|
Jetrauben posted:I mean... Again primals are explicitly not the gods the people are worshipping but beings created in their likeness whose entire existence are based on the summoners ideas at the time. They are not divine anymore than a carbuncle is. The poo poo with your kobold nephew and Eden repeatedly hit this point.
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 14:35 |
|
|
Jetrauben posted:I mean... That last bit is the point, the Primals aren't deities. They're creations in the shape of deities whose thoughts are defined by their creators. Which is why you get Ga Bu summoning a version of Titan who literally constantly cries for his parents and attacks the Kobolds. Deiform in fact means in the shape of a deity, it is not the same thing as saying they are a deity. The Kami are also primals, but they're a "safer" form of Primal that builds up over centuries from Aether pooling inside the objects of worship. Susanoo manifests because you bring his three treasures together in front of a bunch of Red Kojin who believe in him, and the combined aether of those treasures is enough for him to manifest. But if he was left alive he'd temper the Red Kojin and start draining the land of Aether, just like any other Primal. Like say, in the real world, someone makes a robot in the shape of Thor, it has the powers of Thor, but it's actions and thought patterns are not those of any real deity, but simply that which it's creator believes Thor would have. Would you call this Thor, this constructed god made by man's own hands and thoughts? A large part of FFXIV is the fact that none of the gods are potentially real beings, Garuda is based on an Allagan Woman, the 12 might be the Convocation of 14, Shiva was a normal Elezen, so on and so forth. Even Hydaelyn and Zodiark, the closest the game has to full blown gods are simply incredibly ancient computers made of magic. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:33
|
|
|
ZenMasterBullshit posted:Again primals are explicitly not the gods the people are worshipping but beings created in their likeness whose entire existence are based on the summoners ideas at the time. They are not divine anymore than a carbuncle is. The poo poo with your kobold nephew and Eden repeatedly hit this point. You're missing my point. Primals aren't the gods they represent, who may or may not even exist as such. They are, however, gods, creatures of divine power, fuelled by faith and wielding reality-warping powers. They're just also artificial and distorted constructs based on the faith or beliefs of the summoner. To reject the idea of the primal as A God is more about an ideological statement of its cultural and spiritual legitimacy than a material assessment of its capabilities. The idea that the only thing you can rightly call A God is an all-powerful and eternal entity is a culturally loaded position, that's all I've been saying. Lord_Magmar posted:That last bit is the point, the Primals aren't deities. They're creations in the shape of deities whose thoughts are defined by their creators. Which is why you get Ga Bu summoning a version of Titan who literally constantly cries for his parents and attacks the Kobolds. Deiform in fact means in the shape of a deity, it is not the same thing as saying they are a deity. I mean, yes, probably, especially if it was literally fuelled by human faith, it's fair to call it A View of Thor. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:36
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:You're missing my point. That's not a god, that's a construct. They don't even have "divine" power, they are very powerful, but what they do is something anyone with enough Aether could likely do. Gods are only ideology, that's one of the throughpoints of FFXIV that none of the gods people believe in actually exist until they've been believed in enough, or if they did exist they're not divinities but based on other people who were merely powerful. I don't think that Thor is god, I think it's a false idol made in the image of Thor. A construct created as a replacement. Which is especially important in the context of FFXIV because Primals when summoned actually gently caress up their summoners thought processes permanently. At least until a cure was found. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:38
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:That's not a god, that's a construct. They don't even have "divine" power, they are very powerful, but what they do is something anyone with enough Aether could likely do. To repeat myself: The idea that the only thing you can rightly call A God is an all-powerful and eternal entity is a culturally loaded position, that's all I've been saying. It's fair to call a primal - capable of reshaping reality on a level we haven't seen from any Spoken mortal practitioner short of the great wyrms, casually - a god or godlike entity even as one also accurately calls them an idol that needs to be destroyed. It's fair to call ancient elder wyrms like Hraesvelgr who enjoy reverence, immortality, and tremendous power a god. It's honestly in my personal opinion completely fair to call all Ancients gods, meaningfully! But this is all based on a specific idea that "god" doesn't necessarily have to correspond to "omnipotent and omniscient entity," because in a lot of cultures it historically has not meant that at all. That's all I'm noting in the topic here - the idea that we've never met real gods or demons in FF14 mostly relies upon us having to first define what a God or Demon actually is. The fact that primals are idols based on their worshipers' conceptions, bad for their worshipers and ultimately represent a cancerous concentration of the aether rightly needed for nature to thrive makes them bad, it does not necessarily mean they aren't "divine," because we need to define what "divine" is. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:42
