Revelations (and Feedback) from Pandæmonium: Asphodelos

[Vyrerus]

I kinda got hung up on some stuff with the story relating to Eric.

So he says outright that he is the son of Lahabrea, but also the son of an ex-Lahabrea. Athena is his mom, the ex-Lahabrea.

Then it brought up this idea that Hesperos had an obsession and wanted to be Lahabrea's son, and whatever transformed him into the vampire caused that to get amped up in the transformation.

That calls to mind Tempering, but I'm more hung up on the family connections.

I was thinking they might not only do a revisionism for Lahabrea by making Erich the Lahabrea that we know, so we see his eld past and form a bond and feel slightly bad about killing his tattered 12,000 year old madman self.

They could also apply it to Themis and our WoL. Of course, there's just pieces on the board and not a lot of material right now, so it's just passing speculation, but perhaps Themis is Elidibus's twin brother, and they're the sons of Venat. Perhaps current Azem is the Hesperos in that situation (and us by extension).

If it turns out the basis for Ye Olde Tempering was based off of seeking the adoration of a parental/mentor figure, then they could still deliver us a weak as hell version of, "The WoL was tempered to Hydaelyn." that's still not tempering, but is in the personalized root of it.

Probably not an an eventuality. Just musing.

[Rosenstrauch]

If we're going to be going "um, ACK-SHUALLY" over names here...

Lucifer, Vesper, Hesperos, Phosphoros, Eosphoros, "The Morning Star" and "The Evening Star"—these are all names for the exact same celestial body: the planet Venus.

https://www.universetoday.com/42452/evening-star/
https://www.stelvision.com/astro/en/...-evening-star/

And as mentioned above, technically speaking, Venat's name is a localized derivative of her Japanese name, which itself is romanized to "Venus". And finally, Venus is the Roman equivalent to the goddess Aphrodite.

If any of this has any meaning on the story as shown, it'll be news to me. I can't access the raid until I hit 565, and that's gonna take a while for me since I get bored with dungeon grinding pretty easily.

[Vyrerus]

If we're going to be going "um, ACK-SHUALLY" over names here...

Lucifer, Vesper, Hesperos, Phosphoros, Eosphoros, "The Morning Star" and "The Evening Star"—these are all names for the exact same celestial body: the planet Venus.

https://www.universetoday.com/42452/evening-star/
https://www.stelvision.com/astro/en/...-evening-star/

And as mentioned above, technically speaking, Venat's name is a localized derivative of her Japanese name, which itself is romanized to "Venus". And finally, Venus is the Roman equivalent to the goddess Aphrodite.

If any of this has any meaning on the story as shown, it'll be news to me. I can't access the raid until I hit 565, and that's gonna take a while for me since I get bored with dungeon grinding pretty easily.

Just make a premade, and then you won't be beholden to the ilvl requirement of DF.

[Nekaru_Infitima]

More naming shenanigans. As everyone else pointed out 'circles' is really close to Dante's Inferno (12 circles instead of 9 lol?)

Asphodelos is the LATIN (Roman) form of Asphodelus which is a flower that also had the old Greek meaning of "The flower said to carpet Hades, and a favorite food of the dead."

Abyssos, likely to be the next area as mentioned is also Latin(Roman) Abyssus "Bottomless Pit."

I'm not sure but it's interesting where the Ancients are Greek in their own names of Titans and Gods. Yet some locations are Latinized to Roman, with SOME Ancients having Roman names (Venat/Venus) instead of Greek Aphrodite.

Is it just fluff to not be stuck on one language? Or is there some meaning here to being Latin vs Greek?

Final raid song is Latin too. Hic Sunt Leones "Here Be Lions."

[dynus]

Ironically, Venat is also Venus though.

I mean... not really? They do sound close, but the romaji is different. Hers is ヴェーネス vs Venus ビーナス | ビイナス (I've seen both). Venat's name is a bit of a sore thumb when it comes to the names of the Ancients, which are mostly Greek names with major characters named after gods and titans, Hythlodaeus being an exception, and others simply being Greek names with ancient origins.

