the massive light surge in that shard, as it was what working well for their objectives. In other words, if we hadn't done anything, a Rejoining would've happened, followed by a new Calamity in the Source (our world) after it would've absorved the First. The objective is to get the world to what it was pre-Hydaelyn, bringing back Zodiark and getting rid of her. Emet and the Scions explained it way better than me, so you could revisit the cutscenes at the inn if you don't fully understand what I said ^^'

Moreover, the story kinda implies that we aren't actually a pawn of Her, but that we (the former 14th member of the Council) might have been the ones that originally summoned her to defeat Zodiark and sunder the world. Probably to avoid another End of Time happening due to the raw power that the Ancients had, unless there's more that we don't know yet (which might be where the MSQ will go once we're done with the Ascians, but we'll see). I think that that was an actually cool turn of the story, and a surprise for most people.

[Alucard135]

...

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

Hydaelyn may very well still be an antagonist.

This reminded me of what Elidibus said at the end of the story. About us being warriors of Darkness.

[Vahlnir]

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.





This reminded me of what Elidibus said at the end of the story. About us being warriors of Darkness.

If the Ascians were tempered by Zodiark we are most likely tempered by Hydaelyn. The main difference is, the Ascians were aware of it (Zodiark's tempering) from the start and accepted it. Meanwhile we don't know if Hydaelyn tempered us or not. But considering we have her "blessing" it's probably safe to say that we are. Even Ifrit commented on it saying that we belonged to another, and because of this couldn't temper us. Even if we were to resist, what would happen? No one knows, because no one ever has...that we are aware of. She would probably be much less than thrilled. I think it would be an interesting story arc though if the WoL decided to or needed to rebel.

[Yshnal]

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

Primals don't temper passively. They temper when they actually want to do it. We have to take into account the circumstances surrounding Hydaelyn's summoning to see that it's actually feasible that she hasn't felt the need to temper anyone, or that doing it might be against her nature. Regardless, while most of the primals that we know use tempering to control their subjects, it's perfectly possible that tempering someone doesn't involve a will to control.

About the Blessing of Light, what we know for sure is that it can be blocked, as uncle Middy was able to do it in the past. Knowing that, we could discard that having such blessing is part of any tempering process, unless we assume that Midgardsormr can "untemper" people at will.

That being said, so far -and besides the fact that other people have been throwing us around like a tool more than once- we've shown that we regain our free will. Hydaelyn has never been involved in any of the decisions that we've taken part of, including the prevention or causing of Calamities that would obviously be in her best interest to prevent. At most what she has done is protect us and guide us with her word sometimes (like showing us how to defeat Ascians by making a blade of light), but in the end it was us (or the aforementioned people) the ones that decided to walk that path. In fact, if what we did was part of any tempering, we wouldn't have had the internal conflict that we have seen in the DRK quests. The fact that we can think, doubt, decide, and do as we see fit, unlike the zealous Ascians and other tempered, really shows that even if we're actually tempered Hydaelyn has allowed us to act and think free of her influence.

[Dualblade]

Primals don't temper passively. They temper when they actually want to do it. We have to take into account the circumstances surrounding Hydaelyn's summoning to see that it's actually feasible that she hasn't felt the need to temper anyone, or that doing it might be against her nature. Regardless, while most of the primals that we know use tempering to control their subjects, it's perfectly possible that tempering someone doesn't involve a will to control.

About the Blessing of Light, what we know for sure is that it can be blocked, as uncle Middy was able to do it in the past. Knowing that, we could discard that having such blessing is part of any tempering process, unless we assume that Midgardsormr can "untemper" people at will.

That being said, so far -and besides the fact that other people have been throwing us around like a tool more than once- we've shown that we regain our free will. Hydaelyn has never been involved in any of the decisions that we've taken part of, including the prevention or causing of Calamities that would obviously be in her best interest to prevent. At most what she has done is protect us and guide us with her word sometimes (like showing us how to defeat Ascians by making a blade of light), but in the end it was us (or the aforementioned people) the ones that decided to walk that path. In fact, if what we did was part of any tempering, we wouldn't have had the internal conflict that we have seen in the DRK quests. The fact that we can think, doubt, decide, and do as we see fit, unlike the zealous Ascians and other tempered, really shows that even if we're actually tempered Hydaelyn has allowed us to act and think free of her influence.

