Zodiark: Good or evil? thoughts

[Theodric]

It's ultimately a matter of perspective and the writers themselves have stated as much both in-game and outside of it in various interviews that have been posted here many times already over the years.

I don't believe that Zodiark or Hydaelyn are inherently 'good' or 'evil'. In actuality, the Primals themselves are simply running on commands and do what they are told to do. Things get a little more complicated when we consider that they were, at one point, piloted - but as we saw with Elidibus, he and the Convocation simply desired what they saw as best for their people and Zodiark's power did accomplish what it sought to do in regards to healing the Star.

Venat, however, is much more of a wildcard. For her, it ultimately comes down to intention. Was the Sundering an accident or a known result? If it's the former, then she's more morally grey whereas if it's the latter then the water gets much murkier.

I note that the 'billions' of lives supposedly destroyed by the Ascians are swift to be brought up but that came to be as a direct result of the aftermath of the Sundering itself as an effort to restore things to how they once were.

Meanwhile Venat herself admits that her faction are in the minority and that her own people will dislike the outcome - before forcibly ripping loved ones from each other, eliminating their memories and turning them into much weaker beings.

The Sundering also brought about immense inequality. For starters, aether is more prominent in some regions compared to others which means that some nations are given an advantage over others. Furthermore, some races - such as Pureblood Garleans - are unable to manipulate aether altogether bar a few exceptions. We know from side quests in Amaurot's recreation that those with lesser ability to use creation magic were aided by the Ancients themselves. That in itself is a very different approach to how Pureblood Garleans were forced out of fertile lands and into a bleak wasteland, only surviving due to the presence of ceruleum beneath the icy ground.

I don't believe that the Ancients were particularly arrogant or in need of being 'humbled' - that line of reasoning simply appears to be an attempt to try and frame the Sundering as a necessity and a good thing rather than the horrific and traumatic event it was in actuality.

Indeed, we already know that there are other beings in the setting who are immensely powerful as a result of not being Sundered such as Midgardsormr.

In short, it's not a black or white scenario at all at present - and I doubt that will change even as additional information comes to light as Yoshi-P specifically stated that a key theme of the expansion is going to revolve around such.

[KizuyaKatogami]

All we know about Venat sadly is the few scenes we have with her. We don't know enough about her to make a call based on her past self, but we know enough about Hydaelyn's actions since 2.0 to where we can make a call on how the primal Hydaelyn possibly feels about everything. If she only wanted to keep the seal intact on Zodiark, she'd have been absorbing Aether from other sources to keep the seal intact. But she hasn't taken any Aether from any of the shards, she seems to have been running out of power, as Lahabrea stated back in Praetorium way back in 2.0. Her sole purpose wasn't just to keep Zodiark in check, but it is indeed one of the purposes behind her summoning.


Considering it only effected the planet since otherworldly visitors are common...I'd say they weren't on the planet when it happened.

The thing is , Lahabrea also calls her a parasite. The question being how do we know she hasn’t been taking aether? She’s been awfully quiet and she is quite literally plugged into the aetherial sea. I don’t think we can really even make a notion on Hydaelyn herself because she too is an anomaly like Venat. Is she acting on her own will because her heart left her? She’s also on auto pilot as far as we know constantly ringing out her message. There’s a lot of suspicious things tied to it.

[RyuDragnier]

Meanwhile Venat herself admits that her faction are in the minority and that her own people will dislike the outcome - before forcibly ripping loved ones from each other, eliminating their memories and turning them into much weaker beings.

The Sundering also brought about immense inequality. For starters, aether is more prominent in some regions compared to others which means that some nations are given an advantage over others. Furthermore, some races - such as Pureblood Garleans - are unable to manipulate aether altogether bar a few exceptions. We know from side quests in Amaurot's recreation that those with lesser ability to use creation magic were aided by the Ancients themselves. That in itself is a very different approach to how Pureblood Garleans were forced out of fertile lands and into a bleak wasteland, only surviving due to the presence of ceruleum beneath the icy ground.

