A Sudden Insight Into Why Ascians Are Called Ascians

Hey everyone!

I might be late but it hit me in the shower where the name Ascians may have come from. In Greek, a prefix of A can signify "not."

From this train of thought, you can break down Ascians to A-scians. In other words, "not scians." Looking at this sideways, I took this a little further, "not scions."

So we have the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and their opposites, the "Not-Scions" i.e. "Ascians."

What do you think?

I admit I also thought this at one point. Then I found out that the term Ascian existed since 1.0, while the scions came in 2.0. Apparently the word means "shadowless" according to Koji Fox, as a reference to the fact that they aren't meant to have shadows which was unfortunately technologically unfeasible to render, but I don't know which language that is.

I thought it was a fancy way of saying Ancient

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MrThinker

I admit I also thought this at one point. Then I found out that the term Ascian existed since 1.0, while the scions came in 2.0. Apparently the word means "shadowless" according to Koji Fox, as a reference to the fact that they aren't meant to have shadows which was unfortunately technologically unfeasible to render, but I don't know which language that is.

---

Goggling "Ascian Language of Origin" returns this (direct quote)-

"The word "Ascian"
It means 'Tropic-dweller', and it came into English by way of medieval Latin as an adaptation of ancient Greek ἄσκιος, literally 'without a shadow'. In the Tropics, the sun is exactly overhead at noon twice a year, and at that time a person standing straight up will cast no shadow."

Did so because I was curious too, and now we've both learned something!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Laisera

Goggling "Ascian Language of Origin" returns this (direct quote)-

"The word "Ascian"
It means 'Tropic-dweller', and it came into English by way of medieval Latin as an adaptation of ancient Greek ἄσκιος, literally 'without a shadow'. In the Tropics, the sun is exactly overhead at noon twice a year, and at that time a person standing straight up will cast no shadow."

Did so because I was curious too, and now we've both learned something!

---

Oh wow! I learned something too!

In addition to the definition of Ascian, let's remember they existed in 1.0, when the Scions didn't exist, so I doubt it has any link to it.

Ascian means "without shadow", which is also the name of their theme song from ARR. They're called that because in 1.0 they literally didn't have shadows, but that aspect was dropped from ARR on.