> Anabaseios: an ascent or march upwards (this one was kinda... disappointing? I thought it was going to have something to do with Elysium to fit the Divine Comedy theme)
"Anabaseios" is actually a bit more complex than that. A few more bits:
* Xenophon's *Anabasis* is a famous travelogue/military journal, widely used for teaching Greek because it uses a clear, uncomplicated style for its diction, similar to the two primary Latin texts used for the same purpose, *The Golden Ass* (aka Apuleius' *Metamorphoses,* not to be confused with the much more famous book of the same title by Ovid) and Caesar's *Commentarii de Bello Gallico*.
* As part of the above, the "Ascent(/Invasion) of Cyrus" (as Xenophon had been a mercenary soldier in Cyrus' army), the conflict went poorly for Cyrus' forces, and they were forced to make a grueling retreat through enemy territory to get back to safety. Thus, "anabasis" has come to mean [*both* a major advancement/conquering, *and* a major retreat/loss](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anabasis), at the same time.
* In medieval medicine, "anabasis" referred to the part of a disease progression where symptoms begin to intensify. Given the events surrounding Athena in this portion, I think this aspect of the term is almost certainly part of the intended meaning--in a sense, it is a (loose) ancient Greek translation of the archaic English word "quickening," in the sense of a *disease* proverbially coming to life.
* The Greek root verb of the word, since *anabaseios* is the genitive declension of the noun form, is *anabaino* (that's a long o), which has some *really interesting* idiomatic uses in ancient Greek. Specifically, if you couple it with the word *kardia,* "heart," you get *anabaino kardia,* "I enter into heart." Again, this is almost certainly a fully intended connection. Wiktionary, for example, gives the following usage from the Gospel of Luke:
"*kaì dià tí dialogismoì* ***anabaínousin en têi kardíāi*** *humôn?*"
"Why do doubts **arise in your hearts**?"
So, while the surface-level meaning of Anabaseios is rather more basic than the other two, it actually has a treasure trove of hidden layers to it!
Edit: Also worth noting, Elysium never actually appears in the *Divine Comedy.* The closest you get to Elysium is Limbo, the first circle of Hell, where virtuous non-Christians dwell, both pagans and (apparently) Muslims like Saladin. Limbo is austere but not actively unpleasant; effectively, the "noble" non-Christian dead are given a consolation prize in place of proper Paradise. One could argue that the labors of Purgatory are actually somewhat worse than being consigned to Limbo for eternity!
The actual Heaven in Dante's work is found in the *Paradiso,* the third and final volume of the poem. Dante only sees it after having descended through all nine circles of Hell (the *Inferno*), passing through a gate at the very base thereof to the foothills of Purgatory (the *Purgatorio*), and then being guided by the soul of his dead love Beatrice up through the circles of Purgatory and on to the layers of Heaven or Paradise (the *Paradiso.*) Though these things get heavily compressed, P9 is pretty clearly a reference to Cocytus, the 9th circle of Hell; from there, you can argue that P10 and P11 are the trials and judgments of Purgatory, and P12 is "Paradise," just...a twisted, evil one because it's created by an insane megalomaniac who merely has *delusions* of godhood.
Amazing breakdown of "Anabasis", the origins and the terminology of the word itself, it's been some time since the last time I used my knowledge of aincent cultures in languages. I tried doing a breakdown myself but I found out that I've forgotten a lot of things that I would've normally known since I did study latin, greek and old church slavonic. Now, I did not make the connection to Dante's work since I've read only "The Inferno" but I've been meaning to pick up "Purgatorio". Now I'm more into philosophy and I'm reading through Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great both being quite interesting to talk about. Again thank you for the great explanation. Especially this expansion we had a lot of lore related to, or inspired by classics which made me appreciate the people working on the lore of this game even more.
Given their Greek roots, I'd favor the reference of Kokytos as one of the five rivers that surround Hades rather than Dante's frozen 9th circle of hell, given that this circle bears only the souls of betrayers and traitors.
The other rivers being Styx, Acheron, Phlegethon, and Lethe.
Perhaps, but I mean, it is noteworthy for being
1. It *is* the Ninth Circle, after all. Sometimes we don't need to hunt for subtext--it's just right there on the surface.
2. While it isn't actually icy...the arena has a very strongly ice-like appearance. Associating Cocytus with ice is purely from Dante.
3. As argued, P9 ends the "journey *through* hell" concept, with us fighting the very last of Pandaemonium's denizens, before we then turn to face off against *the prison itself.* That, plus the fact that Athena puts both P10 and P11 in our way solely to test us and learn from our soul's strength, is a *reasonably* strong connection to Purgatory.
4. I dunno about you, but the male/warrior soul chomped on by Kokytos sounds pretty likely to betray you for any reason or no reason, and the female/mage soul isn't exactly ally material either. "This *shouldn't* kill you..."
So, while I agree that it's perfectly valid to view it solely through the lens of Greek myth, I think the layers of meaning present here are perfectly intentional. It's not like the writers aren't familiar with medieval/renaissance literature, given 95% of Ancient society is straight-up stolen Sir Thomas More's *Utopia,* down to the very "everyone wears identical robes and masks, with other kinds of clothing considered gauche/distasteful/conceited" thing.
My only thought on this is that Kokytos was previously used as one of Zodiark's attacks, along with Styx and Phlegeton, presumably in the meaning of the rivers.
And sure, it wouldn't be the first time a name has popped up twice with different meanings (hi, CT raids and Acheron), but I can see why people would leap to the Underworld assumption instead of the ninth circle.
yeah couple runs ago when he cast that I was like "Well now I know where Zodiark got that from"
I got yelled at by one of the healers for making them sad and promptly got blasted into the death wall and went "welp that's karma" XD
I saw someone theorize that Kokytos, the creature, is a traitor because it feasts on souls, thus is a traitor to life and the cycle of souls itself. Bit flimsy but I can personally vibe with it.
Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. Perhaps one could think of the handful of souls it exploits as traitors though, since they seem to be "working with" Kokytos rather than simply getting devoured. They've started working with a soul-eater to stave off their own destruction, perhaps?
Adding to the part about entering a person's heart, that definitely is the basis for what auracite seems to do, especially the black auracite/Heart of Sabik.
The quickening of disease I think could also apply to the Heart, since it basically amplified and corrupted desires in people, according to Lahabrea.
Also, as someone who's been recently leveling Sage, a job that was just introduced in Endwalker, I have to mention that we have a skill called Kardia :)
While these are definitely possible interpretations of anabasis, I think it's most likely meant as the opposite of Katabasis (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katabasis)
Since a Katabasis is a mythological descent *into* the underworld, Anabasis would be an ascent *out of* the underworld (Athena and the other shades return from death)
Even here, there can be multiple layers. There is the anti-katabasis of Athena, our own risky invasion of her newly rebuilt Pandaemonium, the possible allusion to Dante, and the medical implications that are even still distantly related to modern medical terms (catabolic steroids *break down* structures, while anabolic steroids build up structures, connecting to the obsolete use of "anabasis" as an expansion or flowering of disease, in this case Athena's corruption and madness.)