Actually Primals can temper passively. Pretty sure the Slyphs just summoning Ramuh auto-tempers them and one of the Sahagin beast tribe quests is about trying to save some captives before they are turned by being in Leviathan's aether-coated lands for too long with it being possible they all were turned.

[Renato]

I think it would have been cool during the scene where our character is turning to have him go berserk and have to fight the Scions, ultimately injuring one of them only being calmed down once Ardbert interfered giving Ryne enough time to supress the light coruption...It would have been freaking epic and the aftermath would have been interesting.

I do feel like we're going to fight Hydaelyn at some point though. Emet made it a habit to keep pointing out the fact that Hydaelyn was created to keep Zodiark, who was seen as too powerful to some, in check. Who's to say that she won't do the same to the WoL? After all, we've defeated primals, gods and other beings.

[CazzT]

Primals don't temper passively. They temper when they actually want to do it. We have to take into account the circumstances surrounding Hydaelyn's summoning to see that it's actually feasible that she hasn't felt the need to temper anyone, or that doing it might be against her nature. Regardless, while most of the primals that we know use tempering to control their subjects, it's perfectly possible that tempering someone doesn't involve a will to control.

Keep in mind that Hydaelen and Zodiark are not our typical primals. The rules we know for tempering and such may differ with these two. It could be that they temper just by exposure to them, or a passive tempering. It may be something that just happens. At the same time, being tempered by either also appears to leave one's own free will intact. Hydaelen and Zodiark operate on a different rule set due to them being on a completely different level of power.

[TankHunter678]

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

When you look at what limited information that surrounded the calamity they faced the highest possibility of why it happened was because of their creation magic. If you look at the people themselves they did everything they could to avoid confrontation and bottled up their emotions. So when something happened that started the calamity in a far off city state it caused fear to become widespread, as the calamity spread that fear manifested more monsters to propagate it further which lead to even more cases of the Ancients becoming overwhelmed by fear and summoning forth more monsters. After all, all it took for them to use their creation magic was a mere thought and all it took to produce a different result was another thought.

So what would be one way to try to prevent this from happening again after the laws of the world was repaired from the rampant unrestricted use of creation magic? Tempering. If Zodiark tempered everyone and controlled their emotions then even if something were to go wrong and monsters get summoned no one would fear the monsters and lose control of their magic because they cannot feel fear unless Zodiark allows it.

So of course Zodiark naturally tempered them. It was part of Zodiark's design to begin with as an anti-terminus measure.

Hydaelyn though is the antithesis to Zodiark. She was summoned by those who did not agree with the sacrificing of unwilling life and those who did not want to be controlled like puppets by a creation of their people. So they summoned Hydaelyn to be a check on Zodiark and to ensure that the life that was restored had a chance to have a future of their own. As well as sunder the creation magic of their people so that the calamity could not come to pass again while still allowing everyone free will. Which every action of Hydaelyn checks out in regards to that. Not to mention our ability to question Hydaelyn is proof of us not being tempered. Just as the Ascians inability to question their god or truly consider alternatives proof of them being tempered. Hydaelyn wants us to make our own future, to live our own lives. Zordiark exists to control lives and maintain a state in the past.

Every other primal that does tempering works off of ascian blueprints, and those primals were purposely designed to be as destructive on hydaelyn as possible.

[Ariane]

How do we know we're not actually tempered by Hydaelyn though? The ascians are tempered by Zodiark, which as Emet Selch said was natural to happen.

Its an MMO. it just wouldn't work. Nothing satisfying can come of it. They are not going to change the game to make it to work. Besides that the First WoLs shouldn't have been able to cause trouble on the Source like they did if they were tempered.