Revelations from Patch 5.3

[Rosenstrauch]

All that stuff about Lahabrea is why I wish the developers had taken a mulligan on him instead of committing so heavily to him being gone. Speaking of which, how many of the Ascians are actually left by now?

By my reckoning it's three, but I'm not entirely sure on that count.

Nabriales is the first to die on screen, with Emmerololth being revealed to have died during the disappearance of the Isle of Val once the Eureka storyline was underway. The latter, from what I've heard, resulted in a minor plot hole in that the dead Ascian made an appearance after the disappearance of the Isle of Val. This could be explained away by the position being refilled, but we've not seen them since and none of the other positions have been refilled (as far as we know).

Then there's Igeyorhm and Lahabrea, followed by Mitron and Loghrif off-screen on the First. Gaius is revealed to have killed two offscreen as well once he reappears in Stormblood, judging by his collection. Then we kill Emet-Selch and, finally, Elidibus.

This leaves Fandaniel, and any two of the following: Pashtarot, Altima, Halmarut, and Deudalaphon. My money is on Pashtarot and Altima being the survivors.

[MirronTulaxia]

Honestly I wouldn't count most of those. On-screen deaths or nothing else. And even that may not be true with the shoebill theory floating around. Given we know it takes a lot of effort to kill off the red masks most of those probably wouldn't have worked anyways.

[YianKutku]

All that stuff about Lahabrea is why I wish the developers had taken a mulligan on him instead of committing so heavily to him being gone. Speaking of which, how many of the Ascians are actually left by now?

By my reckoning it's three, but I'm not entirely sure on that count.

Nabriales is the first to die on screen, with Emmerololth being revealed to have died during the disappearance of the Isle of Val once the Eureka storyline was underway. The latter, from what I've heard, resulted in a minor plot hole in that the dead Ascian made an appearance after the disappearance of the Isle of Val. This could be explained away by the position being refilled, but we've not seen them since and none of the other positions have been refilled (as far as we know).

Then there's Igeyorhm and Lahabrea, followed by Mitron and Loghrif off-screen on the First. Gaius is revealed to have killed two offscreen as well once he reappears in Stormblood, judging by his collection. Then we kill Emet-Selch and, finally, Elidibus.

This leaves Fandaniel, and any two of the following: Pashtarot, Altima, Halmarut, and Deudalaphon. My money is on Pashtarot and Altima being the survivors.

Moose did mention this in the OP, too: "the Ascian Overlord math in cutscenes has to be in TATTERS." And I totally agree, because of everything mentioned there and here.

Also Nabriales was supposed to be the first to die a True Death (which in the sundered Ascians' case, probably means "we have to take the trouble to raise another shard"), given that was apparently the "first time" it happened according to Elidibus in 2.5, and a serious point of consideration to be careful of mortals. Which loses a lot of its impact if Emmerololth was the first instead, and got another shard raised up; Nabriales's death would then be "yet another" Ascian Overlord slain, rather than "the first".

The writing could be twisted to speculate that maybe Nabriales had used up all his shard-lives and now there is none left of the original Nabriales, but that has no supporting evidence other than "it helps make the other contradictions come a little closer to making sense".

So I do agree that it's all the result of an attempt to tell a long overarching story that ran into the problems of real life and scheduling changing too many details.

[Rosenstrauch]

Oh, jeez, I just went and read that bit in the OP.

I didn't even realize there was an erroneous headcount—or rather, that there were more red masks from the start and that the current headcount of 13 was a retcon. And even with that retcon, given how many of named Ascians died off screen, it seems to me that they greatly overestimated how much space they'd have to write such a large organization.

It actually reminds me a bit of Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts—which had a similar problem, iirc.

[Starkbeaumont]

all I want is an explanation for Lahabrea and Elidibus being the only unsundered Ascians

[Rannie]

You mean Emet, Elidibus and Lahabrea.

Elidibus was explained by him becoming a primal..

Emet can be explained as Hades and from his Tales from the Shadow, being close to the life stream...(complete speculation on my part) the best I can guess with Lahabrea is mad scientist. (Again lightning flashes and he goes all Dr Frankenstein on us)

[Starkbeaumont]

You mean Emet, Elidibus and Lahabrea.

Elidibus was explained by him becoming a primal..

