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

[kaynide]

I didn’t see this in the top 3 pages, but has anyone figured out who the second mask is?


Looking at all the Ascian masks, it is clear they are based on the Zodiac.

Nabriales is Scorpio
Igeyorhm is Sagittarius,
Lahabrea is Pisces, but his mask seems generic because they probably hadn’t decided on this motif yet when he was around. Or, plot twist, the Lahabrea we killed wasn’t Lahabrea at all! He seems to be connected to Pandemonium…after all.
Fandaniel is Leo which suggests one of the two masks is his.

That leaves the one mask on Gaius’s belt. I guess it looks something like the underside of a crab (Cancer)… so maybe Pashtarot?

Or is it a ram with curled horns around the top, for ram (Capricorn), so maybe Deudalaphon?

[Cleretic]

The speculation I've seen says they're Fandaniel and Deudalaphon, using the 'looks feline' and 'looks horned' logic, although that's all basically just vibes. Hell, we don't even know for sure one is Fandaniel's (although I personally assume it is, so that he and Gaius can have that 'wait I remember you' moment) But, for the record, the ones we've seen no mask for are:

-Fandaniel (Leo)
-Emmerololth (Aquarius)
-Deudalaphon (Capricorn)
-Altima (Virgo)
-Pashtarot (Cancer)

For the record, we only saw half of Loghrif's (Aries), and of course Emet-Selch's (Gemini) only in elaborate boss form.

Now, out of those, we can reasonably rule out Emmerololth, who died on the Isle of Val at some point in 2.0/2.x. So reasonably, we're down to Fandaniel and the others we haven't seen. But there's something to point out there: since we haven't seen them, why does it matter who it is? Gaius didn't have the capacity to permakill them, so whoever it is, they're still alive. And since we don't know anything about any of them... well, what difference does it make if it was Deudalaphon or Altima?

That's not being dismissive, that's legitimately asking the question to spur on discussion. If we know absolutely nothing about every single option, what value is there in speculation beyond being eventually proven wrong or right?

[kaynide]

,
That's not being dismissive, that's legitimately asking the question to spur on discussion. If we know absolutely nothing about every single option, what value is there in speculation beyond being eventually proven wrong or right?

Truth be told I’m just a big nerd that likes studying. I like to apply things I’ve learned to places, even if ultimately I’m just wasting my time. Rabbit holes are fun!

For this specific bit,its’ absolutely tin foil hat territory, but I like to do a bit of story speculation; I think there is a lot to extract from their FF12 lore or real life name origin.

As in, for Elidabus, his constellation is Ophiuchus has a star Sabik (which we have seen and I have thoughts about). We also have the companion constellation, whose brightest star is Unukalhai.

Not that it NEED connect of course, but SE is known to pull inspiration from myth.

Capricorn has a lot going on and a lot of names associated (even Typhon is loosely connected).
I also remember Cancer has many connections to the moon in several ancient religions…so there is also that.

Basically just nerding out and seeing what others might think

[DrWho2010]

I don't believe Gaius would have the know how to perma-kill an Ascian. He may off a body they're using but that's about it, imo.

[Anonymoose]

I'm always eager to challenge the conclusions people are willing to leap to. I'm all for picking favorite interpretations, weighing probabilities, highlighting logical inferences, etc. but prematurely concluding things is difficult for me.

I appreciate that we're going as far as, "That mask looks feline, so Fandaniel is a solid guess, but we don't know it for sure." Gaius does mention that his quarry in the Burn got away. Perhaps he'd only had that mask on his belt for a short time, having just ganked Fandaniel's vessel, and he jumped into Asahi's body on Maxima's crashed ship while we were dealing with the Imperials. Perhaps. But we don't know for sure whose masks those are.

Likewise, though... We figured out a way to kill Nabriales in 2.5, and some-the-hells-how Galuf knew enough to dunk Emmerololth (even as a Hail Mary) as far back as 2.2. By 4.5, Gaius is so knowledgeable about what the Warrior of Light and Ascians have been up to, HE tells US about the hierarchy, HE tells US about the true relationship between original and risen sundered, HE tells US that Emet-Selch is a hitherto unknown third Original. He'd gathered Lahabrea was dead. He knew of Nabriales's attack on the Rising Stones. He identifies on his own the Elidibus has taken Zenos's body for himself. Obviously, he was mostly just showing up to give a PowerPoint presentation from the Dev. Team about the latest round of adjustments to the lore... but are we so easily concluding that he cannot have possibly identified a way to utilize his intelligence to trap and shear the aether of an Ascian soul? A difficult task, yes. But we didn't kill Lahabrea, either, and he was an Original. I've got the door open that at least one of those masks might be a real risen-sundered kill, if for no other reason than SE seems to be rushing them into the woodchipper as fast as possible.

[Rosenstrauch]

I've got the door open that at least one of those masks might be a real risen-sundered kill, if for no other reason than SE seems to be rushing them into the woodchipper as fast as possible.

I'll take this to its heartbreaking extreme. Though I can't remember the source for this claim, I believe someone once mentioned that several of the Ascian Overlords inexplicably used the Lesser Ascian models, complete with generic black masks. And Gaius has not two, but five Ascian masks on his person: two red and three black. Because of that there's the possibility that Gaius hasn't just offed one Overlord, but up to five. Now, the known deceased Overlords are Nabriales, Igeyorhm, Lahabrea, Emmerololth, Mitron, Lohgrif, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus. That's eight, and with five more masks, well...

Fandaniel is still alive. But there's a distinct and very unfortunate chance that he's the only Overlord remaining at this point.