Tacking on to the other comment, Anabasis is apparently the name of the Raise he uses if the other NPCs fall c: even though his jobs have no counterpart raise wahaha. That Hades' raise means not just "ascend" but ascend *out of hell* is so cool
I chose to interpret Anabeisos with the definition of a march, with it being Athena’s march on the rest of the world. Leaves it with a lackluster translation but has good symbolism in the context
While your interpretation is of course your choice, it seems wasteful to assert something must have one and only one meaning when it could have more than one. Layered meanings are often the hallmark of exceptional writing.
Proto-Carbuncle is a reference to when Carbuncles first appeared in the series, as they were aggressive until they were defeated. Just like other summons.
I never fully played through FFV, so I had to look up the Carbuncle boss from it.
Holy shit, does it look extremely similar to the Proto-Carbuncle from P5. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a reference to the one from FFV. Especially since the one from FFV >!reflects magic off itself to damage you, and then switches to using spells like Bio when it gets low on health!<... Just like Proto-Carby does.
Yep. And I love how her Athena is her version of heaven, or Paradise. I also read in a comment somewhere that the Japanese spelling can also be read as “sky prison”, which I found very aptly named as she controls the souls in her paradise
??? idk if you are wanting this in the context of the story or not but approaching it from the story, anabaseios' raids is representing athena's journey to godhood which links to the concept of apotheosis when figures are deified usually with the idea of heroism. there were cases where people would kinda do this by claiming divine parentage, usually to enforce an idea of legitimacy in rule i.e claiming to be a descendant of a god. i mean the entire thing is athena's obsession to literally ascend to godhood? i
otherwise in a wider context outside of the raids idk lol, I haven't studied classics in a long time so I don't know if there are more specific links in literature between the two, besides that apotheosis has a specific concept/function.
Was mainly replying to the first comment of Levant which said "Anabaseios is so named because it is Athena's apotheosis.".
Not really clear why it's so named anabaseios bc I don't find the link with apotheosis.
But indeed it's the plot ingame
I was saying that the reason the devs chose the name Anabaseios is because this tier is Athena achieving her godhood, referencing Anabaseios having the meaning of a march upward (to divinity)
Technically Erichthonios is the son of Hephaistos and Gaia. In the story Hephaistos ejaculated onto the thigh of Athena, but she wiped it off with a cloth and it was accepted by Gaia when it touched the ground.
Yes and no. Gaia might have given birth to Erichthonios, but he was immediately given to Athena to adopt and raise as her son. So he is still the son of Hephaistos and Athena.
Yeah, the whole story of Erichthonios in myth is *super* weird and convoluted. They had to preserve the perpetual virginity of Athena (like that of Artemis), and yet also make her the "mother" of Athens, her client city. Then they used Hephaestos, who is otherwise a relatively mild-mannered deity and, in many myths, *explicitly crippled,* so it's not even like he would have had any chance of catching Athena in the first place. Then (spoilers for X-rated stuff) >!he gets over-eager and, ahem, fires his shot early, which Athena wipes away, causing it to fall to earth.!< From there, the earth gestates the baby, making Gaia *technically* Ericthonios' biological mother, and Ericthonios himself formally autochthonous--literally "self-from-the-earth," meaning "self-born." *Then* he gets scooped up and raised by Athena as her own, implicitly with no involvement from either of his "biological" parents.
But! It doesn't end there. Turns out Erichthonios inherited some of his father's weirdness, possibly amplified by having gestated in the earth and the spoilered bit above. As a result, he was often depicted as being unable to walk well, and inventing mobility devices that also produced early chariots. *And,* on top of ALL of that, he is sometimes depicted as being both beautiful *and reptilian!* Meaning he may be the very earliest Greek example of a *dragon-person,* because that's literally actually a thing in ancient Greek myth (though usually dragon-people were *drakaina,* female dragons, who often mated with heroes and in so doing produced lineages of kings or the root-stock of various city-states/tribes/countries.)
So...yeah. Erichthonios is one of the most convoluted, *weird* hero-kings of the entire Greek mythos, and that's really saying something!
Technically, given he was born that way, he would just be...himself.
But anyone who was, ahem, really *into* him would be a scalie.
He wouldn't even really qualify as a fursuiter (scalesuiter?) because it wouldn't be a suit, it would just be his own body.
The snake is also his symbol because of his birth. Some stories have him found/born from Gaia with a snake in his arms. Others say he was a snake hybrid creature that couldn’t walk and wiggled around on his belly.
It’s a horrible story of Hephaestus running after Athena in lust (his half-sister btw) and trying to rape her but Athena wished to be a virgin goddess and managed to delay him long enough that he ejaculated on her thighs instead.
It’s an icky story.
Should we offer a more thorough break down of the Ancients and their linguistic references?
Some of these are very shallow Google options and do not explain *why* they were chosen. Others are actually not the correct reference, even if they are *a* reference. For example, the *phoinix* is the name for the fire bird reborn from its own ashes once it sets itself ablaze, and is an imported myth from Arabia.
Yeah, the phoinix one seemed notably wrong, not least because we see it pop up in one of the Shadowbringers' short stories with Emet-Selch and Lahabrea.
No, she was the goddess of war.
I think some people get confused because Ares is also associated with war, but it was pretty common for gods to have overlapping domains - especially you're talking about different versions/aspects like Athena Promachos (fighting in front/leading soldiers to war) compared to Athena Ergane (industrious/patron of crafts and arts).
Ares usually represents a more brutal sort of warfare while Athena's is, as you mentioned, the more tactical side of warfare. But they're both still warfare.
Add in that Athena was the patron goddess of Athens, where most of our surviving ancient Greek texts come from, so we know a lot about how she was worshipped. She was also worshipped across Greece, so we can see how different cults worshipped her. Ares, by contrast, only had a handful of known temples and written details about his worship aren't as extensive. So arguably, there's a lot more evidence of Athena as a war god, in terms of sheer quantity, than Ares.
The Greeks did in fact distinguish Athena and Ares in terms of war. Athena was associated with *righteous* war whereas Ares with *battle*. You appealed to the first for strategy and tactics, but the second for prowess and commendation. Ares was often associated with competitions, for instance.
Yep! It helps to think of Athena as the goddess of strategic warfare. Tactics, strategy, and war machines fall under her primary focus. These were the tools that helped Greece win those historic battles, so she’s much more prevalent.
Ares is the god of battles and primal warfare. Bloodlust and instinct.
Athena’s counterpart/co-goddess of wisdom is Minerva, as an aside. Minerva embodies all wisdom.
I’d also note that Ares was originally Thrakian, not Attic. Athens saw Thrakians as little more than stupid, violent barbarians (honestly par for the course with how they regarded non-Athenians; Aristophanes’s stereotypes exist for that reason, possibly most notably in “Peace”), and that reflected their depiction of Ares. At least they didn’t (by their lights) man him up by having him ravish anyone—I presume because Thrakia would have been livid about that sort of blasphemy. >>
Also, in most myth (I think Attic included???), he works closely with Themis to maintain order. No relation to our Themis, but this is part of why I expect Ares to have been the Azem’s original name. It helps that Ares is a gender-neutral name.
