(01-18-2017, 01:05 PM)Lohba Tia Wrote: 1. The spell didn't kill Papalymo because it took all his aether. Papalymo killed himself because the spell involves invoking a primal summoning and then committing suicide before it fully manifests.
This seems to be a rather slipshod way to justify the completely arbitrary appearance of the sealing spell and Tupsimati.
For one, it's objectively poor writing because it requires knowledge of info that's only established in the Final Coil of Bahamut, and at no point is Louisoix becoming Phoenix or the methodology of such ever established in a satisfactory way in the main story. At best, there's one, maybe two lines of dialogue mentioning it in the paragraphs of overly long text.
For two, the dialogue that occurs post-cutscene rather explicitly describes how the spell is fatal because it requires all of the caster's aether. Nowhere is it mentioned that Papalymo was attempting to invoke a Phoenix-like primal entity, nor is it mentioned that dying as a Primal and then releasing the aether back to the land like Louisoix is something that occurred. Papalymo having to become a primal to perform the sealing spell should be a big plot point, and yet it's mentioned nowhere, which either means no one actually knows how the sealing spell works, or more likely the sealing spell doesn't necessitate such a thing.
(01-18-2017, 01:05 PM)Lohba Tia Wrote: 2. The Rhalgr primal had used the aether from the dead bodies and Nidhogg's Eyes. He didn't pull from ambient aether. When something dies a violent death, its aether bursts out in a violent way and creates crystals. Mass deaths are just as usable for summoning a primal as crystals are.
That still doesn't explain why this Primal takes an arbitrarily long amount of time to form when pretty much every other primal summoning was more or less instantaneous as long as sufficient aether was present. Either there's enough aether for it to materialize, or there isn't.
If anything, this just presents more contradiction; why couldn't they utilize the aether released from the deaths? There are only two possibilities to this: Either the primal has already absorbed all of the aether from the deaths and the Eye (in which case there's literally no reason for it to not materialize unless there simply wasn't enough aether, which is frankly a hilarious miscalculation on the part of everyone present), or the primal hasn't absorbed the aether and said aether should be perfectly usable by Papalymo.
Either the aether is already absorbed by the primal, or it's ambient. Even if we go with the explanation that primals are like black holes and aether is like light and the aether was in the process of being absorbed and could not be drawn to any other location, that raises all sorts of questions that poke even more holes in how primals are summoned in the first place.
(01-18-2017, 01:05 PM)Lohba Tia Wrote: 3. This is a primal of the Twelve, with so much faith backing it and aether from both of Nidhogg's eyes that it would be vastly more powerful than King Thordan was. It could possibly be as bad as Bahamut, given that he's also the Destroyer.
It's repeated constantly that summoning a primal requires a specific prayer; faith by itself is insufficient, and faith and prayer are not the same thing. Louisoix, Thordan, and the Binding Coil story all thoroughly establish that there needs to be a prayer containing a wish or desire. This is a fairly specific requirement.
In Louisoix's case, it was the combatants of Carteneau praying to be saved from Bahamut.
Quote:Louisoix: This drifting energy responded to the prayers of those fighting below─and to my own desperate wish that the dying realm be saved─by infusing me with the power of a primal.
Louisoix: I became the immortal Phoenix, ancient symbol of rebirth.
In Thordan's case, it was a millennium of fervent prayer instilled in the Ishgardian people for salvation from the dragons.
Quote:King Thordan: By taking unto my flesh the soul of the legendary King Thordan, I am become a god—A god who knows not cessation, whose being is sustained by a millennium of fervent prayer and the Eye's nigh bottomless reservoir of aether.
The Binding Coil too, housed hundreds of Meracydian dragons held in stasis. The Allagans held the dragons in stasis so they would constantly pray for salvation, thus keeping Bahamut materialized to harvest energy from.
My whole point behind this is that the Rhalgr primal couldn't have possibly been powerful enough to necessitate a sealing spell if we consider that the only ones praying for Rhalgr's salvation (or alternatively, praying for Rhalgr to destroy their enemies) were the Ala Mhigans dead or dying on the Wall. And this is where the entire thing gets hazy and the whole "primal summoning" thing falls apart due to Square's lack of detail on the subject; were the Garleans' prayers included as well? Does the power of a primal depend on the amount of prayer or just the amount of aether?
(01-18-2017, 01:05 PM)Lohba Tia Wrote: 4. They didn't. Did you miss the part where they were all slaughtered? All the resistance managed was to kill some Garleans before the spiders came in.
And yet, those war machines are heavily implied to have been activated and released by Laurentius, which just pokes more holes in the issue.
A). How did the Resistance forces even breach the Wall in the first place?
If we assume that Laurentius and Yuyuhase helped the Resistance forces enter the Wall, then Garlemald's security is hilariously bad, because this means that the "take a uniform, infiltrate stronghold" trick worked on them twice on two major military installations (Castrum Centri and now the Wall). Garlemald has a habit of conscripting conquered peoples, but apparently doesn't check to make sure they're not saboteurs or infiltrators.
B). If the Garleans had sufficient force to defeat the rebels, then why did the rebels only lose when Laurentius activated the killdroids?
The Garleans were losing decisively before Laurentius activated his killdroids (as evidenced by everything Garlean being dead or destroyed before said droids were activated). The heavy implication is that the Resistance would have successfully taken the wall had said killdroids not been activated, which still says that Garlemald is laughably bad at their border defence.
C). Why was Laurentius put in charge of activating the killdroids in the first place?
If these killdroids were Garlean forces, why weren't they immediately activated when the wall is attacked and immediately become anti-resistance gore machines? If Laurentius and Yuyuhase deliberately delayed the activation of the killdroids, then why were two random grunts who were definitely not Garlean officers put in charge of the killdroids? And why are Garlean military installations just so damn easy to infiltrate?
At this point I'm basically complaining about nothing because really, who cares. Papalymo dying has no emotional weight at all considering he was basically totally absent throughout the entirety of Heavensward and he definitely wasn't relevant at all in ARR either except as Yda's sidekick, so whatever.
I hope Stormblood has better writing.
