How are there skeletons in the landscape?

[No_Nick_Needed]

Whenever we see any living being die, it dissolves into motes of aether. And yet we find plenty of skeletons scattered around the landscape, like the dragon skeletons in Dravania for example.
How did they not dissolve into aether and rejoin the aetherial sea? Was some special weapon or spell used to kill them, which prevented that?

[MikkoAkure]

Things we kill dissolve into aether because that’s just what happens in video games.

In-universe that doesn’t happen or else no one would be able to harvest bones/furs etc. or even eat meat.

[ConantSivrha]

Most corpses stay on the ground for a few seconds and then fade away, but this isn’t really happening in-universe, it’s just something the game does to prevent corpses from cluttering up the area (I assume). Things that actually have an animation for dissolving into aether are usually supernatural beings like voidsent or primals. We see and/or interact with corpses on a few occasions (especially in ARR), and there’s a graveyard near Camp Drybone where bodies are buried. Additionally, in 7.2’s MSQ…

…a human corpse did actually vanish shortly after death, and it was pointed out as strange.

[Cleretic]

Things we kill dissolve into aether because that’s just what happens in video games.

In-universe that doesn’t happen or else no one would be able to harvest bones/furs etc. or even eat meat.

It's actually been a staple thing even back as far as FFII: when characters die, their body fades away. And despite that, yes, there are undead enemies in FFII; it was actually the game to introduce the idea of healing magic hurting undead.

In modern games this would be a classic bit of narrative-mechanic synergy, because... well, dead bodies fade away in gameplay, why wouldn't they fade away in cutscenes? Except that didn't happen in FFII, or in fact any FF game until like FFX, dead enemies disappear in a completely different way!

[No_Nick_Needed]

There is one optional quest, though I don't remember which one, in Ul'Dah, where you have to investigate a death and when you go into the crypt the priests there tell you how they have eto treat the body to keep it from dissolving. That kind of treatment would surely not be done on a battlefield or in the wilderness, so people still canonically dissolve into aether, as far as I'm aware.
Between that and us getting the corpses from the attack on the Waking Sands to a graveyard, I assumed it'd take maybe a couple of hours in some cases for the body to dissolve and the burial being done for ritual purposes, rather than the pragmatic reasons that make it so important to bury, burn or treat dead bodies in our world to avoid the spread of disease (naturally in addition to the social aspects). And accordingly there would be this window in which someone could turn those not-yet-dissolved corpses into undead.

[MikkoAkure]

There is one optional quest, though I don't remember which one, in Ul'Dah, where you have to investigate a death and when you go into the crypt the priests there tell you how they have eto treat the body to keep it from dissolving. That kind of treatment would surely not be done on a battlefield or in the wilderness, so people still canonically dissolve into aether, as far as I'm aware.

I think you’re either misremembering or misunderstanding. Bodies do not canonically dissolve into aether after death. You might be thinking about Niellefresne but he was stabbed by a special dagger with necromancy magic that prevented his body from decaying and then when it was dispelled he poofed. But again, that was a special circumstance. Literally everything else in-game regarding dead bodies has it work just as it does in our reality.

If it worked as you suggested, then Zenos never would have been able to get his body back, the sundered Ascians and Voidsent would never be able to possess bodies, the dead bodies littering quite a few instances and dungeons wouldn’t exist, and people wouldn’t even be able to eat or clothe themselves.

[EmilySummerstar]

Imagine FATE grounds if the bodies were permanent. You couldn't see the top of the piles because your mount won't fly any higher.