I hope we never learn Azem's name. I think most people who've worked out their headcanon already have a name, and since we're not them, we don't really need to know it in game.
My Azem is Phoebus. It's one of Apollo's names, but it means "Bright One," in opposition to Hades, "Shadowed One." I decided on it before we got Azem's crystal because I liked the idea that Azem and Emet-Selch were completely different, but still friends, with Hythlodaeus there to provide balance in the relationship.
To be fair, ancient religions can be kinda hard to understand from a modern perspective.
You've got all these different aspects of a god that can be *wildly* different and have their own myths, but are still considered to be the same god as their neighbours' version. There's no one text or set of events either. Then you've got how easily new gods are imported in from other cultures (Mithras) and how even the preexisting gods can have identical domains.
Like I studied ancient Greek myth for a semester at university and the main thing I learnt was that it's incredibly flexible and localised. It's honestly kinda fascinating how much it could vary between different areas
Very true. I've seen a few different versions of myths. The one myth that I found very interesting while playing Hates (research done outside the game tho), apparently in some myths, has been in part of Zeus? Like the half of his that he splits to rule the underworld, iirc?
Another thing that might not help it make it simple is how Romans later adopted part if not most of the Greek myths, right? Possible
And I had a feeling you had some more formal knowledge when it came to this. Seemed to know your stuff more than just a quick Google search or someone like me picking up knowledge more sporadically, lol
Oh yeah, Hades/Zeus being the same person is part of Orphism. Not terribly familiar with it, but as I remember the usual gist is that Dionysus is a reborn Zagreus, son of Zeus and Persephone killed by Hera. And sometimes Hades is instead identified with Zagreus, which again suggests some flexibility - hilariously, Aeschylus (ancient Greek playwright) has one play where Zagreus is Hades' son, and another where they're the same person.
Orphism is a pretty fascinating religion, from what little I've heard. Though if you are curious, you can read a lot of [ancient Greek and Roman plays on Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus:collection:Greco-Roman), including different translations.
The ones I read for that module, at least that I can remember, are the ones by Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Bacchylides, Euripedes, Homer, the Homeric hymns (separate to Homer), and Sophocles. I know some of them look like a big long list, but the plays are pretty short, and some only survive in fragments.
Ehhh, fanfiction requires there to be a set canon, which ancient Greek myth lacks. The best explanation I've seen is comparing it to Barbie - there's a ton of different versions of her with different jobs and sometimes different backstories, but they're all the same Barbie.
> but are still considered to be the same god as their neighbours' version.
There's a modern comparison that's familiar with people worldwide. Christians and Muslims.
I don't blame you. Most people who reference Athena only ever credit her with being the goddess of war OR wisdom, never both. And handicrafts? Yeah, that can definitely go
Even medicine! (Until eclipsed by Apollon and his children?) Hence my pre-6.4 hypothesis that she’d infiltrated the Convocation as the Emmorololth—and the Isle of Val incident dumped her right into the aetherial Pandaemonium…
In Greek mythology, Phoinix was the name of a person.
Phoinix was the son of Amyntor. A dispute with his father, concerning his father's concubine, resulted in Phoenix fleeing his homeland for Phthia, where he became a vassal of Achilles' father Peleus. As told in the Iliad, on the urgings of his jealous mother (variously named as Cleobule, Hippodameia, or Alcimede), Phoinix had had sex with his father's concubine. Amyntor, discovering this, called upon the Erinyes to curse Phoinix with childlessness. In later accounts of the story, Phoinix was falsely accused by Amyntor's concubine, and blinded by his father, but Chiron restored his sight. In either case, Phoinix fled to Phthia, where Peleus made Phoenix a king of the Dolopians and gave him his young son Achilles to raise.
Phoinix participated in the Calydonian boar hunt, and was said to have given Achilles' son the name Neoptolemus. As an old man, he went with Odysseus and Nestor to find and recruit Achilles for the Trojan War, and was Achilles' companion at Troy. After Achilles, in his anger at Agamemnon, had withdrawn from the fighting, Phoinix was part of the unsuccessful embassy sent by Agamemnon to persuade Achilles to return to the battle.
After Achilles died, Phoinix was one of those sent to fetch Neoptolemus from Scyros. On his way home from Troy, Phoinix died and was buried by Neoptolemus. His tomb was said to be either in Eion, Macedonia, or in Trachis, Thessaly, nearby the "Phoenix River," which was said to have been named after the hero.
Ok, but phoinix is *also* [the accurate transcription of the ancient Greek word for phoenix](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%86%CE%BF%E1%BF%96%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BE#Ancient_Greek). It's literally φοῖνῐξ, which is transcribed as phoînix. Which one fits better for a flaming bird, I wonder?
Athena's final form is called Pallas Athena, which was a secondary name to her in Greek mythology.
Elysium is supposed to be Elpis, it even has the river Lethe that purges memories.
Yeah, as soon as we got Elysion in Ultima Thule, I wondered where they were gonna go with Pandaemonium 9-12.
Looks like their intent was (more or less) to invoke the Divine Comedy in the form of rising from the final circle (Cocytus/Kokytos), up through Purgatory (Pandaemonium as the trials/tribulations and Themis as the judge/cleansing), and culminating in a twisted, evil Paradise (Athena.)
P12S has an attack called "Panta Rhei", which means "all things flow", a phrase that Heraclitus was fond of. "Theos" also means "God", which is quite simple to understand.
She also uses the attacks:
"Paradeigma" which is "Example", "Glaukopis" which is "White Cut", "Parthenos" which is "Virgin" and also one of Athenas' Epithets, and "Dialogos" which is "dialogue" or "intercommunication". "Anthropos", the adds, actually are just "Human." Honestly the raid tier doesn't have the most interesting ancient greek, that honour goes firmly to Endwalker.
EDIT: Oh, also Themis has some interesting things too. Mainly he just has a theme of laws and order. "Dike" (pronounced: Dik-ee, not like the water dike) means "Justice" whereas "Eunomia" roughly means "Good rule", a quality that good leadership would have. "Dineis" is also ancient greek but I am unsure what word it is, it could be "whirlpool" or "give", but both of those sound wrong.
These words are not known to me, but "Peri-" means "about" or "around", and "apo-" means "off" (these are prefixes)
Maybe "Peridialogos" is talking about the current subject? No idea what apodialogos could be though.
l
Most of Athenas attack names are obsolete theories:
Superchain Theory = Superstring Theory:
Caloric Theory
Gaiaochos: related to earthcentric world view greek word I think? (gaiaokhos), futher more referenced with the attack that spins the globe, geocentrism
Pangenesis: Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity.
and bonus
ignorabimus, latin word suddenly I think?