Venat on the other hand is not a 'real life' name, a trend Matsuno's works have with their characters. He goes pretty hard on making fantasy names for his games, something I respect him for. It has two possible origins (and I'm quoting the FF wiki, so I can't take credit); from the Latin word Venari - 'to hunt' which doesn't really suit either her or the FFXII character she's based on. Or a figure in Persian Myth Vanant and an old name for the Star Regulus, who was a guardian of good, which does fit better with both characters.

Anyway, she's different from the rest of the Ancients and it's weird.

[Rannie]

Re: speculation

I also started to wonder that during the questline. I'm not sure if I'm completely sold on it, but I think I'm also leaning toward Erichthonios being the Lahabrea we knew.

Although lahabrea is supposed to be the position for someone excelling in creation magicks while so far (it could change) Eric isn't much of a mage.

I swear I remember Hythlodaeus mentioning something like "that time Azem ran off to stop a volcano" during Elpis but now I'm wondering if I mixed that up with the Cookingway dialogue.

He did he said it to Venat after she Ko'd the Shark and asked how Azem was doing you're not crazy. Oh it was also after her giving Emet Selch hell for his crinkled brows.

"Just the other day he dove into a volcano ..." may not be the exact quote...

Its rewatchable in the inn


Edit: I will echo others on how much does Azem know?!?!

[GrizzlyTank]

Theory for the future wings

Pandæmonium is going to give us the revelation of what causes the scream from within the earth, while the last part 9-12 will be happening in present day with us finally killing it.

[Sacae]

Dunno if this has been mentioned yet, but, concerning pronouns, the person that keeps getting mentioned as the one who foresaw our arrival will always same gender pronoun as your character. I only know of one other character who is consistently treated like that.

[Loggos]

A bit off-topic sorry, but if we are talking names, is Azem based on anything or is that name a mystery/more of a fantasy name like "Venat"?

[Iscah]

I want to know about the time travel rules.

Have we managed to set up a stable time loop now, where we always told Venat about the Final Days and the Sundering and so forth, and always fixed whatever went wrong in Pandemonium?

How does that square with G'raha somehow being able to permanently change his own future? And still being around?

Were they lying when they said "Don't change the past, or you can't go back to your present?" Or when they said "you have to change the past, or we'll all always have been dead"? Or are they somehow both correct?

I know "poorly explained time travel" is a series trope, going all the way back to the very first Final Fantasy ... but I'd love a coherent explanation.

My running theory on time travel here is that the universe tends towards a single consistent timeline, and if time travel events can be absorbed into history as it always was, they are. This is what happens with the events in Elpis and also in the Alexander raids.

G'raha is the special case that manages to change things in the past so substantially that the future he came from is no longer possible, so the timeline splits into the old version and new version of events.

I think what we're doing in Pandaemonium is probably "safe" in that we have no idea what will happen so we're in no danger of contradicting a pre-existing version of events. Whatever happens there has technically already happened in the past of our present day.

No you got that right. Hythlodaeus mentioned this exact story to Venat when we meet her. Which in turn also leaves me confused how Themis doesn't get introduced as Elidibus. I have a hard time believing Pandaemonium happens before our msq arrival in Elpis

While it's unlikely from a narrative approach, it's not actually impossible for it to be happening prior to our MSQ visit. They'd ideally have a good reason for doing it, though, because it's unnecessarily confusing otherwise.

Whatever the reason is for it, the main reason for Themis not being "Elidibus" at this point is to avoid clueing in our WoL who has never been very good at putting two and two together.

A bit off-topic sorry, but if we are talking names, is Azem based on anything or is that name a mystery/more of a fantasy name like "Venat"?

It seems to be based on Azeyma of the Twelve, via setting up a "long-standing pattern of sun deities with similar names" (eg. the Xaela sun god Azim) to match this one probably invented out of nowhere.