It's been a while since I posted anything here, but I wanted to converse amongst people who are head deep into the lore like me and my friends to get some feedback on a theory we have currently about what role Shiva will play in the story and what sort of implications that might have on the lore.
In the new trailer we get our first glimpse at Shiva, however for whatever reason they cut off the top of her head like we weren't going to know who it was. The big thing here is that despite it obviously being Shiva, she is not in Primal form but in Elezen form instead. This has some major implications of its own. Why is Shiva disguised as an Elezen?
So essentially my theory is this, Shiva has taken the form of an Elezen woman in order to infiltrate Ishgard and has since positioned herself next to the Archbishop in order to manipulate/temper him and control the politics of Ishgard and further fan the flames of war. I believe that the Dragons are not actually as bad as we believe (not the sentient ones at least) and that perhaps their real intent is to battle Shiva, not Ishgard or the rest of Eorzea. Shiva has been around all this time, hiding in plain sight essentially and the reason no one has seen her yet is because Ishgard is her beast tribe, in essence.
Now this begs the question however, how would Shiva get so close to the Archbishop, or even into Ishgard, even disguised as an Elezen woman? Well with a mix of tempering and deception of course! Ishgardians are the biggest religious fanatics in the setting, they worship Halone almost as fervently as the beast tribes worship their Primals, which would make even more sense if Shiva had convinced them she was Halone!
Think about it for a moment, in lore Halone is depicted as a woman wielding a great shield and sword. Her aspect is Ice. Shiva is the Ice Primal seen in recent footage wielding a sword and shield. There is further evidence to support this theory if we consider that during the main scenario the refugees at Little Ala Mhigo attempt (and may have succeeded) to summon Rhalgr with the help of the Ascians. For all we know this would have summoned another Primal who would have just claimed to be Rhalgr, which is likely the case of Shiva.
In addition, while we are currently lead to believe Dragons (and Dravania in general) are bad and evil, remember that the Guardian of Silver Tears Lake was an enormous Dragon worshipped as a God, and when Garlemald originally attempted to invade Eorzea it was the Dragons who fought and died to protect it.
In the new trailer we get our first glimpse at Shiva, however for whatever reason they cut off the top of her head like we weren't going to know who it was. The big thing here is that despite it obviously being Shiva, she is not in Primal form but in Elezen form instead. This has some major implications of its own. Why is Shiva disguised as an Elezen?
So essentially my theory is this, Shiva has taken the form of an Elezen woman in order to infiltrate Ishgard and has since positioned herself next to the Archbishop in order to manipulate/temper him and control the politics of Ishgard and further fan the flames of war. I believe that the Dragons are not actually as bad as we believe (not the sentient ones at least) and that perhaps their real intent is to battle Shiva, not Ishgard or the rest of Eorzea. Shiva has been around all this time, hiding in plain sight essentially and the reason no one has seen her yet is because Ishgard is her beast tribe, in essence.
Now this begs the question however, how would Shiva get so close to the Archbishop, or even into Ishgard, even disguised as an Elezen woman? Well with a mix of tempering and deception of course! Ishgardians are the biggest religious fanatics in the setting, they worship Halone almost as fervently as the beast tribes worship their Primals, which would make even more sense if Shiva had convinced them she was Halone!
Think about it for a moment, in lore Halone is depicted as a woman wielding a great shield and sword. Her aspect is Ice. Shiva is the Ice Primal seen in recent footage wielding a sword and shield. There is further evidence to support this theory if we consider that during the main scenario the refugees at Little Ala Mhigo attempt (and may have succeeded) to summon Rhalgr with the help of the Ascians. For all we know this would have summoned another Primal who would have just claimed to be Rhalgr, which is likely the case of Shiva.
In addition, while we are currently lead to believe Dragons (and Dravania in general) are bad and evil, remember that the Guardian of Silver Tears Lake was an enormous Dragon worshipped as a God, and when Garlemald originally attempted to invade Eorzea it was the Dragons who fought and died to protect it.
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