Do you think Elidibus unknowingly tempered people?

[SannaR]

After he separated himself from Zodiark he either became a primal due to having been made the heart of one or somewhere down the line became one. Either way do you think he slowly tempers people over time without actually exerting much effort? I feel as though I or someone asked this a while back, but I think many just shrugged it off. Yet we do know that primals can temper people just by existing or even very mildly do so in the case of the Heavensward. Or would he even be able to temper since he came from Zodiark? Who according to Livingway didn't have the nasty tempering component as other primals. And that if Zodiark and Hydelean did it would have been a small "tug". Yet we know the Loporits tend to not the best judges when it comes to size. As what might seem as a small tug in quotes no less to them might actually be bigger than they say it is. As sure the Ragnarok is called a teeny tiny toy boat for laughs it's also not that small. It's just really small compared to say the moon.

[Anonymoose]

I go back to Y'shtola on this one, as Elidibus said she was "correct on all counts" aside from her last question - which he dismissed as "irrelevant".

Y'shtola
I have a theory, you see─one concerning that which you seek to accomplish. It stems from who─or rather what─you truly are: a primal. The ancients created Zodiark to deliver the star from destruction. If the magick that brought Him forth is the precursor of what we know as summoning, then Zodiark would have been instilled with a presiding desire... I found it among the records at Anyder. And it came as no surprise. Were I faced with the world's destruction, I too would wish for the same... Salvation. I know that you sacrificed yourself to become Zodiark's heart. How you came to be separated from Him is less clear... But if you are a fragment of His being, it stands to reason a desire for the world's salvation would drive you. And thus did you seek to inspire the masses to rise up as Warriors of Light, going so far as to use Ardbert as a symbol of hope.

Elidibus
Correct on all counts. Such is my nature, and such are my methods. I have aided heroes. I have made them. I have even become them. This served not only to strengthen me, but also to facilitate the work of my brothers, such as Emet-Selch, with his penchant for nation building. Then you will be all too familiar with the fickleness of mankind.

Y'shtola
We change. We forget. And what little we do remember becomes twisted and fragmented over time. For which reason, you deem us unfit to carry on your legacy. But are you yourself free of these foibles? As the last witness of the Final Days, do you remember everything that was lost? Or even the things you cared about?

Elidibus
Get to the point.

Y'shtola
A primal is shaped by the hope that fuels it. Even should this hope be something as simple as the world's salvation, it is the collective desire of innumerable disparate souls crying out for deliverance. Having drawn your strength from such a cacophony of voices, can you truly be sure you still speak with your own?

Elidibus
Your question is irrelevant.

I interpret this as saying that Elidibus was inadvertently warped by his primalization (not unlike Bahamut), and those who summoned him were (because summoning brings you into aetherial synergy with the summoned entity) tempered to the same loyalty, but that after being re-manifest he was less like Zodiark and more like Emet-Selch. I don't imagine he "leaked" like primals do, and if he could temper people outright on purpose I imagine he would have utilized that tool and it would have been a bigger plot device.

Livingway in English has a penchant for comedic understatement. The "tug" line is a comic under-exaggeration that is not present in other languages. It was a massive weight that was able to temper even those of the Ancients' spiritual strength; Emet-Selch admitted such in Shadowbringers. ("He tempered us. It was only natural. There is no resisting such power. And so we Ascians came to exist solely to bring about the rule of darkness. His darkness.") You were on the right track from the get-go: "Teeny tiny toy boat" is the perfect example.

[SannaR]

This makes me want to take another look at how tempered the raised shards were. As we have some that do the whole "Oh Lord Zodiark." praise and then we have Fandaniel who when correctly theorizing that Elidibus had gotten done and dusted was happy that Elidibus wasn't there to keep him and any other unsundered in line. Now one could look at this and read it as the unsundered behaved as the others bosses. While it could also be read as now he's free of any of Elidibus's primal influences.