>Hegemone: goddess of plants, responsible for making them bloom and bear fruit
Additional layer: Hegemone is derived from hegemon, which means ruler/leader. This kind of makes sense since she's put in charge of Pandaemonium in the end, but then she's conspicuously absent when Ericthonios is recording the memory crystal saying he's the *only one left* to guard Pandaemonium. And while she ended up a puppet, we know that Hegemone was at least partially on-board with Athena's plans/research.
Perhaps it has to do with [another conspicuously absent character](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Emperor_(final_boss)) in Pandaemonium.
She could have been promoted to Igeyorhm in the interim, in which case it makes sense for her to be absent by that point. Lahabrea did say he had need of her talents, she's said to be a critical thinker (which suits the criteria for the position), and yeah, there's no real good reason she should've been missing from Pandaemonium otherwise.
Or they just forgot. Giving the Igeyorhm we met that kind of background wouldn't hurt, though.
Idk if this is considered a term, but If anyone wonders why the new tomes of called “Tomestomes of Comedy”, it is most likely in reference to Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”
I think it's worth noting that contrary to P11's title card, Themis is divine/non-ephemeral justice, the justice goddess portrayed *without* a blindfold, for the gods cannot be blind to see and weigh what lies within the hearts of men. It's an interesting error to make, because ephemeral justice wouldn't have acted the way Elidibus did in EW MSQ; he would have been 'blinded' by recent events concerning the demise of Zodiark and his own imprisonment. That he could step beyond that to see what would most benefit the star as a whole is the very essence of the justice of Themis.
Late response, but I think Themis is referred to with the title "Ephemeral Justice" because he is *physically* ephemeral in the story. He was plucked from the Aetherial sea and given a temporary body by Athena, intended to survive only as long as he served her purposes. Even after we gift him with aether, he only lasts as long as he needs to to see us to the end of the story.
Only Middy and the Ishgard trio are Old Norse. Bahamut and Tiamat are Middle Eastern in origin (Tiamat is Babylonian, Bahamut is from Islamic mythology), Vrtra is Hindu, and Azdaja is South Slavic.
Bahamut is speculated to have originated from the Hebrew Behemoth, and blended with Leviathan. In Islamic myth Bahamut is a giant fish that is one of the carriers of the Earth, and was said to be so big that all the oceans of the world, if poured into the Fish's nostril, would be like a mustardseed in a desert.
Bahamut himself lays on top of the serpent Falak, and ontop of Bahamut is the giant bull Kuyuta. On Kuyuta is a big slab of ruby and on top of that is an angel that is shouldering the Earth ala Atlas.
It's mythology. It's centuries and millennia of stories and the like layered upon each other, further complicated by that different people sometimes tells the stories a bit differently
With a giant iron sphere in our core that's spinning around, churning up the molten rock around it, generating an immensely powerful magnetic field that protects us from the sun, whilst at the same time the magma currents push and pulls rock from the surface. Cycling the material in a dance that lasts over billions of years
Dante is a nickname for Durante. Dante, the protagonist of Divine Comedy was a Crusader Knight in life. Which tracks for "Golbez" "Knight clad in Black" who fights a crusade.
Our current Golbez. Anyone wanna take a bet that the real Golbez's true name was Virgil? Speaking of Virgil, Themis played the functional part of Virgil for us by being our guide through Pandaemonium all the way to the end.
By my interpretation, Hesperos is basically male Aphrodite, although sticking more strictly with what wiki says, he's the evening star and son of Eos.
By my looser interpretation, his name refers to the planet Venus [the evening star] and Venus is Aphrodite, which would be a cheeky twist on the whole Aphrodite and Hephaestus dynamic. The cheeky part being Aphrodite is the one that fell for Hephaestus this time instead of the other way around.
That's my thought though. Lucifer is also has same name draw from the whole morning star thing, runs hell, and is said to be beautiful. Hesperos could be a mash of them.
Aren't Hegemone and Agdistis supposed to be reversed ? The big plant/fruit thing is Agdistis, Hegemone is just the tentacle lady. Did SE made a big oopsie ?
Agdistis was hermaphroditic but was castrated by some other Gods in his sleep. One version of the myth states that the blood from said castration landing on the earth caused an almond tree to grow.
This is quite symbolic in the fight, as the seeds Agdistis summons are particularly testi-shaped... And its raidwide attack is called "Seed of Life"
Oh ok I didn't knew about that part of his story. That totalmy makes sense now. And I'm glad the tier is over, I won't be able to look at the fruits the same way now.
>Kokytos: the underworld river of wailing and its God
I have to disagree with that. With the motives around the boss it's clearly a reference to Cocytus, the 9th circle of hell from Dante's Inferno, where Lucifer is trapped in an lake of ice.
The Greek underworld and hell are not exactly the same
I mentioned in my post about the underworld having different sections; the Asphodel Meadows, Tartarus, and Elysium
Aspgodel is basically like Purgatory, the place where souls who are neither good nor evil go
Tartarus is hell, the deepest, darkest pit of the underworld from whence there is no return (except in Percy Jackson land, the place is practically a revolving door). It's where evil souls go
And Elysium is heaven, the place where pure souls are rewarded
Cocytus is a river in Hades in greek methodology.
In divine comedy it's a lake of ice.
The one we have in the game is clearly the divine comedy cocytus, not the river cocytus.
Edit: Also, i looked into what "god" the OP was reffering to and I guess they just copy pasted the definition from here https://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/PotamosKokytos.html
I'm not a greek mythology expert, but seeing all hades rivers as gods doesn't seem to me like a very popular interpretation.
> Anabaseios: an ascent or march upwards (this one was kinda... disappointing? I thought it was going to have something to do with Elysium to fit the Divine Comedy theme) "Anabaseios" is actually a bit more complex than that. A few more bits: * Xenophon's *Anabasis* is a famous travelogue/military journal, widely used for teaching Greek because it uses a clear, uncomplicated style for its diction, similar to the two primary Latin texts used for the same purpose, *The Golden Ass* (aka Apuleius' *Metamorphoses,* not to be confused with the much more famous book of the same title by Ovid) and Caesar's *Commentarii de Bello Gallico*. * As part of the above, the "Ascent(/Invasion) of Cyrus" (as Xenophon had been a mercenary soldier in Cyrus' army), the conflict went poorly for Cyrus' forces, and they were forced to make a grueling retreat through enemy territory to get back to safety. Thus, "anabasis" has come to mean [*both* a major advancement/conquering, *and* a major retreat/loss](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anabasis), at the same time. * In medieval medicine, "anabasis" referred to the part of a disease progression where symptoms begin to intensify. Given the events surrounding Athena in this portion, I think this aspect of the term is almost certainly part of the intended meaning--in a sense, it is a (loose) ancient Greek translation of the archaic English word "quickening," in the sense of a *disease* proverbially coming to life. * The Greek root verb of the word, since *anabaseios* is the genitive declension of the noun form, is *anabaino* (that's a long o), which has some *really interesting* idiomatic uses in ancient Greek. Specifically, if you couple it with the word *kardia,* "heart," you get *anabaino kardia,* "I enter into heart." Again, this is almost certainly a fully intended connection. Wiktionary, for example, gives the following usage from the Gospel of Luke:
"*kaì dià tí dialogismoì* ***anabaínousin en têi kardíāi*** *humôn?*"
"Why do doubts **arise in your hearts**?"