|
|
|
I'm not arguing god needs to be the christian style god. I'm saying that none of the Primals count as gods to me because they're explicitly corruptions of the ideals of the god those people believe in, to the point where they in turn corrupt their people. I will concede godlike, there are many godlike beings in FFXIV, but no they are not gods and that's a really important distinction given the story itself is making a point that the gods do not exist as people think they do, and it's people believing in them that makes them real at all even as corrupt false idols. I especially don't think the dragons count because the Ancient Dragons aren't even particularly powerful, they can be killed by mortals even easier than the Primals can. The thing they've got going for them is just, immortality. Frankly Midgardsormr might be the only thing I'd even consider close to an actual God and even he's just an incredibly powerful alien. I personally think there needs to be an element of legitimate higher order divinity going on for a god to actually be a god. Everything else is simply Godlike. So to use Titan as an example, if there was a non-corrupt version of Titan who had his own will and acted autonomously without need of crystals or worship, then I would call that a God. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:46
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:I'm not arguing god needs to be the christian style god. I'm saying that none of the Primals count as gods to me because they're explicitly corruptions of the ideals of the god those people believe in, to the point where they in turn corrupt their people. I mean we had to kill Niddhogg twice and even then if we hadn't immediately separated the Eyes from his host he might've held on anyways, and in merely the fullness of his wrath he set the sky on fire with Dragonstorms. That's...pretty drat transcendently powerful. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:48
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:To repeat myself: The idea that the only thing you can rightly call A God is an all-powerful and eternal entity is a culturally loaded position, that's all I've been saying. It's fair to call a primal - capable of reshaping reality on a level we haven't seen from any Spoken mortal practitioner short of the great wyrms, casually - a god or godlike entity even as one also accurately calls them an idol that needs to be destroyed. Oh my god it's a culturally loaded position from basically all cultures. Like what actual real world cultures have a pantheon of guys who are just pretty strong I guess? Religion has always been used to explain and make sense of the natural world and the processes of life and the gods representing anthropomorphised embodiments of those concepts, primals explicitly are not part of the natural order in that way and the world would continue to exist fine without them and are therefore not gods
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:50
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:I mean we had to kill Niddhogg twice and even then if we hadn't immediately separated the Eyes from his host he might've held on anyways, and in merely the fullness of his wrath he set the sky on fire with Dragonstorms. That's...pretty drat transcendently powerful. So? Having to kill him multiple times just means he's hard to kill, it's also explicitly not him the second time but his ghost/anger/spirit posessing Eistinien. Powerful beings can do powerful things isn't anything particularly impressive, every Primal transforms the land around them, because anyone with powerful enough Aetherial Manipulation can transform the land around them. Honestly the closest thing to Gods currently in FFXIV in my estimation is the Twelveswood Elementals, who exist regardless of faith or aether, have their own thoughts and feelings separate from their followers desires, and in fact are generally pretty divine in presentation to the point where they're a functional religion (that sucks sometimes to deal with). The Kami and the Auspices are second, partially because relative to other primals the Kami are much more stable and seem to be a lot more individual due to the duration of the belief process that formed them, the Auspices are elevated to near divinity by the process of their immortality. Unironically third is the Ascian Unsundered. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:52
|
|
|
multijoe posted:Oh my god it's a culturally loaded position from basically all cultures. Like what actual real world cultures have a pantheon of guys who are just pretty strong I guess? Religion has always been used to explain and make sense of the natural world and the processes of life and the gods representing anthropomorphised embodiments of those concepts, primals explicitly are not part of the natural order in that way and the world would continue to exist fine without them and are therefore not gods ...Actually quite a lot of them. There's lots of religions which have local place spirits and divinities, including, for example, Roman and Greek folk religion - it wasn't just the Olympians and most regions actually had local cults and different takes on said gods. Nymph worship and lares and penates were major parts of peoples' daily lives in these cultures, the Olympian cults were more the state cults. It's also pretty much the norm in Shinto, for that matter - local shrines and their patrons are far more important to daily life. Lord_Magmar posted:So? Having to kill him multiple times just means he's hard to kill, it's also explicitly not him the second time but his ghost/anger/spirit posessing Eistinien. Powerful beings can do powerful things isn't anything particularly impressive, every Primal transforms the land around them, because anyone with powerful enough Aetherial Manipulation can transform the land around them. Yeah I'd agree if nothing else the Unsundered/Ancients were unequivocally Gods in any colloquial sense. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:54
