Hydaelyn (character)

Hydaelyn , also referred to simply as the Crystal or the Mothercrystal due to her association with it as its keeper, is a central character in Final Fantasy XIV. She shares her name with the world where the game takes place, which she had created. Initially speaking through the Mothercrystal, she guides the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn on their quest against the Ascians' machinations. While believed to be a mother goddess, the Scions gradually learn of her true nature.
==History==
===Early life===
During the "Final Days" of the planet of Etheirys, the Convocation of Fourteen created the will of the star, Zodiark, through a succession of mass sacrifices, first to preserve and then to rebuild their world.
Venat, the only one to know the true cause of the Final Days as Meteion's doing, disapproved of the Convocation's resolve to offer the "lesser" lives they would develop to Zodiark to resurrect the ancients originally sacrificed in the primal's creation. Venat gained a following of like-minded ancients who offered themselves in sacrifice so Venat could become the core of an opposing primal. Reborn as Hydaelyn, and knowing that killing Zodiark would only renew the Final Days, she sealed her counterpart on the moon after sundering both Zodiark and the world itself into fourteen pieces, the Source and its thirteen reflections; an intentional flaw in the sundering meant to spare Emet-Selch also spared Elidibus and Lahabrea due to being nearby at the time. Observing her work from within the core of the Source, Hydaelyn commenced a series of contingency plans should her mission to prevent Zodiark's release and demise fail.
Some time after the sundering, Hydaelyn allowed Midgardsormr and the first brood sanctuary on the Source in exchange for a pact as war had destroyed the Dragonstar.
Hydaelyn worked throughout the ages to prevent Zodiark's restoration and the Final Days from being renewed. She entrusted Sharlayan to prepare for a mass evacuation while bestowing crystals on generations of Warriors of Light to enforce her will. However, she could not prevent the Ascians from causing calamities to gradually restore their world as well as Zodiark, her power weakening as each successive calamity restored some of Zodiark's.
===Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 and A Realm Reborn===
Hydaelyn awakened an adventurer's ability to use the Echo by conjuring a starshower as she had with many of her past champions. Hydaelyn later made herself known to this Warrior of Light before they received a vision of the Ascian Lahabrea. After the Warrior of Light gained the first Crystal of Light, Hydaelyn appeared to him or her in a vision with instructions to find the other crystals and banish the encroaching darkness from the world.
Hydaelyn would directly intervene for the first time during the Warrior's battles with the Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea, helping to strip the primals from the Ultima Weapon and then conjuring a shield to protect them from the Ultima Weapon's ultimate attack, Ultima. The Ultima Weapon was destroyed, but the adventurer was defeated in battle by Lahabrea. Hydaelyn intervened once more and bestowed the adventurer with as much strength as she could to help them overpower the Asican paragon. The adventurer and Lahabrea appeared before Hydaelyn when the latter was finally overwhelmed and purged from Thancred Waters' body.
The Warrior of Light glimpsed a dark crystal identical in shape to Hydaelyn in a vision. She no longer spoke with the Warrior of Light after Midgardsormr locked away the blessing of Light to test the Warrior's worth, enabling the Ascian Nabriales to attack the organization the Warrior was a prominent member of, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Later, while escaping through the Sil'dih Aqueducts, Minfilia Warde claimed to hear Hydaelyn and stayed behind.
===Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward===
Ysayle Dangoulain was another of Hydaelyn's chosen, and the Warrior of Light gradually regained the blessing of Light, with Hydaelyn warning them of a great darkness. Once the blessing was restored, Midgardsormr recognized the Warrior of Light as Hydaelyn's chosen.
Krile Maya Baldesion also possessed the Echo, and mentioned people with it were born around the times of Umbral Eras. She revealed Hydaelyn gifted Crystals of Light whose potency depended on the time Hydaelyn had created them prior to her waning strength. The crystal eye in Matoya's possession was one such Crystal of Light from an older era.
Hydaelyn had urged Minfilia to return to Y'shtola and Thancred Waters's side following their escape attempt. Minfilia was caught up in Y'shtola's Flow spell, which had brought her into the aetherial sea and to Hydaelyn herself. Minfilia had offered her body to the weakened Mothercrystal, and became the "Word of the Mother": her avatar. When the Warrior of Light entered the aetherial sea looking for Minfilia, Hydaelyn channeled herself through the Word to speak with them.
