Garlean Inability to use magic.

[Jandor]

I wouldn't use Elidibus, or any Ascian. They cheat, and have been doing it for a very long time. It is even explicitly stated that Ascians/Ancients being so aetherially dense, cannot weld dynamis. This revelation came in EW. It's a major WTF moment because Elidibus is clearly using limit breaks when we face him as the WoL in the Seat of Sacrifice.

Limit Breaks use aether, it's described in quite a bit of detail in the lore books. The dynamis aspect to it is poorly explained, but I'd imagine it's what allows the sundered to 'break their limits' and use way more aether than they normally could.

Elidibus wouldn't need dynamis to do what we'd think of as limit breaks, his natural limits are way higher than ours. He just has to worry about expending the aether he's built up.

[EaraGrace]

Speaking of garleans. Maxima looks perfectly like an ancient except for the eye, doesn't he?

Not really?

[Jandor]

I suppose he looks more like an ancient than some characters, wouldn't say he's perfectly like one though. Maybe if he had a shave.

[rainichan]

Emet-Selch states when you speak to him at level 74 that he possessed a random body upon travelling to the first. Not to mention that one of the main reasons he is so interested in the Exarch is because he was able to transport us through the rift to the first with our body, something Ascians are unable to do. Dialogue in question:

">> Choice 1: Why choose this form here in the first?
Emet-Selch: Well, well, what a curious question.
Emet-Selch: Mortal flesh is but the vessel into which we Ascians pour the elixir of our souls, moulding it as fits the occasion. Or not, if we so choose.
Emet-Selch: Be it for a year or a millennium, I prefer to retain the same form until my duty is done. So, after arriving here in the First, I fashioned some hapless body into the man you see before you.
Emet-Selch: Though as your friend over there can attest, there are those of us who forgo such alterations.
Emet-Selch: He was ever the rash one, Lahabrea. Jumping from vessel to vessel. Never heeding the toll it took on him."

Ah, I forgot about that, been a while. Cheers.

[Theodric]

Not really?

I suppose he looks more like an ancient than some characters, wouldn't say he's perfectly like one though. Maybe if he had a shave.

There's some differences, though I wouldn't consider Maxima to be too far off of an Ancient in terms of his appearance:



I daresay it's likely a slightly tweaked model, even. Much in the same way as how Themius is quite obviously an altered Ramza and Varis' facial features are built off of those of a male Raen.

[MikkoAkure]

There's some differences, though I wouldn't consider Maxima to be too far off of an Ancient in terms of his appearance:

I daresay it's likely a slightly tweaked model, even. Much in the same way as how Themius is quite obviously an altered Ramza and Varis' facial features are built off of those of a male Raen.

Maxima is just a male Elezen with a third eye and hyur ears. He has an existing Elezen face that may be tweaked just a little bit but what makes it more obvious is the Elezen-only hairstyle and the beard that already exists on one of the Elezen faces.

I’m also pretty sure all of the Ancients use Elezen bodies and faces as well, other than the proportions, there’s a lot of Elezen-specific hairstyles in Elpis.

[Lihtleita]

Matoya implied it takes a lot of aether to force yourself to see, the garlean eye might work the same way, being a giant aether sink.
Maybe being possessed by an ascian or voidsent allows the garlean body access to more aether than is needed to use their third eye, letting them use magic as well.

[LystAP]

Maxima is just a male Elezen with a third eye and hyur ears. He has an existing Elezen face that may be tweaked just a little bit but what makes it more obvious is the Elezen-only hairstyle and the beard that already exists on one of the Elezen faces.

I’m also pretty sure all of the Ancients use Elezen bodies and faces as well, other than the proportions, there’s a lot of Elezen-specific hairstyles in Elpis.

Given what we know from SE on how the individual races came to be, I kind of think the Garlean body is a result of trying to replicate the body of the Ancients in the aftermath of the Sundering, but failing due to the Sundering's splitting of aether into shards and losing the ability to channel aether as a result. Just my theory though.