Sage is a Greek doctor using the humoral theory

This is just a "The more you know" thread.
While playing with the German translation i noticed the Addersgall gauge was actually called "Humor" so i pondered on why that is, Sage isn't exactly funny after all. Then my GF suggested it might have to do with the theory of four humors and that was exactly it!

The concept of "humors" (chemical systems regulating human behavior) may have origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine though it was not systemized until ancient Greek thinkers.

The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are:
-black bile (Greek: μέλαινα χολή, melaina chole)
-yellow bile (Greek: ξανθη χολή, xanthe chole)
-phlegm (Greek: φλέγμα, phlegma)
-blood (Greek: αἷμα, haima).

The proper blending and balance of the four humors was known as "eukrasia".

Ben Jonson wrote humor plays, where types were based on their humoral "complexion". Methods of treatment like bloodletting, emetics and purges were aimed at expelling a surplus of a humor.

Complexion is also the German name for the Addersting gauge. This humor connection would've fly over my head if it was called Addersgal and Addersting like in the JP and ENG text so for once German TL actually added some flavor.
Feel free to read up more on Wikipedia.

That explains why so many SGE abilities look water themed. Humors are fluids.

The other abilities are also Greek however less inspired.
- Diagnosis is self explanatory
- Prognosis is a "Forecast"
- Kardia & Kardion both mean Heart. You could say that your and your Tanks hearts are connected <3
- Egeiro means Rise Maybe one day we'll have a ronkan healer with a rez called La Hee
- Physis means Nature
- Soretia means Salvation
- Zoe means Life/living
- Pepsis means Digestion
- Toxicon means Arrow
- Rhizomata means Roots
- Holos means whole/entire
- Krasis means mixing
- Pneuma means Vital Breath
- Techne makre (LB3) means "long art", Art as in technique. It comes from a fameous aphorism of hippocrates

I liked diving into this rabbit hole and i feel better about using Greek inspired glam on my SGE now. Shoutout to Rewd for the corrections and contributions.

Holos is an adjective in its masculine form that means whole, entire etc. (from which derive words like holistic or holism).

A more accurate translation for Pneuma in this context would be "vital breath", a term used by pre-Socratic philosophers ("spirit" belongs to a later interpretation, originating from stoicism). This also connects Sage to medicine once again (see: pneumology).

Krasis (you mentioned Kardia twice) in this context means "mixing".

There are also other skills you didn't mention like:

- Rhizomata meaning "roots", as in origins (see: Empedocles's cosmogonic theory)
- Techne makre means "long art" (art meaning technique) which comes from a famous aphorism from Hippocrates (the latin and shortened version - ars longa, vita brevis - is what people would be more familiar with). Life is too short to fully grasp broad knowledge and master own's technique (medicine, for example).

Thanks for the corrections! I updated the post.
Not quite sure what skill you're referring to with Techne Makre though.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

Thanks for the corrections! I updated the post.
Not quite sure what skill you're referring to with Techne Makre though.

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Techne Makre is their LB3.

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Originally Posted by RinaShinomiya

Thanks for the corrections! I updated the post.
Not quite sure what skill you're referring to with Techne Makre though.

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Techne Makre is LB3. I forgot to mention it.

To add to my previous post:
"Halt" is not another meaning of "holos" (ὅλος) but actually a different word. The "h" in the english transliteration comes from the diacritic mark called rough breathing (that backwards comma), which indicates an aspirated sound. The word you were referring to is χωλός. χ is transliterated as "ch" (kerachole, ixochole etc. from the greek word for bile, as you wrote in the first post).

Regarding Toxicon:
Toxic, toxin etc. all come from the word "toxos" which means bow. Toxikos is an adjective that means "regarding the bow/archery" and toxicon can refer to "toxicon pharmakon" which indicates the poison arrows were smeared with. I think it's interesting that
a) Toxicon spells are instant (like archer/bard's skills) unlike Dosis spells
b) Dosis spells charge the nouliths to fire off a lasery attack, but when you are using Toxicon spells you are instead directly "throwing" the nouliths at the enemy, like they were poisonous arrows (more or less, of course, but I find the animations to be different in a stark way).

