LET’S GOOOOO! WE ELDEEN! Ahem with that outburst of wild conjecture out of the way, now that a few months have passed since the last time I was about this, there is a bit more information to discuss in regards to the upcoming Ys X [Footnote 1]. Before we get to that, however, it would be best to correct some of my own definitely wrong assessments from the previous bout of theorizing. First and foremost, Carja [Footnote 2]. Now that we actually know a little bit about Adol’s companion for this adventure, it seems like I was completely off base in almost every regard. She seems like a relatively normal person at first blush, for a definition of ‘normal’ that includes ‘Pirate Princess’. Put another way, it doesn’t seem like she has any obvious connections to the mystical part of the world or any largely important lore ties that will have a large impact on the plot. I’m sure there’s something to her backstory that will tie into the plot just from a sheer narrative structure standpoint, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to end up being some kind of valkyrie-esque being. So whoops I guess. I do think there’s a better chance that we might hear a reference or two to Ladoc, though, since ‘pirate’. Second, this one’s just a bone-headed oversight on my part. Last time in looking for possible ties to other games in the series, I did a lot of analysis on which characters could possibly show up this time, particularly in regards to the Esteria games. I had forgotten about a line in Monstrum Nox in which Dogi rather explicitly states they haven’t seen anyone from Esteria except for Raba since their adventures there. So. Whoops again [Footnote 3].
With that out of the way, let’s get on to the big updates. Particularly characters. The source I noted in the footnotes below [Footnote 1. Again] had a batch of four characters that I found particularly interesting [Footnote 4]. Of these four characters, the only one that I don’t find especially intriguing is one ‘Mirabel Asarad’, seemingly the nurse of the game. Nothing about her name, design, or given information strikes me as especially lore relevant, which probably means that she’s going to be the most important of these four because that’s just my luck. The other three are ‘Leif Yvelise’, ‘Lila’, and a ‘Nameless Old Man’, all of whom I find very, very interesting for a few different reasons. The latter two will probably require sections of their own, so we’ll start off with Leif. His little bio reads fairly innocuously, with the only thing that catches my attention — for reasons I’ll explain shortly — is how he doesn’t seem to like speaking with his family much. What immediately — and literally — caught my eye, however, was his design. Particularly the hair and eyes. The particular shade of purple his hair has reminded me a lot of Credo, from Monstrum Nox. And his eyes in the concept art also did, but upon further analysis I’m less convinced and think I was a little off-base. In the concept artwork, they seem a little bit duller than Credo’s and in game he just has a completely different color which, while somewhat similar to Hawk’s, is just outright different. With all that being said though, I am still somewhat convinced about the hair. Not necessarily that they’re related; that feels like a bit of a stretch and kind of contrived all things consider. But in regards to what it could imply about our boy Leif here. As discussed last time, the apparent regional equivalence has enough of a, well, Nordic connection between X and Monstrum Nox that I could easily believe Leif shares a certain inherited attribute Credo also bears and I’m going to dance around since I guess it’s kind of spoilers. I’ll put a thing below the footnotes for those who don’t mind [Spoiler 1]. It is admittedly somewhat of a stretch since I’m assuming that shared hair color implies a shared mystical-ish heritage… But I don’t know. Is that really a stretch? That’s exactly the sort of thing that hair color would be meant to imply if it’s true. I’ll only look like a fool if I’m wrong. And the fact that this heritage is a bit unsavory would, as I was talking about above, explain why Leif might not like being around his family all that much, depending on what his family’s like. Whether they’ve chosen to embrace their heritage and he has not, vice versa, neither is true but he still feels shame for what it lead them to do in the past… I think there’s potential there and I stick by my words: I’ll only look like a fool if I’m wrong.