EDIT: To explain. There are two branches of thought on this. Emmerololth was around as late as patch 2.3, commenting on our victory over every primal up to Ramuh. But the Eureka plotline would later reveal that she died somewhere around patch 2.1, rendering her very first appearance a plot hole. It's possible that filling in this plot hole will retroactively be the reason Gaius was carrying five masks. Fandaniel was his latest quarry, but he never succeeded in catching him, and one of the masks instead belongs to Emmerololth.

Alternatively, one of the masks is Fandaniel's, and he just... escaped Gaius regardless. Either way, the result is potentially the same: Fandaniel's the only one left, errant Emmerololth be damned I guess.

[Anonymoose]

I'll take this to its heartbreaking extreme.

I love exploring this part because I sincerely believe that everyone has a different idea of how many Ascians are even dead.

The offending cutscenes here are 2.0 and 2.3. In 2.0, you see 14 black-robed Overlords (with shoulder armor and hoods down). In 2.3, you see what appear to be the same 14 black-robed Overlords (plus Elidibus), but with hoods up, and black-masks standing in for anyone whose red-mask wasn't ready yet (except they forgot to, or maybe even could not, activate the shoulder armor for reasons unknown).

2.0 we get Lahabrea's mask.
2.1 we get Elidibus's mask.
2.4 we get Nabriales's mask, 2.5 he dies
3.0 we get Igeyorhms mask, she dies. So does Lahabrea.
3.2 to 3.4 we're told about Mitron dying but don't see his mask.
4.x we just get told Emmerololth died in 2.2 but she was in a 2.3 cutscene so...???
4.4 we get two random new red-masks on Gaius's belt
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.

But then in that 5.0 mix we get the news that Ascians can be re-raised. Anyone who's been paying attention immediately asks, "Is that how Emmerololth was back?" but then what about Nabriales? Igeyorhm? Another Mitron and Loghrif? Why not re-raise them, too? lol.

I suspect based on past story-telling that they decided where the rest of the Ascians are (even if the answer is just "not here, used later") during the 4.x era, and put those two masks there deliberately. Whether it was to rush two more into the grave I'm not sure. What if the supposed-obviousness of Fandaniel's mask is meant to foreshadow that in 6.0 he has a partner?

Now, 5.0 tells us there were only 14 Ascians to start with, and Azem was never risen into an overlord. So we've got two extra people in 2.0, already. Somewhere between 2 and 4 extras in 2.3 depending on whether Emmerololth was supposed to be dead and Emet-Selch was supposed to be napping.

SE probably thinks we think we're down to "just" Fandaniel, Halmarut, Pashtarot, Altima, and Deudalaphon. And then one or two of those might be dead already. (And what I'd give to just gank them all in Endwalker and be done with it, at this point). But ... the math could be... anything.

[Zero-ELEC]

But then in that 5.0 mix we get the news that Ascians can be re-raised. Anyone who's been paying attention immediately asks, "Is that how Emmerololth was back?" but then what about Nabriales? Igeyorhm? Another Mitron and Loghrif? Why not re-raise them, too? lol.

... Do the sundered Ascians know they can be "re-raised", as such? Do they believe themselves expendable compared to their unsundered brethren? With Lahabrea dead, Emet-Selch napping (??), Elidibus doing whatever it is he does, do we know if they could be brought back?

And weren't the sundered Ascians "raised" by the usage of their memories etched in stone? Which seemingly disappeared alongside Elidibus. They might not have a way to replenish their ranks, as it were.

Unless I misinterpreted that.

[Cleretic]

4.x we just get told Emmerololth died in 2.2 but she was in a 2.3 cutscene so...???

So, Emmerololth is... a really weird one (as well as being my favorite Ascian to talk about), and it ultimately comes down to exactly where you place your faith in the writers that these facts contradict or not. We don't actually have the best idea of relative timeframes between Galuf's scheme, the Ascian roundtable where she speaks, and the actual events of 2.x we're present for. But since our knowledge of the Isle of Val's events are second-hand both ways (learning it dropped off the map by messenger, then learning how it happened from Galuf's writings), it's difficult to tell what happened and when. Maybe Galuf's plan took longer than we thought.

So the question starts becoming, which sequence of events do you believe: the assumed one in 2.x where Emmerololth returns after Galuf's plan, thereby asserting that the death didn't 'take', or the Galuf writing from 4.55 that implies that it was a pretty solid kill and the only worry afterwards is actually Eureka? Frustratingly, none of the rest of the game helps; after we murk Nabriales, Lahabrea and Elidibus act like that was unexpected, but that could either be read as surprise it happened or surprise that WE did it. And the 2.3 roundtable is the last time we get an Ascian 'group shot', so we haven't been able to do a headcount.

Personally, I'm leaning towards 'Emmerololth is dead', because on the writing angle it's a rather more specific--and chiefly, more recent--decision. 2.3 was basically just pulling names out of a hat for the scene, and chances are the writers didn't really have reason to believe they should leave a chair empty. But in 4.55, the modern writing team and their aim towards the endgame of this part of the story had clearly started to coalesce; they probably weren't thinking about Endwalker in 2014, but they probably were in 2019.

But at the same time... not every Ascian spoke in that roundtable. The only completely unmet ones that speak there are Emmerololth and Altima. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to have, say, Deudalaphon die on Val instead, and none of this discussion would be happening. But they specifically picked one of the very few unaccounted-for Ascians that actually had a line after Val's disappearance. Either that's just really bad luck that would've been solved by some back-reading, or they specifically set up this discrepancy.

So maybe my stance isn't 'Emmerololth is dead', so much as 'Emmerololth died, and that part is important'. We're going to Sharlayan, after all; if any part of the Eureka storyline is ever going to suddenly become relevant again (and it wouldn't be the first time, Eureka is full of other plots' plot threads), it is going to become relevant there. Or even... well, we already know the normal raids are bringing back one dead Ascian.

[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.