XIV main antagonist has no recognition and seems like no one cares or knows it.

[Navytroy]

THIS HAS HUGE MSQ SPOILERS
So Elidibus (nor Lahabrea) didn't get an MTG dedicated card, they dont even get merch at all either, I really think thats because generally no one understands who the antagonist of the game is, and SE doesnt even care because looks like they just want to fuel fan favoirte characters regardless if its logical or not? I mean Hytlodaeus is on the Final art of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga and he has a figure while Elidibus and Lahabrea had 0 recognition (while they are main characters and Hyt is secondary), im in fear we dont even get Elidibus on the Shadowbringers Ultimate at this point.
When I see people talking about this subject always appears the misconception that the main antagonist of the game are characters like Hermes, Meteion, Zenos or Emet-Selch and the truth is that none of them really are, Elidibus is the main antagonist of the entire game, and is incredible the 0 recognition he has on merch (same for Lahabrea) and important art (they're not even displayed on the final arts and credits on what is supposed to be the final arch of the saga they started and weaved).
I dont know if we have the concept of what an antagonist is:
In narratology the antagonist is the character necessary for conflict to exist in the plot, he is the opposite of the hero in the story and the one who obstructs and difficults the goal of the protagonist during the progress of the plot, the main antagonist and the main character are the pillas from which the story is held, if one of them is lacking it tends to crumble.
Now, let's break up the characters that I often hear people attribute the title of "Final Fantasy XIV's Main Antagonist.":

Hermes and Meteion, these two appear at the end of the story and have not contributed anything to its progress (ARR, HW, STMB even SHB), they made the Final Days that provided the context for our antagonist, but there is no way they are the antagonists of Final Fantasy XIV.

(This continues in the comments as a thread)

[Navytroy]

Now let's talk of another pretender, this time a Villain, Zenos.

Zenos is a character introduced in Stormblood and is driven by the desire to fight us, killing everyone who gets in the way. He is the final enemy in Endwalker, but let's think, really the most important act that Zenos does as a villain is killing his father Varis to prevent the release of the Black Rose chemical weapon, confronting us during the course of 4.0 and freeing Zodiark, it would be like saying that Nidhogg is the antagonist of FFXIV because thanks to his eyes HW and Stormblood occur, but the most important reason why Zenos cannot be the main Antagonist is that Zenos is a tool used by it.
Also, there is people that tell me two things.
1.- Zenos appears as XIV Villain's representative in Dissidia.
2.- Zenos is at the end of Endwalker.

To those of Dissidia I'm just going to ask: Do you remember when Yhstola is the Warrior of Light?
Me neither
Regarding Zenos at the end of Endwalker, I'm going to say two things, being at the end of the MSQ does not imply that you are the antagonist of this one, because if we followed this rule of three Vishap would be the villain of ARR and I don't think so, also, in Pandemonium, where we find the true ending to the Hydaelyn and Zodiark's arc, we have a final talk with the main antagonist of the story.

Let's move on to our next antagonist, Emet-Selch.
To be fair, Emet-Selch is a pretty good and charismatic character, and he is the closest antagonist we have to the main one, and he is also a de facto tritagonist on the antagonistic side of the story, although I wouldn't consider him the main one because he is an antagonist influenced by the main one whose influence is not reciprocal.

Among those proposed Emet-Selch is the closest because he belongs to the Convocation of 14, which we will call Ascians and within this group he is part of the Unsundered trio.

Within the story of FFXIV, practically everything that happens is due to the Paragons, and practically everything is done for Zodiark, so we could classify Zodiark as the main antagonist.
But, with Zodiark we have a problem, he's not only an absent character but his will and actions are not his, but rather that of the leader of the Ascians and architect of the vast majority of the plot of Final Fantasy XIV throughout its expansions, we are talking about the Heart of Zodiark, Elidibus.

[Navytroy]

Lets talk about Elidibus actions in lore and how affects it:
I am going to list all the important actions that Themis does in the Lore and History of Final Fantasy XIV in a summarized way in chronological order so that it can be understood, from Pre ARR to Pandemonium.

