SuperEspresso said:
I seriously believe that Ardyn was born during the time of Solheim for a number of reasons. One, let's revisit the timeline established by the Ultimania-- even if it is rather lore-less.
•The ancient civilization Solheim thrives
•Its prosperity as a technological civilization includes airships and Magitek Armor.
So from what we see here, the nation of Solheim benefited from having airships and Magitek armor. From what we know of Nifelheim, Ardyn essentially bought his way in through that knowledge-- making Nifelheim the tehnological powerhouse it is today. Granted there's some Daemonic stuff going on to make it function like that, but that knowledge would have had to have come from someone of the Solheim time-- or with knowledge of ancient things in order for that to be true.
...
So with that being said we can revisit the earlier topic of Nifelheim and the Magiteks.
M.E. 722 (34 years ago)
•Ardyn Izunia enters the Niflheim Empire. He proposes the development of the Magitek Troopers
Ardyn would have had to have been from the Age of Myth in order to have this knowledge, as no one alive would have known about this. It wouldn't have just disappeared for over 2000 years only to come up now.
I think there's two overarching ways of reading all this, with various sub-notions under each. One primary interpretation entails that Solheim was prosperous before the scourge came along; the other entails that they owed their prosperity to it.
Going by either notion, though, in the Modern Era, the Niflheim Empire was trying to recreate Solheim's technology for hundreds of years before Ardyn showed up on their doorstep, and they seemingly had significant success without him. They had already conquered Tenebrae and Accordo, and backed Lucis into a last resort of putting up a magical barrier, the latter having given up trying to win and instead begun focusing on trying not to lose.
Again, this was all before Ardyn came before the Emperor of Niflheim with whatever knowledge he had to share.
While on that topic, though he gained his place there at least in part with his knowledge, all we know with certainty is that he proposed creating the Magitek Troopers. Seeing as Verstael is credited as the mad scientist who was the actual architect behind their development, whatever knowledge was key to Ardyn acquiring his position as chancellor may not have even been of the technological variety.
If my meaning is unclear, what I'm getting at is that he may not have acquired his position in Niflheim by delivering technology from Solheim so much as by revealing that it was possible to harness the daemons as a power source they could weaponize into the Magitek Troopers. His perceived usefulness to the Empire may have simply been related to his familiarity with the scourge, which itself may have had nothing to do with Solheim's technology.
It's certainly very tempting to imagine Solheim as having used the same technology, seeing as the very name for Magitek, either in English or Japanese, implies magic/sorcery, and because we know FFVI's Magitek Armor was also powered by the essence of magical beings. The allure of this take on things is bolstered all the more by the fact that, other than through utilizing the scourge, we don't have any reason to believe magic was ever made available to humans unless given to them by the gods (e.g. as with the King and Oracle).
So, yeah, it is tempting to conclude Solheim must have been harnessing daemons or even the scourge outright for its Magitek Armor the same as Niflheim one day would with its Magitek Troopers and Magitek Armor. Is that the only possibility, though?
Of course not. As you have reasonably pointed out, it seems the role of King and Oracle existed even then -- and the King is capable of sharing their power with others, as mentioned in the game's Tutorial under the "Magic of the Lucii" painting: "Monarchs in the line of Lucis have the innate ability to conjure magical weapons. A handful of close attendants are also afforded access to the selfsame power." We see this in the form of Regis sharing his power with the Kingsglaive, or Noctis sharing his power with his Brotherhood (I conclude that this is why they are able to summon their own weapons). We know so little about the lost ancient civilization that, for all we're aware, the ancient Magitek Armor may have simply been powered by the magic of the King.
I realize it's twice as tempting to imagine that Solheim had utilized the scourge when we imagine the irony of Niflheim -- which had sought to replicate Solheim's technology and essentially become Solheim -- being destroyed by the same mistake as its predecessor. However, we're led to believe that Ardyn was responsible for the timing of when Niflheim lost control of the daemons, in which case he was probably the only reason the Empire had control over them in the first place.
If that is, indeed, the case, then it becomes less likely that Solheim owed its prosperity to making use of the daemons. How would they have ever controlled them to begin with? Not through Ardyn. His notable place in history was being a savior -- and later a pariah -- in a time of crisis, not in lifting a civilization to its golden age. By the time he could have controlled the daemons, his goal was to lay ruin to a new kingdom and its royal bloodline.
For that matter, even if Solheim was also destroyed by the scourge, would it necessarily have had to be because they were utilizing it. Could it not be because they just got overtaken by pestilence?
Again, whatever conclusions we may draw about Solheim, Niflheim didn't owe to Ardyn its ascension to military dominance. He may not have provided ancient technology from Solheim at all, but rather a notion for a new technology and a means to control the daemons to develop that technology. He could have even pretended that using the daemons was what Solheim had done in the past. Aldercapt wouldn't have known any better.
At any rate, I feel I've adequately demonstrated why Ardyn's entry into Niflheim's inner circle doesn't require that he be from Solheim, nor even that he know anything about Solheim's technology.
It's still possible that he is from Solheim, of course, and -- as you've pointed out -- he at the very least had the role of King since he can access the Armiger. But having the role of King isn't the same as being a king of anything or anywhere, though (more on that momentarily). It's even entirely possible that Ardyn could be from Solheim yet still not have delivered any of its ancient technology to Niflheim since it's not a necessity that Niflheim's Magitek is the same as Solheim's Magitek.