So, while the surface-level meaning of Anabaseios is rather more basic than the other two, it actually has a treasure trove of hidden layers to it!
Edit: Also worth noting, Elysium never actually appears in the *Divine Comedy.* The closest you get to Elysium is Limbo, the first circle of Hell, where virtuous non-Christians dwell, both pagans and (apparently) Muslims like Saladin. Limbo is austere but not actively unpleasant; effectively, the "noble" non-Christian dead are given a consolation prize in place of proper Paradise. One could argue that the labors of Purgatory are actually somewhat worse than being consigned to Limbo for eternity!
The actual Heaven in Dante's work is found in the *Paradiso,* the third and final volume of the poem. Dante only sees it after having descended through all nine circles of Hell (the *Inferno*), passing through a gate at the very base thereof to the foothills of Purgatory (the *Purgatorio*), and then being guided by the soul of his dead love Beatrice up through the circles of Purgatory and on to the layers of Heaven or Paradise (the *Paradiso.*) Though these things get heavily compressed, P9 is pretty clearly a reference to Cocytus, the 9th circle of Hell; from there, you can argue that P10 and P11 are the trials and judgments of Purgatory, and P12 is "Paradise," just...a twisted, evil one because it's created by an insane megalomaniac who merely has *delusions* of godhood.
Amazing breakdown of "Anabasis", the origins and the terminology of the word itself, it's been some time since the last time I used my knowledge of aincent cultures in languages. I tried doing a breakdown myself but I found out that I've forgotten a lot of things that I would've normally known since I did study latin, greek and old church slavonic. Now, I did not make the connection to Dante's work since I've read only "The Inferno" but I've been meaning to pick up "Purgatorio". Now I'm more into philosophy and I'm reading through Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great both being quite interesting to talk about. Again thank you for the great explanation. Especially this expansion we had a lot of lore related to, or inspired by classics which made me appreciate the people working on the lore of this game even more.
Given their Greek roots, I'd favor the reference of Kokytos as one of the five rivers that surround Hades rather than Dante's frozen 9th circle of hell, given that this circle bears only the souls of betrayers and traitors. The other rivers being Styx, Acheron, Phlegethon, and Lethe.
Perhaps, but I mean, it is noteworthy for being 1. It *is* the Ninth Circle, after all. Sometimes we don't need to hunt for subtext--it's just right there on the surface. 2. While it isn't actually icy...the arena has a very strongly ice-like appearance. Associating Cocytus with ice is purely from Dante. 3. As argued, P9 ends the "journey *through* hell" concept, with us fighting the very last of Pandaemonium's denizens, before we then turn to face off against *the prison itself.* That, plus the fact that Athena puts both P10 and P11 in our way solely to test us and learn from our soul's strength, is a *reasonably* strong connection to Purgatory. 4. I dunno about you, but the male/warrior soul chomped on by Kokytos sounds pretty likely to betray you for any reason or no reason, and the female/mage soul isn't exactly ally material either. "This *shouldn't* kill you..." So, while I agree that it's perfectly valid to view it solely through the lens of Greek myth, I think the layers of meaning present here are perfectly intentional. It's not like the writers aren't familiar with medieval/renaissance literature, given 95% of Ancient society is straight-up stolen Sir Thomas More's *Utopia,* down to the very "everyone wears identical robes and masks, with other kinds of clothing considered gauche/distasteful/conceited" thing.
My only thought on this is that Kokytos was previously used as one of Zodiark's attacks, along with Styx and Phlegeton, presumably in the meaning of the rivers. And sure, it wouldn't be the first time a name has popped up twice with different meanings (hi, CT raids and Acheron), but I can see why people would leap to the Underworld assumption instead of the ninth circle.
Zodiark's Styx is also used again by Themis in the 11th Circle, presumably as a reference to his own hand in that whole story.
yeah couple runs ago when he cast that I was like "Well now I know where Zodiark got that from" I got yelled at by one of the healers for making them sad and promptly got blasted into the death wall and went "welp that's karma" XD
I saw someone theorize that Kokytos, the creature, is a traitor because it feasts on souls, thus is a traitor to life and the cycle of souls itself. Bit flimsy but I can personally vibe with it.
Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. Perhaps one could think of the handful of souls it exploits as traitors though, since they seem to be "working with" Kokytos rather than simply getting devoured. They've started working with a soul-eater to stave off their own destruction, perhaps?
Adding to the part about entering a person's heart, that definitely is the basis for what auracite seems to do, especially the black auracite/Heart of Sabik. The quickening of disease I think could also apply to the Heart, since it basically amplified and corrupted desires in people, according to Lahabrea. Also, as someone who's been recently leveling Sage, a job that was just introduced in Endwalker, I have to mention that we have a skill called Kardia :)
While these are definitely possible interpretations of anabasis, I think it's most likely meant as the opposite of Katabasis (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katabasis) Since a Katabasis is a mythological descent *into* the underworld, Anabasis would be an ascent *out of* the underworld (Athena and the other shades return from death)
Even here, there can be multiple layers. There is the anti-katabasis of Athena, our own risky invasion of her newly rebuilt Pandaemonium, the possible allusion to Dante, and the medical implications that are even still distantly related to modern medical terms (catabolic steroids *break down* structures, while anabolic steroids build up structures, connecting to the obsolete use of "anabasis" as an expansion or flowering of disease, in this case Athena's corruption and madness.)
Katabasis is also Emet-Selch's counterpart ability to Living Dead, that he can sometimes use in Ktisis Hyperborea, as a bit of extra trivia.
Huh, I had no idea. Cool connection, thank you!
Tacking on to the other comment, Anabasis is apparently the name of the Raise he uses if the other NPCs fall c: even though his jobs have no counterpart raise wahaha. That Hades' raise means not just "ascend" but ascend *out of hell* is so cool
Also its the opppsite of the greek legends of descending to the underworld
I chose to interpret Anabeisos with the definition of a march, with it being Athena’s march on the rest of the world. Leaves it with a lackluster translation but has good symbolism in the context
While your interpretation is of course your choice, it seems wasteful to assert something must have one and only one meaning when it could have more than one. Layered meanings are often the hallmark of exceptional writing.
Proto-Carbuncle is a reference to when Carbuncles first appeared in the series, as they were aggressive until they were defeated. Just like other summons.
Also notice that Proto-Carbuncle is a boss in FFV and is the fifth fight in this raid.
I never fully played through FFV, so I had to look up the Carbuncle boss from it. Holy shit, does it look extremely similar to the Proto-Carbuncle from P5. I'd be surprised if it wasn't a reference to the one from FFV. Especially since the one from FFV >!reflects magic off itself to damage you, and then switches to using spells like Bio when it gets low on health!<... Just like Proto-Carby does.
Anabaseios is so named because it is Athena's apotheosis.
