OK since I was asked: a brief summary of “angels” in FFXIV and headcanons thereof
Outside of Ishgard’s high-fantasy-Catholic deal (and Sephirot and Sophia, but that’s a different post probably) there isn’t a lot of dipping into Judeo-Christian belief and aesthetic in Eorzea. However, we do get “angels” occasionally, and I thought the specific places they appeared was kind of…interesting
(DISCLAIMER: obviously #opinion and not canon, i may have overlooked things, i’m probably overthinking it, etc)
Historically speaking, angels have been thought to look like all kinds of things, usually really WEIRD things – I mean, there’s a reason the first line spoken by most angels in the Bible is often “be not afraid”. however, when you say ‘angel’, there’s one look that usually springs to mind first – a beautiful human being with wings, the classic “angel” look as it were that you can see in everything from christmas cards to renaissance frescoes
there are only a couple of places that the classic “angel” crops up in FFXIV: Lost City of Amdapor (Hard Mode), and…Void Ark
The final boss of Lost City HM is Kuribu, an animated statue created by the Amdapori in the form of an armored woman with wings. Interestingly, she also calls on “putti” adds – putti being a sort of baby-with-wings kind of decorative angel, the kind of thing people often erroneously call a cherub. The putti monsters that show up in the Kuribu fight are definitely NOT babies with wings, though – they’re VOIDSENT. Vodoriga to be precise. statues of these beings can be seen all through the interior of Lost City HM. Vodoriga, along with gargoyles, are voidsent associated with dreams and dreaming – and of course, the central structure of Lost City NM is the “Sanctum of Dreams”, where the Diabolos, the Lord of Nightmares, lies imprisoned
The other place you see classically angelic beings is in a trash encounter in Void Ark – where armored, winged demons are summoned by none other than Diabolos himself. The Bloodguard adds are masculine but otherwise bear a distinct resemblence to Kuribu, albeit a lot more evil
Mhach apparently summoned Diabolos to destroy Amdapor, but obviously Mhach had command of a great many powerful voidsent (plus whatever the fuck Ozma is) Why Diabolos? Well, given that Amdapor is covered in statues of vodoriga, has a major building called the Sanctum of Dreams, and carves guardian statues in the image of the Lord of Nightmares’s footsoldiers…
my theory is that the Amdapori were already in contact with the void, without realizing it. maybe their white mages had dream visions – and maybe even spent days in sacred trances inside their holy sanctum. Maybe they encountered luminous, winged beings in their visions and carved their enchanted statues in their likeness. Because they must be sacred creatures, of course – why else would they appear to the holiest people of all?
Mhach might have sent Diabolos to Amdapor, but the Amdapori themselves had already flung the door wide open, far too convinced of their own purity to ever realize it lead directly into the abyss
black-omen-born 