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:...Actually quite a lot of them. There's lots of religions which have local place spirits and divinities, including, for example, Roman and Greek folk religion - it wasn't just the Olympians and most regions actually had local cults and different takes on said gods. It's pretty much the norm in Shinto, for that matter. Shinto's creation myth is that Izanami literally gave birth to the Japanese archipelago, I'd like to see Ifrit do that
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:57
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:...Actually quite a lot of them. There's lots of religions which have local place spirits and divinities, including, for example, Roman and Greek folk religion - it wasn't just the Olympians and most regions actually had local cults and different takes on said gods. It's pretty much the norm in Shinto, for that matter. The Shinto gods are still part of the natural world in fact the Kami of the Shinto religion are explicitly nature spirits, so are those small gods of Roman and Greeks. They're all explanations for how the natural world functions, or evolutions of heroes or history into faith. The closest to Pantheon of guys who are just strong might be Hinduism, but you'd have to check on that one. Jetrauben posted:Yeah I'd agree if nothing else the Unsundered/Ancients were unequivocally Gods in any colloquial sense. My actual point is they're not really Gods, Emet-Selch/Lahabrea/Elidibus get to be the third closest thing to an actual god post Sundering, before the Sundering they're just people. Because if everyone can do creation magics the way Amaurot presents it, then that's just the baseline humanity, not divinity. They literally made a god when they discovered their baseline wasn't good enough, and I don't count Zodiark either (or Hydaelyn). Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:57
|
|
|
multijoe posted:Shinto's creation myth is that Izanami literally gave birth to the Japanese archipelago, I'd like to see Ifrit do that Lord_Magmar posted:The Shinto gods are still part of the natural world in fact the Kami of the Shinto religion are explicitly nature spirits, so are those small gods of Roman and Greeks. They're all explanations for how the natural world functions, or evolutions of heroes or history into faith. This is true! It also has a whole bunch of local deities and figures of power. But yes, to be clear, I'm not disagreeing that the narrative obviously establishes that primals need to die, it's just worth noting that even in-universe there's a great tension in the fact that the primals are both tangible manifestations of their beleaguered peoples' faith and really bad for the world at large to be manifest for long. If others say your only tangible "proof" (from the point of view of the believer, not the external observer) of your god's manifest existence come to save you just-so-conveniently-happens to be a mind-enslaving aetheric tumor that must be destroyed, as stated by the totally-unbiased-honest hit squad of the colonial powers intruding upon your sovereignty... ...are they really respecting your religion, or just saying you're allowed to be a private worshiper in your silly superstitions while demanding public compliance to their own view of spirituality like the worst sorts of "cultural Christians?" (Again, to be clear, 14 ultimately DOES come down on the side of "primals gotta go," for very good in-narrative reasons. It just also acknowledges the inherent social tension in "your god is ok only as long as it's powerless and imaginary superstition." Yes, the Kobold Patriarch ranting about how the scions say that Beastman gods oh-so-conveniently are primals just gotta go is almost certainly Tempered, but his arguments are not, actually, without rhetorical power.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:58
|
|
|
At what point in the game do we go up to someone and say "You thought you summoned your god. You did not, you summoned a primal," and they are like "drat! That never occurred to me!" They've actually been pretty consistent that even the beast tribes who are doing Primal summoning are reckless lunatics, with a non-lunatic group from that tribe saying something along the lines of "These maniacs are summoning some monster in the shape of our god. gently caress 'em!" Ga Bu? And Ga Bu was both a minor and not exactly operating with reasoned thought at the time. e: Like it may be a diplomatic nicety but I don't think we ever take the tack of "your god is fake" or "we are for-real killing your god," but rather "this is a monster that resembles your god." I guess Ramuh complicates this but he's the only example I can think of, and IIRC even Ramuh is like "Hm, well, yes, I probably ought to discorporate, but I was summoned for a reason, so prove you're a baller and take me out if you're hard enough."
