What's up with Bahamut?

[HiraishinNoJutsu]

Earlier today I was doing a New Game + of 5.4/5.5 and I have a question I can't seem to find an answer to.

"Why Does Bahamut look like that"

All other members of the first brood we have seen are very serpent like but Bahamut reminds me more a T-Rex with those stubby arms.

Did his summoning make him look funny and that's just his primal form or did he really look that much different from his siblings and sire?

[Enkidoh]

That's consistant with Bahamut's appearence though throughout the FF series where in most FF games he's usually more bipedal than serpentine.

But also remember the Primal Bahamut is a bastardization of what the real Bahamut looked like, so there might have been some liberties with the appearence based on Tiamat's thoughts when he was first summoned (after all, Tiamat was so horrified by the result she allowed herself to be captured by the Allag and remained in confinement on Azys Lla for thousands of years simply as penance for disrespecting Bahamut's memory).

Primals rarely perfectly capture the image of what the summoner has in mind, especially if it's referencing an actual person or entity (another example is the Primal Shiva looking nothing like the historical Shiva Hraesvelgar fell in love with).

[Anonymoose]

Did his summoning make him look funny and that's just his primal form

Primal Bahamut is a bastardization of what the real Bahamut looked like

His representation on the Celestial Dragons poster is probably closer to what he really looked like, which is closer to what you'd expect based on his siblings. Nidhogg, Hraesvelgr, Tiamat, and (it looks like so far) Vrtra all share the same in-game model skeleton with different customizations. Even the "true" Midgardsormr in Omega seemed to.

[Jandor]

Primals rarely perfectly capture the image of what the summoner has in mind

That collection of oddballs we squeezed out of Eden spring to mind.

People thought it was the WoL taking too many blows to the head, but that's just how summoning is.

[Drkdays]

Ya, what's up with that guy. What a jerk!


Oh, you mean how he looks.

I presume it's because SE tried to capture the essence of how he looked in previous games where the graphics were weaker and more blocky while trying to make the dragons introduced in 14 look more modern and practical.

[Bright-Flower]

Probably a mix of how he looked in other games and dragons just having wildly different forms they can take in general. So it's not really that weird to me that even a member of the first brood may stand out.

https://imgur.com/a/ZueNSD0

[radhaz]

Probably a mix of how he looked in other games and dragons just having wildly different forms they can take in general. So it's not really that weird to me that even a member of the first brood may stand out.

https://imgur.com/a/ZueNSD0

Great graphic, thanks.

[Bright-Flower]

Great graphic, thanks.

It's from one of the EEs, I 'think' volume 1 handled Heavensward? Might have been 2 but I think it was 1.

[cheolsu]

It's from one of the EEs, I 'think' volume 1 handled Heavensward? Might have been 2 but I think it was 1.

page 268 of vol. 1

thanks for mentioning it! i never read that part. says dragons morph forms based on which aether they align with, like wind-aspected aether, for example

ofc his form was picked to match earlier games, but if you need to the lore to make sense, his aspect is called out as Fire. the shape of his siblings is that of well-balanced dragons (they don't align one way more than any other)

[Vyrerus]

Let's see... since I am in love with lore info gained from battle content... (though Enkidoh already did an exemplary answer).

Midgardsormr's Simulacrum as Recorded by the Omega Weapon during fight on the Dragonstar:

'Tis the fate of all dragons to shed one form for another. Even in battle mine assaults are ever changing!

That fact, combined with the fact that summoning/creation magic is inherently difficult, and then further combined with the fact that clearly Dragonkind was new to it... yeah, it's not hard to see why Primal Bahamut looks different from actual Bahamut in FFXIV. I say that dragonkind is new to it, because at least the First Brood were. If dragons had creation magicks, then Midgardsormr did not teach them to his children.