Now, moving on. The nameless old man. We don’t really know much about him — intentionally it seems, for his narrative purpose — but he’s an old beardy guy in a broad-brimmed hat. Who apparently knows about magic. In a seemingly Nordic setting. And if that doesn’t scream Odin, I don’t know what does. Mind you, I don’t think that he’s the setting equivalent to Odin since my impression is that Grimnir occupies that spot and should be dead, but I think he’ll probably fill a similar narrative purpose and will be way more important that first appearances let on. Like, it was practically Odin’s favorite thing to wander around in disguise and guide people. Or ruin their lives. One or the other. This dude just has some serious Bolverkr vibes to me. So what does this actually mean about him if he’s not actually Grimnir because of continuity issues? Well, I’m not entirely sure. I don’t think we know enough about the particular setting of Obelia Bay to know what he actually is. I’m just betting it’s not human. Maybe he’ll end up being the one behind the Grieger. Maybe he’ll be the sworn rival of the one behind the Grieger. Maybe it has nothing to do with that and he really is just some random fisherman. But it also leads me to go all in on the thought that Adol’s ultimate sword in this game will probably be either Gram or Balmung. Or a least some seeming reference to the two with it being reforged from a sword stuck in a tree and whatnot [Footnote 5]. I really don’t know quite what to think about the role this old man will play, but I’m fairly certain he will play an important role.
And with that being said, there’s just Lila left. And she’s the big one. The important one. The one that makes me certain we are firmly back in Eldeen territory. What we know about her is effectively that A) she’s super mysterious, B ) she’s involved with Mana, and C) she speaks through shells. Now if you’e like me and immerse yourself so deeply in the lore of stories you like such that you remember even the smallest tidbits, this would raise some immediate red flags [Footnote 6]. Because Ys II and Origin, both games set in Esteria, feature ‘Lila Shells’ as magical items used for long range communication. A connection so obvious I have to wonder if it’s a red herring. Because the fact that the apparent magic of this game is also just straight-forward ‘Mana’ raises an eyebrow or two for me because it feels closest to the magic of Esteria. And that… has some implications. Given the nature of Esteria’s magic, it feels like at least Adol should know that maybe this Mana isn’t such a good thing. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that the presence of Mana in Obelia is what spawned and perpetuated the Griegers, given the whole thing about the Black Pearl and Demons. But that in turn leads to the next natural question: if this ‘Mana’ is just straight-forward magic like Esteria’s, how does it exist without the Black Pearl? And that’s what leads me to suspect Lila so much. If we assume that this Lila is the same one who made the Lila Shells of Esteria, you have to wonder why she’s in Obelia and if maybe, perhaps, she was exiled there for doing sketchy things with magic. Because the image given of her also doesn’t have wings, so she probably isn’t Eldeen herself [Footnote 7]. Which leads me to think that maybe she’s one of the Clan of Darkness or something similar; people who thought to use the power of the Eldeen for their own purposes. While I think it is entirely possible that she’ll turn out to be good and maybe even another Eldeen ‘goddess’ that just ended up in a different part of the world after leaving the Twins to rule their land [Footnote 8], I also think it’s just as likely that she’ll be the twist villain trying to manipulate Adol into freeing her from some kind of seal placed upon her for her transgressions in abusing magic. Whether that means showing another example of an Eldeen that slipped a little bit into megalomania like evil Eldeel or, as stated above, one of the Clan or Darkness, I can’t say.
The other thing I find interesting knowing that the magic system is apparently just ‘Mana’ is the color of it. Earlier I’d compared the green color of Mana to the vaguely green-ish glow of Gllian Alchemy. But as I’ve thought about it further, and now knowing that it seems more connected to the Black Pearl than Alchemy, I’m inclined to think of unrefined Emel. I admittedly forget about Emel a lot, since Emelas is kind of more interesting from a narrative perspective, but it is still fairly impressive even in its raw form. It’s raw, green form. I’m not exactly sure what Mana being related to base Emel would imply, particularly since most of the green is vague energy and not a physical construct, but I think it isn’t too much of a leap to believe there’s a connection. Perhaps the Mana of Obelia Bay is a much weaker form of what the Black Pearl provided and that’s why they don’t have to worry about Demons? Assuming, of course, that the Griegers aren’t spawned by a darker half of Mana. I feel like there’s a little bit of shaking lore there, since I was under the impression magic could not exist without the Black Pearl, but… Oh well. We’ll see, I suppose. Either way, I do think it’s a good step to connecting Eldeen technology to Alchemy, even if only through color.
So in summation, what did we learn? Maybe Leif has a certain secret we’ve seen before, nameless old man is probably a god, and Lila probably has some relation to the Eldeen. I hope you’re all as excited about this game as I am.