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:59
|
|
|
Okay guys hear me out, if Jeff Bezos built himself an invincible, immortal robot body with like a hundred nuclear reactors that could fire a wave motion cannon that could level a city, and then developed a cult of nerds who worshipped his robot laser arm - would he be a god?
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 19:59
|
|
|
multijoe posted:Okay guys hear me out, if Jeff Bezos built himself an invincible, immortal robot body with like a hundred nuclear reactors that could fire a wave motion cannon that could level a city, and then developed a cult of nerds who worshipped his robot laser arm - would he be a god? The Primal of Capitalism.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:00
|
|
|
Nessus posted:At what point in the game do we go up to someone and say "You thought you summoned your god. You did not, you summoned a primal," and they are like "drat! That never occurred to me!" They've actually been pretty consistent that even the beast tribes who are doing Primal summoning are reckless lunatics, with a non-lunatic group from that tribe saying something along the lines of "These maniacs are summoning some monster in the shape of our god. gently caress 'em!" Lakshmi and Susanoo get kind of close, Susanoo in particular is never treated as anything but the God the Kojin believe in (except the explicit mention that he's a primal who can Temper). The Kojin just don't care that you kill him because they recognise that he totally wanted to fight you anyway. It's part of why I'd say the Kami and Auspices come in second after the Twelveswood in terms of "Gods" in setting, the Kami seem to have been formed naturally over hundreds of years as opposed to the shoddy summoning method taught by the Ascians, they're more stable as a result with their own personalities and foibles. Nobody "summoned" Susanoo, they believed in him and so he exists. The auspices (specifically the Lords) meanwhile seem to be basically be animals who've gained Kami levels of power by absorbing Aether and being immortal. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:01
|
|
|
Nessus posted:At what point in the game do we go up to someone and say "You thought you summoned your god. You did not, you summoned a primal," and they are like "drat! That never occurred to me!" Iceheart and Tiamat. Well, Tiamat says both sides of it to us, and Hraesvalgr says it to Iceheart.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:02
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Lakshmi and Susanoo get kind of close, Susanoo in particular is never treated as anything but the God the Kojin believe in (except the explicit mention that he's a primal who can Temper). The Kojin just don't care that you kill him because they recognise that he totally wanted to fight you anyway.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:04
|
|
|
Nessus posted:At what point in the game do we go up to someone and say "You thought you summoned your god. You did not, you summoned a primal," and they are like "drat! That never occurred to me!" They've actually been pretty consistent that even the beast tribes who are doing Primal summoning are reckless lunatics, with a non-lunatic group from that tribe saying something along the lines of "These maniacs are summoning some monster in the shape of our god. gently caress 'em!" There's literally a whole conversation with it when Ga Bu's introduced. Although for what it's worth I think the "Fanatics!" thing is mostly true with the Amaljaa and Vanu. Kobolds basically all worship Titan and his summoning had broad popular support - the Kobold Tribe you end up supporting is just honestly kind of narratively weird since there's no actual doctrinal difference from the majority, a member of the Maelstrom just finds them so pathetic she technically commits some light treason to help them out. The Sahagin Beast Tribe you support explicitly has quest givers tell you they're totally ok with Leviathan tempering people because "Lord Leviathan must have his due." Popular support for the primal summonings is generally pretty drat high among Kobolds, Ixal, and Sahagin, or so it seems, and popular belief in their gods is basically ubiquitous. Alisaie's "we respect your faith!" is very carefully worded in such a way that if you actually look at what she's saying - and this is almost certainly unintentional - what she's actually saying is not respectful at ALL. What she's actually saying is "you're allowed to give thanks to a non-anthropomorphized conception of the Earth like we do, just not summoning your very-anthropomorphized Great Father." It's if anything accidentally missionary sentiment.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:05
|
|
|
