A (Highly Theoretical) Look at the Cycle of the Eras

[PArcher]

I can definitely see the Echo being used to tear the Eyes from Estinien after we defeat Nidhogg on the Steps

But...what then? Walk to Mordor and toss them in Mount Doom?

What if we learn that the only way to truly destroy Nidhogg is to devour his Eyes? We don't see Ratatoskr influencing the Ishgardians, so it may be a "safe" option.

There is the matter of the third party in this weird possession triangle. What happens to him if the Eye that traps him is consumed? Could his entrapment be transfered to that person?

[Enkidoh]

There is the matter of the third party in this weird possession triangle. What happens to him if the Eye that traps him is consumed? Could his entrapment be transfered to that person?

If you're referring to

Lahabrea, it was made clear that he is not contained within the Eye at all - Thordan consumed him completely, converting Lahabrea's soul as aether to sustain and empower his Primal form. He outright states this to the player at the Singularity Reactor, and in fact states it would be the way he could defeat any 'enemy of order' - whether Ascian, dragon or Primal.

Lahabrea is dead and gone, reduced to a tasty aetheric snack for a Primal, something that had been long foreshadowed way back in Through the Maelstrom where Leviathan consumed the Sahagin Elder's soul in exactly the same way. No, I hate to say it but it's time to face the truth, Lahabrea is gone for good and is not coming back.

[Morningstar1337]

If you're referring to

Lahabrea, it was made clear that he is not contained within the Eye at all - Thordan consumed him completely, converting Lahabrea's soul as aether to sustain and empower his Primal form. He outright states this to the player at the Singularity Reactor, and in fact states it would be the way he could defeat any 'enemy of order' - whether Ascian, dragon or Primal.

Lahabrea is dead and gone, reduced to a tasty aetheric snack for a Primal, something that had been long foreshadowed way back in Through the Maelstrom where Leviathan consumed the Sahagin Elder's soul in exactly the same way. No, I hate to say it but it's time to face the truth, Lahabrea is gone for good and is not coming back.

And here we thought

that the Auracite was the only way to kill an Ascian.

[PArcher]

If you're referring to

Lahabrea, it was made clear that he is not contained within the Eye at all - Thordan consumed him completely, converting Lahabrea's soul as aether to sustain and empower his Primal form. He outright states this to the player at the Singularity Reactor, and in fact states it would be the way he could defeat any 'enemy of order' - whether Ascian, dragon or Primal.

Lahabrea is dead and gone, reduced to a tasty aetheric snack for a Primal, something that had been long foreshadowed way back in Through the Maelstrom where Leviathan consumed the Sahagin Elder's soul in exactly the same way. No, I hate to say it but it's time to face the truth, Lahabrea is gone for good and is not coming back.

Do you think you

can point out what says explicitly that he is gone for good? Its like Gaius, until we have hard evidence saying he's dead...
Wait...what if that's who put on that mask at the end of 3.2...where've the darksteelfoil hats gone to?

But, my problem with nothing explicitly saying he's gone for good (journal says "executed", but I can't take that to be hard evidence that he was entirely consumed, just his "mortal" form was killed. If he was, I'd imagine the Eye would have been completely drained as well, but it wasn't. Far from it, really...), just was used as part of an aether battery, is that if any bit of him "survived" within the Eye, he could return. He has the Echo, he *is* immortal; you'd have to be completely sure you destroyed him to be sure he's gone.

[Frederick22]

Do you think you

can point out what says explicitly that he is gone for good? Its like Gaius, until we have hard evidence saying he's dead...
Wait...what if that's who put on that mask at the end of 3.2...where've the darksteelfoil hats gone to?

But, my problem with nothing explicitly saying he's gone for good (journal says "executed", but I can't take that to be hard evidence that he was entirely consumed, just his "mortal" form was killed. If he was, I'd imagine the Eye would have been completely drained as well, but it wasn't. Far from it, really...), just was used as part of an aether battery, is that if any bit of him "survived" within the Eye, he could return. He has the Echo, he *is* immortal; you'd have to be completely sure you destroyed him to be sure he's gone.

I know who he is

It's Ilberd

[Cilia]

This again? For the love of...

Not gonna spoiler tag because while the thread itself doesn't say spoilers, the very first post says 3.2 spoilers.

Lahabrea is, more than likely, gone and dead forever. If you'll remember Minfilia and Urianger's lecture on the exact nature of the Ascians' immortality, they have the Echo and use it to drift between bodies. In essence, they are able to retain consciousness even without a physical form. However, this isn't what affords them their vaunted immortality. No, that would be their Dark Crystals, which they use to flee upon defeat. If you look at the choker Thancred is wearing while possessed by Lahabrea, it contains a white crystal on it - Lahabrea's Dark Crystal, which shatters upon his defeat in the Praetorium. Igeyorhm tries to use the same type of Dark Crystal before we chuck the Auracite at her, giving us the opportunity to off her with the Eye.

Lahabrea, on the other hand, is now customarily smug that he will live to see another day and no longer seems intent on fleeing. Enter Pope Thordan, who goes super and then offs Lahabrea. At no point does he make an attempt to use his Dark Crystal and flee; he's too shocked and incredulous to believe he could have been outplayed. King Thordan then consumes his aether in the same manner that Leviathan consumed the Sahagin Elder, which is a method of killing someone with the Echo. Assuming the Eye absorbed it instead, King Thordan would almost certainly have isolated Lahabrea's aether and burned it first, not to mention it having much left at all after Ultimate End seems unlikely. Regardless, if someone's blasted into raw aether, they aren't going to pull themselves back together, Ascian or not, especially if they got eaten by a Primal.