Footnote 1: Most of this information coming from the ‘Ys Central’ twitter page. Very helpful. https://twitter.com/Ys_Central
Footnote 2: Yeah, yeah. Hilda was nowhere near the name they ended up with and never was going to be. I didn’t think it would. But I’d also say: how the heck was I supposed to come up with Carja?
Footnote 2A: Still, going based off your favorite character from a different setting altogether wasn’t ever gonna work. — Twisted Jerk
Footnote 2B: Quiet you. Like you had any better ideas.
Footnote 3: I’m still here for the Keith Fact spinoff game thought though. I doubt it’ll ever happen, but imagine it. More exploration of the setting lore, potential for different gameplay styles without Adol around, potential for updates on characters we’ve seen in other parts of the world… It could be great.
Footnote 4: Which would be unsurprising if you also look at them since most of what I have to say here I already commented there… I’m not terrified that I overstepped my bounds and look like a massive jerk for breaking some rule of etiquette I simply don’t know. Why would you think that?
Footnote 5: Admittedly, Ys does do a pretty good job of not just ripping sword names straight from real world mythology. The only ones that I can think of that do that are Joyeuse, Dainsleif, and Mistilteinn [Footnote 5A]. And I guess Tir na Nog and the Ajax Sword, but those are kind of a different scenario. And of those swords, Joyeuse does have a good reason for being called Joyeuse since it exists in the France equivalent. It’s only really Dainsleif and Mistilteinn that stand out as random includes of a mythological name for no particular reason. But this isn’t about my issues with the worldbuilding of Lacrimosa of Dana — though not the gameplay or narrative — so we’ll leave that for another day.
Footnote 5A: I’m not saying that I at one point started a spreadsheet of all the swords listed in Ys games with the intention of comparing their attack strengths in order to find a clear metric by which to compare them all to each other and figure out which legendary sword Adol lost is the most powerful… But I’m not not saying it either.
Footnote 6: Well maybe not red flags since that indicates danger. Blue flags? Green? What color flag indicates interest but not alarm?
Footnote 7: Or is Eldeen and they just didn’t want to give that away so easily.
Footnote 8: That reminds me, it would be interesting if Lila turned out to be the Twins’ mother or something. Because I find myself fascinated with the thought of how the various Eldeen we’ve seen relate to each other and the roles they held when the Eldeen were at their peak. Like, Alma seems to have been the leader of the Eldeen as far as we can tell [Footnote 8A], but then where does that leave Eldeel who was granted control over the collected knowledge of the entire world and the rest of the Winged Ones were apparently named after [Footnote 8B]. And even the fact that the Twins were given control of the Blakc Pearl which is a really, really big thing. Like, I’ve always assumed they were younger than the other Eldeen we’ve seen, but I don’t actually know if that’s the case. And where does Genos fit in to all of this since his sole contribution was chasing down and trying to kill a single Galba? From that I’d assume that he was just one soldier under the command of Alma, but I don’t actually know. And of course the Eldeen didn’t exactly have the same reproductive systems as humans with their whole artificial, White Emelas bodies, so what does that mean for their familial structure? The Twins are stated to be sisters, so there is presumably some degree of relation inherent, but again: where they actually born after the Eldeen started using technology for artificial Emelas birth, or are they older than I’d assumed and were originally human but transferred their souls? Did Eldeel even know they were basically right there when comparing Celceta and Esteria? These are the questions that gnaw on my mind.
Footnote 8A: Or at least the leader of the Eldeen in their conflict against the Galbas. Or I’m just completely misinterpreting the information from Ark of Napisthim.
Footnote 8B: Or are we to assume that the Eldeen weren’t actually called the Eldeen in their own time? That the name is just given to the Winged Ones as a whole after Eldeel had the most influence in human civilization for so long? Is Eldeel named after the Eldeen or the other way around? I don’t know and I really don’t know what to think in this case.
WARNING! Potential spoilers below here.
Spoiler 1: Notably the fact that Credo’s a Berserker. I don’t think this is too much of a spoiler, since it… Like, it has a lot to do with Credo’s personality and arc and whatnot, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with the story of Monstrum Nox and I don’t think knowing that he’s a Berserker in advance really matters since you don’t have context for what that means until it’s revealed. But better safe than sorry.
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