Nessus posted:The sneeple we're actually talking to seem to recognize that the grief-maddened queen summoned a mockery of Sri Lakshmi which is when we get the famous dialogue option that overrules every other component of the text. Susano-o is fair enough but is also a kami, so that's kind of its own weird thing, not the quasi-western/fantasy version of A God, Who We Kill. Yeah, you get to basically say I'm going to kill your god and that's pretty much outright you dun summoned a Primal. The Kami are explicitly primals but more stable in how they're created, but they totally can temper people and as Yotsuyu shows can be over-written by summoners desires (she makes a Tsukuyomi based on herself, which obviously is not how such a Kami would normally manifest from that artifact), Susanoo actually takes three highly revered artifacts absolutely drenched in Aether to self-manifest. Also no the Titan thing is definitely a bit of a Fanatics deal, the Kobolds in general believe in their Great Father (and nobody has issues with that belief) but the repeated summoning of Titan is because the leadership are trying to temper as many other kobolds as they can, much like the Ramuh Sylphs want to make all the Sylphs like themselves. Remember that tempered individuals are driven to add more to the fold to empower the Primals, and the Kobolds got tempered right at the top of their culture, who get to decide their culture from said top position.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:08
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Yeah, you get to basically say I'm going to kill your god and that's pretty much outright you dun summoned a Primal. The Kami are explicitly primals but more stable in how they're created, but they totally can temper people and as Yotsuyu shows can be over-written by summoners desires (she makes a Tsukuyomi based on herself, which obviously is not how such a Kami would normally manifest from that artifact), Susanoo actually takes three highly revered artifacts absolutely drenched in Aether to self-manifest. I got the impression it was more a lovely "we're desperate so we're going to weaponize our religious practices and even sacrifice members of our people to fuel our sacrifice." It's clearly a deranged mind-control thing! (Insert Dracula quote here.) Just it's not necessarily one not reflecting the population's existing spiritual beliefs. And yeah, Idunno, personally I'm in the camp of "the kami probably are real-enough-to-matter, the Scions - being Sharlayan sciencebros, which is actually an ideology and not an unbiased culturally-agnostic position - are just primed to see everything that can sorta fit into the "primal" basket as a primal even when it doesn't actually obey like any of the rules. We don't even see Susanoo or Tsukuyomi try to temper people, although quite reasonably nobody wants to take that risk. Like I very much do not take the Scions or Sharlayan as "unbiased voices of the narrative," they're characters with in-universe biases and education, much of which is explicitly hostile in-universe to different cultural perspectives. Levava sneers at Eastern geomancy, for example, as merely a debased form of Sharlayan astrology, because she's still culturally Sharlayan and they think they're the smartest people on the planet. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:10
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:I got the impression it was more a lovely "we're desperate so we're going to weaponize our religious practices and even sacrifice members of our people to fuel our sacrifice." It's clearly a deranged mind-control thing! (Insert Dracula quote here.) Just it's not necessarily one not reflecting the population's existing spiritual beliefs. The first time it was the Limsa Lominsans are encroaching on our lands and have broken the agreement, we're scared and we'll summon our father (because those nice robed fellows taught us how to summon our god). After that point the leadership is compromised entirely because they summoned Titan. Think of the Convocation of 13 deciding to sacrifice more people to Zodiark to keep fixing problems instead of trying other solutions. It's why solving tempering is so important, because until that happens peace is actually almost impossible, because the original summoners of the Beast Tribe Primals are largely the leaders of their respective peoples, except for the Sylphs, and the Moogles.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:12
|
|
|