Emet can be explained as Hades and from his Tales from the Shadow, being close to the life stream...(compeltely speculation) the best I can guess with Lahabrea is mad scientist. (Again lightning flashes and he goes all Dr Frankenstein on us)

but Elidibus

did not become a primal. the one we knew since 2.1 IS a primal. He is no real Ascian. the original one was sacrificed for Zodiark's summoning. it is questionable if "our" Elidibus ever witnessed Zodiark in action.

[Rannie]

but Elidibus

did not become a primal. the one we knew since 2.1 IS a primal. He is no real Ascian. the original one was sacrificed for Zodiark's summoning. it is questionable if "our" Elidibus ever witnessed Zodiark in action.

In the English version of of the cutscene in amaurot

Y'shtola clearly states that she knows he sacrificed himself to become the heart of Zodiak but and I quote, "How you became separated from Him isn't clear. But if you are a fragment of His being, it stands to reason that the world's salvation drives you." And he acknowledges it.

Meaning

he wasn't just created from nothing but was created as himself but in a primal form and seeing as how he has the original memories Elidibus as well. Granted those memories have been eroding over time due to him trying to fulfill his objective as a primal but is most likely still Elidibus the true one or a small part. However, they others still considered him unsundered most likely as they did not realize exactly what happened to him if he can even be considered aundered due to being said primal.

[dynus]

My take away about the Nier Raids is that Yoko Taro is basically the Ikuhara Kunihiko of video games. I did my research, and fond that pretty much sums him up, except his works aren't quite as gay as Ikuhara's. So I'll probably like them.

That being said. it's just there. No real connection to the world of the First. Yet. I'm hoping the final raid will tell us why the Androids are hanging out on the first.

[Vyrerus]

Haurchefant came back

While it's true that seemingly the souls of Haurchefant and Ysayle came back to help the WoL and Alphinaud(not Aymeric, he was a witness not a participant) pull the eyes out of Estinien, that's something I chock up to the writers wanting a symmetrical capstone moment, rather than adhering strictly to the in world soul lore, which is already wishy-washy at best. Up to that point we're already shown that despite our first blade of aether not killing Lahabrea, merely banishing him from his host body, that we could use something very much like it to straight up kill an Ascian, and we do kill one when we, with the aid of Moenbryda, kill Nabriales.

The reason Ser Zephirin uses a javelin of light in his attempt to kill the WoL, which Haurchefant thwarts, is to put us down, since the WoL is effectively immortal unless their body is completely destroyed due to The Echo. I guess we could say the writers have never 100% decided whether or not it means soul death, but I'd always considered the Ascian soul destruction context to mean that when blades of light are in play, souls die.

You need a huge amount of aether to pull off killing the soul.

Yeah, and it's been a theme of every MSQ except for Stormblood's. In ARR it's gathering the Crystals of Light, and then later using an aetheric siphon/Tupsimati to do the same thing. In Heavensward it's done again with an eye of Nidhogg. Twice. The sheer amount of aether is never actually specified, and in the earlier showings a sunder Ascian took the same method as an unsundered one, though Lahabrea's soul was directly absorbed into Thordan. For Emet-selch we got a stakes raised version of what's been the case several times before, with yet another completely different happenstance for the death of his soul, being he had a hole punched through it, rather than total oblivion/absorption. Ser Zephirin throws a javelin of pure aether, and it kills Haurchefant, body and soul. Him showing up in the Nidhogg death scene is fan service, imo.

Ascians are immortal because they've already "died".

This is not the case. Ascians are immortal because that is a trait of beings who have perfected control over The Echo. See Zenos, the Sahagin Elder, the WoDs in HW, and even the player controlled WoL. They only need Crystals of Darkness(or Light) to retreat to the rift, or another body to possess, prior to the Blessing of Light being sealed, as demonstrated by Nabriales. It's one of those old plot points that was hastily done away with, and sort of never referenced ever again.

As for a line of dialogue that tells us that their souls are destroyed, it comes from Urianger, the second time the scions convene after defeating Iceheart as Shiva. The line is, "'Tis our belief that an Ascian soul may be permanently undone if smitten by a sufficiently concentrated burst of pure aether."

As for Elidibus

The Exarch first hit him with that huge wave of aether, eroding his soul down to its constituent aether, which is then absorbed by the tower. He is permanently gone, because his soul was undone first, and then absorbed, much like Lahabrea.