I wonder if the idea behind "chaining" Zodiark was more from a logical perspective that if there's another being that powerful, that they would resort to debate like the people of Amaurot were used to? Or perhaps the logical thoughts that there was just too much Umbral energy created by Zodiark and the planet needed a similar being of Astral energy to balance it out.

The thing is , Lahabrea also calls her a parasite. The question being how do we know she hasn’t been taking aether? She’s been awfully quiet and she is quite literally plugged into the aetherial sea. I don’t think we can really even make a notion on Hydaelyn herself because she too is an anomaly like Venat. Is she acting on her own will because her heart left her? She’s also on auto pilot as far as we know constantly ringing out her message. There’s a lot of suspicious things tied to it.

If she was feeding off of Aether, then you'd think she'd not be giving out her power to others, especially a singular being like the WoL. And then why have the Brood come onto the planet but not suck on their Aether in that case? There is too much evidence that put serious doubt on her being a parasite when it comes to devouring the aether.

[YianKutku]

The thing is , Lahabrea also calls her a parasite.

Lahabrea also called Zodiark the One True God, and Ultima as "a sliver of Zodiark's power", when we know the former is false and the latter is so complicated that it's effectively false.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Considering what we know of them, neither Hydaelyn nor Zodiark are good or evil. They are in effect highly sophisticated machines created for specific purposes; those purposes both had good intentions, but led to some very bad things from certain perspectives. (Zodiark did save the planet, but then the Convocation decided to let him eat new life for the purpose of necromancy; Hydaelyn was created specifically to stop Zodiark, but ended up wrecking the whole planet.)

Zodiark himself is not evil, as he only responds to the wishes of his creators (supposedly). That said his creators, being deep down no different from the mortals they abhor (no matter how much they try to deny it), can use him for evil.

What do you mean by his creators deep down being no different from mortals? I don’t know how much clearer they could be about of how superior the ancients were. They literally were nigh-on immortal, had no wars, no dying to illness etc. It’s even to the point where, if we think about the long run, the rejoinings would save more lives due to how many lives the sundering has taken due to beings turning to mortals.



This goes into it a bit in regards to Mikko's post

[Kuroka]

In the end he was made to save the world, restore order and life, i dont think that he can be pure evil as he gets portrait sometimes... while our god lied to us...

[MikkoAkure]

Where does it say Zodiark asked his tempered followers to supply more aether? To my knowledge that isn’t said anywhere. Also Hydaelyn wasn’t summoned to protect the life of the world. Her sole purpose was created to keep Zodiark in check. They emphasize this with Venat where it isn’t even so much the sacrifices that bother her, but Zodiark’s power. In the Tales of the Shadows short story, they even say it wasn’t just the tempered people who were agreeing about restoring their loved ones, but untempered as well.

The new life created is the aether that Zodiark needed to “revive” the lost population. Also, if Hydaelyn wasn’t created to protect that life, why does she make Warriors of Light for non-ascian related threats like Ivalice’s Ultima? Also, if she was solely created to check Zodiark, it would’ve been infinitely easier for her to temper people to her will, which she has refused to do, but Zodiark has done.

Of course untempered people would want to see their loved ones again. The whole point of Venat’s rebellion was “but at what cost?”.

Also, I’m not sure what part about a god being summoned by your leaders who then tempers them to its will and converts 3/4 of your population into aether isn’t scary. This is just conjecture in my part, but the fact that Hydaelyn is so pro-free will tells me that the tempering was a part of Venat’s decision as well.

[Anvaire]

The new life created is the aether that Zodiark needed to “revive” the lost population. Also, if Hydaelyn wasn’t created to protect that life, why does she make Warriors of Light for non-ascian related threats like Ivalice’s Ultima? Also, if she was solely created to check Zodiark, it would’ve been infinitely easier for her to temper people to her will, which she has refused to do, but Zodiark has done.

Of course untempered people would want to see their loved ones again. The whole point of Venat’s rebellion was “but at what cost?”.

