The magics of Final Fantasy XIV are, allegedly, part of a well defined and well historied system. This video contains (some of) my thoughts on the matter.
Disclaimer: FinalFantasy XIV, as well as all its related publications and merchandise, are owned by Square Enix.
Primary Sources:
Video Games-
FinalFantasy XIV Online
Publications-
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume I
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume II
Encyclopedia Eorzea Volume III
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:58 Thaumaturge/Black Mage
02:02 Conjurer/White Mage
02:52 Archanist
03:20 Scholar
03:44 Summoner
04:07 Blue Mage
04:18 Astrologian
04:38 Red Mage
04:57 Sage
05:06 Pictomancer
05:17 Outro
#ffxiv #lore #magic
source
I feel like this is a bit of an oversimplification of the lore of the system itself. But it is a rant I suppose. Hello from a fellow XIV lore creator!
You completely ignored the fact that Umbral is not the stilling, but the constant motion of magic… Play Shadowbringers again. Urianger flat out tells you the magic chart from the source is wrong.
Okay yeah no, you really gloss over a lot of things here lol.
It should be noted, that the black and white triagles in the chart are not indicators of whether the elements are astrally or umbrally aligned. Those are purely there to show the rock-paper-scissors relationship the elements have with defeating one another. If you do Eureka, you'll get familiar with it quickly.
Rather, the elements at the top of the chart are Astral(darknessactive) elements, the elements at the bottom are umbral(lightpassive) elements.
Foul and Polyglot are unaspected but Astrally aligned. Unaspected just means that its neutral aether that isn't aligned with the six elements, but it still likely has a polarity towards darkness. This already has precedent. Bahamut was an unaspected but astrally-aligned(darkness) calamity, as stated by the encyclopedia eorzia.
Black Mages and White mages not having Voidsent/Golems likely has everything to do with job design and nothing to do with the actual capabilities of the two jobs in lore. Also, Square Enix hates pet jobs, because they're janky as hell in the current engine, and they've been slowly removing and minimizing pet functionality in the current pet jobs each expansion.
Summoning Bahamut is explained in the job quests for summoner. You don't have to defeat the primal, you simply have to be exposed to their residual aether. In the case of Bahamut, we went to a location heavily influenced by Bahamut in the Mor Dhona region. If you've played the Binding Coils of Bahamut raid, you'll also realize that the same area was heavily suffused with Phoenix's aether as well. I heavily recommend playing through it, it gives Alisae a character arc in ARR and has one of the most badass cutscenes in the game. As for why we don't have Leviathan, Shiva, and Ramuh? Current SMN players want to know that too. :
Red Magic is different from White and Black magic fundamentally. Red Magic uses the reservoir of aether within the caster to cast spells. Black and White mages suck in ambient aether from the world and fire it out as spells. Almost like how primals work. Remember your point about white mages never using water? Well, the War of the Magi, a war between Black and White mages, was the cause of the Sixth Umbral Calamity. Basically nobody was hurling water spells around, which tilted the balance of the world towards water, setting it up for the water calamity, which is why black and white mages became hated and why the Red Mage, a mage that did not screw up the balance of the world's aether, was created. Conjurers and Thaumaturges notably pull only from their own aetherial reservoirs, which is why they're weaker but safer.
Astrologian pulls power from the stars, which are gates? I forget half the lore for them.
Sage is actually closer to ritual magic than science. In the earliest forms of sage magic, nouliths were stationary stones positioned around the target of the magic. They created a boundary around the target area and provided succor for those within. This evolved into the nouliths that sages use today. You'll notice that the nouliths often surround and spin around their targets as a holdover from the older form of magic.
I enjoyed the video because it was supposed to be a humorous take and doesn't pretend to be exhaustive in the least. People in the comments need to chillax and enjoy a short-form video while we're all stuck waiting for the game to come back.
