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Soren's Age
Not going to backdate these unless people want me to, as I don't expect to be pouring out a lot of Soren meta all at once and some of this might be novel.
Warnings, of course, for extensive PoR and RD spoilers.
We begin with the Tellius artbook, whose information I must unfortunately take as word-of-mouth. If I had it I would scan the relevant information for you. I really would. Ike is 17 and Mist is 14. Hooray. That was easy!
Check out this snippet from Path of Radiance. Caineghis puts Greil's departure from Gallia to beroughly over ten years ago. (Or "over" ten years ago according to the English, but we can take that to be accurate within a year given FE's track record. Note that much more than over ten years would put Mist at an age where she can't talk as fluently as she does in Ike's memory scene.) So, at the time Greil left Gallia, Ike was 7.
EDIT 11/22/12: My original impression from the Japanese is correct -- it does indeed say "over". However, I stand by the assertion that it couldn't have been much over ten years.
RD Ike/Soren Base conversation. Soren recounts that the day they met was right before Greil's rampage. I think it is not unreasonable to say that canon implies that left Gallia very shortly after thiat incident. So Ike was roughly 7 when he met Soren.
Now we go over to Soren's side of things. Let us assume that Soren is roughly correct about how old he was when certain things happened. Then a couple of lines from PoR Ike/Soren B support go a long way:
"When I was about four, a nearby sage came by and asked to take me in."
"When the sage died two years later ..."
And no longer than a few weeks after that, Soren would walk over to the village and meet Ike. Soren is roughly six at the time.
EDIT 8/18/11: It occurs to me that Ike's absolute age is not necessary. The Incident happened 10 years before PoR. Soren was about 6 during The Incident. Done.
So, the conclusion is simple. Soren is roughly a year younger than Ike. Ike is 17 at the start of Path of Radiance (the year 645). Manipulate numbers as necessary to find his age at the relevant point.
You might think that Soren's age can be taken for granted as something similar to Ike's, but fics love making Soren in his twenties for Path of Radiance the moment they find out that Soren doesn't age like we might expect. I am leaving this public, in fact, because I am tired of constantly rehashing this argument.
The figure of sixteen~seventeen during PoR matches up pretty well with Soren's remark to Stefan in their PoR A support,
Stefan: You may have already started to notice. We age differently than the beorc. Of course, the specifics of it depend on the type of laguz blood that flows in your veins.
Soren: I thought I was aging normally... Well, until about three years ago.
The Japanese, for those who care, says the same thing as far as we're concerned. (Will put up link when I translate that support.)
That would put him physically right before puberty (13~14), which in turn goes well with various people thinking he's a kid. (For example, the slightly unnerving fact that you can recruit Devdan with him -- and Devdan gives his usual "Children shouldn't be on the battlefield".)
Warnings, of course, for extensive PoR and RD spoilers.
We begin with the Tellius artbook, whose information I must unfortunately take as word-of-mouth. If I had it I would scan the relevant information for you. I really would. Ike is 17 and Mist is 14. Hooray. That was easy!
Check out this snippet from Path of Radiance. Caineghis puts Greil's departure from Gallia to be
EDIT 11/22/12: My original impression from the Japanese is correct -- it does indeed say "over". However, I stand by the assertion that it couldn't have been much over ten years.
RD Ike/Soren Base conversation. Soren recounts that the day they met was right before Greil's rampage. I think it is not unreasonable to say that canon implies that left Gallia very shortly after thiat incident. So Ike was roughly 7 when he met Soren.
Now we go over to Soren's side of things. Let us assume that Soren is roughly correct about how old he was when certain things happened. Then a couple of lines from PoR Ike/Soren B support go a long way:
"When I was about four, a nearby sage came by and asked to take me in."
"When the sage died two years later ..."
And no longer than a few weeks after that, Soren would walk over to the village and meet Ike. Soren is roughly six at the time.
EDIT 8/18/11: It occurs to me that Ike's absolute age is not necessary. The Incident happened 10 years before PoR. Soren was about 6 during The Incident. Done.
So, the conclusion is simple. Soren is roughly a year younger than Ike. Ike is 17 at the start of Path of Radiance (the year 645). Manipulate numbers as necessary to find his age at the relevant point.
