Nature of the Sound

[Rosenstrauch]

Back when 5.2 was still fairly fresh, one of the leading guesses as to Venat's present situation was that, like Elidibus, she somehow survived being sacrificed to summon her respective primal and went on to reincarnate into Minfilia (and later Ryne). Of course, the matter of Ryne's soul is... hardly cut and dry, to say the least. And with the 5.3 revelation that Elidibus has been a primal ever since he popped back out of Zodiark, it's hard to believe that the same can be true of Venat anymore.

Minfilia probably wasn't a primal, after all. Unless she was. That'd be one hell of a loop to be thrown for, wouldn't it? So I think, whatever happened to Venat post-sacrifice, is all still up in the air.

[Riastrad]

I don't think Hydaelyn is a villain, nor do I think Zodiark is villainous in the classical sense. I think they are both superweapons that have been turned against each other by opposing sides that are only fighting because their methods of saving the world differ. I also believe them to both have been co-opted by a third unknown force that perpetuates the conflict. As was pointed out in the story, Zodiark's heart was born of Hope. Hydaelyn's was born out of duty. Venat only wished for Zodiark's strength to be kept in check. Both of these reasons do not seem evil to me.

"Light, Dark, doesn't matter. What matters is how you use it."

In monochrome melodies
Our tears are painted in red
(Bleeding to the edge)
Deep inside we're nothing more
Than scions and sinners
In the rain
Do light and darkness fade

Hydaelyn is slowly becoming too weak to stop Zodiark from breaking free of his shackles. But I wonder if he even has the strength to persist if His heart is no more. What of Hydaelyn's heart? I'm inclined to believe that Minfilia/Ryne are the remnants of the one who chose to be the vessel for Her in the days of the Ancients. "For those we have lost. For those we can yet save." Is a mighty fine mantra to remind yourself that self sacrifice is necessary if it means saving others. Minfilia herself was swept away to be used as a vessel to keep Her strength from growing weaker. This implies that she has an extremely close connection to Hydaelyn. Hydaelyn refers to Minfilia as a "beloved daughter" (Ryne being fragment of the same soul of her current vessel) and allows their merger, with Ryne becoming the new Oracle of Light. Looking to those who have walked before to lead those who walk after.

The 8th fight in Eden has an extremely important message in it's lyrics. That merger was no coincidence when you consider the color of her hair changes depending on which form she was currently in. Shiva retains her silver hue. While Hydaelyn/Venat... Was a blonde.

Turn the light on
And let her in. Won't you
Turn the light on
Turn the light on
You'll never win 'less you
Turn the light on
Turn the light on
The pain won't end 'till you
Turn the light on
The soul longs for oblivion, oblivion

Falling too far for the fear to embrace me
A voice from the past screaming there is no end (no)
A slave to my fate, ever doomed to repeat this
again and again and again and again (yeah, I'm)

Falling too fast, no it won't overtake me
A voice from the past echoes loud like a drum (oh, yes)
no more goodbyes, though my heart is still aching
Now open my eyes, one more time, Here I come

[Lusavari]

If it's any consolation, Hydaelyn has had folks suspecting her of villainy LONG before this reveal - and even folks who felt strongly that even if her acts ARE entirely benevolent, she's got to go. The very fact that she's a more powerful being is reason enough to tear her down. In the eyes of some, humankind can never be safe, never be secure, as long as such beings exist, whatever their acts, whatever their intentions. Xenophobia, to put it plainly.

The revelation that she's a Primal was a hard blow, to be sure, though it seems quite likely that she's more along the lines of Shiva - a Primal with a real person inside, guiding her actions. This puts her on a different level than other Primals - not a better level, or worse, but it leaves hope that she may genuinely be the benevolent being she was presented as, and not merely a slave to the "programming" she was originally created with.

Personally, I believe she is being presented as someone who is doing the best that she can with the cards she was dealt, who honestly wishes the best for all but who does not have the power to save everyone. She was forced to make some very difficult decisions, with horrific consequences no matter what she chose to do. If she was knowingly responsible for the Sundering, if she knew the consequences before she chose to do it, it was only because not causing the Sundering would have had even worse consequences (most likely, death of the star and all life on it vs. death of the Ancients as a people in exchange for life to live on in some form at all).

I don't think that the writers have any intention on giving up on the idea of presenting Hydaelyn as a good and heroic figure - but she is not, and never has been all-powerful. There's only so much she can do. The folks who are hoping for a Shin Megami Tenshi-esque ending where both the "good" and "bad" gods are terrible people and the only solution is to be rid of them all - I think they're going to be left out in the cold.

