The nature of Hydaelyn and the 12 Gods

[kaynide]

So, the 12 gods have a very deep and long running history within the world. There are shrines, temples, even entire city states that revere them in some way. In short, they have been accepted as being real for eons. Yet they neither speak nor interact with us in any way, very much in a real world religious manner. (Put aside the 12 might be the ascians, for now).

Meanwhile, we have Hydaelyn, who is very real and very much involved with the WoL and some other characters. She is demonstrably real. There’s the anti-tower to study her. People hear her voice. People are given crystals of light. Etc etc.

Yet there are no major structures to her worship. Why is this?

What is she to the average joe on the street? The planet itself (as a Mother Earth kinda vibe.. or just literally the planet)? Does the average person just not think of her as an actual “god”? Or is knowledge of her existence only recently known (or cyclically known every calamity as her chosen arise).

If a person were to say “Hydaelyn speaks to me!” would the reaction be one of “this guy is crazy! He thinks the trees are talking to him!” or “you must be one of her chosen!”

It seems very strange she is not more prominent in a spiritual sense when compared to the silent 12.

[Enkidoh]

Because

Hydaelyn is a Primal not an actual goddess, and we now know at least one, possibly two, members of the Twelve were based on a real person from Ancient times, ala Azeyma the Warden, the goddess of the sun, is a cultural memory of the Ancient Azem, a member of the city of Amaurot's ruling council the Convocation of Fourteen, whose symbol of office was the sun, and whose soul, of course, is the player's character the Warrior of Light - reincarnated continuously throughout history to serve as Hydaelyn's protector and champion.

Azem's memory also lived on in the worship on Othard of the steppe xaela au ra clans of Azim the Dawn Father. Azem's title of office as 'the Wanderer' also apparently ended up being remembered in the Twelve, but attached to a different god of the Twelve, aka Oschon, so whether or not the other members of the Convocation also served as cultural memes of the Twelve is a very good question.

As for why Hydaelyn herself did not end up being worshipped, perhaps that was her whole point - we know worship empowers a Primal and given Hydaelyn's whole purpose was to bind Zodiark and contain him, sundering him and the original planet into the Source and it's thirteen Shards, maybe she deliberately refused worship in order to prevent herself becoming the same as her nemesis, an aether stealing abomination demanding worship, which handily explains why she is so weak, she's denying her very nature as a Primal for the benefit of the world.

But that's just my speculation.

[Anonymoose]

Keep in mind that a big contributing factor to this discussion is simply that Hydaelyn was not planned to be a part of 1.0 (as far as we know), and the Twelve were going to play a much larger role according to early interviews with then-loremaster Kenichi Iwao. In those days Hydaelyn was simply an unseen songstress; not even Minfilia knew her. Shalayan apparently kept it on the hush that they attempted to make (and perhaps made) contact with her in the 1300s, a fact not revealed to us until much later.

What is she to the average joe on the street?

In most places, not much. Minfilia had good PR with the Grand Company leaders. Most people of contemporary times that we never meet can barely conceive of what a planet is, never mind that we live on one, never ever mind what it means for it to have a will. They're mostly Twelve-oriented.

If a person were to say “Hydaelyn speaks to me!” would the reaction be one of “this guy is crazy! He thinks the trees are talking to him!” or “you must be one of her chosen!”

Overwhelmingly the former. This is why Minfilia disguised her original group as one of myriad cults in Ul'dah.

[kaynide]

...

Thank you!

It raises a lot of questions....

If I understand the calamity cycle lore-wise:
1) The Ascians raise a civilization on the source (Probably Emet).
2) They create strife.
3) They teach a certain minority a method to summon a primal. (Probably Lahabrea on the Source)
4) They engineer some kind of aetheric imbalance on a shard. (Probably Elidabus playing hero)
5) With the exception of the 13th, a dual-catastrophy happens on one shard and the source, causing a rejoining.

On Hydaelyn, we assume that she:
1) Caused the Sundering of the World
2) Wants to keep Zodiark split
3) Wants to prevent calamities
4) Calls/Empowers "Warriors of Light" to fight the Ascians

There are some problems/holes here:
1) Does Hydaelyn actually call on Warriors of Light to restore balance? Are we the first? We only have one confirmed success story on the First, and even then it is unclear that Hydaelyn called them at all- rather it just seems they were caught up in being heroes. We saw Elidabus make a star shower and awaken people of the First to the Echo. Who is to say the same didn't happen to us, or countless others in the past.

2) Furthermore, if we take Elidabus's word as true (Being the "First Warrior of Light"), then the whole concept of a "Warrior of Light" is Ascian, and likely part of the above calamity cycle. Why would Hydaelyn adopt this nomenclature? It seems a very weird choice for Elidabus to actually have been the original "Warrior of Light", surely there is more to it than shock value by the devs.

(Disclaimer: Yeah, it's probably just "Because it's a game, and the writers didn't plan this epic Zodiark-arc until around 4.0")

[MercuryD]

One thing to point out, Elidibus himself ISN'T the original Warrior of Light. He used the peoples belief in the power of the Warriors of Light to fashion himself as a replica of a Warrior of Light from a myth on the First. Think of it as similar to Ysayle and Shiva, Ysayle isn't THE Shiva, the love of Hraesvelgr, she is Shiva, the embodiment of the pain, sorrow, hope and determination of a woman raised Ishgardian but knowing the truth.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

One thing to point out, Elidibus himself ISN'T the original Warrior of Light. He used the peoples belief in the power of the Warriors of Light to fashion himself as a replica of a Warrior of Light from a myth on the First. Think of it as similar to Ysayle and Shiva, Ysayle isn't THE Shiva, the love of Hraesvelgr, she is Shiva, the embodiment of the pain, sorrow, hope and determination of a woman raised Ishgardian but knowing the truth.

