Today I realized: Hildabrand warned us

[ICountFrom0]

Hildabrands plotline actually gave us a hint at a MAJOR plot point way ahead of time and I don't think anybody noticed.

ENKIDU.

Enkidu was SUMMONED, by Greg, without help from the Ascians. Thus it's not the flawed summoning ritual.

Enkidu does not hunger endlessly, does not draw all of magic into itself like a hole in the world and is not a danger to the existence of the entire world.

Enkidu also didn't temper Greg or anybody else.

This was foreshadowing, wasn't it?

Latter, much latter, the secrets of summoning are solved, and we're able to transform crystals into primals to convert worship to energy without needing the elaborate containment systems the Allagans used.

Think it through further though.

We've given the secrets to safe primals to the tribes. If the sylphs untempered miss Ramah (long live BEARD), they can summon him without causing issues. They can live the lives they want with him to look after them.


This though also explains the four lords plotline. Belief of the people in the process + slowly collected energy = primal that isn't a primal. With no direct worship they arn't massively strong, though they will continue on without being fed as well.

Are there any other examples that I'm missing here? Other primals that don't quite fit, but can be explained by this?

Did Hildabrand reveal anything else and we just never put it together?

[Kranel_San]

He's called inspector extraordinary for a reason.

[sidurgu-12]

that.... would be perfectly in line so yeah, new headcanon.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Enkidu was foreshadowing for all of the revelations about primals we got in Heavensward. Summoned out of a fervent desire (Gilgamesh missing his friend), consuming nearby aether (a pile of crystals Julian had sent Greg to pick up), requiring more aether to survive (Enkidu has no further power source, and is thus destroyed quite easily), actually a false copy rather than the being the summoner intended (Gilgamesh himself comments on Enkidu being more fight-happy than he remembers).

As far as the revelations about primals in Endwalker, Susano was more direct foreshadowing for that. There was no Ascian involvement in his summoning (because nobody actually tried to summon him), so he's not actually malicious or trying to brainwash or conquer anyone, he just thinks a fight is a party. Notice how he has the exact same personality when he reappears in Endwalker.

[ICountFrom0]

Wiki says "Summoned as an act of desperation" ... not sure if red or green though had training from ascians or not.

Are the red tempered, or just more warlike?

Still, write me up a paragraph, I'll toss a quote on it, and drop it in the top post, that's worth noticing.

So, we've had "enkidu" we've had "four lords" and "susano" as primals made without ascian interferences.

[sidurgu-12]

Wiki says "Summoned as an act of desperation" ... not sure if red or green though had training from ascians or not.

Are the red tempered, or just more warlike?

Still, write me up a paragraph, I'll toss a quote on it, and drop it in the top post, that's worth noticing.

So, we've had "enkidu" we've had "four lords" and "susano" as primals made without ascian interferences.

iirc they were just as confused by susanos appearance so i dont think they were tempered.

[Cleretic]

The Four Lords actually aren't primals, but they are very primal-like to the point where confusion is understandable. They're kinda the closest you could get to a 'naturally-occurring' primal, in that they have that level of strength just from being alive for so long that they collated that much aether, but they aren't primals by any actually useful definition.

But yeah, to me as someone who isn't a fan of its comedy, Hildibrand is huge mostly as a place where they play with story ideas before they hit 'primetime'--sometimes stuff that never even gets a full, 'serious' story for whatever reason. On top of Enkidu being the first 'unintentional primal' as we'd see later from Susano, he's also the first primal we learn is actually based on a real person, before we learned the same thing about Garuda and Shiva, and ARR Hildibrand also gives us the true story of Ul'Dah and Sil'Dih. His Stormblood questline is the only one that really goes into detail on Hingashi politics, as well as being the first proper presence of Thavnair beyond materials and lore. Hell, EW's has already stepped up to the plate to provide some further detailing on stuff we thought was done.

Not only did we get a touch-base with the First to learn how people who weren't important enough to appear in the MSQ revisit are doing, but it also gave us some level of explanation and cheracterization for Dr. Lugae, who I think we all sort of wrote off as an unexplained weirdo.

[TheMightyMollusk]

His Stormblood questline is the only one that really goes into detail on Hingashi politics,

The 60-70 samurai job quests go into it a bit too. Hingashi just doesn't get much focus in the MSQ due to staying neutral in the then-ongoing war.