Ancient lore from Korean liveletter Q&A

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

We intuited from Emet's rose-tinted view that the Ancients kinda reached a point and then they stopped. And were immortal. But aging, especially past a "prime" is a big point of mortality, and that's not even getting into the multiple myths about people who attained immortality without the eternal youth as a required secondary superpower and... it's not pretty. Did Ancients have to deal with osteoporosis? incontinence? Senility? And while Lahabrea isn't an OLD man, he IS grey, he has wrinkles, and he's still "young" enough to be in charge of Pandaemonium and hold a seat at the Convocation. While Venat may be retired, it also claims she's younger than him (and her white hair kinda masks if she were a woman of a certain age)...

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

My take is, eventually, after a very, very, very long time, the potency of their aether would begin to wane, and they would start to age in a manner that would affect their bodies and how they look, akin to mortals. I think that it would take an exceptional amount of time to approach the levels of aging that you describe, though, and mentally they would have been prepared, and willingly chosen to, return to the star long before that point, having likely achieved their life's purpose (whatsoever that may be) in the course of their already enormous lifespan.

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Sorry, this might be the fault of my translation, but to be clear, the quote is saying they can choose not to cosmetically (as well as meaningfully, I think?) age using creation magic in their modern era. The exact phrasing is "someone (using creation magic) may maintain their youth enough to be mistaken for a young person".

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Unless this “their outward appearance of aging is tied to their self image” implies that their physical bodies are malleable in ways beyond that of aging and could include gender and appearance. (And which point the Ancients are the Valar but of course they were)

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There's a quote from Themis in 6.2 where you're discussing the possibility of someone disguising themselves as Lahabrea where he says that the Ancients are able to "control their forms to a limited extent", so it's probably that.

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Originally Posted by Lurina

Sorry, this might be the fault of my translation, but to be clear, the quote is saying they can choose not to cosmetically (as well as possibly physically?) age using creation magic. The exact phrasing is "someone using (creation magic) may maintain their youth enough to be mistaken for a young person".

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Oh, no, that came through - I was referring to Ancients like Lahabrea, who (I'm assuming, anyway) opt not to put any such measures in place in the first place.

Kinda just sounds like what Thancred and Y'shtola supposedly do to keep themselves looking younger than they really are. Something something Y'shtola is a Christmas Cake.

I mean it's heavily implied fantasias, like everything in game (including freaking party finder now), has an in game, Canon explanation and literally exists. That people use magic to alter appearances seems logical to me.

Just wanted to share this - the NieR Reincarnation crossover event with Hades was recently brought back, but brought with it a new weapon description:

https://i.imgur.com/d8GIABy.jpg

Not enough, I think, to warrant its own post, so I figured it would work here for "recent Ancient lore." Not a lot of hard new info, but it seems to confirm Erich was killed in the Sundering and Lahabrea was essentially driven to madness trying to get him back. Emet made a conscious decision watching him to preserve his own mind.

Makes sense, as much as Lahabrea tried to hide his emotions, he truly loved Eric and would do anything for him. Takes him from a "mustache twirling villain for the sake of it" to "a grieving father gone insane from trying to get his son back."

Ouch. Damn. OK fine they got me to finally feel bad for Lahabreha.

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Originally Posted by Brinne

Just wanted to share this - the NieR Reincarnation crossover event with Hades was recently brought back, but brought with it a new weapon description:

https://i.imgur.com/d8GIABy.jpg

Not enough, I think, to warrant its own post, so I figured it would work here for "recent Ancient lore." Not a lot of hard new info, but it seems to confirm Erich was killed in the Sundering and Lahabrea was essentially driven to madness trying to get him back. Emet made a conscious decision watching him to preserve his own mind.

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See that sorta contradicts what Erichthonios said though. He deliberately didn't participate in the creation of Zodiark but rather passed back into the life stream despite the 14's directive. That means that Lahabrea I think was driven mad by having to pick between eventually sacrificing his son's soul to bring back everyone else (as was his duty), and the fact his son was lost forever.

Zelos is the MNK weapon from the Hades Ex fight.

The two spellcasters left after 'the battle that shattered the world' is reference to the Unsundered. So if the first of them is Lahabrea ('one whom has broken his own heart'), then the other must be Emet. Which fits, given the reference to 'passion burning it to ash', the same turn of phrase that Emet used to describe Lahabrea in Tales from the Shadows.

It looks like they are implying that Emet performed the same soul splitting act that Lahabrea had done to himself after being corrupted by Athena in the following line (does this count as 'sundering' your own soul?) It's a bit of a strange one, because it sounds like Emet used his soul crystal regularly to avoid losing himself. So I'm not really sure why this would be necessary.