Ascian Masks on Gaius’s belt: Fandaniel and….?

[Cleretic]

5.0 they're just like, "So hey btw Logrif died with Mitron" as if they're trying to get rid of more Ascians faster, we get Emet's alleged mask from his final form.
Eden eventually gives up Mitron and Loghrif's masks.

And sorry for double-posting, but this is also oversimplified; while we learned about Loghrif and Mitron in 5.0, we actually learned about their deaths before then. Ardbert tells us he killed Ascians in 3.4, right after Xelphatol, we just never learned any names--or in fact, any numbers beyond 'a plurality'. Only in 5.0 did we learn it was specifically Loghrif and Mitron--and even then, in 5.4 we learned Ardbert is so bad at killing Ascians that his attempt to kill Mitron was an apocalyptic backfire.

So if we count them, Heavensward is actually the expansion with the most stated Ascian kills, at four (Loghrif, Mitron, Igeyorhm, Lahabrea) compared to Shadowbringers' three (Emet-Selch, Elidibus, Mitron again) And then both ARR and Stormblood at one (Nabriales and Emmerololth), because apparently we only get to really put the boot to one apocalyptic supremacist regime at a time.

[kaynide]

Re: Emmerololth: I know the gist of it, but specifically how was she killed? (I did not do Eureka).

I'm of the understanding she was sucked into the lifestream and...what's the word.. torn asunder?

I mean, if she just got sucked into the lifestream, is it really impossible to pull her out? Emet-Selch pulled Y'shtola from there like it was no big deal.

Of course, speculation, but we also have to consider the narrator (in this case Galuf) is wrong in what his assumptions. Yeah, it is easier to just go with "She's dead!" and that honestly is likely the case..certainly for her corporeal body anyway...but I also wouldn't be shocked if both she and Lahabrea are still alive in some manner.

..also, isn't Loghrif Gaia, just Gaia has decided to live her current life/suppress her Ascian memories? If Gaia were to die wouldn't she just reincarnate/give another ascian a chance to reawaken her? I mean, we saw Mitron was able to awaken her at least somewhat, so it's not like only the 3 Unsundered are capable of "reawakening" a sundered ascian.

[Cleretic]

Stuff about Emmerololth and Loghrif

First of all (since I have less to say about it): Yes, Gaia was Loghrif. What seemed to happen is that she died like, say, Nabriales did, and her soul was reincarnated nearly a century later on the First--where Mitron messed with her memories constantly until we find her at Eden. Yes, she will probably reincarnate if she dies, but she wouldn't have Loghrif's memories when she does, and the notion of an Ascian giving them to her... well, I feel like only Mitron really wanted to (and possibly may have been the only one close enough to without the crystal), and he's dead, too. The soul crystals with their memories are presumed lost after Elidibus took them into the Crystal Tower, so even if an Ascian comes back, they probably don't have access to them.

As for Emmerololth, the actual wording used by Galuf's notes:

Having given the order to evacuate, we invoked a powerful magick to drown the entire isle within the Lifestream. Henceforth we combined our strength to defeat the Ascian known as Emmerololth, consigning her essence to be scattered within that raging torrent of aether, never again to reform.

So basically, they fought in the Lifestream, and after being defeated, her soul was ripped apart by the surroundings. So she was probably in even worse shape than Y'shtola, who was at least mostly healthy when she went in; it wasn't that she's lost in there, it's that she's in pieces in there. If you even could put that back together, she probably went through the worst experience imaginable before then.

But I started thinking about this, and realized something. If they want to wrap up her story, they'll probably do it in Sharlayan (again, where her killers came from). And they'll probably give her a big fancy boss fight. So what sort of fancy boss fight on the level of Hades or Eden could you give to a character whose entire story so far is 'woman who died really painfully'?

...and then I remembered that one of the few enemies we know is in Endwalker has a signature spell literally called 'Pain'.

I think Anima might be Emmerololth, still in agony after being brought back from the most painful death possible.

[Anonymoose]

... Do the sundered Ascians know they can be "re-raised", as such?

One of Fandaniel's biggest grievances is that Elidibus treated him like an expendable mook who needed to know his role and shut his mouth. But it looked like we also sent 13 of the 14 stones into oblivion with Elidibus, so we should be safe. If I remember right only the Originals could even work them anyway. Though Mitron seems to be trying to work around it.

For all we know Lahabrea is inside Zenos, or his aether was simply released.

This was my theory in early 4.0; that it was actually Lahabrea inside of Zenos and Elidibus was going to come at us sideways from somewhere we didn't expect. Then it was as easy as it looked and they made Emet-Selch a third Original out of nowhere. That seemed like such a massive change to me, especially just outing him as Solus zos Galvus all along. That they went through all that trouble seemed to be to avoid Lahabrea not being dead, so I'm not sure what to think.

We don't actually have the best idea of relative timeframe

I base it off of when the surge of energy is detected and the Isle of Val is confirmed gone (both before 2.3). I suspect that Val really was destroyed by Ultima until Eureka came along. Eureka is full of oddities that seem to be trying to tie off plot hooks that weren't attached to anything else. I lean towards Emmerololth is dead, too, though, because otherwise it opens a lot of awkward doors. However, this dev. team is very into addition/alteration-retconning unless a subtraction-retcon is completely unavoidable so they might throw her back in the mix for a hot second, for all I know, lol. At this point it's so weird I wish they would subtraction retcon the old Ascian scenes. Just get in there with a scalpel and make it work.

