Garleans and the ancients. (Spoilers)

[Raiya]

Wonder if anyone else has connected this but I was thinking there about how Garleans are unusual in that they're unable to use magic. Before Shadowbringers this was something that was unusual and unexplained but considering what we learned this possibility is certainly plausable.

Garlean's are unable to use magic ultimately because of Zodiark, the reason being that they're in fact the direct descendants of survivors of either Amaurot or other cities from the wake of the Final Days, the main reason being that when Zodiark initially acted to "rewrite" the laws of creation as such it meant that in order to supress the final days it meant blocking their ancestors ability to use creation in order for them to stop unwittingly summoning their deepest fears. It also explains why Garlean's are one of the largest races in general as well. Now this might not have affected every single being (as this would have affected Hydaelyn being summoned) but the majority of the populace at that time. It may even have been intentional that not everyone had their ability to use magic suppressed as the intent was to stop the Final Day's spread at large and certain individuals would have either needed their magic abilities or were able to keep control of them as they had enough skill to not give into their fears.

This would also explain the why other races are still able to use magic as they came about after the second sacrifice of the ancients in order to restore life to the near dead star and as a result they weren't affected by the original action of Zodiark to suppress the Final Days. The initial action of Zodiark might have not been a permenant measure either but a temporary one but unfortunately this was never rectified due to Zodiark and Hydaelyn ended up having their massive fight ending in the sundering and this ultimately meant those ancient Garleans ended up carrying this magic block to the modern era.

It ultimately explains why Garleans are the unusual standout's when it comes to being unable to cast magics and manipulate Aether to this day.

[Enkidoh]

The Garleans only really appeared as a race compatively recently though (within the last few thousand years) and their inability to manipulate aether within their bodies (and thus are unable to cast magic) has nothing to do with Zodiark and the Sundering, it's just an odd biological quirk (same with their third eyes). Also it's been clarified that there is still a chance that a Garlean is occassionally born that can use magic naturally, but it's very rare.

And the reverse of that is that sometimes in Eorzea and elsewhere members of other races may also not have the ability to cast magic naturally (the THM class quests revealed one of the Coco brothers of the Guild is so weak aetherically he cannot cast magic at all virtually, despite being a) a native Eorzean lalafell, and b) directly related to the aetherically-potent THM Guild masters, to the point he was trying and failing to increase his aetheric sensitivity with alchemy, without success). There was speculation that the Garleans' natural lack of magical aptitude might have been something related to the Allag or the War of the Magi, but nothing is known conclusively, as far as I'm aware (please dispute that if you know for sure otherwise though!).

This is also the reason why conventional modes of transportation like chocobo carriages and airships are still regularly used in Eorzea despite near instantaneous transportation existing in the form of teleportation/aetherytes, not everyone can teleport due to having low or virtually non-existant aetheric ability to actually teleport in the first place (teleportation after all is a form of magic).

No connection to the Ancients are needed, it's just one of those weird "luck of the draw" things, where you're either potent in aether and thus magic or you're not - the Garleans unfortunately picked the short straw and fell into the later category as a collective whole.

[VictorTheed]

In the ivalice questline didn't it mention the gougans couldn't use magic either? seems like they were garlean ancestors and though I don't know my guess is they were created by emet selch or some allaghan.

[JeanneOrnitier]

Gougans were at least partially the Garleans' ancestors. There were probably other tribes they intermingled with after leaving Goug, but Goug->Garlemald was specifically brought up, yes.

That we don't see any Garleans on Norvrandt could mean they didn't appear on the Source until later, but it could just as easily mean the Flood wiped the First's Garleans out. I don't think we have a timeline for when their race (race, not nation) first showed up.

[Morningstar1337]

That we don't see any Garleans on Norvrandt could mean they didn't appear on the Source until later, but it could just as easily mean the Flood wiped the First's Garleans out. I don't think we have a timeline for when their race (race, not nation) first showed up.

I mean it is likely possible that some races on the First emerged indifferent places compared to their Souce counterparts. The Kobold were found in La Noscea, but the Mords were located in the more Arid Ahm Areang, the Frist's Thanalan. Likewise the Qiqurn seems to prefer deserts or places like Gyr Albania, but the Qitari are natives of the Rak'tika Greatwood as it was Ronkan territory.

The Sahagin and Ondo are an exception, but they were gonna be native to oceans and shores anyway

[KageTokage]

This is all still functioning under the assumption that the other races even existed before the Sundering when there hasn't been anything to definitively prove such and honestly more to suggest otherwise between Varis' claim of there being only a single "perfect" race pre-Sundering and various remarks from the Ascians suggesting we were never supposed to exist in the first place as opposed to being their creations (I don't think they would so oft refer to beings of their and/or their god's making with such disgust and contempt).

[MirronTulaxia]

I mean, Varis was crazy guy (and there isn't any evidence that the guy would know what actually happened in the before days, Ascians can very easily lie to him), and the Ascians don't value any individuals as beings that aren't Ancients. We do know, based off of various things, that there was life of some sort other than the Ancients. It's what prompted Hydaelyn's group to take action, according to Emet. So it's quite possible that was the precursor to the races we have now.

[Apoptomon]

It's possible that transformation from "ancient" type beings to the current races was one of Hydaelyn's abilities. However, that these races already existed at the time of the sundering is a reasonable assumption to make given the physical evidence at hand (i.e. that they exist independently on multiple shards).

[Veloran]

My impression is that all life pre-Sundering fell under the umbrella of "the Ancients". We're told that some life survived the Final Days naturally due to Zodiark stopping it, but it was so twisted and crippled by the nature of the calamity, and the world so desolate, that the Ascians decided to sacrifice half their number again to rejuvinate the world. We kind of take it for granted from this that the new life they created was the inferior versions we have now, but I think in actuallity it was no different in substance from what they had before. I think it was the Sundering and the splitting of souls and aether that resulted in life they deemed so much lesser. The convergent evolution across shards can just be explained as Hydaelyn recreating life according to her own templates when repopulating the worlds.

[JeanneOrnitier]

My understanding is that the other races emerged after Zodiark stabilized the planet and started creating new lifeforms. Only the Ancient race existed before that, but the other races still predate the Sundering. If they came after the Sundering then it would be frankly unbelievable that all the same species just coincidentally evolved separately on all the shards.