next job and race speculation.

[Lusavari]

A while ago, I had read something that implied the area that Garlemald rests has little to no aether, resulting in extreme weather severity and shifts. For all that we know, the true reason they can't use magic is because of the area they call home and never learned to harness it. That, or the magic they possess is simply too different (as it is, we have seen Ascians wield magic both familiar and unfamiliar to our heroes). Least we forget, Garleans didn't develop magitek so much as they stole knowledge of it in lost information of Allag, even while magitek is the combination of magic and machinery. Curiously, the Garleans lacked magitek until Solus (1513 of the sixth astral era) and discovery of ceruleum (which is just draining the aether from a crystal - unaspected crystals are supposedly the product of crystals that have had their aether drained).

The Burn is supposed to be devoid of aether, yet we can spellcast, as well as saw those Ascian Hunters casting there as well. There's still a few patches for story to develop that could potentially address this (or the expansion itself if Garleans were to be one of the two races) to still render this plausible. As it were, I'd have never predicted Garleans to recreate and place the echo into others as it were, which is what we've seen here in Stormblood. Or able to extract our souls from our body.

That's fair, but there are 2 holes to poke :P The first is that in their national story, they were persecuted and forced to leave other lands, and settled where they did because they had too, meaning they came from more aether rich locations originally. The second is that even in aether soaked areas, known Garleans (Cid, Nero, Lucia, Gaius, Nael) are incapable of magic. The only way they have magic in their army at all is through conquering other groups.

This is a common misconception. The lore book states that they can use magic - it's simply rare.

That would most likely refer to the rare individual rather than a rare choice, meaning lorewise, it wouldn't make sense to suddenly have thousands of black mages running about, draining the land of aether (as Black and White mages in mass are almost as bad as primals).

[JunseiKei]

That's fair, but there are 2 holes to poke :P The first is that in their national story, they were persecuted and forced to leave other lands, and settled where they did because they had too, meaning they came from more aether rich locations originally. The second is that even in aether soaked areas, known Garleans (Cid, Nero, Lucia, Gaius, Nael) are incapable of magic. The only way they have magic in their army at all is through conquering other groups.

To this, I'd say [almost] every human on Earth is perfectly capable of reading and writing. However, they usually have to be taught the skills. Moreover, if you think you are completely incapable, you might not seek that knowledge in the first place. Or, as I said, the magic is wholly different (black magic and white magic being discovered in the fifth astral age - thousands of years after Allag fell and summoning was already lost). The lore has already been set up as to why we don't have X class with a simple 'the knowledge was lost, but survived with individuals in possible remote locations.'

All I am saying is I am not discounting Garleans because the knowledge we have is just limited enough to be explained away easily in a couple of story expansions. If it doesn't, it doesn't. If it does, well w00t, we get to play half baked Ascians.