[Cleretic]

I would say that while I don't think Elidibus intended to temper people, he definitely doesn't seem like he wished he didn't. He seems pretty content with the road he's walked and what he's done.

That said, the whole Livingway thing is evidence of a real but mostly unrelated bugbear I have with lore-talking around this game, which is people being very... I guess I'd say 'all or nothing' about how much we believe sources rather than recognizing they might have some biases or quirks that we have to account for. Livingway's got all the facts but has a gift for understatement; that neither makes her words completely dismissable, nor does it mean we can take her 100% literally, she's just someone you have to adjust for, recognize she's got a seed of truth but dodges the question of severity. Emet's very similar in that regard; he's got a lot of overt and professed biases as well as a lot of unstated knowledge gaps, which lead to the fact that we just shouldn't take him as saying the whole truth because he's always picking his facts and working an angle... but people take him at his word anyway. (And on the flipside my favorite example is always Ifrit's talk on tempering; he's completely right and is easily the most qualified expert on the subject in all of ARR, but people reject it outright because he's Ifrit.)

[Iscah]

I think the problem with Livingway saying it's "just a tug" is that she's delivering important technical information that we don't currently hold, regarding a "proper" way to summon primals. It's not the same thing as the "teeny-tiny toy boat" where we can look at it and immediately see the joke.

So yes, we can step back and examine all of her script throughout the game and say she has a pattern of doing this, but it's not easy to review the whole game's dialogue like that, and in that particular moment she is giving important exposition and people are going to recall that line on its own.

It probably would been better worded something in the realm of "the slight problem of something that big still having an influence" than "the problem of something that big having a slight influence". Downplay the significance rather than the effect.

[Anonymoose]

This makes me want to take another look at how tempered the raised shards were.

This topic fills me with angst, lmao. Prior to Endwalker I correlated certain data and arrived at what I felt to be a fairly well-supported inference. Emet-Selch said "he tempered us". Period. No caveat was ever given for the sundered mooks. Every reincarnate Ascian introduced themselves with some form of, "Hail Zodiark". Gaia was not tempered as a new identify of the old Gaia, but as soon as she accepted herself as that Gaia, was all "Hail Zodiark", as well. I figured it was safe to assume that tempering left an indelible mark on the identity of the soul which returned if one embraced themselves as that person. Except every time I said that I got a lot of pushback, suggesting it was not a common interpretation at all.

Every time I said it, though, I was supporting the idea that I just can't accept that Fandaniel isn't tempered until he gives me a reason that circumvents that logic - that rules out the precedent. Then Fandaniel walked right out and said, "By the way, I never accepted myself as Hermes, so I can do whatever I want."** (Excellent scene.) I don't know if that made my interpretation any more popular in the fandom, however.

**I inherited the position─and the soul─of the Fandaniel who sat on the Convocation in the time of the Final Days. Theoretically speaking. Practically speaking, that fact is of no consequence! I was born and lived as...well. Me. Eventually I was recruited into the Ascians and imbued with the former Fandaniel's knowledge and memories, but I never felt that they were truly a part of who I am. <...> Amon, at your service.

So yes, we can step back and examine all of her script throughout the game and say she has a pattern of doing this, but it's not easy to review the whole game's dialogue like that, and in that particular moment she is giving important exposition and people are going to recall that line on its own.

We can at least archive this one line, I suppose!

In contrast, our creation magicks─the original and the best, accept no substitutes─don't incorporate any of that rubbish, so there's no risk of tempering. I mean, if the being was on the scale of Zodiark, you might feel a little “tug”...but I think we'll be safe enough.

けれど本来の創造魔法に、その概念はありません。さすがにゾディアーク級を創れば引っ張られるでしょうが、今回の規模であれば、ご心配には及ばないかと。
However, the original creation magic does not have that concept. As expected, if you create a Zodiark-level entity, you will probably be dragged under, but on this scale, I don't think you need to worry.

