here we go, i attended urianger's lecture and took notes, #ffxiv tag
this is WITHOUT ANY SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS, no twists/how characters in that setting would see it, but instead me writing down the "as you already know..." bits, plus a little of my own speculation. since this is taught as part of a basic education, this is something that our characters are very likely to know, but we ourselves aren't so likely to know, lol
i should probably note
what the dark and light triangle connections mean is entirely my speculation, we weren't fuckin' told
we then debated this for like an hour in the guild discord trying to see if different theories fit and my dudes, i got fucking nothing. or at least i got nothing with my basic knowledge of western elemental humoral theory. that wet/dry guess is exceedingly A Guess, don't take it as gospel lol
@wigglytuffitout I think comparing it to Western elemental structures is a red herring and the overlayed triangles are a direct expression of the concepts of Yin and Yang and as such should be viewed through those philosophies rather than attempting to put a triangular peg in a square hole
@InspectorCaracal i can justify the humoral elements a *bit* since humoral system of medicine is explicitly mentioned elsewhere in the world - leechings prescribed for someone acting too exciteable, etc. - and i've been picking the brain of someone who knows eastern systems better than me, and apparently the yin/yang split also... doesn't quite fit those black/white relations either
which is a bit of a comfort 'cos if it was yin/yang staring me in the face so obviously LOL
@InspectorCaracal yep the image is canonical! you get a lecture about it. there's also a bit of a twist to it in the newest xpack but i don't want to spoil people. the twist is a bit irrelevant anyway to almost all roleplay characters honestly, it's a "but in this other world we're now in, things work differently, like this..." type situation.
@InspectorCaracal tbh i'm starting to become more and more suspicious that the purpose of the black-white designs are
"we thought it was pretty looking. now calm down"
LOL
@wigglytuffitout oh it's even better, just let me look up the type weaknesses before i start in on this picture
@InspectorCaracal oh lord are we now bringing pokemon into this because if so that's kind of amazing
astral/umbral megaevolutions when, gamefreak
welcome to one of my areas of amateur expertise, Bullshit Anime Occultism!
Here we have an excellent example of the common elements of occultism in anime. First, the central image is clearly one of the favorites, the Tree. This can be Yggdrasil, the Sephirot, or sometimes Both At Once.
Beneath it is a star, representing ~cosmology~ - in this case, a six-pointed star, because there are six "real" elements - elements that are a part of the world (i.e. the World Tree).
@wigglytuffitout These six elements are then arranged into two triangles, because Star of David. The two triangles are thus colored Black and White, because the yin/yang visual symbology is inescapable.
Additionally, each triangle is literally the inversion of the other, so of course they colored them inverted dark/light as well. The positions are inverted, the elements are inverted. Fire is the opposing element to Water, so Water is on the inverted/opposing corner.
@wigglytuffitout Then we get to Astral vs Umbral. You might think that those are connected to the triangles. They are, in fact, the 7th and 8th elements, but they are the elements that are Not Of The World, so they are not part of the Star of the Tree.
The Astral element is Light, linked to the heavens, the celestial bodies (sun and moon and stars), et cetera. Thus it is at the top of the page.
The Umbral element is Dark, linked to the Hell, the underworld, etc. etc. Thus, bottom of the page.
@wigglytuffitout The central ring is a representation of the sphere of the world and that is why a) the Tree is at the center, b) the Sun and Moon are at the edge, and c) the Astral and Umbral zones are entirely outside the circle.
@InspectorCaracal astral and umbral is actually the kinda point of The Twist - but the expansion pack is called Shadowbringers so, well. you can probably guess
i think the ffxiv point of view of all this shit is actually explicitly laid out in uhhh fuck... one of the lore books. https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/871k3r/lorebook_sunday_basic_aetherology/ is a bit of someone summarizing, i don't have it myself or the pdf lol
@wigglytuffitout My speculation is based on two things:
1) watching a lot of anime
2) a lot of concepts in FFXIV are built directly on FFXI, and there are 8 elements in FFXI, Earth Air Fire Water Ice Lightning Dark Light
@wigglytuffitout anyway I feel pretty confident in "the two triangles are black and white because they are visually and elementally inversions of each other"
@InspectorCaracal lmao honestly it's probably just that, the motherfuckers
nice design element, not actually meaningful 😂
@wigglytuffitout oh it's meaningful, it just isnt an extra piece of meaning
@wigglytuffitout anyway i cant really go deeper because i dont know the core game lore enough but obv theres a connection between umbral magic and the crystals. >.> they are right there
@InspectorCaracal the triangles definitely don't line up with astral/umbral - astral is just top and umbral bottom in the chart, so there's always one not-quite-right. usually links in such diagrams mean some sort of relation (wind plus hot makes fire) which is why i am so puzzled by it, and ffxiv is intricate enough in details that i'm...
so suspicious they're Up To Something
@wigglytuffitout i do also want to point out that the top three of the six internal elements are all like gas/plasma while the bottom three are tangible matter
@wigglytuffitout also the star beneath the tree representing thee aether and crystal magic and whatever at the root of the Tree of Life is consistent, I just didnt think it was very relevant to the positioning of the elements
@wigglytuffitout i'm assuming that the image itself is canonical? because I would like to speculate, as elemental relations are Exactly My Bullshit