You might think that Soren's age can be taken for granted as something similar to Ike's, but fics love making Soren in his twenties for Path of Radiance the moment they find out that Soren doesn't age like we might expect. I am leaving this public, in fact, because I am tired of constantly rehashing this argument.
The figure of sixteen~seventeen during PoR matches up pretty well with Soren's remark to Stefan in their PoR A support,
Stefan: You may have already started to notice. We age differently than the beorc. Of course, the specifics of it depend on the type of laguz blood that flows in your veins.
Soren: I thought I was aging normally... Well, until about three years ago.
The Japanese, for those who care, says the same thing as far as we're concerned. (Will put up link when I translate that support.)
That would put him physically right before puberty (13~14), which in turn goes well with various people thinking he's a kid. (For example, the slightly unnerving fact that you can recruit Devdan with him -- and Devdan gives his usual "Children shouldn't be on the battlefield".)
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Any ideas? o__o
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I have no idea where the 19 figure is coming from. o_o
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This happens sometimes. XD
Thank you <3
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For what it's worth, while that figure is interesting, it's much more indirect. I think it's more likely that Soren is indeed 16 at the beginning of PoR/17 at the end, and that line gives us interesting insight into some dragon family dysfunction, if not a different nuance somewhere in the translation.
It's worth noting that the epilogue of PoR takes place a year after its start (646), so Ena's line puts Rajaion's departure at the year 637, if that really is what it says. I cannot for the life of me find the script for the epilogue online -- I'll have to check it when play through the rest of my Japanese PoR run myself.
I checked the Japanese script for 4-2 (Almedha's exposition about the pregnancy, Rajaion, etc) and it matches up with the technical details of the English.
--
Alternatively, that figure (19) is really only two years off, so it could be that all the "roughly"s thrown around here are pulled one way or another. :P
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I think your theory might make more sense for two reasons, though:
a) Soren being Ashnard's son is never foreshadowed in PoR, which leads me to believe IS didn't think of that particular plot twist until RD, and
b) Soren being 19 at the end of PoR would place Ike at around 5 years old when first meeting him, which seems like it might be a little too young (he looks older than that in the flashback scene in RD to me, at least)? /rant this is kind of confusing me
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From the end of Chapter 12, after Kurthnaga speaks to Ike:
Nasir: Much of what seems good and evil
is simply a matter of perspective, Ike.
Many conditions affect our judgment.
Drawing a definitive line is nigh impossible.
Ike: Nasir! Where have you been?
You vanished without a trace.
Nasir: I am uncomfortable around dragons.
I thought it would be better if I stayed
below in the cabin. My apologies
Ike: Now that you mention it, Soren seems
to have disappeared as well.
Nasir: Perhaps he's feeling nauseated. For
one unaccustomed to sea travel,
it's not uncommon.
It's interesting that Soren didn't duck and hide when it came to other laguz groups. Perhaps he sensed something ... particular... about the dragons. It was his uncle standing on the shore, after all. :P Not to mention the evidence inherent in his physical appearance. I think IS did think of that subplot, but perhaps not its details. Rajaion's position with Ashnard makes me think they did perhaps think Ashnard had to do something with it.
Anyway, it does indeed look like Ena says Rajaion left "not 19 years ago" (which suggests between 18~19 years ago I guess). But! I think the context is important. Ena provides that Rajaion left to "broaden his knowledge". As I recall, Almedha and Nasir originally also left in protest of Goldoa's isolation -- Almedha because she wanted to roflstomp things, and Nasir because he disagreed with Goldoa's seclusion in itself. It's possible that Rajaion left for exactly the reason stated. Perhaps, in fact, his separation from the Dragon King was exactly what made Ashnard think that he was vulnerable enough to entrap.
With respect to b, I agree that Ike seems a bit older than 5, but more jarringly, Mist would be 2, and I'm pretty sure 2-year-olds can't put together grammatical sentences of that caliber.
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Oh, but it makes sense to me that Rajaion might have been captured by Ashnard a few years after leaving Goldoa - that could be a logical explanation. :D
You're right, though I haven't heard about Mist being 14 before - I didn't even know there was a Tellius artbook at all, and Ike being 17 was stated in an interview. (My headcanon always put Mist at 16 in PoR, for some reason.)
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Ohei, do you happen to know where I could find this interview? Is it the Q&A on Nintendo's site?
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Yes, it's the Q&A on the official site! There are some translations here (http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=232), as well.