There's just too much we don't know.
And I include in this "too much we don't know" the idea that the Armiger is necessarily connected to Solheim in any way -- at least as we get to know it. Yes, there was apparently the role of King back then, but that doesn't require any of the spirits who contribute to the Royal Arms that Noctis can access to be connected with Solheim. The role of King merely grants the power to summon weapons. Yes, the weapons of ancestors can be included in this, but it also includes ... just weapons. Personal weapons.
Whose weapons would the first person to have the role of King have been summoning but his own? Along similar lines, Regis summons his own glaive. It is his personal weapon, not that of an ancestor. Likewise, Noctis with the Engine Blade.
Since Ardyn has this power, all this tells us is that he has had the role of King. But as I said above, having the role of King is not the same as being a king.
There are three different meanings for the term "King" that come up throughout the lore:
—The god-given role of King with Armiger powers
—Kings who actually occupy a throne
—The King chosen by the Crystal (a.k.a. "the Chosen King" and "True King" in the English localization)
Let's look at these in more detail.
First, there's the role of King, akin to the role of Oracle. At the fundamental level, this just entails being blessed by the gods with the power to summon weapons -- but it doesn't necessarily entail that you will end up being the second kind of king and ruling anything. No more so than being Oracle guarantees you will govern Tenebrae (Luna certainly didn't).
Why is this relevant? Because Ardyn was never a king of anything. He had the god-given role of King -- but he never became king. Bahamut says as much: その汚れた身体を聖石に拒まれ王位に就くことなく葬られた愚かな男 ("A foolish man who was rejected by the Holy Stone for that unclean body and was buried without ascending to the throne").
So, at most we can say that there may have been men in Solheim with the role of King, and that these men may have been kings. Ardyn, meanwhile, we can say may have come from Solheim, but most certainly never became a king even while having the role of King.
This, by the way, is part of why I believe Solheim had fallen before Ardyn was born. Though the role of King and being a king are two different things, they almost always go hand in hand as far as we ever see. They didn't with Ardyn, though. Why?
Either he became tainted with the scourge while only a prince or he held the role of King at some point between the fall of Solheim and the founding of Lucis. He served as king of neither, though.
As you said:
SE said:
We don't exactly know how long the age of myth lasted, but with how broken up it is-- they're only going to tell us the important parts. It could have been days, months, years, who knows?
Ardyn was either a prince of Solheim when it fell or a prince of nothing who never became a king of anything. He very well could have been born in whatever dark time lay between Solheim's fall and Lucis's founding. It could have been only a few days, sure, or a few weeks, a few months, or a few years -- but I think the most likely answer is that it was a few decades.
Being that a new kingdom (i.e. Lucis) was founded rather than the older nation simply being reestablished, repopulated and revitalized, it strikes me as generations having passed.
Lastly, we have the "King Chosen by the Crystal"/"Chosen King"/"True King" -- the person who the Crystal intends will end the scourge. Noctis's ancestors had the role of King and were kings of Lucis -- but none of them were the Chosen King. How much sense would it make, after all, that "the successive generations of kings continued awaiting the emergence of the 'King chosen by the Crystal'" if all of them were the Chosen King?
As you can see, it's really quite easy to end up being one kind of king in FFXV's mythos without being every kind of king that comes up in the lore. We know Ardyn was the kind who can command an Armiger, and he may have even been intended to be the Chosen King sort at one time, but he was not ever the kind who actually sat on a throne. This, I think, is reflected in his animosity toward Noctis's bloodline. It is the station of the royal statesman sort of king that Ardyn disrespects (e.g. putting his foot on the steps to the throne in "Kingsglaive"; putting his foot on the throne itself before the final battle in the game; desecrating the throne room while leaving the rest of the Citadel intact), and it is that station which he seeks to defile (e.g. putting up those macabre decorations in the throne room) and destroy.
I will say that Ardyn certainly was descended from Kings living in Solheim -- but I think everyone else was descended from people there too, weren't they?
I forgot to reply to this bit from your previous post, by the way:
SE said:
The Old Wall:
- Seemed to be right after or right around the founding of Lucis
- Heavily implied the wall is the kings of SOLHEIM, not Lucis
- Would have to have been kings of 'old' preceeding Ardyn, as there was no crystal power during their time.
I found the description to be clear in saying that it was to be the spirits of the kings of Lucis -- starting with the nation's founder, and onward -- who would inhabit the statues:
----
12体の像は、死せる王の魂が収まる棺として作られたもの。歴代の王は、この棺のなかで、解「クリスタルに選ばれし王」の出現を待ちつづけた。
The 12 statues were made as caskets into which the souls of the dead kings come to reside. Within these caskets, the successive generations of kings continued awaiting the emergence of the "King chosen by the Crystal."
----
Just as Ardyn's Armiger need not have drawn upon prior Kings, these statues need not have. They were occupied by the souls of the kings of Lucis who came and went through the centuries to follow.
At any rate, that "Power of Kings" entry didn't mention Solheim, so there's no reason to suspect a connection between it and the Royal Tombs.
is used in that line as is used in the term 「選ばれし王」, "Chosen King."