What I think complicates this is that summoning a primal seems to be really hard to do by accident, and almost everyone we see do it has either been taught the trick by Ascians, might have ripped the trick off from someone else who learned it from Ascians, or is working with the vessel of a kami. (In the case of Yotsuyu, it could be both #2 and #3.) The one exception is Gilgamesh, who is both connected to the funny clown man and his storyline, and is, evidently, Unsundered. From what comes up with the Warring Triad, summoning without the trick is possible but requires something like a nationwide combined worship service and would have probably been beyond the scope of any Eorzean city-state save possibly Ishgard, and that only because they seem like they could probably all go to church at once if they'd had a need. Maybe the kobolds pulled the "brute force" version off, and that's what happened with the Company of Heroes' battle against Titan? I'm not sure on the timeframe of that sucker but I'm also not sure exactly when the Ascians started passing out Bemet-Belch's E-Z Guide to Getting the Gods to Solve Your Problems
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:14
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Maybe the kobolds pulled the "brute force" version off, and that's what happened with the Company of Heroes' battle against Titan? I'm not sure on the timeframe of that sucker but I'm also not sure exactly when the Ascians started passing out Bemet-Belch's E-Z Guide to Getting the Gods to Solve Your Problems They taught Tiamat how to summon Bahamut and likely taught the triad species too, or the Triad Species learnt from Tiamat and her children. They explicitly taught the Sylphs and the Moogles, tried to teach the people of little Ala Mihgo, definitely taught Thordan, and are implied to be behind every Primal in ARR except Shiva. Come to think of it, Thordan seems to work similar to the Kami version of a Primal does. Where he’s formed from hundreds of years of believe and worship, a specific artefact completely drenched in Aether, and an individual claiming it for themselves. He even has the more complex individual thoughts of the Kami, compared to the way the Summoned Primals hyper focus on whatever they are summoned for (and in turn hyper focus their summoners). Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:18
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:The closest to Pantheon of guys who are just strong might be Hinduism, but you'd have to check on that one. The Hindu pantheon is a bit misleading, because Hinduism is arguable monotheistic. Every god is just an aspect of Brahman. Mr. Nice! fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:18
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:The first time it was the Limsa Lominsans are encroaching on our lands and have broken the agreement, we're scared and we'll summon our father (because those nice robed fellows taught us how to summon our god). After that point the leadership is compromised entirely because they summoned Titan. Think of the Convocation of 13 deciding to sacrifice more people to Zodiark to keep fixing problems instead of trying other solutions. Yeah I'm not disputing any of these narrative facts, I'm just pointing out that I feel the game actually acknowledges the inherent tensions in The Primal Issue, particularly when the people telling you the manifestation of your God is fake and corruptive are also conveniently the hit squad for local hegemony and the agents of sciencebro "rationalism" whose culture practically drips contempt for indigenous spirituality. There's this whole historic tension where hegemonic cultures and religions will feign tolerance that mostly amounts to banning public observance or tangible ritual in favor of a behind-closed-doors place for other ways of life than their own that I think 14 is aware of. Like I said, it's kinda telling that even Alisaie's effort to be good-faith tolerant amounts to an inability to meet kobold faith on their own terms and instead tells them they respect kobold worship as long as kobold worship looks exactly like her own culture's view of a non-anthopomorphized natural process. (Not even talking "primal vs not" here, just she immediately sees kobold worship as "thanks to The Earth" and not "thanks to the Great Father.") Lord_Magmar posted:They taught Tiamat how to summon Bahamut and likely taught the triad species too, or the Triad Species learnt from Tiamat and her children. I think it's implied they were behind Shiva, too, whose head was already a mess due to trauma. Lord_Magmar posted:Come to think of it, Thordan seems to work similar to the Kami version of a Primal does. Where he’s formed from hundreds of years of believe and worship, a specific artefact completely drenched in Aether, and an individual claiming it for themselves. Could also be that because there's a fully-formed human sapience at the core and not a purely emergent, imagined character, there's more starting complexity to work with. Mr. Nice! posted:The Hindu pantheon is a big misleading, because Hinduism is arguable monotheistic. Every god is just an aspect of Brahman. This is a far more complicated topic than I think any of us can easily get into, except to say "yes but also no and maybe." Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:19