We start with the preSundered world,
Here we have that Elidibus is the de facto leader of the convocation, dedicating himself to judging and controlling its actions, and through the extended story of “Before Our Curtain Falls” we know that Azem maintains his title largely thanks to Themis That is, if it weren't for him, our character wouldn't be Azem.
In the pre-Sundering world it should be added that Venat's conversation with the Warrior of Light is possible thanks to the fact that Elidibus takes us to the past and that Themis at that time would lead the investigation of Pandemonium, which would ultimately execute Athena's plans and and turn Lahabrea crazy among many other things.
Later, during the Final Days, Elidibus would be the person who would transform into the Heart of Zodiark, stopping the Final Days, terraforming the world and all that... and at the moment he was going to bring back the sacrificed ones he found that there was a group of people led by Venat who were not happy with this and separated from Zodiark to fulfill his mission as Elidibus to maintain peace, order and balance in the world, this ended with Venat transforming into Hydaelyn and dueling against Zodiark, a duel that would not have occurred if Venat did not have the information provided by the Warrior of Light, who traveled to the past thanks to Elidibus himself.(also this is not reflected in 6.0 even if it happened and its shows Emet opposed to Venat instead of Elidibus ¿?¿??)
This fight between Hdyaelyn and Zodiark would end with Zodiark and reality itself divided into 14 shards, including people except for Lahabrea, Emet, Elidibus, Venat, Athena and presumably the original Ultima.

Okay, let's get to the things that happen with Elidibus after the Sundering but before the game's story begins.

First of all we should talk about the first attempt of the Ascians to do a rejoining, we have to talk about the Void, which was infested of darkness due to a Flood of Darkness known as Contramemoria, this we know that happened because the Ascians at the time did not know that they had to produce a cataclysm in the Source to make the element of a Shard flow naturally to the Source , here through unukalhai in the Warring Triad sidequests we can see how Elidibus rescues the child, becoming the first """Warrior of Light""" of whom there is evidence.

[Navytroy]

After the disaster in the thirteenth, Elidibus would make the decision to not only act in favor of the Ascian, but also against them, creating "Warriors of Light" and other mediators so that there would be a balance of forces and make calamities controlled both In the Source, as in the Shards, it can be deduced that in all the rejoining, Elidibus has had to be the hand that controlled the operation by both sides, furthermore in Shadowbringers we are told that all the great civilizations that the Ascians have created , Emet-Selch more specifically, Elidibus was the one who allowed and helped it, that is, roughly speaking, without Elidibus, there would not have been Ronka Empire, nor the Allag Empire, nor the Garlean Empire nor many other machinations that we do not know about the rejoined shards.


Once this prologue is over, we can start talking about what the MSQ and things ingame, this is essentially a summary of the entire game.

In A Realm Reborn we have Lahabrea acting as an antagonist in the shadows of the Garlean empire and the tribes of Eorzea, from what was previously established, this can be understood as a joint action of the Unsundered and the rest of the sundered Ascians.
In the post-ARR patches is where we are formally introduced to Elidibus in the Waking Sands, as a messenger of Zodiark and that is where he begins to manipulate the Warrior of Light, he is the one who gives the Echo to the Sagahin and this is also the point at which he begins to manipulate Urianger.
It is also at this moment where we see Elidibus and Lahabrea manipulating Thordan VII to create a Primal strong enough to make a calamity.

And now we have to talk about things that happen offscreen.
This is the point at which Elidibus begins to manipulate the Warriors of Darkness, who at the same time under the manipulation of Mitron, Loghrif and Emet-Selch, caused the Flood of Light by striking Mitron with a Sword of Light and transforming him into Eden.

Now that the Uldah attack has occurred, we enter Heavensward.
Here what was said before, we see how the Ascians manipulate Thordan VII and Ishgard so that they create a Primal fed by the eyes of Nidhogg and the Ishgardian faith, this does not go very well because the Warrior of Light ends up killing Igeyhrom and Thordan ends up killing Lahabrea.

[Navytroy]

Here we can see how Elidibus transports the Warriors of Darkness to the Source so that they create chaos among the tribes so they may invoke their Gods.

