Music Connection between P12 and Sylphs? (Spoilers for P12)

[Alleluia]

Spoilers below for the Pandamonium's final tier.

So, I was in my car, listening to Athena's P12 theme "Athena, The Tireless One(with Official Lyrics)"** cus its been stuck in my head. And I noticed that it reuses some of the female vocalizations that open Ramuh's battle theme "Thunder Rolls". Its a bit hard to hear, cus the rest of the music its layered beneath is way louder, but it kicks in on the "I glee" "Pride, Greed"** verse at about 1:50 and continues through about 2:31, by which time its kind of blended in to the rest of the music. Repeats again when the verse later.

My first thought when I heard this was that perhaps they reused an asset for the song. Which would be a bit odd, but even musical geniuses make weird choices sometimes.

But there's also the possibility that its put in there for a reason. Rarely do we get leitmotifs for no reason. I'm not sure literally reusing an audio clip is a leitmotif, technically, but still.

And now, thinking about it, I've noticed other things about the song. Like the fact that the verse this sound is underpinning starts with a plant metaphor: "I glean* // In mud thrive these seeds. // Rotten and reeking // the roots* of your making // testify // come take a bite" Pride, Greed // In mud thrive these seeds. // Rotten and reeking // The fruits of your making // Testify // Come take a bite.**

Or the fact the song itself is apparently called "Athena, The Tireless One" which is definitely in line with the Sylphs weird grammar conventions, ie "these ones", "walking one", "horned one" (the padjals), etc.

There's other lesser points. Like the overwhelmingly purple cast to the arena, which is the color of both the tempered sylphs and the element of lightning. Also, the particles in the air might be considered similar to levin weather conditions. And the fact that the fight takes place in the clouds, ie where lightning/storms come from, for seemingly no concrete reason. The fact she takes on butterfly/moth wings, which is an animal you tend to find in the woods like the Sylphs live in. (Weakest bit, I know.)


Now that I've noticed the vocals, I can't unhear it. It's actually pretty discordant with the rest of the song, which might very well be another tick in the "This is here for a reason" column. I can't imagine the sound team missing how off that sounds. Though I acknowledge they are mere mortals, so its possible. But it seems very unlikely.


So, do you all think this may indicate a connection between Athena and the Sylphs or Ramuh? If so, what connection? Could she be their creator?

Or perhaps she's the source of the Ramuh primal? I thought he was likely based off Rhalgr before this, but maybe his roots go back further. Maybe she had something to do with him. Lahbrea, who obviously has ties to Athena, could also have had something to do with passing on the idea of Ramuh when the ascians taught the Sylphs primal summoning. He is very unleafy for a plant race's god.


Or did I miss something super obvious to explain this? lol Please let me know, if so.


*I disagree with a few lyric choices in that video. I'm writing what I think those words are instead. Hope we get official lyrics someday.

** Updated the post now that the official lyrics are out from the Growing Light album.

[Hainiryun]

I actually hadn't noticed the reused sound till you pointed it out but I don't think there's a ton more to it than "well we need some wailing female vocals in the background for this track and we already have some on file". This feels like putting the horse before the cart and working back from a conclusion to find evidence to fit it. Most of these points are entirely plausibly coincidence. It's not impossiblethat there's some next level subtle hinting at a connection for whatever reason but I'm not convinced personally. I don't want to come across as dismissive here, there's nothing wrong with idle speculation after all, so I'll take the time to explain why I think your points doesn't necessarily add up to anything.

Soken definitely isn't above using audio from other sources just because it fits what he's doing with a song. A good example of this is the La-hee motif for Rak'tika and the Bozja motif both being from a vocal sample codex. Obviously there's no actual meaning to those samples in universe but they got spun out into multiple tracks. Obviously that's not exactly what you're getting at here but it's an example of sampling being used in ways that aren't hinting at anything.

The lyrics you've highlighted are actually mostly reused from Hic Svnt Leones from P4 since The Tireless One is a big mish mash of all the Pandaemonium themes so their inclusion in the song feels like it has a more obvious role in a song designed to highlight her as the ultimate boss of the raid series than hinting at an obscure connection with Ramuh.

Tireless One is more of a reference to the nature of Athena herself, driven tirelessly to pursue her goals to the point where even her death and the sundering couldn't make her stop as well as providing her with another title that evokes the idea of a deity. You're right that it does line up with the way the Sylphs speak but it is also just an actual reasonable way to refer to Athena. The way Sylphs use the "[thing] one" mostly serves to paint them as your standard whimsical fey folk who approach social interaction from a different angle to the rest of us.

