What Is Aether In FFXIV?

If you’ve played Final Fantasy 14 for any length of time, you’ve almost certainly encountered the term Aether being thrown around as what feels like a plot device to explain just about everything that happens. Primal on a rampage, must be Aether. Someone has mysterious powers, that’ll be Aether at work. You may be wondering just exactly what Aether is.

The explanation isn’t too complicated, really, with a little suspension of disbelief, but there are a lot of concepts in Final Fantasy 14 connected to Aether that require you to at least have a basic understanding. This article will help you understand not only what Aether is, but how it interacts with some of the most important elements of the world of Final Fantasy 14.

This article contains information that could be considered spoilers. If you would prefer to discover this information naturally while playing Final Fantasy XIV, it is all available and presented to you throughout the course of the game’s main story quest.

What Is Aether?

Put simply, Aether is raw magic and the energy of all living things, flowing through people, plants, and animals. When something living dies, Aether stops passing through it, and a portion of their Aether returns to the world.

If you’ve played Final Fantasy 7 and find this explanation familiar, you’re right to notice that this is very similar to the idea of the Lifestream. In fact, the term Lifestream is even used in Final Fantasy 14 to describe the flow of Aether throughout the world.

Eating food transfers some of the remaining Aether in the plant or animal matter being consumed, like magical calories in a way, helping to sustain the creature who eats it.

How Does Magic Use Aether?

The practice of magic is learning to manipulate Aether. Even though different types of magic users get different results, they all begin with the same step of manipulating Aether. A destructive Black Mage and a healing White Mage get different results, but both manipulate Aether.

In this way, even animals and monsters in Final Fantasy 14 use magic. Whenever you see a creature breathing fire or using some other amazing ability, it often isn’t because it’s biologically able to do so, but because it’s performing a basic version of aetherial manipulation.

Magically enchanted items such as staves or rods can be used to strengthen or enhance magic, but aren’t necessary for magic to function or to manipulate the flow of Aether.

Are The Elements Part Of Aether?

Scholars have divided the energy of Aether into six primary elements. Namely Earth, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water and Wind. The belief is that areas with higher concentrations of Aether of a certain element will present with that element — areas with a high concentration of Ice Aether will be chilly and snow-covered, for example.

This applies to living beings as well as locations. Creatures high in Wind Aether will be able to fly, while creatures who burrow might show a higher concentration of Earth Aether.

The other way in which Aether is categorized is with two opposing natures — Astral and Umbral. Astral is often viewed as a form of positive energy, while Umbral is negative. Alternatively, they can be seen as active or passive, respectively.

What Are Crystals?

In Final Fantasy 14, the word crystals doesn’t just refer to shiny rocks, but to dense concentrations of Aether given physical form. They do happen to form as shiny rocks, but they’re like giant magical batteries.

Don’t eat crystals, kids. In the real world, it’s pretty bad for you, and in Final Fantasy 14’s world, it will throw your Aetherial energies out of balance and almost certainly result in death.

The Aether that pools together to form crystals becomes static, no longer flowing through the Lifestream. That makes it possible to collect crystals and use them to power incredible feats of magic.

What Is The Mothercrystal?

The Mothercrystal could be considered the heart of the world, the soul of Hydaelyn itself. It resides at the heart of the planet and is a guiding force throughout the main story quest of Final Fantasy 14.

What Is The Aetherial Realm?

The Aetherial Realm is parallel to the physical world, known as the Corporeal Realm. It could be considered the spirit world, but is more accurately where Aetherial energy goes to join the flow of the Lifestream.

When a new living creature comes to life, energy moves from the Aetherial Realm to the Corporeal Realm. When that life dies, the Aether transfers back to the Aetherial Realm.

Teleportation magic uses the Aetherial Realm. Aetherytes, large crystal formations, are used as anchor points. A being is able to transfer themselves into the Aetherial Realm without dissolving back into the Lifestream by having an attuned Aetheryte to pull them back into the Corporeal Realm. Teleporting without an Aetheryte is considered highly dangerous and unreliable.

What Are Primals?

Primals are extremely important to Final Fantasy 14, both to the plot and as centrepieces of gameplay, providing epic boss battles at key moments in the story. Their true nature, however, is misunderstood for much of the beginning of the game.

While many of the various cultures of Hydaelyn believe they are using crystals to generate the magical power necessary to summon their gods, the truth is a little more complicated than that.

If you’re new to Final Fantasy 14, this is your last chance to avoid major spoilers.

The truth is that summoning a Primal doesn’t summon a god, but instead constructs the summoners’ notion of that entity out of Aether. This is shown to extend beyond mythology, enabling people to make Primals of ideas or historical figures.

There’s no guarantee that a Primal will behave the way the original version of them did, since they’re formed out of what people believe them to be. An example of this is the historical Shiva compared to the Primal version summoned by Ysayle Dangoulain.

Primals can then corrupt the Aether of other living beings, a practice called Tempering, which overwhelms free will and makes the victim unerringly loyal to the Primal itself.

If a Primal is defeated they can easily be summoned again, and it has been shown that repeated summoning like this can be damaging to a region’s Aether.

Can Aether Run Out?

If a person runs out of Aether, it almost invariably results in their death. Aether is, in a manner of speaking, life itself. A person can have their Aetherial flow cut off, or consume all of their Aether in an act of magic.

It is possible for Aether itself, the Lifestream of the planet, to run dry. Primals consume Aether and are a very real threat to the longevity of the planet. Not only do they cause chaos and destruction through their actions, but their very existence itself is a danger.