|
|
|
Jetrauben posted:This is a far more complicated topic than I think any of us can easily get into, except to say "yes but also no and maybe." Agreed. It's a fascinating topic because many of the gods are individuals but they are also definitely part of the greater whole as well.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:27
|
|
|
I'm not sure that kami are primals, although we've seen primals made in the image of a kami. I don't think we've seen a non-summoned kami other than Tsukumo, have we? They don't act like a primal, even if I remembered who that was, which I don't!
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:29
|
|
|
I think the big thing is if the Kobolds did not summon Titan nobody would have an issue with them worshipping Titan. In fact there was a very long period of peace between the Titan Worshipping Kobolds and Limsa Lominsa, the issue arose because Limsa broke the treaty and the Kobolds summoned Titan to protect themselves. But once they summoned Titan once, it is a known effect of tempering that you want to summon the Primal again and empower them further. At which point the question for Titan worship becomes are you tempered into it, and thus a potential threat seeking a way to summon him again, or are you just a Kobold who believes in the Great Father. Rand Brittain posted:I'm not sure that kami are primals, although we've seen primals made in the image of a kami. Susanoo is explicitly called a Primal by Lyse and Alisaie and they can’t fight him for fear of tempering. He’s not summoned at all by any person we just bring his three treasures together and the ambient aether and hundreds of years of worship do the rest, notably each treasure in of itself was absolutely full of aether stored over the centuries from worship too. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:29
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I'm not sure that kami are primals, although we've seen primals made in the image of a kami. And even Susano doesn't especially act like a Primal either, even though Lyse calls him out as one when he appears. I should pull up the second lorebook and see what it says about kami.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:31
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:I'm not sure that kami are primals, although we've seen primals made in the image of a kami. There's Tsukumo, and seemingly efficacious thaumaturgic (in the real life sense of the word, not in the class sense) rituals from the Kojin and others. Honestly there's a lot of stuff in 14 which MIGHT be genuine thaumaturgy and MIGHT be purely "scientific" processes, such as the chakra and how Erik claims it's all obviously merely scientific - but the funny thing is that the faux-scientific explanations are consistently more complicated, more flimsy, and less convincing or require more unicorns than just taking the culturally specific thaumaturgic or superstitious claims at their word. Like Alphinaud's overly complicated explanation of Where Pixies Come From when the far simpler answer is "pixies are the reincarnated souls of dead children" rather than this whole elaborate (and equally flimsy-sounding) treatise on the supposed nature of ghosts (that very few ghosts in game actually seem to model and which mostly seems to amount to sciencebros having a way to explain ghosts while claiming they're totally just non-supernatural phenomena.) EDIT: Even the pixies themselves kinda go back and forth on this in ways that are humorously overly convoluted when the actual narrative suggests the far simpler and more overtly supernatural explanation. It's appealing, because it does really emphasize that the Scions are not actually unbiased observers, they are culturally committed to a specific "rationalist" Sharlayan ethos which is ideologically invested in denying the existence of the divine and supernatural. Jetrauben fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:34
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:The Kami are also primals, but they're a "safer" form of Primal that builds up over centuries from Aether pooling inside the objects of worship. Susanoo manifests because you bring his three treasures together in front of a bunch of Red Kojin who believe in him, and the combined aether of those treasures is enough for him to manifest. But if he was left alive he'd temper the Red Kojin and start draining the land of Aether, just like any other Primal. Kami aren't primals. They're a completely different entity, like elementals or other spirits. This "safer" form of primal is just something you made up. The objects of their worship contain the prayers of the worshippers, which is the ingredient for primal creation, which allows for Susano's and Tsukiyomi's primal summonings. Orcs and Ostriches fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 4, 2021 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:35
