Zordiak and ancied souls freed

[Anteiron]

With the death of Zordiak, hundreds of millions or billions of souls (including Hytloideus) freed themselves and returned to the etheric sea. Are these souls whole or divided? If they are whole, does this mean that people will be born who can use the magic of creation and will have the same power as the ancients? Equipped with immense power?

[Anonymoose]

I think - for a sweeping answer to a lot of questions that might arise from this topic - I'd look at Yoshida's answer to a different - but related - question. Hades says that he will be reborn, so the question was asked of Yoshida...in what form would he return? Would he be auto-sundered? If not, would he be Ancient? Would he have any special powers?

Yoshida suggested that - while this has never happened - that Hades would probably not be sundered and his soul would remain here and whole. However, he would still be born as a moral - the current "species" that makes up the current races. He thus wouldn't have access to creation magicks - those are gone. If anything he'd just be "a little cooler than most people". (Silver quoted the full answer below while I was editing, lol.)

[Lady_Silvermoon]

They are whole. They will come back as the new races so they won't have creation abilities because their species no longer exists.

Q: Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus returned to the Aetherial Sea so they can now be reborn, if they’re reincarnated, can they use creation magic like the Ascians?

A: Even if they’re reincarnated, that’s just their souls being born into new bodies like everyone else. As for what would happen if they were reincarnated… we’ve never had an example of someone unsundered reincarnated like this. Maybe they’d be a little better? A little cooler? It’s hard to say. In my opinion, they had accomplished everything they set out to do, so their souls would be purified. They don’t really have a reason to come back.

https://gamerescape.com/2022/02/19/l...l-fantasy-xiv/

[Anteiron]

At the end of Endwalker Hythlodaeus said that one day they would meet again and feel joy, so I think they will be reincarnated

[Cleretic]

My evidence for 'they're whole' is basically that Hythlodaeus seems like the same guy all three times we talked to him. It's entirely possible that the 'what happens when they get reincarnated' question was only considering the few unsundered that exist regardless, but Hythlodaeus actually would've been subjected to whatever happened to the people sacrificed to Zodiark, and he seemed pretty put-together.

As for what happens when they do come back, as Anonymoose said, that doesn't mean 'babies with creation magic'; creation magic was a specific, now-lost school of magic. My favorite analogy to understand how this would probably work has always been this: what if random new cars suddenly had infinite fuel? Theoretically, that lack of limitation would lead to amazing things, but that's neither immediate nor inevitable. Much more likely, you're just gonna start seeing a bunch of Honda Civics that don't have to stop for gas, but still never go above 60 MPH on a normal day.

Any questions about this are almost definitely beyond the scope of the game, though. Remember that the people who died in ARR are still in the Aetherial Sea and didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon, and that Gaia took about eighty years to reincarnate. What these people are like when they come back as babies (possibly exceptionally aetherically dense babies) is just not gonna come up at any point in the game. Even if they loosened up on the time bubble, we're just not gonna reach an era where they come back, and are independent enough for communication and action.