Personally, Lin, I feel the most likely candidate for the being within Hydaelyn has to be Venat. However, that also brings up the question of how Zodiark will behave with Elidibus now gone. And... As much as I know you don't like Zenos... I feel the story might be setting it up so that he becomes the next core of Zodiark, functionally making him a wild beast. It's very likely Fandaniel, lacking the same reverence for Zodiark, happily would use this as a ploy, likely even hoping for the WoL&D to destroy Zodiark, undoing Zodiark's re-writing of the laws of the star, and returning The Sound.

[Kesey]

Oh, but they were vainglorious. They went against the established leadership and the entire rest of their society, so strong was their belief that what they were doing would work, and like I said, it was bad either way. Until shown explicitly otherwise, we nor they actually know if Zodiark would have actually failed at forestalling The Sound or the Final Days. That was an assumption and fear on their part. They are much like the Scions in thinking that they know what's best for everyone, even belittling heads of state on the reg.

Hydaelyn hastened the destruction of their own society and people. In a way, they just created a different version of the Final Days by inciting civil war. Also it's clear that not every one of the dissenters sacrificed their lives to make Hydaelyn. The one that remarks he will miss Venat after she becomes the heart proves as much.

Unless what Venat and her followers said was true and were rebuffed by a tempered to Zodiark Convocation. Remember the recording mentions that the Convocation refuses to discuss that Zodiark just forestalled their doom and the Amauroteans were a society or debate and discussion. Also note that the conversation also implies it takes place post-Zodiark's summon, so they had evidence it didn't work too.

Venat and her followers were backed into a corner. They couldn't participate in the highest values of their society. They were not vainglorious. They were desperate because of the tempered followers of Zodiark. Futhermore, Venat and company's story is affirmed by Hythlodaes and the evidence of tempering was shared by Emet.

[Kesey]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, we have no idea what sort of life they intended to sacrifice.

Dude, they planned to kill everyone. All the life that currently exists means absolutely nothing to them.

[Kesey]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Twelve turned out to be the twelve followers who were with Venat when she sacrificed herself to summon Hydaelyn. I also wouldn't be too surprised to find out that they—like Elidibus, Emet-Selch, and Lahabrea—managed to avoid being sundered. The period between the world being sundered and the first rejoining is apparently called the Age of the Gods, after all, and it would make some degree of sense to call the Twelve gods given the disparity between a 1/14th person on the Source and an unsundered ancient.

Another thing to note about that era, apparently, is that humanity was sent back to the Stone Age in terms of technology and magic development. They only began to make up for lost time with the First Astral Era leading into the Second Umbral Era, respectively. I would actually like to know the source of this information, as I found it on one of the wikis: Specifically, this timeline here. I feel like it vindicates my hypothesizing that Hydaelyn sundering the world necessarily lead to global societal collapse and so on.

tl;dr on that note: Hydaelyn may not be evil, but I'm almost certain she screwed up on a level that's... very hard to put into words. If she's at all self-aware, she probably has a very big guilt complex over it.

I agree with this theory 100%. This also explains how Azem, who isn't present for the summoning of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, can post-sunder rejoin this group and rebuild the world. Lets not forget that Nald'thal are twins who count as one god, which make "the 12" actually 13--the 12 Ancients who followed Venat and Azem.

[YianKutku]

Lets not forget that Nald'thal are twins who count as one god

As believed by Ul'dahns (or at least the dominant religious authority in Ul'dah). Most other Eorzeans believe Nald'Thal to be one singular god with two aspects. Having said that, there's also a widespread belief that the "dual aspect" is due to two separate aspects of Nald and Thal manifesting as a single deity, so they were presumably distinct; the disagreement seems to be whether they are currently separate or singular.

This is fairly common in mythology, so it's realistic world-building in that sense. I wouldn't be surprised if the game reveals that Nald'Thal was based on two separate people who were nevertheless very close (probably twin siblings, given how "obvious like anvil" the story has been), but there's also the possibility that the "two separate aspects become one" thing was created out of nothing, and the Nald'Thal inspiration was something else entirely, like some examples in mythology. Generally these are still two different deities, but they become associated together because, well, it makes a better story.

Of course, diegetically the belief by Ul'dah that Nald and Thal are separate deities is seen as similarly unusual as the belief by Gridania that the Elementals are all aspects of Nophica. So I'm a bit more curious about how this belief came about from the initial Nophica-inspiration.

[Veloran]

Also note that the conversation also implies it takes place post-Zodiark's summon, so they had evidence it didn't work too.

We have no idea what their reasoning was.

Dude, they planned to kill everyone. All the life that currently exists means absolutely nothing to them.

I was referring to pre-Sundering and what life they intended to sacrifice. Furthermore saying that all life means nothing to them isn't really accurate because the entire point of the rejoining is to rejoin all currently existing life back into it's pre-broken forms.

