How exactly does a white mage purify something?

[SannaR]

As the title asks how does that even happen? What is the white mage even doing to a fouled aether? I'm going through the Heavensward white mage quests and at least by actions I can't tell what it is my character is doing in order to purify the foul taint. I also don't remember if it's described in any of the quests as to how exactly we are meant to be doing it as no aether is seen coming from us. I even looked at the 1st EE to see if there was any mention of how it's done and it just states that it's something a white mage can do.

This also had me wondering what all could a white mage or even a conjure purify? I know I should remember what all is going on when one of them is purifying something or getting rid of corrupted aether of the land but I'm having a hard time wracking my brain as to what are they manipulating in order to bring about a balance or whatever really is going on.

[Cleretic]

The thing here is that we don't necessarily have a lack of options, it's that there's two possible ways this could work, which is kinda dependent on what the corruption is.

1. If 'corrupted aether' is something like void corruption, then White Mages have access to light magic like Holy, so they could be doing that classical purify.

2. However, it's also possible that it's more of a disease or plague, which in a lot of media is described in similar ways, and in that case their 'steward of nature' thing kicks in.

In the context of Heavensward's job storyline, it genuinely could be either; you're going up against a necromancer, that's traditionally pretty dark magic... but she's also just literally burying rotting body parts, so it might be more literal.

[NegativeS]

We know that aether of the mind, body, and soul are separate things, so it probably isn't too far of a stretch to assume that aether of the body needs to be a very specific composition to allow the creature to continue living, and purifying magic just fixes their aether.

[SannaR]

What I mean was were they somehow breaking down their own aether and using the element that's stronger to the corrupted aether. Which would go against conjury teaching and highly dangerous or using nearby aether of an element that was stronger than the corrupted element. That was until I went over at least the conjurer quests where we just beat up a corrupted aether sprites that were being caused by an ahriman. It's more of are we praying and willing the corruption away or are we as I said using ambient of the polar/stronger element to defuse the corruption? As nothing is shown coming from us yet we still solve the problem.

[Zero-ELEC]

Could be a simple case of corrupted aether being "encouraged" to flow and it healing it that way as it dissipates in the rest of the aether of the world.

[Cleretic]

What I mean was were they somehow breaking down their own aether and using the element that's stronger to the corrupted aether. Which would go against conjury teaching and highly dangerous or using nearby aether of an element that was stronger than the corrupted element. That was until I went over at least the conjurer quests where we just beat up a corrupted aether sprites that were being caused by an ahriman. It's more of are we praying and willing the corruption away or are we as I said using ambient of the polar/stronger element to defuse the corruption? As nothing is shown coming from us yet we still solve the problem.

I mean, the thing here is that we don't even have an exact description of the problem, so we don't really know what the solution is. The terms used are more evocative than descriptive. The conjurers clearly know what they're doing, so however they're solving this is working, but they're not exactly giving us scientific descriptors.

[SannaR]

I mean, the thing here is that we don't even have an exact description of the problem, so we don't really know what the solution is. The terms used are more evocative than descriptive. The conjurers clearly know what they're doing, so however they're solving this is working, but they're not exactly giving us scientific descriptors.

Which is the problem though after having thought about what Sylphie describes I think it's some sort of silent communication that's normally one way with nature. Even E-Sumi tells the WoL after their initial quest to go and commune/attune with nature so that doing so comes to them as naturally as breathing. As Sylphie with her rare gift is capable of hearing nature's woes.

That and conjurey and at least modern white mages still have that thin layer of Shinto paint they were trying to elude to with how they're meant to work or be seen as when it comes to their purification and anything tangentially related to the elementals.

[Anonymoose]

A lot of mentions of conjury and white magic specifically reference "purifying aether". In a world where aether is scientifically "magic" and "soul", spiritual (aetheric) forms of pollution are very real, so spiritual (aetheric) forms of counteracting that are also very real. (Gridania takes heavily after pre-Buddhism Shinto; so thanks for bringing that up Sanna.) It might not be more complicated than that; "purified" things are simply restored to their natural, balanced, benign natural way of being, as opposed to being in a state of "corrupted/tainted" disturbance of that order.