The role of Elidibus was not that of the wanderer or warrior, his seat was the one of the Conciliation - The mediator of diferences among his pairs.
Through the ages he rised random individuals and prompted to become Warriors of Light, then he himself usurped their image - Probably out of resentment or sadness of being abandoned at last minute by the Wanderer himself Azem.

Even if he wasn't sundered, the ages took more than a dent on the minds of the three unsundered ascians, and as they faded we all saw a glimpse of their true being-selfs.

Im inclined to belive that, at least for a brief time right after the Sundering, and on the Source itself: He took the role of the first Warrior of Light. Only to forget about it later and instead becoming a sort of Mentor of them and later manipulator. But for the very first years, decades, centuries even he probably felt the need to fill the void left for the Wanderer, whatever shard he went to be in after the sundering.

[Steelbreaker25]

snip

Based on the Tales from the Shadows, I believe the implication was that Elidibus looked up to Azem even though most of the Convocation wasn't to happy with their actions, and was who Elidibus based his concept of a Warrior of Light on, even though he couldn't really remember the details.

[kaynide]

One thing to point out, Elidibus himself ISN'T the original Warrior of Light. He used the peoples belief in the power of the Warriors of Light to fashion himself as a replica of a Warrior of Light from a myth on the First. Think of it as similar to Ysayle and Shiva, Ysayle isn't THE Shiva, the love of Hraesvelgr, she is Shiva, the embodiment of the pain, sorrow, hope and determination of a woman raised Ishgardian but knowing the truth.

I was always under the impression that he was revealing himself to be the actual warrior of light (which was really weird to me). I was under the impression that he became a primal upon exiting the heart of Zodiark to rejoin his friends and in that moment he became the warrior of light.

This makes much more sense with a rewatching of the cutscene in SOS, but I should rewatch around the starshower scene as I thought that is where he claimed not to be an imposter, but the actual WoL. (Could 100% be misremembering this!)

Edit: rewatched, where you go get Y’shtola. He is revealed to be a primal and says “such is my nature, and such are my methods. I have aided heroes. I have made them.I have even become them.” It seems pretty clear that he has been acting as the WoL in some cases, inspiring or at least being a source of some WoL legends/shared memory.

He then goes on to say his playing hero was in concert with other Ascians, like Emet selch’s nation building. So he fools people into believing they are chosen heroes, or he does it himself, ultimately to create a calamity.

Edit-edit, this is not to say the I disagree what you're saying above: clearly the primal WoL we are fighting is more of an "ideal summoned version" much like Iceheart's Shiva. I just believe that Elidabus has acted as a WoL wholly separate from the summoned primal WoL-Mode version.


…If it weren’t for Minfilla I would have serious suspicions about the Hydaelyn we have interacted with thus far.
also makes me wonder: did he actually separate from Zodiark, or is his primal form created by the ascians who wanted the original Elidabus back? That is to say, the Elidabus we defeated was never the actual Elidabus to begin with, but a summoned shade.

…Are other Ascians, especially the sundered, also primals created by the wishes of the unsundered?

[kiagenwa]

Because

sounds like Alexander but less epic?

[Kesey]

So, the 12 gods have a very deep and long running history within the world. There are shrines, temples, even entire city states that revere them in some way. In short, they have been accepted as being real for eons. Yet they neither speak nor interact with us in any way, very much in a real world religious manner. (Put aside the 12 might be the ascians, for now).

Meanwhile, we have Hydaelyn, who is very real and very much involved with the WoL and some other characters. She is demonstrably real. There’s the anti-tower to study her. People hear her voice. People are given crystals of light. Etc etc.

Yet there are no major structures to her worship. Why is this?

What is she to the average joe on the street? The planet itself (as a Mother Earth kinda vibe.. or just literally the planet)? Does the average person just not think of her as an actual “god”? Or is knowledge of her existence only recently known (or cyclically known every calamity as her chosen arise).

If a person were to say “Hydaelyn speaks to me!” would the reaction be one of “this guy is crazy! He thinks the trees are talking to him!” or “you must be one of her chosen!”

It seems very strange she is not more prominent in a spiritual sense when compared to the silent 12.

Remember everyone who wakes up their echo powers does meet the recording of Hydaelyn. Although she isn't backed by an offical religion, it's just considered a fact of existence. The game has given plenty of character's with the echo who refer to the time Hydaelyn spoke to them. Furthermore, her name is synonymous with the name of planet, so I think it's safe to see her as a mother earth type figure that's just real.

The twelve on the other hand, are most likely the 12 Ancients who summoned Hydaelyn with Venat in the recording from the end of 5.2. Assuming they weren't consumed by the summoning ritual and knowing that Hydaelyn triumphs over Zodiark by splitting the shards, they probably survived long enough to rebuild civilization. If 3 Ascians can be unsundered, so could 12 people that followed Hydaelyn (maybe losing their immortality, but keeping their memories?), or those 12 being preselected post-sundering by Hydaelyn to rebuild. My point being the story beat as to why they are isn't much of a stretch anymore given everything else we've found out about the Ancients.