Aber ihr könnt ganz unbesorgt sein. Die Schöpfungsmagie kommt ohne diesen gemeinen Zusatz zurecht. Außerdem beschwören wir ja keinen zweiten Zodiark, oder? Es besteht also kein Anlass zur Sorge, kann ich euch versichern. Es wird schon schiefgehen!
But you can rest assured. Creation magic can do without that nasty addition. Besides, we're not summoning another Zodiark, are we? So there is no need to worry, I can assure you. It will be fine!

Fort heureusement, ce danger n'existe pas si l'on respecte les rituels originaux. À moins que l'on parle de puissantes entités comme Zordiarche, bien sûr, mais les nôtres seront bien plus modestes.
Fortunately, this danger does not exist if one respects the original rituals. Unless we are talking about powerful entities like Zodiark, of course, but ours will be much more modest.

[SannaR]

To me Fandaniel is special due to him putting an extra gouge into his record if souls were like vinyl records. So to me any time he gets raised back up his record plays nicely until it hits the Elpis scratch. Where after that Elidibus, Emet-Slech or Lahabreha would have to keep him in line. Unless Elidibus being a primal was doing enough of the trick. Also did he get dusted himself off screen some point? As I took when we first meet him in his first meanwhile in Garlemald cutscene as him being fairly freshly re-raised. Yet the hot mess that is the 2.3 cutscene of all of the Ascians would make you assume he had already been raised. They really need to go back in and fix that scene. Nabriales also seems to be lightly tempered as sure he might toss out a few "Oh Lord Zodiark let me count the ways..." and yet he goes and ignores the advice to not go and poke the Scions while the blessing of light is so strong.

[Anonymoose]

Fandaniel makes some references to resenting Elidibus for treating the reincarnates as expendable ("just another sundered minion"), so I think he's been around as Enhanced Amon since the time of Allag, but has been staying in his lane, so this version of him is "new". Nabriales said that he was motivated to undermine Lahabrea because he wanted to "rise above them all and take [his] place at Lord Zodiark's right hand", so one might also argue the other way - that he was so tempered he'd even throw Lahabrea under the bus and undermine the plan Elidibus had in motion to be held in higher esteem by the One True God.

The 2.0 and 2.3 cutscenes do need some polish, though, imho.

[WhiteArchmage]

Nabriales' dialogue really needs some combing over with a lice-seeking comb.

Nabriales: "I will rise above all and become Zodiark's RIGHT HAND!"
Elidibus: "Does... does he know...? I mean, I'm right HERE..."

Which really is because there wasn't really a plan for the Ascians in ARR besides "Evil black-robed wizards, mention Zodiark now and again." About half of ARR Ascians lore sort of... contradicts itself with the later events (Hi, Emmerololth!)

[Cleretic]

Nabriales' dialogue really needs some combing over with a lice-seeking comb.

Nabriales: "I will rise above all and become Zodiark's RIGHT HAND!"
Elidibus: "Does... does he know...? I mean, I'm right HERE..."

Which really is because there wasn't really a plan for the Ascians in ARR besides "Evil black-robed wizards, mention Zodiark now and again." About half of ARR Ascians lore sort of... contradicts itself with the later events (Hi, Emmerololth!)

Counterpoint: I actually think Nabriales plays better now that we absolutely know the Ascians weren't the monolith they seemed to be. He reads as a man who hates his job and thinks his co-workers are idiots, but doesn't feel strongly enough about it to quit, just to complain about it constantly and talk about how he'd do their job better. (He is easily the most sympathetic Ascian to me because of it.)

Leaning into this notion that the Ascians actually weren't universally into it is the only way that I'll be interested in More Ascian Stuff. Emmerololth was in that meeting after chronologically dying because she set up the Ascian equivalent of 'set your Zoom background to a picture of you so nobody knows you're not there'. Pashtarot was leaking secrets because they didn't give him enough leave. Deudalaphon was on the way to getting fired for a long time and everyone else knew it, so everyone just avoids the subject in conversation.