Plot and timeline inconsistencies regarding House Durendaire

[Iscah]

Hello, I posted about this previously in the Lore forum because I wasn't aware of this one. (I've tried to be a bit more concise than I was the first time.)

I've noticed that there seems to be inconsistent information about the Durendaire family across different sources and plotlines.

There are two ongoing plot threads involving family members: the 'recurring hints' in MSQ and sidequests that Carvallain is actually the long-lost son of the count, who vanished twenty years ago; and the Astrologian job quests involving guildmaster Jannequinard, varyingly referred to as third or second son of the count, which would make him Carvallain's younger brother either way.

However, these two plots seem to have quite different takes on the impact of Carvallain's absence, and the AST plotline also seems to indicate that Jannequinard is older than Carvallain's stated age of 34.

By the MSQ (and related information), the loss of the count's son is a major problem for the succession of the countship:

• standard dialogue from Carrilaut at the Observatorium: "Some twenty years past, the heir to House Durendaire was lost at sea. Accomplished he was and wise for one so young. 'Twas corsairs, they say. Had he lived, things might be very different indeed for the Observatorium─and for House Durendaire, as a matter of fact..."
• in the Stormblood MSQ 'Lies, Damn Lies, and Pirates', when Tataru brings it up, she says that the loss of the count's son means he "must look elsewhere for a successor...and the good Lord Jannequinard is one step closer to being the next in line..."
• this is also where it's stated in-game that Carvallain is 34 - or rather, was 14 when he ran away, according to Tataru
• The lorebook (p.157) says that "the count's firstborn son disappeared twenty years ago, and since then the line of succession has remained unclear. Whether the count will remarry and attempt to produce another heir, or turn to a rather less than ideal candidate, is an oft-discussed topic amongst the nobility."

However, the AST questline gives a different impression:

• in 'Ewer Right', Forlemort refers to Jannequinard as the count's "thir─ah, second son"
• in Heavensward 'Sharlayan Ascending', Jannequinard says he is "second in line to the countship" and that his family only cares about his older brother - in present tense, and with no mention of said brother being missing for the past twenty years. (In fact the rest of his dialogue suggests that the older brother has to be currently present, as the family's focus on him is why Janne hasn't been required to take on responsibility as an adult.)
• in Stormblood 'East Meets West', Janne is now describing himself as "third in line to [his] father's title".

So even within the one plot the situation is described inconsistently, but it seems there's an unmentioned middle brother who is considered to be 'the' choice to inherit the title of count. (If I've picked up a passing reference correctly, I think this might be Portelaine at the Observatorium? If so he seems competent, is apparently in charge of one of House Durendaire's most important locations, and is representing their interests to other parties, eg. negotiating with Highwind Skyways in the Ixal beast tribe questline.)

In any case, if there's a second brother who is still around and considered a suitable candidate, then it shouldn't be a complete crisis of succession because the eldest is missing and the third is unsuitable.


On the other issue of character ages, the Astrologian questline seems to indicate that Jannequinard is, at very least, in his late thirties:

• when you first join the guild, he says he has "been a student of the astromantic arts for more than thirty summers"
• the journal entry for this first quest describes him as "the aged astrologian"
• the plot revolves heavily around the events of "nearly twenty years ago", and specifically some years prior to the evacuation of the Sharlayan colony, when he returned to Ishgard after studying there for some time - while his age is not stated, he seems to be a young adult at this point, and his one close friend (who I would assume to be around the same age) is married and about to have a child.

All this doesn't add up with him being younger than Carvallain - and yet he's 32 according to the lorebook, which would make him only 13 at the time of the backstory events.

Meanwhile the lorebook gives a different version of events in his profile on p.243 (putting him in Sharlayan at the time of the evacuation, thus aged 17), perhaps because someone picked up on the age inconsistency and tried to correct it, but it's contradicted several other details of the in-game version - including the age of the other main character Leveva, born at the time of the backstory events, and stated to be "twenty summers" old in the Lv63 AST quest. (Meanwhile the lorebook says she is 16, and also incorrectly states that she was a few years old when her father died - when the quest story is clear that he died at around the same time she was born.)


Overall while I love the way these stories *should* tie together eventually, and I look forward to the eventual resolution, the details are all contradictory and it doesn't seem possible to put the timeline together in a way that makes sense.

I would love to see it clarified and any corrections made before further story adds to the confusion.






On an unrelated note, but perhaps a question that can be answered by anyone who can resolve the rest of this: is Aurelle at Camp Dragonhead supposed to be a Haillenarte family member? She seems to be representing House Haillenarte at the outpost, and has similar hair and eye colour to the other family members, plus the lorebook refers to Laniaitte as the "eldest daughter" but we haven't met any others.
Also, "Lady Ninne of House Fortemps" at Dragonhead (as noted in the Lv37 MSQ 'The Talk of Coerthas') - I assume she's not meant to be a relative of the main family, or she would have been acknowledged at some point beyond a passing mention?

[Iscah]

Adding onto this because I'm now replaying Heavensward with a second character, and found some additional NPC dialogue that I couldn't find in the text archive I used to read back through the scripts.

This is from the "what do you do here?" NPC at the astrologians' guild:


It's not counted as part of the quest script, as you can talk to him prior to signing up for the guild, and at some later point it gets replaced with different dialogue - so I had a vague memory of it but couldn't find it and thought I'd misremembered.

It establishes from the start that Jannequinard is "older than [Guillestet's] father", and Guillestet is a young adult whose father must be at least twenty or so years older - so again, making Jannequinard aged around 40 at the least. It certainly doesn't add up with him being younger than 34.

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As I wrote in more detail in my original post on the Lore forum, my initial impression was that with Jannequinard established as being middle-aged, his father the count must have been an older man like his uncle Forlemort - and thus concluded that the middle-aged count seen briefly at the end of Heavensward (Carvallain's father) must be Jannequinard's older brother.

Is it possible that there's either been some mistranslation, or miscommunication between different writers, and this is in fact the intended arrangement of the family?

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A very belated edit to add: If something needs to be rewritten to make the story fit together, I do hope you'll keep the original version of the AST quests with Jannequinard being middle-aged. I like that concept of him - a different sort of character to those we normally work with - and the idea that he's spent all these years somewhat 'adrift', and has finally started to move on. Also building this relationship with Leveva that in other circumstances might have begun years ago: if Leveva's father had lived, they might be something like uncle and niece. That was my impression when all that became clear in the later parts of Heavensward's story - a shift in their relationship from teacher and student to reclaiming that relationship. A theme of 'lost time' and a second chance. It just doesn't work as well, to me at least, if it was altered to make him younger - moving their ages closer together, no longer a generation apart, changes the dynamic.