Sincerely,
Another Um-Actually FFXIV Player
Your point about why BLM's Umbral Ice restores MP threw me down a rabbit hole around the question, why does Umbral magic have a healing effect? I came up with an entire theory which I think actually explains it really well. So here's my crackpot theory if you want it (WALL OF TEXT WARNING):
In short, injuries and fatigue in FF14 work very differently than in real life. In FF14 your physical body is one solid mass of aether, and your body is just an expression of the current state of your aether. For example, the "color of your soul" (the color of your aether) usually changes very slowly over time and is what determines your personality, while the shape of it can change quickly and determines what your physical body looks like. The other core factors are the quantity and density of your aether, which determines how much energy or force it takes to change you (both harming and healing).
So with that in mind we can say that ALL forms of injury, healing, fatigue, and recovery are about how stable your aether is. You are healthy when your aether is in a resting state, where it is free to move but not fluctuating too much. And when you get hurt, it's because your aether is struggling to maintain balance and is at risk of collapsing (leading to death) or permanently changing shape/color (leading to physical or mental disfigurement). Healing magic works by stabilizing the shape of your aether, and the very act of stabilizing returns your body to neutral. Compare this to real life, where injuries first require stabilizing and then require growth to actually repair the damage. This explains how in Eorzea the simple act of resting after battle cures all wounds, and why permanent injuries are still possible.
Bringing it back to the Black Mage question…what is happening when mages expend and recover MP? The truth is that spellcasting (spending MP) is essentially flexing your aether like a muscle, and doing so makes your aether gradually more unstable as you get more tired. Our bodies naturally keep us from overexerting ourselves, but it is possible to surpass this. Louisoix and Papalymo know this all too well…
So anyway, what Black Mages figured out is how to "heal" this aetheric fatigue by quickly restabilizing your own aether, allowing you to flex it again to keep casting. And since stability is Umbral, they use Umbral Ice to cure fatigue, which we see as "recovering mana". TADA, MYSTERY SOLVED!
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Fun fact, we actually see how this goes wrong in the BLM job quests, where the baddies use black magic incorrectly and throw their own aether out of balance, leading to death. Also, if the theory is correct, this means that Black Magic could theoretically be used to restore other people's mana. Which would be super cool!
Final Bonus Fact: Why did White Mages never figure out this technique if it's technically a form of healing? Because Black Mages figured it out first and they're racist against BLMs. Case closed.
Just because I'll never stop being salty about it, would be cool to hear about a lot of the cool flashy aoes we don't have anymore or how Astrologian used to actually be able to fill in for both sides. Used to be a compliment to white mage with its strong shields in Nocturnal Sect, or a compliment to scholars with strong heals and regens in Diurnal Sect. Also can't forgot how the arcanist tree used to have Shadow Flair which was a unique looking aoe and was very cool to look at. I could go on about what I miss. Dragoons used to have a spammable aoe jump that also looked unique, and didn't lock you into place for a second like their main jumps. Bards used to have what was possibly the most satisfying spammable aoe in the game with Wide Volley, and even had an aoe fire arrow they could place on the ground that stuck around for awhile. There's so much that's changed or has been removed. Some of it is good, but there's a lot 2.0 players like myself REALLY miss…
I'd love to watch you look over FFXI's magic system and just watch your head spin
Oof, I learned the elemental wheel from FFXI… basically Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire. I thought they knocked it out of the park because fire wind lightning are the “light” elements because they are more etherial. You can’t “hold” fire, wind or lightning easily. Water ice and earth are the “dark” elements and you can “hold” those easily. The two tros made it easier for a BLM to put the right dots on there as any elemental wheel conflict results in overwrite of no effect.
In FFXI some Job Abilities had aspects, though it’s unclear how much this affected things (if at all). Steal has a green icon, so it’s wind, does that mean it’s more successful on Windsday (yes there were days of the week for elements)? How about while wielding a Wind Staff? Stealing from earth-aligned mobs?
Then you have JAs like berserk that are easy to verify. Red icon so it’s fire which is aligned with STR and attack so that makes sense. Does Firesday, fire weather or a fire staff help it increase your attack or lower defense? No, so why?
I don’t know, just feels like SE designs intricate systems, then they collide with reality and player demands (fun first, making sense second is not a bad game design philosophy if moderated…) so they change them after of drop them altogether.