Hydaelyn used what little strength she had to reveal some of the events that had led to her fragmenting Zodiark and her attempt to prevent his restoration. She had failed to prevent the first seven Umbral Calamities, and urged the Warrior of Light to stop the Ascians before it was too late. She sent the Warrior back while Minfilia's form dissipated into aether.
===Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers===
When the Scions, accompanied by the ascian Emet-Selch delved into the Qitana Ravel on the First, they found ancient paintings within the caves. Emet-Selch revealed to them that the paintings depicted Hydaelyn's creation by a splinter group of ancients who had opposed Zodiark's creators, and their subsequent conflict and the sundering of the world, in the process revealing to them her and Zodiark's natures as primals. This would lead Ardbert to worry that those blessed with the Echo had possibly been tempered by Hydaelyn. The ascian Elidibus would later reveal that the Echo was not her gift, but a remnant power of ancients that lay dormant in every soul, since every soul on the Source and its thirteen shards was a soul of an ancient inhabitant of the original star, now sundered into fourteen reflections. The Scions concluded they may not fully know Hydaelyn's intentions despite their interaction with the possessed Minfilia, as the Warrior had not heard her original voice since regaining her blessing in Azys Lla.
When the Warrior of Light and the Scions sought to return the flow of aether to the Empty after it had stagnated following the Flood of Light, they did so by summoning elemental primals and slaying them to disperse their aether. To restore the element of ice, Ryne volunteered to act as Shiva's host to both replicate Ysayle's original summoning of the primal and in hopes of better controlling it, as ice is the element most closely aligned to the static aether of light and thus the most dangerous to disperse in the light-steeped environment. Ryne ultimately lost control to the primal, and in the ensuing battle changed her form to resemble the paintings of Hydaelyn she had seen in the Qitana Ravel as her alignment shifted dangerously towards light, nearly causing a new Flood of Light in the process.
After the Scions defeated lunar primals at the battle of Carteneau and learned that the newly appeared mysterious towers were siphoning aether from the land around them, Hydaelyn appeared to the Warrior of Light and spoke to them for the first time since they had regained her blessing. She told the Warrior that darkness was coming, and that the world's fate was in their hands.
===Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker===
As the Scions reached Sharlayan, Hydaelyn appeared before the Warrior of Light to explain her reasons and assure that their goals to prevent the Final Days aligned despite what the Warrior had learned of her while on the First. Due to her weakened state, Hydaelyn possessed Krile's body to first give the Warrior an Elpis flower in Labyrinthos, and later in the Garlean Empire to delay Fandaniel and Zenos Galvus from reaching Mare Lamentorum, the site of Zodiark's seal.
The Warrior would eventually learn the truth about Hydaelyn's blessing of Light. It is actually a spell of Venat's making, which she called as a traveler's ward that prevents the corruption of one's aether, explaining the why the Warrior was immune to primal influence.
After the Warrior traveled back to Hydaelyn's past and aided in the improvement of the Sharlayan aetherburner, the Scions used the Aitiascope to travel into the depths of the aetherial sea. They found Hydaelyn waiting for them within the Mothercrystal. She revealed that the evacuation to the moon was only one of her plans, the other being to defeat Meteion herself.
She addressed each Scion individually about their hardships in life, yet how they still kept going. With Alphinaud, she claimed he chased an impossible dream, yet in his determination had learned to rely on others and grow strong. She noted Alisaie's desire to help those who could not help themselves allowed her to grow strong. With Thancred she mentioned, that while there were those who had left his side, he still carried them in his heart, thus becoming strong. She pointed that despite the various times Urianger had been forced to make painful decisions, he persevered, willing to do it again for the greater good. She praised Y'shtola's desire to unearth the world's mysteries pushing her forward to seek out answers. She singled Estinien as a man with a burning hate in his heart, who no longer carried that hate, now instead carrying a heart for love. She commended G'raha of uniting people in a world on the brink of destruction. And as for her champion, the Warrior of Light, she declared that despite all of the challenges, dark moments and losses during their journey, their hope had never wavered. Seeing that every Scion had known despair, yet still kept their heads on high, she declared they had the power to silence the song of oblivion, but nevertheless would not allow the Scions to challenge Meteion unless they proved themselves worthy in combat.