The butterfly wings feel like an obvious allusion to metamorphosis, just as a caterpillar changes forms from its larval stage to become a butterfly Athena has achieved her goal and achieved a new form of being. This theme of metamorphosis is also one of the reasons the save mount is an Axolotl, an animal which can achieve metamorphosis but lacks the ability to do so in its natural habitat and has to be externally provided the necessary hormones which reflects the raid series theme of Athena tinkering with the Ancients to pursue her goal of transcendance. It also lets them make her look angelic and divine without looking too much like a Sin Eater (Titania notwithstanding).

While there's certainly a lot of purple in the fight it's not really lightning themed for the most part. Most of the purple effects on her spells have more of a dark energy vibe going on and the actual lightning looking effects (such as the tethers to the chomp platforms) are blue rather than purple. The cloudtop setting again feels more like it's meant to tie into the divinity aspect, She's become a god so we're fighting her in the heavens. That's also IMO why the wailing is in there to begin with, it evokes voices raised in exultation to this newborn divine being even if that wasn't necessarily the purpose of the sample in the original song.

Also if you turn it around and look at it from the other direction I don't think there's much about Ramuh or the Syphs that hints at a connection to a character that hadn't been conceived of when they originally appeared (and they're usually relatively good at handling additive retcons like that), Ramuh's section of the story always hinted that he had more going on than some of the other ARR Primals which they've never really followed up on but generally people have focused on the Rhalgr connection there since it's a more plausible link.

As I said I'm not trying to be dismissive here and it's entirely possible that both my interpretations are right (or not) and this is all hinting at some connection that'll be expanded on in the future and there's nothing wrong with having a pet theory (I have held on to my theory that Zurvan and Ifrit are derived from the same base entity since Heavensward) but as it stands I don't think this one has a ton going for it.

[Alleluia]

Totally fair. /shrug lol Could easily just be a case of a meta reason, like reusing an asset.

My main issue with accepting that is its discordancy, which has actually become ear grating to me now that I've noticed it. But that could just be me, obviously. Or its not just me and it grates on other people's ears too, but the sound team either doesn't agree/care or missed it.

But. if there *is* an in-universe reason for it, and she's connected to the Sylphs somehow, I have no idea what that connection looks like. Which is why I brought it up here. In case anyone else had anything they noticed or theorized about that tied in and they wanted to add.

[Alleluia]

Hate to necro, but I just wanted to add that they carried over the "aaaAAAaaaAAaa" vocals in to the Forge Ahead album rearrangement of the song. And also, official lyrics are out. I have updated the OP accordingly.

[Zero-ELEC]

That vocalisation is from a sound sample library. They use the same sample in "Athena, the Tireless One", "Thunder Rolls", and "Storm of Blood" (Stormblood trailer, Mount Rokkon battle theme). This sample was used in Ar Tonelico for the PS2 and many other things over the years.

[Ancalagon_Blacktalon]

yeah, reuse of vocal samples within games is normal, and it's even more normal for vocal samples to show up across multiple mediums too.

The vocal sample that starts the Sand Hill track in Sonic Adventure is one I've absolutely heard in tracks on Beatport.

[Cleretic]

yeah, reuse of vocal samples within games is normal, and it's even more normal for vocal samples to show up across multiple mediums too.

The vocal sample that starts the Sand Hill track in Sonic Adventure is one I've absolutely heard in tracks on Beatport.

Semi-famously, Ocarina of Time's initial release had an Islamic chant mixed into the Fire Temple theme, that it turns out was just from a sound library and you can hear it in a handful of other games of that era.

I also remember people finding out that the Bozja chant (you know which one) was from a sound library, but that one they actually did use as a leitmotif.

[Zero-ELEC]

Semi-famously, Ocarina of Time's initial release had an Islamic chant mixed into the Fire Temple theme, that it turns out was just from a sound library and you can hear it in a handful of other games of that era.

I also remember people finding out that the Bozja chant (you know which one) was from a sound library, but that one they actually did use as a leitmotif.

Yeah, both the Save the Queen leitmotif and "Civilizations" voice samples come straight from the Era II Vocal Codex sample library as discovered by this youtube user.