I agree with this theory 100%. This also explains how Azem, who isn't present for the summoning of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, can post-sunder rejoin this group and rebuild the world. Lets not forget that Nald'thal are twins who count as one god, which make "the 12" actually 13--the 12 Ancients who followed Venat and Azem.

The theory doesn't work because Azem wasn't a follower of Hydaelyn and didn't support her summoning. And given that WoL is a fractured soul, Azem was either sundered along with the rest of the world or somehow survived only to be sundered at a later date. If anything it's most likely the Twelve are just half-recollections of the Convocation, or even simply all interpretations of various incarnations of WoL throughout the ages.

[Lusavari]

As believed by Ul'dahns (or at least the dominant religious authority in Ul'dah). Most other Eorzeans believe Nald'Thal to be one singular god with two aspects. Having said that, there's also a widespread belief that the "dual aspect" is due to two separate aspects of Nald and Thal manifesting as a single deity, so they were presumably distinct; the disagreement seems to be whether they are currently separate or singular.

This is fairly common in mythology, so it's realistic world-building in that sense. I wouldn't be surprised if the game reveals that Nald'Thal was based on two separate people who were nevertheless very close (probably twin siblings, given how "obvious like anvil" the story has been), but there's also the possibility that the "two separate aspects become one" thing was created out of nothing, and the Nald'Thal inspiration was something else entirely, like some examples in mythology. Generally these are still two different deities, but they become associated together because, well, it makes a better story.

Of course, diegetically the belief by Ul'dah that Nald and Thal are separate deities is seen as similarly unusual as the belief by Gridania that the Elementals are all aspects of Nophica. So I'm a bit more curious about how this belief came about from the initial Nophica-inspiration.

Maybe Nald and Thal are Mitron and Lohgrif? Those 2 seem to be particularly close. Especially considering the whole Ascian Prime thing fusing 2 Ascians together and all that. In 1.0, you actually witness a Prime wandering about in a cutscene after a disagreement between the Amal'jaa and Ixals who tried to summon their respective primals against each other. Don't worry though. I successfully defeated them in Parley, that weird mini-game now used in 1 Hildebrand Quest and that's it, and they decided not to summon (this was 1.0 where they made it where you could do the MSQ on crafter jobs). Anyway jokes aside. The Ascian Prime was around in 1.0. I don't know if they originally INTENDED it to be a fusion, but the concept is there.

Also, on the 1.0 business, you bring up elementals... So many story lines abandoned... Especially the Wildlings... But I agree. I would want to know more about in general what is associated with each of the 12 that each culture seems to associate with them and why.

[LineageRazor]

Do we even have reason to think Venat still resides in Hydaelyn? Moreover why should we think she isn't tempered, when Elidibus was?

Do we have reason to think that Venat still resides in Hydaelyn? I don't think we've been given a lot of evidence that she doesn't. But, then, we haven't been given much evidence of anything at all. The true nature of Hydaelyn is still largely obscured to us, since nearly all the information we've gotten on the topic has been from a biased source (Emet-Selch), and the little bit we got elsewhere hasn't revealed much, either. All we really know is that the Dissenters planned to summon Hydaelyn, the Venat planned to be her heart, and that Hydaelyn was, indeed, eventually summoned.

As for Tempering, that depends on whether Tempering is a necessary and innate aspect of Primals, or whether it's something the Primals' creators baked into the product. There's reason to believe that ability to Temper might have been something the Convocation added on purpose - the world's woes were being caused by uncontrolled Creation magic, after all, so one way to combat the problem would be to create an entity that can impose his own control over individuals. The Ascians included Tempering when they taught the Beast Tribes to Summon, as doing so helped encourage the Tribes to summon again and again, and in general caused a lot of chaos.

If Tempering WAS a deliberate addition, then the Dissenters wouldn't necessarily have to include that aspect when they created their own Primal.

Personally, Lin, I feel the most likely candidate for the being within Hydaelyn has to be Venat. However, that also brings up the question of how Zodiark will behave with Elidibus now gone. And... As much as I know you don't like Zenos... I feel the story might be setting it up so that he becomes the next core of Zodiark, functionally making him a wild beast. It's very likely Fandaniel, lacking the same reverence for Zodiark, happily would use this as a ploy, likely even hoping for the WoL&D to destroy Zodiark, undoing Zodiark's re-writing of the laws of the star, and returning The Sound.

Oh, I've little doubt that's exactly the plan they have for Zenos. Even before Elidibus was revealed as Zodiark's heart, when Zenos expressed an interest in Zodiark I predicted that he'd be merging with him eventually. Whether or not I like Zenos, I recognized ages ago that he was being propped up as our foil, and as the Villian Sue to our Mary Sue, I have no doubt that he will succeed at everything he attempts, up until the final battle (in which he'll finally lose to us. Again. Hopefully it will stick this time.).