So... Is Lahabrea REALLY dead-dead?

[AlexionSkyllark]

As per the title.

We are led to believe Thordan destroyed him for good, but the thing is, the sword only absorbed his aether. At the most, this can be drawn as a parallel to him being trapped in white auracite, which we all know is ONE STEP on destroying an Ascian, but not the entire thing. There was never a blade of light thrown into Thordan's Sword to do the ACTUAL destroying part of the ritual. So, I can posit that Lahabrea is still fine and dandy, only TRAPPED inside the sword. And that which is only trapped may very well come out one day...

I always thought about that ever since 3.0, but now with the Pandaemonium raid and that Lahabrea head behind the logo this REEEEEALLY made my mind start racing. What you guys think?

[dreamfisher]

Is Lahabrea really dead-dead?

The short answer is that we really have no way of knowing. There are actually quite a few unanswered questions around the Ascians' statuses.
Going off of the description in the journal (and who knows how accurate that is), Thordan summons a divine blade to execute Lahabrea. And though he certainly wasn't omniscient, Elidibus is said to have later stated that "Lahabrea is gone."
My personal guess is that Lahabrea wasn't trapped inside the sword, but his soul was scattered and the aether subsequently absorbed.

Edit: I also want to mention that with regard to the Pandaemonium art featuring Lahabrea, there's been a lot of speculation that it in some way ties to his legacy or creations. Aaand some speculation that he's still alive somehow (which I don't think should be completely dismissed).
However, I would love to see a raised Lahabrea. Probably an unpopular opinion, but I think it sounds fun.

[MrThinker]

The aether of Lahabrea's soul was absorbed in the Eye of Nidhogg that was embedded in Ascalon to fuel King Thordan. The eye was then used recreate Nidhogg's form by the wyrm's lingering will, before being used as the catalyst of Shinryu's creation. The eyes were then finally destroyed at the end of 4.0 by Estinien, who noted they had run out of aether fueling Shinryu. If he had somehow managed to hold some form of life within the eye, at the very least he should have died when Estinien poked the eyes through of not any time earlier.

[Brightamethyst]

Probably, but we don't know for sure. Lahabrea's aether was absorbed by the eye and used to fuel the Thordan summon, but did that really kill him, is there some fragment of him left after Thordan was defeated, or when the eyes were depleted after Shinryu, etc are all (for now) unanswered questions.

[Rosenstrauch]

Maybe there's an aether-depleted Lahabrea chilling out there somewhere. Y'know, just coasting along until he can find a way to restore himself to full power.

[DrWho2010]

the new raid most likely has to do with his legacy or creations, or that we go to hell and deal with his shade down there or something. FFII as a reference.

[Hainiryun]

"Is Lahabrea still alive in the Eyes" was a pretty popular topic of speculation back in the day. Along with various sub theories like "is Nidhogg actually now Lahabrea" and so on. If you want to go completely wild with it you could make a (rather dubious) argument for Zenos now being posessed by Lahabrea through the Eyes > Nidhogg > Shinryu > Zenos chain. Maybe Estinien has actually been Lahabrea the whole time and him destroying the eyes was just covering his tracks!

Personally after years of that speculation I was kind of glad when the eyes were depleted and destroyed just because it seemed to have finally taken that off the table.
Of course the Pandemonium art kind of throws all that back into doubt so who even knows. Lahabrea being one of the unsundered never did feel like it fully gelled with his behaviour in ARR/HW so bringing him back in some form might give them time to flesh him out a bit more in person.

A few theories I've personally been throwing about in my head since the announcement:

1) Pandemonium is a laboratory of Lahabrea's that survived or was preserved from ancient times on the Source. Perhaps It's located under Silvertear Lake and is filled with old primal concepts, hence the primalsplosion. We're there to clean things up because the final days have weakened the seals on the place and are letting things out. Not sure this one entirely adds up but it'd tie a few things together at least.

2) This returned Lahabrea himself is a form of Primal or something very similar. Given his apparent aptitude for creating concepts back in Amaurot it might be possible that he created some sort of primal-esque copy of himself for some purpose or other, maybe as a backup. Although I'm not sure where the faith to sustain him would necessarily be coming from in this scenario. Then again, he did have some very devoted followers as seen in the Heavensward Summoner quests, so maybe they're still keeping things going.

Or it could just be Lahabread back from the dead through the power of shenanigans. Time will tell and such.

[thegreatonemal]

He's dead. In order to kill an ascian you need to destroy or consume their soul. Thordan destroyed the body he was in and them consumed his soul. The only reason we use auracite is to hold the soul in place while we charge the aether needed to destroy it. He's not sleeping in the Eye, he's just dead, he died just like the Sahagin priest in 2.3 I believe.

[Cleretic]

The aether of Lahabrea's soul was absorbed in the Eye of Nidhogg that was embedded in Ascalon to fuel King Thordan. The eye was then used recreate Nidhogg's form by the wyrm's lingering will, before being used as the catalyst of Shinryu's creation. The eyes were then finally destroyed at the end of 4.0 by Estinien, who noted they had run out of aether fueling Shinryu. If he had somehow managed to hold some form of life within the eye, at the very least he should have died when Estinien poked the eyes through of not any time earlier.

This guy's exactly right. Lahabrea still being alive after all that would be more absurd than him surviving, he's probably been through more aetheric punishment than most of the other Ascians put together.

Of course, this is Final Fantasy. ...And if he's coming back anywhere, it is in Pandaemonium, the domain of the first guy in the series to cheat death after literally dying. Just because he's dead, doesn't mean he's gone.

[Veloran]

Setting aside that the Scions' original understanding of Ascian death (and indeed the death-rebirth cycle in general) appears extremely flawed in light of newer information, it seems to me that the Lahabrea that "died" in Azys Lla was in fact not truly him. Or rather, not all of him.

I think that Lahabrea's "great blunder" wasn't his defeat in 3.0, but rather his cornering and subsequent confrontation in 2.0. At the end of ARR, WoL defeats Lahabrea and smacks him with the blade of light, forcing his expulsion from Thancred's body - At which point he comes face-to-face with Hydaelyn. And in the most famously cringe scene in the entire game, the images of WoL, the Scions, and the alliance leaders join in with a massive beam of light to seemingly destroy him.
https://youtu.be/WJo3pDFp754?t=248

I ask you, given what we know now, what can this reasonably be but Hydaelyn employing her power directly and sundering Lahabrea? Consider that this explains a few oddities in the story - The sudden haste of the Ascians following the end of 2.0, the nonsensical count of fifteen convocation members in the Chrysalis in 2.2 (Which could then be explained via the presence of an already-awakened Emet-Selch and a pair of Lahabrea, even clarifying why Elidibus had to take the center platform rather than his own seat), and most notably, Lahabrea's strange merger with Igeyorhm at the end of Heavensward, as they would be combining their sundered souls.

And on that topic, let's look a bit closer at that encounter and compare it to the image of Lahabrea we've seen from Pandemonium.




We can see that in the Ascian Prime fusion, the right half of Lahabrea's mask is fused on, while in the Pandemonium artwork he only has the left half of his mask visible. This combined with his tattered, split sigil, strongly suggests to me that the Lahabrea we deal with in 6.X will be a sundered Ascian.