Also, I’m not sure what part about a god being summoned by your leaders who then tempers them to its will and converts 3/4 of your population into aether isn’t scary. This is just conjecture in my part, but the fact that Hydaelyn is so pro-free will tells me that the tempering was a part of Venat’s decision as well.

I actually think she does temper people. If you look at the cutscene where the warriors of darkness meet with the Minfilia. Ardbert attemtps to cut her down, she stops him with a touch and a blue glow. Every primal tempering we have seen has generally been with a blue glow. After this touch Ardbert turns from enraged to placid, he is suddenly motionless for a moment as if confused.

It is easy to miss because Minfilia starts talking, but it certainly on a second look seems very out of character for Ardbert. So much so that i truly think he was tempered at this point. Essentially i think Hydealyn uses WOL to achive a goal and then casts them aside. Thats assuming she actually creates them, rather then just wakes them up and then claims to have "blessed" them.

[MikkoAkure]

I actually think she does temper people. If you look at the cutscene where the warriors of darkness meet with the Minfilia. Ardbert attemtps to cut her down, she stops him with a touch and a blue glow. Every primal tempering we have seen has generally been with a blue glow. After this touch Ardbert turns from enraged to placid, he is suddenly motionless for a moment as if confused.

It is easy to miss because Minfilia starts talking, but it certainly on a second look seems very out of character for Ardbert. So much so that i truly think he was tempered at this point. Essentially i think Hydealyn uses WOL to achive a goal and then casts them aside. Thats assuming she actually creates them, rather then just wakes them up and then claims to have "blessed" them.

I was under the impression that Minfilia just paralyzed him so that he could hear her out. He changed his attitude because she said "yeah Hydaelyn understands where you're coming from and she hears you and I'm going to help you" when the whole time, he thought Hydaelyn abandoned his world.

Another thing is that we already have proof in ARR that we ourselves are not tempered. Ifrit himself says something along the lines that he "cannot smell the taint of another" on us when attempting to temper us after one of his own tempered suggests that we're tempered by someone else. If we were indeed tempered by a being more powerful than he, you would think he would be able to notice.

Anyways. In the end I don't think people are going to stop arguing over whether Zodiark and Hydaelyn are evil, even after Endwalker. Ultimately, they are just complex programs following the rules by which they were designed for. Regardless of what you the player thinks though, our character's role in the game is to protect the world and in that perspective, Zodiark is the barrier to that goal. His supporters (and some users in this forum) do not feel that the life on our planet is equal and we're just resources to be used to make everything go back to the way it was before. If our character agreed and helped, then the game would be over. I think a lot of good vs evil media is poorly written and that has us conditioned to think that anything that has a good writing is "grey". A well-written villain has a reason for doing the things they are doing, but I don't necessarily think that makes their reasons OK.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I was under the impression that Minfilia just paralyzed him so that he could hear her out. He changed his attitude because she said "yeah Hydaelyn understands where you're coming from and she hears you and I'm going to help you" when the whole time, he thought Hydaelyn abandoned his world.

Another thing is that we already have proof in ARR that we ourselves are not tempered. Ifrit himself says something along the lines that he "cannot smell the taint of another" on us when attempting to temper us after one of his own tempered suggests that we're tempered by someone else. If we were indeed tempered by a being more powerful than he, you would think he would be able to notice.

Anyways. In the end I don't think people are going to stop arguing over whether Zodiark and Hydaelyn are evil, even after Endwalker. Ultimately, they are just complex programs following the rules by which they were designed for. Regardless of what you the player thinks though, our character's role in the game is to protect the world and in that perspective, Zodiark is the barrier to that goal. His supporters (and some users in this forum) do not feel that the life on our planet is equal and we're just resources to be used to make everything go back to the way it was before. If our character agreed and helped, then the game would be over. I think a lot of good vs evil media is poorly written and that has us conditioned to think that anything that has a good writing is "grey". A well-written villain has a reason for doing the things they are doing, but I don't necessarily think that makes their reasons OK.

He doesn't really accept what she says though.
https://youtu.be/O81y_dJ1mWg?t=2997