Disappointed in one Endwalker Aspect [SPOILERS]

[MikkoAkure]

It split the souls of every life on Etheirys, causing their lifespans to shortened by a multiple of the times they were divided. It also reduced their resistance to ailments by that amount. In real world terms, the average life expectancy is about 77 years for a person. If a real person were to be sundered, they would live for about 5 years and 7 months.

If that were true, then the average lifespan of each person on the Source would go up after every Calamity and people on the Shards would be weaker, sicker, and die faster than us and there's no substance to that idea.

I think it's far more likely to believe that the Ancients owe their enormous lifespans to their equally enormous amount of aether, rather than something specifically physiological about their bodies. The Ancients weren't immune to the aging process, Venat tells Emet-Selch that he's starting to get lines on his face or something to that effect. There must be some sort of cutoff where if you're X amount of magical, then you have a very long or effectively immortal lifespan. It's a classic trope of wizards living longer than natural lifespans and this feels like that to a more expanded degree.

Also, the Qitana Ravel cave paintings were made by the Ronkans, an empire civilization implied to be similar in workings to the Allagans, though never outright stated to be a machination of the Ascians, it could have been. Another thing we don't know is where they got the information to paint what was depicted.

When did they say it was done by the Ronkans? I thought Emet-Selch said it was done by people shortly after the Sundering and there's no evidence of the Ronkan Empire being that old. Y'shtola even says the murals predate the empire.

[Vyrerus]

If that.

Are we shown how long everyone lives on each shard or that their measurements of time are the same? No. This is a case of the scriptwriters presenting a plot fact, but then not showing or writing what it really means into the story, because that would be too difficult to really show. Keep in mind every shard is locked away from the real universe by a space-time dimensional barrier that only allows aether, and perhaps Dynamis, to pass through it.

I'm sure the amount of aether is related to all things lively and vital on Etheirys. The story says as much, and it also says everyone used to have aether like that and live a long long time.

I had to go back and look at the scene to see it. Y'shtola says, "it may predate the empire." because it's, "Unlike anything she's ever seen." Emet-selch merely says that anyone pre-Sundering would remember it. I said it was the Ronkans, due to the later questline where we see the Meteorshower Mural with the Vieran Sorceress.