New Years Poem 2017

[Kiyo_Meibatsu]

As a German native speaker I can say for sure it is "until Azure subdues it (the Scarlet)" and not the other way round, but I wouldn't consider the difference too important, because all 3 other languages share a similar theme so it's entirely possible the German translators were just a bit more liberal with their translation.

As a native speaker, I second that. "until Azure subdues it" is the right translation. I don't know if it matters, but I wouldn't ignore such differences, just because other things are more important. It could matter and it's better to have the facts straight.

[Iromi]

Haha Nostradamoose...I love it lmao

anyway I think it's hints to 3.5 and 4.0. Meaning its time to leave Ishgard and time for Ala Mhigo!

[Anonymoose]

As a German native speaker I can say for sure it is "until Azure subdues it (the Scarlet)"

Conformity bias strikes again!

Much obliged, all who helped sort out the German anomaly (even though we still don't know why it's anomalous).

Something else that catches my eye: the French language itself contains the word azur. Why then did the French team shun it in spite of their poem no longer being harmonious with the other three? Is it to remain consistent with their own translation of the 3.0 theme, Le Ciel Bleu de Ishgard? I'm even more suspicious of coincidences that work in favor of my current best-guess than vice versa. You try'n'a dupe me, French? ... Again!?

[Keever]

[...] everyone's aether is whitish-blue.

Not quite! "The WoL has blue aether" is knowledge that comes from the 60 ALC quest. Apparently everyone has a uniquely coloured "aetherial signature", and when an alchemist synthesises an arcane grimoire, his or her aetherial signature is left behind in the enchanted ink used in its creation.

In order to prove that Waoud, the antagonist of the questline, is in fact an alchemist capable of making evil cloning technology (he's on trial before an Adventurers' Guild investigator and denies being an alchemist at all), you have the ALC guildmaster Severian provide you with a special powder of his own invention - "spectrolium" - which makes one's aetherial signature visible to the naked eye.
You demonstrate the powder on both yourself and Waoud before the Adventurers' Guild investigator. Sprinkling the powder on yourself gives off a Hydaelyn-blue aetherial signature, and sprinkling it on a copy of Noble Gold you made results in the same colour reaction. The spectrolium is then sprinkled on Waoud, giving off a red aetherial signature, which proves he created the Noble Gold that was found with him at his hideout, proof that he is an extremely skilled alchemist.

So each individual's aether is a unique colour, and the WoL's just happens to be azure. This is pretty obscure information, though, so I doubt it's what the poem refers to. Azure = Ishgard seems fairly straightforward to me.

[Fenral]

I can never claim 100% accuracy (and I'm usually just plain wrong at guessing kanji from phonetics), but I think I'm the closest we have around here to a fluent Japanese speaker, so I'll weigh in as best I can.

Japanese, as usual, doesn't really do line breaks in a way that lets them be broken down into equivalent ideas in English. The more complete parsing, line breaks be damned:

"The crimson light born at the place where the sun rises becomes a raging fire to consume the azure light born at the place where the sun sets."

That doesn't tell us anything we couldn't already figure out, but it is a really unambiguous baseline to work from! Try saying it without pausing.

[Velynea]

<snip>

Thank you for the corrections!

[Rikkustrife]

A more accurate translation of the French poem would be:
The reddening spark of sunrise
ignites suddenly
Threatening to consume
the blue glow of sunset

[Anonymoose]

A more accurate translation of the French poem would be:

Thanks!

I tried to keep the poetic agreement in the lines, but it was harder to do in literal English without actually knowing the nuances in French. It looked like levant was playing two parts, implying rising (sun), but literally pointing eastward, while coucher was implying westward while more literally describing the setting sun. I ended up swapping them for East and West rather than making assumptions and risking looking silly, lol.

[LineageRazor]

Reading that last line of the poem troubled me - I immediately jumped to the conclusion that Azure referred to the Azure Dragoon (aka, Estinien), and his being lost amid the squall indicated to me that he was going to show up for the upcoming kefluffle with the resistance and wind up dead somehow. While I do understand that that is only one interpretation of the poem, it's all-too common a theme in Japanese pop culture for "extra" characters to meet an untimely end after their arc concludes, whether it be by noble sacrifice, tragic death, or out-of-nowhere diabolos ex machina, it's a tidy (and ham-fisted) way to clean up loose ends so you don't have to deal with those extra characters hanging around and wasting screen time when they're not important anymore.

I was pleased to see that Estinien escaped this fate - we freed him from Nidhogg ALIVE! I was totally expecting to kill Niddy, have Estinien's sprit rise from the corpse to thank us for saving his soul, and then disperse into the Aether. But no, we actually got the guy back intact! Just another way in which Estinien continued to impress me in his ability to steer clear of the clichés that plague his particular character type. But now, I fear, the reaper has come calling, and it's time for Estinien to leave the stage... I do hope that I'm wrong!

[Fenral]

Estinien is not going anywhere, and he'll be out of the story until at least 4.X. If Yoshida's recent comments can be trusted.

Unless this is another case of "oh, yeah, there'll be a Roe joining the Scions and they'll be super important" and then we meet Moenbryda. If we saved him just so he could die saving Alphi and/or Ali and teaching them the importance of sacrifice, I'mma break something. FFXV and Kingsglaive already left a dent in my PS4.