That is what the Dark Crystals are for - to give the Ascians an exit strategy in case things go south and they are in a vulnerable position.

The Echo alone doesn't grant immortality. Just look at the Sahagin Elder or all of the Students of Baldesion (save Krile).

I know some people want Lahabrea to still be alive in there because they like him as a character or want to personally off him, but... he's gone. Until we get hints he isn't, given the story presents him as dead and he didn't use the Ascians' exit strategy (Dark Crystal), he is dead.

As for the masked figure in 3.2's ending, my money's on Ilberd. But that's just my best guess, going on zero information to make a deduction with.

[Teiren]

When we faced him at the Aery, he lost both of hos own eyes. The location of one is obvious, but his other eye wound up embedded onto a corpse that was later transmutated into Ascalon, and used by Thordian.

If both of Nidhoggs eyes were off his boy, how come he has an eye, you may ask? that is mainly because after his eyes were gouged out, he asked Hraesvelgr to lend (or give) him one of HIS eyes, and that became his lifeline ever since

Haha...oops. I remember this completely now. I somehow forgot at the time I posted, even though it was such an important, key part of the 3.0 story that became the most important part. I really wasn't thinking.

I know that gameplay and story don't always mingle. Otherwise late 3.x dungeon endbosses are objectively tougher to take down than some of the 2.x Primals, which makes no sense. Regardless Nidhogg was pitifully easy for a climax boss; his fight marks the end of the first act if Heavensward, but he's only a 4-man dungeon endboss and once the DPS learns to kill the Sable Prices goes down with little effort or fanfare. Yeah, he's got a one-shot like Primals, but other than that isn't all that challenging. True, you can't gauge story power based on gameplay difficulty... but he had only one borrowed eye (from Hraesvelgr) while having his own eye's power turned against him, inhibiting his performance considerably. This is observable in-game, as Nidhogg has a debuff for the entirety of the fight signifying his reduced performance.

Yeah, I see now I didn't really need to post all that after all. I was just trying to make The Aery fight sound much more interesting from a lore perspective than it was gameplay-wise, but you get it, cool.

So uh, I somehow completely forgot that he was using borrowed power himself, so that changes a lot. Regardless, I agree that it really just did not feel right for him to be a Light Party dungeon boss, regardless of how separated gameplay and story are required to be. Now I'm with you in that I'm not sure what that says about his real level of power. That should imply that his power really is as astronomical as history says, and maybe that's really, really obvious and I've just been thinking way too much into it. On the other hand, I figure Nidhogg's current form is essentially the same as the Shiva and Bahamut you mentioned, and I think that could mean stronger or weaker than the real thing. Normally it'd mean weaker because of the nature of being imitations, but couldn't it also mean potentially stronger because they'd no longer be bound by mortal limits?

And about Bahamut in Final Coil, according to what you and Anonymoose said: Yeesh, it sure...uh, sounds like a very Final Fantasy story alright. I mean, I love Final Fantasy stories and all, but FFXIV somehow felt more logical than the others until I read that about Final Coil just now, and that sounds like something out of the SNES games' final boss fights. Anyway yeah, just like it would be completely unfeasible to face the real Bahamut, it would also be unfeasible to face the real Nidhogg, yet this is the real one, yet...not, yet more real than Bahamut Prime. Yeah I don't know, but the fact it's an avatar will surely be the key somehow.

Also, this is all completely off-topic. Sorry, but oh well.

Btw, the Dark Crystals sound exactly like Warcraft's Liches and their Soulstones. Destroy the soulstone, and the Lich has no way to resurrect and so is gone forever next time he's killed. Sorry I keep bringing up Warcraft. I'm not sure if it's a touchy subject here, but there are a lot of parallels by nature of being fantasy RPGs!

[Fenral]

all of the Students of Baldesion (save Krile).

<YodaVoice>There is... another.</YodaVoice>

But back to the off-topic at hand, at this point I'm in the "Lahabrea survived somehow" camp because one, the distinctions between his exit and Igeyohrm's are lit up like neon signs, just like they were for Estinien doing a dumb and becoming Nidhogg to begin with; two, it annoys people; and three, he's freaking Lahabrea: even if his role changes to getting passed from power-source to power-source, you just can't keep a bad Ascian down.

[SuperFlorinjin]

This is more of a crack theory than anything serious, but I almost wonder if Nidhogg isn't the real Nidhogg, but a Shiva-style Primal that has managed to summon itself, rather than be summoned. Not quite sure how that would work, but the story line has shown over and over again that our knowledge of Primals is woefully incomplete.

Btw, the Dark Crystals sound exactly like Warcraft's Liches and their Soulstones. Destroy the soulstone, and the Lich has no way to resurrect and so is gone forever next time he's killed. Sorry I keep bringing up Warcraft. I'm not sure if it's a touchy subject here, but there are a lot of parallels by nature of being fantasy RPGs!

The idea of a jar that you keep your soul (or your heart in some fairy tales) is far older that Warcraft. They probably stole the idea from the same place I first ran into the idea, Dungeons and Dragons with a Lich's Phylactery.

[Laili]

Consuming Nidhogg's eyes raises another question for me; since we know it's inevitable 4.0 will bring a raised level cap (likely 70), will there be an in-universe explanation for us gaining more power? Last time it was our overcoming Middy's seal to gain greater power, will something else happen? Post yer wild speculation!