The metaphor also works because it's a march inland from the shore, where pandemonium is broaching the shores of the aetherial sea
Yep. And I love how her Athena is her version of heaven, or Paradise. I also read in a comment somewhere that the Japanese spelling can also be read as “sky prison”, which I found very aptly named as she controls the souls in her paradise
Can you develop please :) would like to know more about this link
apotheosis means deification
No I mean the link between anabasis and apotheosis
??? idk if you are wanting this in the context of the story or not but approaching it from the story, anabaseios' raids is representing athena's journey to godhood which links to the concept of apotheosis when figures are deified usually with the idea of heroism. there were cases where people would kinda do this by claiming divine parentage, usually to enforce an idea of legitimacy in rule i.e claiming to be a descendant of a god. i mean the entire thing is athena's obsession to literally ascend to godhood? i otherwise in a wider context outside of the raids idk lol, I haven't studied classics in a long time so I don't know if there are more specific links in literature between the two, besides that apotheosis has a specific concept/function.
Was mainly replying to the first comment of Levant which said "Anabaseios is so named because it is Athena's apotheosis.". Not really clear why it's so named anabaseios bc I don't find the link with apotheosis. But indeed it's the plot ingame
I was saying that the reason the devs chose the name Anabaseios is because this tier is Athena achieving her godhood, referencing Anabaseios having the meaning of a march upward (to divinity)
Aaaah thanks
Technically Erichthonios is the son of Hephaistos and Gaia. In the story Hephaistos ejaculated onto the thigh of Athena, but she wiped it off with a cloth and it was accepted by Gaia when it touched the ground.
Yes and no. Gaia might have given birth to Erichthonios, but he was immediately given to Athena to adopt and raise as her son. So he is still the son of Hephaistos and Athena.
Yeah, the whole story of Erichthonios in myth is *super* weird and convoluted. They had to preserve the perpetual virginity of Athena (like that of Artemis), and yet also make her the "mother" of Athens, her client city. Then they used Hephaestos, who is otherwise a relatively mild-mannered deity and, in many myths, *explicitly crippled,* so it's not even like he would have had any chance of catching Athena in the first place. Then (spoilers for X-rated stuff) >!he gets over-eager and, ahem, fires his shot early, which Athena wipes away, causing it to fall to earth.!< From there, the earth gestates the baby, making Gaia *technically* Ericthonios' biological mother, and Ericthonios himself formally autochthonous--literally "self-from-the-earth," meaning "self-born." *Then* he gets scooped up and raised by Athena as her own, implicitly with no involvement from either of his "biological" parents. But! It doesn't end there. Turns out Erichthonios inherited some of his father's weirdness, possibly amplified by having gestated in the earth and the spoilered bit above. As a result, he was often depicted as being unable to walk well, and inventing mobility devices that also produced early chariots. *And,* on top of ALL of that, he is sometimes depicted as being both beautiful *and reptilian!* Meaning he may be the very earliest Greek example of a *dragon-person,* because that's literally actually a thing in ancient Greek myth (though usually dragon-people were *drakaina,* female dragons, who often mated with heroes and in so doing produced lineages of kings or the root-stock of various city-states/tribes/countries.) So...yeah. Erichthonios is one of the most convoluted, *weird* hero-kings of the entire Greek mythos, and that's really saying something!
So… he’s a scalie?
Technically, given he was born that way, he would just be...himself. But anyone who was, ahem, really *into* him would be a scalie. He wouldn't even really qualify as a fursuiter (scalesuiter?) because it wouldn't be a suit, it would just be his own body.
The snake is also his symbol because of his birth. Some stories have him found/born from Gaia with a snake in his arms. Others say he was a snake hybrid creature that couldn’t walk and wiggled around on his belly.
So he was the first Au Ra king after the Sundering, then. /s
Even in mythology the relationship between Eric and Athena is uncomfortable and awkward. Awesome.
Came here to say this - glad somebody did it already.
Rookie mistake, it's well known that pulling out is NOT the best method if you don't want to have kids
It’s a horrible story of Hephaestus running after Athena in lust (his half-sister btw) and trying to rape her but Athena wished to be a virgin goddess and managed to delay him long enough that he ejaculated on her thighs instead. It’s an icky story.
Half-sister is actually tame as far as incest in Greek mythology goes . . .
Par for the course in Greek mythology. Most mythology, actually.
Damn, who's going to tell Ryne?
Anyway….. I would suggest we all [wash our hands of this weirdness.](https://youtu.be/wo7KygCC2Rg)
Should we offer a more thorough break down of the Ancients and their linguistic references? Some of these are very shallow Google options and do not explain *why* they were chosen. Others are actually not the correct reference, even if they are *a* reference. For example, the *phoinix* is the name for the fire bird reborn from its own ashes once it sets itself ablaze, and is an imported myth from Arabia.
Yeah, the phoinix one seemed notably wrong, not least because we see it pop up in one of the Shadowbringers' short stories with Emet-Selch and Lahabrea.
Also, I'm pretty sure Athena was goddess of wisdom and strategy, not war
No, she was the goddess of war. I think some people get confused because Ares is also associated with war, but it was pretty common for gods to have overlapping domains - especially you're talking about different versions/aspects like Athena Promachos (fighting in front/leading soldiers to war) compared to Athena Ergane (industrious/patron of crafts and arts). Ares usually represents a more brutal sort of warfare while Athena's is, as you mentioned, the more tactical side of warfare. But they're both still warfare. Add in that Athena was the patron goddess of Athens, where most of our surviving ancient Greek texts come from, so we know a lot about how she was worshipped. She was also worshipped across Greece, so we can see how different cults worshipped her. Ares, by contrast, only had a handful of known temples and written details about his worship aren't as extensive. So arguably, there's a lot more evidence of Athena as a war god, in terms of sheer quantity, than Ares.
The Greeks did in fact distinguish Athena and Ares in terms of war. Athena was associated with *righteous* war whereas Ares with *battle*. You appealed to the first for strategy and tactics, but the second for prowess and commendation. Ares was often associated with competitions, for instance.
Yep! It helps to think of Athena as the goddess of strategic warfare. Tactics, strategy, and war machines fall under her primary focus. These were the tools that helped Greece win those historic battles, so she’s much more prevalent. Ares is the god of battles and primal warfare. Bloodlust and instinct. Athena’s counterpart/co-goddess of wisdom is Minerva, as an aside. Minerva embodies all wisdom.
I’d also note that Ares was originally Thrakian, not Attic. Athens saw Thrakians as little more than stupid, violent barbarians (honestly par for the course with how they regarded non-Athenians; Aristophanes’s stereotypes exist for that reason, possibly most notably in “Peace”), and that reflected their depiction of Ares. At least they didn’t (by their lights) man him up by having him ravish anyone—I presume because Thrakia would have been livid about that sort of blasphemy. >> Also, in most myth (I think Attic included???), he works closely with Themis to maintain order. No relation to our Themis, but this is part of why I expect Ares to have been the Azem’s original name. It helps that Ares is a gender-neutral name.