Nearly forgot dosis which is just... dose

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Originally Posted by rewd

Techne Makre is LB3. I forgot to mention it.

To add to my previous post:
"Halt" is not another meaning of "holos" (ὅλος) but actually a different word. The "h" in the english transliteration comes from the diacritic mark called rough breathing (that backwards comma), which indicates an aspirated sound. The word you were referring to is χωλός. χ is transliterated as "ch" (kerachole, ixochole etc. from the greek word for bile, as you wrote in the first post).

Regarding Toxicon:
Toxic, toxin etc. all come from the word "toxos" which means bow. Toxikos is an adjective that means "regarding the bow/archery" and toxicon can refer to "toxicon pharmakon" which indicates the poison arrows were smeared with. I think it's interesting that
a) Toxicon spells are instant (like archer/bard's skills) unlike Dosis spells
b) Dosis spells charge the nouliths to fire off a lasery attack, but when you are using Toxicon spells you are instead directly "throwing" the nouliths at the enemy, like they were poisonous arrows (more or less, of course, but I find the animations to be different in a stark way).

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I see. Completely forgot LB3 have unique names and animations for some reason. Added the stuff to the post. Thank you!

Excellent post, I had no idea the rabbit hole went this deep!

Yup yup I can't remember where I found it but there was a really cool reddit thread that broke down the backstory and possible lore behind each and every SGE skill.

EDIT: Found it https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ined_optional/

Yep! The 4 humors were the basis of SGE medicine while combining aetherology and sorcery. The naming sense and toolkit gameplay makes sense intuitively too. Sage applying Haima with 5 stacks of shields is basically saying shields = aetheric blood infusion. Each time the shields pop, a new shield takes its place. This is similar to how each time the heart pumps blood, after the blood does its job, new blood will get pumped again to keep you alive. The remaining blood that circulates the body (unconsumed stacks of shields) will then carry its healing force/ nutrients and nuture the rest of the body (healing effect).

Physis translates to growth & nature. Nature refers to all things in the Universe at the time. The meaning implies upward improvement (which makes sense why Physis II applies an healing action buff that strengthens all healing effects).

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

Yep! The 4 humors were the basis of SGE medicine while combining aetherology and sorcery. The naming sense and toolkit gameplay makes sense intuitively too. Sage applying Haima with 5 stacks of shields is basically saying shields = aetheric blood infusion. Each time the shields pop, a new shield takes its place. This is similar to how each time the heart pumps blood, after the blood does its job, new blood will get pumped again to keep you alive. The remaining blood that circulates the body (unconsumed stacks of shields) will then carry its healing force/ nutrients and nuture the rest of the body (healing effect).

Physis translates to growth & nature. Nature refers to all things in the Universe at the time. The meaning implies upward improvement (which makes sense why Physis II applies an healing action buff that strengthens all healing effects).

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As an irl doctor, that is one hell of an allusion... lol.
I cannot say it makes intuitive sense to me, but whatever gets people invested.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

As an irl doctor, that is one hell of an allusion... lol.
I cannot say it makes intuitive sense to me, but whatever gets people invested.

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I mean, modern doctors today aren't using old philosophies that SGE is, nor do they use aetherology or sorcery, so you can't take it as a 1 to 1 comparison. You gotta supplement stuff from lore for it to click.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

I mean, modern doctors today aren't using old philosophies that SGE is, nor do they use aetherology or sorcery, so you can't take it as a 1 to 1 comparison. You gotta supplement stuff from lore for it to click.

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Oh yeah not saying we do. It's just that the analogy had me tilting my head. An infusion of blood is the last thing I would associate with a barrier, since it is more of a reactive measure... But yes, as you said, not 1 to 1, so I'm not gonna nitpick any further.

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Originally Posted by Hazama999

Oh yeah not saying we do. It's just that the analogy had me tilting my head. An infusion of blood is the last thing I would associate with a barrier, since it is more of a reactive measure... But yes, as you said, not 1 to 1, so I'm not gonna nitpick any further.

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The way I see their analogy is that the infusion of blood is not to be seen as a reactive measure at a given moment, but instead as a way to stabilize the body from future hiccups. That's how I perceived it.