At this moment we have to talk about offscreen things again, since it is a fact told through the sidestory of “Before our curtain falls”:
Here Elidibus awakens Hades to inform him of the total death of Hephaestus, here we are also told how it is the moment in which Themis stops using the Convocation crystals, saying that he prefers not to remember and that the only thing he needs is his mission as Elidibus, presumably he does this to avoid remembering Lahabrea, beginning to foster his loss of identity and his obsession with his mission.
Here we are also see as if it were not for Themis's insistence, Hades would have simply given up and left the cause of the rejoining.


After this, and returning to ingame things, we met an emissary from Elidibus to inform the Scions of the Warring Triad: Unukalhai, that is, if it weren't for him there would be no Warring Triad sidequest.

Again in the MSQ we can see how Elidibus manipulates the Warrior of Darkness and finally rescues Nidhogg's eyes to give them to Ilberd and he ends up summoning the Primal Shinryu, giving rise to Stormblood.
Once the WoL releases Ala Mhigo and Doma we find that Elidibus takes control of Zenos's body and manipulates Asahi to execute a plan (Tsukuyomi) that leads to an open war between the Eorzean Alliance and the Garlean Empire, giving place to a true storm of blood, this is the moment in which Graha'tia begins to invoke the Scions, the war leads to the first frontal confrontation between the WoL and Elidibus, with the WoL leaving defeated although saved by Estinien.
We also get to see the start of production on Black Rose and the resurrection of Emet-Selch as Solus Zos Galvus.
Two timelines are divided here, the line from which the Graha'Tia of Shadowbringers comes from in which Varis uses Black Rose, a calamity occurs and the Ironworks sends Graha'Tia and the Crystal Tower through space and the time to the past of The First creating the other timeline which is the one we are currently in. (Also how does this Graha tia timeline exists if in this timeline Elidibus doesnt takes the WoL back in time to tell Venat what to do nor helps at Pandemonium, so Lahabrea doesnt know how to craft Zodiark¿?¿?)

[Navytroy]

here the WoL and the Scions are successfully transported to the First and partially destroy the Flood of Light, making Emet intervene to see if he can cooperate with the Scions, this is where we know the reality of the Ascians, Hydaelyn, Zodiark and the Final Days.

This cooperation ends when the WoL is not able to retain the light in its body and Emet kidnaps Graha tia taking him to a recreated Amaurot where a shadow of Hytlodaeus explains the invocations of Zodiark to us, finally after a miniRejoining between Ardbert and the WoL and the summoning Graha tia of the other 7 fragments of the Warrior of Light from the other shards, Emet-Selch ends up dying, as does Lahabrea.
After thisTwo plans are set in motion.
-First, A plan by Elidibus to kill the Warrior of Light and avenge his companions.
-Second, a plan by Hades to end Themis' suffering using the convocation stones that he stopped using.
After using Ardbert's body and denying any commonality with the Scions, Elidibus begins to awaken the Echo of the inhabitants of the Crystarium
Here Themis meets the WoL in the recreated Amaurot and recreates for the WoL the path it has followed until reaching that moment, that is, the history of the game.
After that Yhstola reveals the identity of Elidibus as a Primal, as I said before Themis originally sacrificed himself to be the hart of Zodiark and the one we have met until this moment is the same Themis but who separated from Zodiark in the form of Primal to mediate between the proZodiark faction and the proHydaelyn faction.
After this, the shadow of Hytlodaeus executes Hades' plan by giving the memory stones to the WoL and Elidibus for his part begins to awaken the Echo in the people of The First and summon Warriors of Light around the Scions and thakes control of the Crystal Tower.

[Navytroy]

This culminates with the Warrior of Light trying to reason with Elidibus, but because of his nature as a primal and because he stopped using the stones he no longer remembers practically anything, Elidibus reaffirms his mission and using the Warriors of Light transforms himself into a once again in an avatar of salvation claiming that he is the first hero of humanity and its last hope, here the Warrior of Light uses Azem's memory stone with which the other 7 shards of Azem appear, in the middle of the battle , Elidibus defeats the Warrior of Light by sending him to a dimension where he would have died, if it weren’t for the fact that through Azem's stone the shadow of Hades appears to return the Warrior of Light to the fight, a fight that simply does not end because Elidibus simply cannot be defeated. to which Graha'Tia appears and uses the Crystal Tower as a big Auracite to trap his immortal soul. Before leaving, the shadow of Themis is visualized, in the shape of a small child and the WoL gives him the memory stones and he He “dies” crying remembering his friends and lamenting that they are no longer in the world he saved, thus fulfilling Hades' plan to have Themis finally resting at peace.