|
|
|
Answer: the second lorebook has poo poo all to say about kami Susano's entry is more or less just a summary of the real world Japanese myths
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:39
|
|
|
Orcs and Ostriches posted:Kami aren't primals. They're a completely different entity, like elementals or other spirits. This "safer" form of primal is just something you made up. Fair enough, I might have been conflating the only Kami I’ve seen also being primals (one of whom was manifested by chance instead of any actual summoning ritual and used zero crystals) as a kind of blanket rule that the Kami are similar to Primals but more stable. Susano is still a really weird Primal who seems to prove that Primals can simply manifest on their own in the right circumstances, and if they do so they seem more stable than normal. But as I stated it also feels like a follow up thing tied into King Thordan being a primal born from a thousand years of faith and an incredibly aether dense power source besides crystals.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:40
|
|
|
Lord_Magmar posted:Fair enough, I might have been conflating the only Kami I’ve seen also being primals (one of whom was manifested by chance instead of any actual summoning ritual and used zero crystals) as a kind of blanket rule that the Kami are similar to Primals but more stable. I mean the Doylist answer is "we needed a trial fight and trial fights are almost always primal fights so we're going to call it a primal fight." The Watsonian answer is that Alisaie and Lyse, being products of the faux-rationalist Sharlayan tradition, assume Susanoo must be a primal because he looks like what they expect a primal to look like, and that's their bias talking rather than a certainty. It does kind of feel like Stormblood followed up Heavensward's narrative tack of trying to treat religion with a bit more nuance, given that for example the characters just kinda treat Xaela spirituality with respect and the narrative never really calls its "truthfulness" into question.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:43
|
|
|
Nothing weird about Susano. There were a bunch of aether-rich religious icons put in a room together with people that believe putting those relics together will summon Susano, god of partying hard. If they were thrown into a crate, which was then stored in the Indiana Jones warehouse, and then out popped Susano it'd be weird. But his worshippers are in the same room as the items of their myth.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:43
|
|
|
Orcs and Ostriches posted:Nothing weird about Susano. There were a bunch of aether-rich religious icons put in a room together with people that believe putting those relics together will summon Susano, god of partying hard. To be fair the crate thing sounds pretty rad and an extremely Susanoo move. Maybe he could organise his treasures to be shipped to the WoL for another party. Speaking of I’m a little sad they stopped doing the in universe narratives for Extreme trials, especially because at the very least Titania for Shadowbringers has an incredible slam dunk narrative for Extreme. Feo Ul wants to get a chance to play with their adorable sapling too.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:49
|
|
|
The thing is we know kami don't need worship or massive amounts of aether to manifest - Tsukomo is just a doll that Kabuto picked out at random and then turned out to have a kami in it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 20:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 14:35 |
|
|
Jetrauben posted:I mean the Doylist answer is "we needed a trial fight and trial fights are almost always primal fights so we're going to call it a primal fight." If the Xaela tried to summon Nhaama into the steppe, we'd very well be putting that truth to the test. And that's the difference. Most of the tribes we met early game are being goaded by Ascians and Imperial aggression and are fringe cults summoning bastardized images from their myth. This has an empirical and provable destructive result. At no point did anyone question the Ehcatl Nine's devotion to finding Ayatlan, or the Brotherhood of Ash's worship of Ifrit. There's nothing about Susano that exceeds the already loose definition of primal that the game establishes.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2021 21:03
|
|