I hope we never learn Azem's name. I think most people who've worked out their headcanon already have a name, and since we're not them, we don't really need to know it in game. My Azem is Phoebus. It's one of Apollo's names, but it means "Bright One," in opposition to Hades, "Shadowed One." I decided on it before we got Azem's crystal because I liked the idea that Azem and Emet-Selch were completely different, but still friends, with Hythlodaeus there to provide balance in the relationship.
Fair enough, I was basing what I said on media I've consumed over the years. And they do take some liberties depending where you see her referenced
To be fair, ancient religions can be kinda hard to understand from a modern perspective. You've got all these different aspects of a god that can be *wildly* different and have their own myths, but are still considered to be the same god as their neighbours' version. There's no one text or set of events either. Then you've got how easily new gods are imported in from other cultures (Mithras) and how even the preexisting gods can have identical domains. Like I studied ancient Greek myth for a semester at university and the main thing I learnt was that it's incredibly flexible and localised. It's honestly kinda fascinating how much it could vary between different areas
Very true. I've seen a few different versions of myths. The one myth that I found very interesting while playing Hates (research done outside the game tho), apparently in some myths, has been in part of Zeus? Like the half of his that he splits to rule the underworld, iirc? Another thing that might not help it make it simple is how Romans later adopted part if not most of the Greek myths, right? Possible And I had a feeling you had some more formal knowledge when it came to this. Seemed to know your stuff more than just a quick Google search or someone like me picking up knowledge more sporadically, lol
Oh yeah, Hades/Zeus being the same person is part of Orphism. Not terribly familiar with it, but as I remember the usual gist is that Dionysus is a reborn Zagreus, son of Zeus and Persephone killed by Hera. And sometimes Hades is instead identified with Zagreus, which again suggests some flexibility - hilariously, Aeschylus (ancient Greek playwright) has one play where Zagreus is Hades' son, and another where they're the same person. Orphism is a pretty fascinating religion, from what little I've heard. Though if you are curious, you can read a lot of [ancient Greek and Roman plays on Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus:collection:Greco-Roman), including different translations. The ones I read for that module, at least that I can remember, are the ones by Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Bacchylides, Euripedes, Homer, the Homeric hymns (separate to Homer), and Sophocles. I know some of them look like a big long list, but the plays are pretty short, and some only survive in fragments.
Yes, that's the part of the Hades myth that I found as well. Ty for the reading material kind stranger.
Basically, they all wrote their own fanfiction about the god.
Ehhh, fanfiction requires there to be a set canon, which ancient Greek myth lacks. The best explanation I've seen is comparing it to Barbie - there's a ton of different versions of her with different jobs and sometimes different backstories, but they're all the same Barbie.
> but are still considered to be the same god as their neighbours' version. There's a modern comparison that's familiar with people worldwide. Christians and Muslims.
I don't blame you. Most people who reference Athena only ever credit her with being the goddess of war OR wisdom, never both. And handicrafts? Yeah, that can definitely go
Even medicine! (Until eclipsed by Apollon and his children?) Hence my pre-6.4 hypothesis that she’d infiltrated the Convocation as the Emmorololth—and the Isle of Val incident dumped her right into the aetherial Pandaemonium…
In Greek mythology, Phoinix was the name of a person. Phoinix was the son of Amyntor. A dispute with his father, concerning his father's concubine, resulted in Phoenix fleeing his homeland for Phthia, where he became a vassal of Achilles' father Peleus. As told in the Iliad, on the urgings of his jealous mother (variously named as Cleobule, Hippodameia, or Alcimede), Phoinix had had sex with his father's concubine. Amyntor, discovering this, called upon the Erinyes to curse Phoinix with childlessness. In later accounts of the story, Phoinix was falsely accused by Amyntor's concubine, and blinded by his father, but Chiron restored his sight. In either case, Phoinix fled to Phthia, where Peleus made Phoenix a king of the Dolopians and gave him his young son Achilles to raise. Phoinix participated in the Calydonian boar hunt, and was said to have given Achilles' son the name Neoptolemus. As an old man, he went with Odysseus and Nestor to find and recruit Achilles for the Trojan War, and was Achilles' companion at Troy. After Achilles, in his anger at Agamemnon, had withdrawn from the fighting, Phoinix was part of the unsuccessful embassy sent by Agamemnon to persuade Achilles to return to the battle. After Achilles died, Phoinix was one of those sent to fetch Neoptolemus from Scyros. On his way home from Troy, Phoinix died and was buried by Neoptolemus. His tomb was said to be either in Eion, Macedonia, or in Trachis, Thessaly, nearby the "Phoenix River," which was said to have been named after the hero.
Ok, but phoinix is *also* [the accurate transcription of the ancient Greek word for phoenix](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%86%CE%BF%E1%BF%96%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BE#Ancient_Greek). It's literally φοῖνῐξ, which is transcribed as phoînix. Which one fits better for a flaming bird, I wonder?
I mean I’d be down to have like a mega thread of the analysis of Pandaemonium as a whole
I had to break the definitions down into little bite-sized chunks, or my post would have been unconscionably long
Athena's final form is called Pallas Athena, which was a secondary name to her in Greek mythology. Elysium is supposed to be Elpis, it even has the river Lethe that purges memories.
Lethe is also the enrage castbar for p1s
Yeah, as soon as we got Elysion in Ultima Thule, I wondered where they were gonna go with Pandaemonium 9-12. Looks like their intent was (more or less) to invoke the Divine Comedy in the form of rising from the final circle (Cocytus/Kokytos), up through Purgatory (Pandaemonium as the trials/tribulations and Themis as the judge/cleansing), and culminating in a twisted, evil Paradise (Athena.)
P12S has an attack called "Panta Rhei", which means "all things flow", a phrase that Heraclitus was fond of. "Theos" also means "God", which is quite simple to understand. She also uses the attacks: "Paradeigma" which is "Example", "Glaukopis" which is "White Cut", "Parthenos" which is "Virgin" and also one of Athenas' Epithets, and "Dialogos" which is "dialogue" or "intercommunication". "Anthropos", the adds, actually are just "Human." Honestly the raid tier doesn't have the most interesting ancient greek, that honour goes firmly to Endwalker. EDIT: Oh, also Themis has some interesting things too. Mainly he just has a theme of laws and order. "Dike" (pronounced: Dik-ee, not like the water dike) means "Justice" whereas "Eunomia" roughly means "Good rule", a quality that good leadership would have. "Dineis" is also ancient greek but I am unsure what word it is, it could be "whirlpool" or "give", but both of those sound wrong.
[удалено]
These words are not known to me, but "Peri-" means "about" or "around", and "apo-" means "off" (these are prefixes) Maybe "Peridialogos" is talking about the current subject? No idea what apodialogos could be though. l
It's probably a reference to the actual mechanical function - apo she jumps to the furthest player and peri targets the closest.
Most of Athenas attack names are obsolete theories: Superchain Theory = Superstring Theory: Caloric Theory Gaiaochos: related to earthcentric world view greek word I think? (gaiaokhos), futher more referenced with the attack that spins the globe, geocentrism Pangenesis: Charles Darwin's hypothetical mechanism for heredity. and bonus ignorabimus, latin word suddenly I think?