Fandaniel, after the “death” of Elidibus, begins his plan to destroy the Source because once Elidibus is gone, the Ascians no longer have heads and he is free to go on his own.
Taking advantage of Elidibus's death, he kidnaps Zodiark's inert body and temporarily becomes his heart, because without Elidibus, Zodiark is a piece of meat, after fooling around for a while with the WoL, Fandaniel ends up committing suicide, killing in the process Zodiark and bringing back the Final Days.
After this, the WoL goes to visit Elidibus in the Crystal Tower to get information about Fandaniel, and since Elidibus' job is de facto leader of the Convocation, he feels responsible also he feels a pulpit in his heart that he can trust in the Warrior of Light, Elidibus finally sacrifices himself definitively to take the Warrior of Light to the past using the Crystal Tower, before the Rejoining, where the Warrior of Light meets Hermes, Hades, Hytlodaeus and Venat.
Although Elidibus tells the Warrior of Light that he cannot change the past and that he must not alter it, The WoL makes a Marty McFly and tells Venat everything that has happened and everything she has to do for it to happen in order to get Etheris saved, the WoL also causes the incident that would end with Meteion bringing the Final Days, and the rest is what I said when I talked about PreSundering.
Anyway, after these events and the end of the Final Days, Pandemonium appears in the heart of the planet, obviously with Athena.

[Navytroy]

Let's remember Pandemonium:
Athena, Hephaestus's wife, finds a very powerful Auracite from Ultima that she names the Hart of Sabik. Athena begins her research to become a deity and Hephaestus, upon fusing his soul with her and discovering it, kills her because apart from being a crazy idea required the sacrifice of his son, Ericthonios, Hephaestus, apart from killing his mad wife, tears off the piece of soul that was infected by Athena and moves on with his life, leaving his son aside because in that piece of soul was also its emotional part.
After time and after the appointment of Hephaestus as Lahabrea, Hegemone, being tempered by Athena and remaining a sleeping agent, releases the fragment of Hephaestus' Soul infected by Athena, and tempers the rest of Pandemonium, including his son Erictonios.

Themis knows something's wrong and together with the WoL investigate until they meet Erictonios and the two Lahabreas, discovering Athena's plot and sealing Hephaestus again in a crystal, although after discovering that Hegemone was the first infected by Athena, Lahabrea cleans the infection from her, punishes her. and makes Hegemone the director of Pandemonium and joins with his other half, arguing that he needs his entire being to be a good Lahabrea, it is because of this that the Convocation would later have the knowledge to create Zodiark.

Back to the present, in the heart of the planet.
Pandemonium appears along with Athena, and she recreates Lahabrea, Themis and Erictonios, here Athena uses Themis so that he has to face the WoL even if he does not want to, giving place to the last duel between the Warrior of Light and Elidibus.
After the fall of Athena, we now find the definitive death of Lahabrea, Ericthonios and of course, of Elidibus, of Themis, where he says goodbye to us saying that even if he does not remember exactly who we are, he is happy to have crossed paths with us in Pandemonium and is glad to have taken place in the salvation of the world, without being able to remember that without his intervention the world would have been destroyed twice.
Finally he declares that he is leaving without regrets and with total dignity, to which we see how in the last moments he judges Etheyirs one last time, finding light in the afterlife.

With this, and with the raid of the 12, which honestly does not provide much more; ends what was the Hydaelyn and Zodiark arc.
And as we can see, Themis also known as Elidibus or Zodiark was the most important character apart from the Warrior of Light and Hydaelyn, he is a character that simply if you take him away nothing makes sense, he is the character that weaves the thread of the story, that is the main antagonist of what has so far been the story of Final Fantasy XIV.

[Navytroy]

So yeah, please SE give us some Elidibus (and Lahabrea) love, even if its too late.

[Kranel_San]

God above, you must be either serious about this thread or this is the next level of shitposting.