2d elemental depiction flawed

[fay2]

Rife Spoilers and Wild Speculation ahead.











Frist off this isn't a go at the eureka wheel being different element wheel having water and earth flipped.
which it is




More that thinking of the elements as something 2D is.

The elements as most expect it at the moment


wind-fire-lightning toward astral
water-ice-earth toward umbral

If we think in 3D and look at the 6 elements as points you get the shape of a "D8"{ 8 side dice.}
interestingly enough 6 + 8 = 14 {also the number the shards and source equaled after the sundering}
Importantly it has a correlation the Convocation of Fourteen

The image seems to imply with the "inner" triangles on the image as;
wind-fire-ice toward light
lightning-water-earth toward dark

This also brings other face of this "D8" into question
example


these two sides as the possibly the actual passive and active.

wind-water-ice (physical forms)
gas, liquid, solid

fire-lightning-earth (forces of energy)
thermal, electrical, kinetic


that leaves the last two sides as maybe
water-wind-lightning (life?)
fire-earth-ice (death?)

[Iscah]

The Eureka wheel is flipped so that the two rock-paper-scissors triangles rotate in the same direction, whereas they go in opposite directions in the original circle but there's also a separate logic for the six circle elements to progress in order.

As for the rest of your theory...

If we think in 3D and look at the 6 elements as points you get the shape of a "D8"{ 8 side dice.}
interestingly enough 6 + 8 = 14 {also the number the shards and source equaled after the sundering}
Importantly it has a correlation the Convocation of Fourteen

The elemental wheel "in 3D" would not be an octahedron with six points and a square cross-section. The six elements ARE a circle (or hexagon) on a flat plane, and to render it in 3D would be an irregular twelve-sided object or double-cone with the flat ring of elements in the centre and astral and umbral points "above and below" the centre of the wheel.

Eight is the total number of elements and forces, but then you can't count the six elements separately and add the number to itself.

The grouping of the astral and umbral elements seems to be, as rendered in the background of the illustration, nothing to do with the light/dark or active/passive divide but simply sky and earth – wind, fire and lightning as "airy" elements and ice, water and earth itself being "grounded".

[Vyrerus]

Still kinda miffed that they didn't just reference the Vana'diel elemental wheel where Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire -> repeat. And Light = Darkness. Instead they got like 4/6ths of it the same, but then Water > Earth and Wind > Fire... which one is basically pokemon logic while the other is idk... Avatar the Last Airbender?

Looking at it like Umbral/Astral terms or whatever...

Wind > Fire = an Astral effect beating an Astral effect... ok...
Water > Earth = Umbral beating Umbral... ok...
Ice > Wind = Umbral beating Astral
Fire > Ice = Astral beating Umbral
Lightning > Water = Astral beats Umbral
Earth > Lightning = Umbral beast Astral

Normally
Wind > Earth = A > U
Fire > Ice = A > U
Lightning > Water = A > U
Water > Fire = U > A
Ice > Wind = U > A
Earth > Lightning = U > A

Perfectly balanced... but FFXIV's is jank for, to me anyway, seemingly for no reason.

[Anonymoose]

When I think of the 3D elemental wheel I like to use the shape of a crystal in the game, an elongated hexagonal bipyramid. But for the sake of removing one more complication I just did a regular hexagonal bipyramid when I made this reference back when Shadowbringers inverted the polarities.

If I knew I'd be using it so long I would have proofed it better; that green line is going to haunt me for the rest of my days.

[Iscah]

Instead they got like 4/6ths of it the same, but then Water > Earth and Wind > Fire... which one is basically pokemon logic while the other is idk... Avatar the Last Airbender?

It's still "Pokémon logic", but it's two intersecting trios of three elements while also spinning a different logic of how all six form a single circle when the two sets of three are overlaid. Moose's graphic lists the reasonings behind each link.

I'm not sure if Avatar had any kind of logical progression or links between the elements, or if they were all just "there" with no specific theoretical superiority besides the natural outcome of throwing the things at each other.

[Vyrerus]

When I think of the 3D elemental wheel I like to use the shape of a crystal in the game, an elongated hexagonal bipyramid. But for the sake of removing one more complication I just did a regular hexagonal bipyramid when I made this reference back when Shadowbringers inverted the polarities.

If I knew I'd be using it so long I would have proofed it better; that green line is going to haunt me for the rest of my days.

Nether elements below ground... Dirt/Earth > Molten Rock / Lava = Heat = Fire = what were those aetherologists smoking? They're on a planet with active volcanoes T_T! Ice is nowhere down there, being most common at the tops of mountains / when the sun/light is farther away.

[Iscah]

Nether elements below ground... Dirt/Earth > Molten Rock / Lava = Heat = Fire = what were those aetherologists smoking? They're on a planet with active volcanoes T_T! Ice is nowhere down there, being most common at the tops of mountains / when the sun/light is farther away.