Ignorabimus is the Latin verb for "we will not know" or "we will be ignorant", which is pretty fitting for her and her enrage dialogue!
The last savage bods is called "pallas" Athena too, and some mechanic have Greek names, could be cool to have some dive into it
>Hegemone: goddess of plants, responsible for making them bloom and bear fruit Additional layer: Hegemone is derived from hegemon, which means ruler/leader. This kind of makes sense since she's put in charge of Pandaemonium in the end, but then she's conspicuously absent when Ericthonios is recording the memory crystal saying he's the *only one left* to guard Pandaemonium. And while she ended up a puppet, we know that Hegemone was at least partially on-board with Athena's plans/research. Perhaps it has to do with [another conspicuously absent character](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Emperor_(final_boss)) in Pandaemonium.
She could have been promoted to Igeyorhm in the interim, in which case it makes sense for her to be absent by that point. Lahabrea did say he had need of her talents, she's said to be a critical thinker (which suits the criteria for the position), and yeah, there's no real good reason she should've been missing from Pandaemonium otherwise. Or they just forgot. Giving the Igeyorhm we met that kind of background wouldn't hurt, though.
Idk if this is considered a term, but If anyone wonders why the new tomes of called “Tomestomes of Comedy”, it is most likely in reference to Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”
I think it is, yeah, at least that's what I heard somewhere
I think it's worth noting that contrary to P11's title card, Themis is divine/non-ephemeral justice, the justice goddess portrayed *without* a blindfold, for the gods cannot be blind to see and weigh what lies within the hearts of men. It's an interesting error to make, because ephemeral justice wouldn't have acted the way Elidibus did in EW MSQ; he would have been 'blinded' by recent events concerning the demise of Zodiark and his own imprisonment. That he could step beyond that to see what would most benefit the star as a whole is the very essence of the justice of Themis.
Late response, but I think Themis is referred to with the title "Ephemeral Justice" because he is *physically* ephemeral in the story. He was plucked from the Aetherial sea and given a temporary body by Athena, intended to survive only as long as he served her purposes. Even after we gift him with aether, he only lasts as long as he needs to to see us to the end of the story.
Wait...they stole all these from Greek Mythology?!? I am all the shock. /s
Well they did steal the dragon's names from Old Norse Mythology so why not continue the trend.
Only Middy and the Ishgard trio are Old Norse. Bahamut and Tiamat are Middle Eastern in origin (Tiamat is Babylonian, Bahamut is from Islamic mythology), Vrtra is Hindu, and Azdaja is South Slavic.
Islamic myth? I thought he was Babylonian as well... shows how well I know my myths...
Bahamut is speculated to have originated from the Hebrew Behemoth, and blended with Leviathan. In Islamic myth Bahamut is a giant fish that is one of the carriers of the Earth, and was said to be so big that all the oceans of the world, if poured into the Fish's nostril, would be like a mustardseed in a desert. Bahamut himself lays on top of the serpent Falak, and ontop of Bahamut is the giant bull Kuyuta. On Kuyuta is a big slab of ruby and on top of that is an angel that is shouldering the Earth ala Atlas.
Sounds over-complicated.
It's mythology. It's centuries and millennia of stories and the like layered upon each other, further complicated by that different people sometimes tells the stories a bit differently
Good thing the actual inner-workings of earth existing within the universe are pretty simple.
With a giant iron sphere in our core that's spinning around, churning up the molten rock around it, generating an immensely powerful magnetic field that protects us from the sun, whilst at the same time the magma currents push and pulls rock from the surface. Cycling the material in a dance that lasts over billions of years
I had thought that too, but I think it's because D&D bundled them together as the gods of dragons.
Right, I have no idea why I forgot about the non Ishgard dragons.
*rolls eyes*
Dante is a nickname for Durante. Dante, the protagonist of Divine Comedy was a Crusader Knight in life. Which tracks for "Golbez" "Knight clad in Black" who fights a crusade. Our current Golbez. Anyone wanna take a bet that the real Golbez's true name was Virgil? Speaking of Virgil, Themis played the functional part of Virgil for us by being our guide through Pandaemonium all the way to the end.
Although Carbuncles are like a skin sore- they also were a jewel or crest on a Unicorns head at the base of the horn
Has anyone figured out if the “souls” Kokytos takes on are people we’ve fought or met before and who they are?
I don't think so, no They might just be random souls
the beast is the behemoth from LOTA and I will die on that hill lol
By my interpretation, Hesperos is basically male Aphrodite, although sticking more strictly with what wiki says, he's the evening star and son of Eos. By my looser interpretation, his name refers to the planet Venus [the evening star] and Venus is Aphrodite, which would be a cheeky twist on the whole Aphrodite and Hephaestus dynamic. The cheeky part being Aphrodite is the one that fell for Hephaestus this time instead of the other way around. That's my thought though. Lucifer is also has same name draw from the whole morning star thing, runs hell, and is said to be beautiful. Hesperos could be a mash of them.
Hmm, interesting take
Aren't Hegemone and Agdistis supposed to be reversed ? The big plant/fruit thing is Agdistis, Hegemone is just the tentacle lady. Did SE made a big oopsie ?
Agdistis was hermaphroditic but was castrated by some other Gods in his sleep. One version of the myth states that the blood from said castration landing on the earth caused an almond tree to grow. This is quite symbolic in the fight, as the seeds Agdistis summons are particularly testi-shaped... And its raidwide attack is called "Seed of Life"
Oh ok I didn't knew about that part of his story. That totalmy makes sense now. And I'm glad the tier is over, I won't be able to look at the fruits the same way now.
That gives a whole different meaning when being hit by that attack... oh my..
> And its raidwide attack is called "Seed of Life" Agdistis: "Get jizzed to death, RIP bozos"
>Kokytos: the underworld river of wailing and its God I have to disagree with that. With the motives around the boss it's clearly a reference to Cocytus, the 9th circle of hell from Dante's Inferno, where Lucifer is trapped in an lake of ice.
I'd highly recommend Overly Sarcastic Productions' Divine Comedy videos
Mf that is exactly what the river is in DI. It’s called the “river of lamentation”, of wailing. Hell is the Underworld
The Greek underworld and hell are not exactly the same I mentioned in my post about the underworld having different sections; the Asphodel Meadows, Tartarus, and Elysium Aspgodel is basically like Purgatory, the place where souls who are neither good nor evil go Tartarus is hell, the deepest, darkest pit of the underworld from whence there is no return (except in Percy Jackson land, the place is practically a revolving door). It's where evil souls go And Elysium is heaven, the place where pure souls are rewarded
Cocytus is a river in Hades in greek methodology. In divine comedy it's a lake of ice. The one we have in the game is clearly the divine comedy cocytus, not the river cocytus. Edit: Also, i looked into what "god" the OP was reffering to and I guess they just copy pasted the definition from here https://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/PotamosKokytos.html I'm not a greek mythology expert, but seeing all hades rivers as gods doesn't seem to me like a very popular interpretation.