Hydaelyn would unleash her remaining strength against the Scions, and following a failed attempt to sunder them, the battle ended with her defeat. Hydaelyn was mortally wounded, yet happy to see that with her defeat, mankind had the strength to overcome despair. Y'shtola theorized that she had sundered the world for mankind to be able to interact and resist dynamis, so that one day they would grow strong enough to challenge Meteion. Hydaelyn confirmed and admitted there was no kindness or justice in her decision. Bestowing the Warrior with both her remaining power and the Mothercrystal, she besought the Scions to show Meteion mankind's potential to carry on into the future, with the Warrior assuring they would do so. Hydaelyn tearfully declared her love for her children and faded away into the aether, never to reincarnate again.
In Ultima Thule, the Warrior used Azem's crystal and Hydaelyn's magick to summon Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus to their side, after all of their comrades had sacrificed themselves for the Warrior to continue on. By creating a bed of Elpis flowers, Meteion's hold over Ultima Thule was broken, allowing the Warrior to call them back to their side. Azem's crystal sparkled, and Hydaelyn's voice told them to ever walk in the Light.
Some time after averting the Final Days, Y'shtola gave Warrior the crystal of Light Hydaelyn used to track Meteion, thinking it might serve them well in the void of the Thirteenth. While there, the Warrior encountered a voidsent used by Zenos Galvus as his reaper avatar. The Light from the Crystal reacted to the voidsent and purged the excess Darkness within her, turning her into a more Hyur-like form. Y'shtola named her Zero, and speculated that Hydaelyn wanted the Warrior and Zero to meet.
==Characteristics==
===Appearance===
Hydaelyn conceals herself for most of the story and speaks through mediums like the Mothercrystal and Minfilia. The Mothercrystal is a gigantic mass of crystallized aether, shaped roughly like a teardrop with several smaller crystals orbiting around it. Following the warriors' return from the First, Hydaelyn appears as herself before them in the form of her original existence as Venat: a silver-haired woman with blue eyes and white robes. In her true form, she is an angelic version of her original form with silvery white skin. In battle, Hydaelyn wields a blue and white Paladin sword, the very same her previous life as Venat once wielded.
===Personality===
As befits the nature of her origin, Hydaelyn is kind and compassionate towards the world and its inhabitants. She maintains that aspect of her personality despite the horrors and atrocities of the world's denizens, influenced by the Ascians or not, which she was forced to bear witness over the years.
Her greatest desire is the wellbeing of the people of Etheirys. This is why she made the contingency plan of evacuating them should she judge mankind incapable of defeating the Meteia. Thus, she can be judgmental towards those seeking to prove their worth but would ultimately be proud that the Scions would exceed her expectations,
== Gameplay ==
Hydaelyn is faced as the second trial boss of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker in . She can also be faced in Extreme difficulty in .
==Musical themes==
Hydaelyn's theme is "Answers" and its variants. As revealed by Michael-Christopher Koji Fox, the lyrics extol Hydaelyn's ideology of how great hardships enable one to understand their true self. A variant titled "Your Answer" serves as her boss theme. The Endwalker ending theme "Flow" also plays in her final moments.
At PAX East, Michael-Christopher Koji Fox revealed that the song "Dragonsong" is also told from Hydaelyn's perspective of her struggle to understand why the Ishgardians and Dravanians spiral into a nigh unbreakable cycle of bloodshed in the Dragonsong War.
==Voice==
Hydaelyn is voiced by Masako Ikeda in Japanese. In Endwalker, she is voiced by Kikuko Inoue. She shares her first Japanese voice actress with the Cloud of Darkness in the Dissidia Final Fantasy series, as well as Miotsk Aufmachyt in Final Fantasy Type-0. She shares her second Japanese voice actress with Fabula in Final Fantasy Unlimited and Lust from another Square Enix project: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Hydaelyn is voiced by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn in English, credited as Lucy Todd. From Heavensward onwards, she is voiced by Joanna Roth. She shares her first English voice actress with Nora Estheim in Final Fantasy XIII and Rosso in Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-.
==Gallery==
FFXIV ARR Collector's Edition Box Art.jpg|Artwork by Yoshitaka Amano.
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker.jpg|Endwalker artwork by Yoshitaka Amano, depicting Hydaelyn and Zodiark.
pt-br:Hydaelyn (personagem)
Category:Characters in Final Fantasy XIV
Category:Deities
Category:Crystal
Category:Primals in Final Fantasy XIV