When you say "fire" my mind doesn't jump to volcanoes, but flames rising into the air.

(Also lava is, as you say, rock. Logically part of earth rather than fire.)

Ice is on the ground. Glaciers and frozen lakes.

Water – in a large mass as an ocean or lake rather than as rain or cloud – is also ground-based.

Water/ice/earth are also more permanent and tangible objects compared to wind/fire/lightning.

[Vyrerus]

When you say "fire" my mind doesn't jump to volcanoes, but flames rising into the air.

(Also lava is, as you say, rock. Logically part of earth rather than fire.)

Ice is on the ground. Glaciers and frozen lakes.

Water – in a large mass as an ocean or lake rather than as rain or cloud – is also ground-based.

Water/ice/earth are also more permanent and tangible objects compared to wind/fire/lightning.

Lava is almost always described as fiery, even given that we know its true nature. Everything it touches bursts into flames, save for when it's earth or ash already. Eruptions cause wildfires where active volcanoes are near vegetation.

Snow and hale come from the sky, things must be covered in water/composed of water before they freeze. Ice being born of earth makes little sense. Glaciers are formed over many many years where snowfall exceeds the rate at which it melts. They generally form at the top of mountains and don't slide down until their weight causes them to move. Sea and Lake ice forms from water on top of water.

Water as an ocean or lake is the only one that fits these ideas. More overtly, underground water/springs fits quite nicely.

Water/Ice/Earth are all actually easier to change/observe change in. Fire/Lightning/Wind remain static, only varying in amount and intensity.

Suffice to say though, FFXIV elemental tomfoolery is a swing and miss for me.

Also, now that you mention it, don't think we have an example of an actual glacier anywhere in the game. Though Coerthas is probably gonna generate one in about another couple hundred years assuming its climate doesn't revert to 1.0.

[Iscah]

Lava is almost always described as fiery, even given that we know its true nature. Everything it touches bursts into flames, save for when it's earth or ash already. Eruptions cause wildfires where active volcanoes are near vegetation.

Okay, even treating lava as a symbol of fire, that doesn't make it the only symbol of fire – and if you're focusing on the particular description in the elemental wheel then "fire born of lightning, rendering all to ash" is clearly flame and not lava, which would be fire born of earth.

Snow and hale come from the sky, things must be covered in water/composed of water before they freeze. Ice being born of earth makes little sense.

Groundwater also freezes. Ice forms in caves. (Ice caves are a specific phenomenon where ice stays frozen year-round because the surrounding ground temperature is below zero.) The ice in glaciers might have originated in the sky but is now on the ground. Mountains are still part of the earth and not the sky.

It's a wobbly link compared to some of the others, but it's not nonsensical.

(Late edit to add: Frost is another type of "ice on the ground".)

Water/Ice/Earth are all actually easier to change/observe change in. Fire/Lightning/Wind remain static, only varying in amount and intensity.

I didn't say unchanging, I said permanent and tangible. (For a varying degree of permanency, certainly, but they don't just cease to exist.) They are objects. You can hold them and store them.

Wind, flame and lightning are not remotely static, but are in constant motion. They are forces and energies with no lasting existence beyond the effect they have on the objects around them.

Suffice to say though, FFXIV elemental tomfoolery is a swing and miss for me.

Also, now that you mention it, don't think we have an example of an actual glacier anywhere in the game. Though Coerthas is probably gonna generate one in about another couple hundred years assuming its climate doesn't revert to 1.0.

If this is "tomfoolery" then you're searching for an excuse to call them that. Just because you could interpret and represent the elements in another way doesn't make theirs incorrect. It seems to intended as symbolic rather than a literal depiction of how every single manifestation of that element might form.

And yes they do have a glacier – Snowcloak, which formed in a rush of minutes rather than centuries.

[kaynide]

Yeah.. not really on topic, but the Elemental wheel as presented in FFXIV ALWAYS bothered me. Not quite OCD levels, but pretty near!

I have always used Wind-Water-Earth for Gas/Liquid/Solid, and Fire-Ice-Lighting as energy (basically thermal dynamics; added energy making heat, removing making cold and straight up movement of energy in electric)

Moreover, the 2 of the 3 Astral/Light related magic are used by BLACK mages and vice versa. That Blackmage based magic isn't all Umbral and White mage all Astral is mind boggling to me.

You could just have easily gone with what FFXI did, which I also didn't really like: Fire melts Ice, which ???'s Wind, which erodes Earth, which grounds Lighting, which shocks Water, which douses Fire

The best alternative I've seen is more or less what Fay2/Iscah say above, with three loosely representing Energy and three roughly representing Matter...but even then then the wheel doesn't match..as she says.

Ultimately, I think they just made a wheel and we're just making up whatever rhymes or justifications that fit.