On Hydaelyn:

I guess it ties in well with what I stated earlier in regards to Tempering. There's a handful of posters who seem to have convinced themselves that Hydaelyn could not possibly be anything other than the 'Benevolent Mother' that they choose to view Hydaelyn as even after Hydaelyn has been revealed to be a Primal. It could go either way, though I don't think it'd be a mistake or 'bad storytelling' for Hydaelyn to turn out to essentially be a threat, either directly or indirectly.

At the end of the day, Hydaelyn is the reason why the original world ended up being Sundered. She needs to answer for that and Hydaelyn's desire to try and eliminate the Ascians and prevent the truth of the world from coming to light is very much at odds with the promise made to Emet-Selch in regards to remembering his people and honouring what once was.

As many here are quick to remind everybody, FFXIV is a classic JRPG that fully embraces some pretty stereotypical tropes. With that in mind, it may very well choose to go in the direction where the supposedly 'benevolent' deity is anything but. Putting aside the simple fact that many Hydaelyn enthusiasts were falsely making Zodiark out to be some sort of blood god upon the reveal of Amaurot, if the intention is for expectations to be subverted then as far as I'm concerned it'd be inherently more interesting for Zodiark to turn out to be the truly benevolent figure out of the two Elder Primals.

We'll see how things go, but as ever I urge everybody to keep an open mind!