[Bright-Flower]

I don't think Lahabreah survived what Thordan did to him with the eye, but I do suspect the Pandaemonium raid will involve him. It seems strange to me that they included Lahabrea as one of the unsundered if they DIDN'T have some plan to use him again. Unless they just really wanted there to be three unsundered and not just Emet and Elidibus, it felt like a weird thing to have pointed out, and kind of after the fact inflates Laha's importance as I didn't really get the feeling in 2.X/3.0 that he was more important than the other red masked ascians, just the one we dealt with the most.

Plus, there was a cutscene in 2.X somewhere that seemed to suggest that he had his own plan aside from the Zodiark thing, where he says things are moving according to his will and Elidibus corrects him to Zodiark's will. Though this might have just been something they discarded after developing the ascians more behind the scenes or maybe I just read too much into that moment.

I think he 'died' in 3.0 but while Pandaemonium is going to be more original than many prior 8 man raids, that doesn't mean it won't take some cues from past FF games. And if they go with the FF 2 angle, the emperor dying, taking over hell and coming back, they could do something like that with Lahabrea somehow coming back from the dead for one last hurrah in that raid series.

[JeanneOrnitier]

I have to agree I think Lahabrea is dead-dead. We know from the Pandemonium artwork that he'll be involved there but that doesn't mean he's going to be alive during that involvement.

The simplest explanation for the Emmerololth discrepancy is 2.3's was another shard that got raised to the position after the previous one died at Val. "Then what about Mitroin/Loghrif/other dead sundereds?" We haven't gotten an Ascian group shot since then so we don't know that they weren't also replaced.

[kaynide]

@Cleretic:

I’m not convinced those soul crystals are the only ones, or that they would have put the “data” to memory unlocks in a single place..or that the memory unlock is even a physical object. Again, if Mitron could do it, it doesn’t necessarily mean others can, but it does imply there may be ways to awaken an memory, even if incomplete.

Emm being Anima is an interesting choice. With Pandemonium being the raid series and seemingly tied to Lahabrea, it could be when they die-die something “other” happens to their essence within the life stream.

@Anonymoose: I’d speculate something along the lines of Lahabrea inside Zenos in the way Nidhogg was in Estenien, not that Lahabrea is piloting the body.

@Pamdemonium talk:

Well, we don’t know a lot of course… but a couple of things do stand out:
In FF2, the master of Pandemonium is “Mateus”; essentially the Emperor of Hell. Lahabrea’s Ivalice zodiac counterpart is Mateus.

If we want to go down a rabbit hole:
We might also know the Devs like to pull from various literature…of note, Milton’s Paradise Lost: the chief architect of Pandemonium is noted as Hephaestus. I’m convinced Lahabrea is Byregot the smith, so this matches my thoughts, though I’m not convinced the Ascians all have “Greek god” names..rather they have traditional names pulled from the Final Fantasy as a whole.

—
On Ascian knowledge:

I think the big problem at the end of the day is we are going from a lot of word of mouth (Galuf) and trusting the things we are being told, such as the white auracite/blowing their incorporeal form to oblivion actually kills them and not just “dead until next resurrection”.

Were this the real world I would want lots of confirmation. From the trial series in 5.0 we saw the Garleans just beginning to touch on copy/pasting a consciousness for their Weapon project.

Again, were this real world, I would be very weary that any tech the Garleans were beginning to figure out, the Ascians already have it mastered.

Then again, it is a game… and it’s hard to make a solid story with unreliable narration.

[WhiteArchmage]

I'm holding out hope for Pandaemonium to be about Lahabrea's LEGACY rather than involve the man himself resurrected (as King of Hell/Pandaemonium/whatever), because... we've already chumped him 3 times and change. He was never quite a "badass" as the narrative tries to portray him after the fact, so his continued off-screen survival just feels memetic at this point.

[Bright-Flower]

I'm holding out hope for Pandaemonium to be about Lahabrea's LEGACY rather than involve the man himself resurrected (as King of Hell/Pandaemonium/whatever), because... we've already chumped him 3 times and change. He was never quite a "badass" as the narrative tries to portray him after the fact, so his continued off-screen survival just feels memetic at this point.

I don't so much 'want' to face him again as I suspect we WILL do so again because otherwise...I struggle to think of why they would specify him as being unsundered so long after his death in 3.0 if they didn't have future plans for him.

[Zero-ELEC]

I think the big problem at the end of the day is we are going from a lot of word of mouth (Galuf) and trusting the things we are being told, such as the white auracite/blowing their incorporeal form to oblivion actually kills them and not just “dead until next resurrection”.

Rule of thumb: any character speculating about in-universe mechanics and motivations are undoubtedly correct, unless its presented as an ambiguous mystery to solve.

If a scholarly-like character goes on to detail things intimately and end their speech with "but that's just speculation, tho", assume they're 100% right.

Call it the Law of Conservation of Detail if you will, but its the only way to have story not be a convoluted mess full of red herrings that go nowhere.

Of course, (hard) retcons can also be a factor, but until such a time they contradict what they established, assume things hold true to what is explained to you.