Meta Month 13 - Lehran's "Mantle" / 14 - Waking the Goddess

[amielleon]

I hope I'm not stealing myaru's thunder.



I remember that when I first read Call of the Heron, I was a bit put off by the idea of an immortal Lehran. I still am not on board with the idea of Lehran as one of the first life forms, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Lehran's partial immortality.

Not longevity. Immortality.

I think the mechanics in this instance give us a clever hint about the nature of this immortality: Mantle. Only things blessed by chaos can harm him, and he is otherwise invulnerable. It would make a lot of sense.

Nasir
Lehran felt he was no longer a true laguz, and felt he could no longer act as a bridge between the goddess and the people of Tellius. He lost hope, and also his mind...at least temporarily. He attempted suicide several times, which is an unthinkable taboo for anyone who has sworn to serve the goddess.

He failed several suicide attempts...

Yune: Death is all you've wanted since this started. Everything else has been
little more than a terrible side effect. I'm sorry that this was your only
goal, but I am happy to help you achieve it. Sephiran, I see now what you
were going through. It must have been hard. I wish I could have helped you.

... and then made a ridiculously elaborate one. Why set up an elaborate world war and drag the goddesses and the end of the world into it unless some part of that machination were essential to his death?

If we accept the hypothesis that he could only be killed by something imbued with the essence of chaos, it becomes natural. There is no relic in the world blessed with chaos. The only way to create such a condition is to first set Yune free.

And the rest is history.





I remember discussing this with Myaru at one point, but I just remembered when my brother texted me.

Female Voice 1: However, during this thousand years, if the chaos of war should
arise and awaken Yune from her slumber in the medallion... I will know that
you have strayed from your path, and I will punish your failure as I would
reward your success.

...

Male Voice 1: In the names of our people, we vow to keep this covenant. There
will be no great war between laguz and beorc for a thousand years.

The letter of their pact was that they would not war enough to wake Yune. However, in spirit, this was only a litmus test of how much they'd warred. I imagine Ashera would not have been amused that they cheated that test by suppressing Yune with galdr... if they hadn't been beating the shit out of each other at that particular moment anyhow.

The idea that breaking Yune free from the medallion was only a litmus test for the true pact is also suggested here:

Yune: Wait! You can't violate the terms of the covenant, Ashera! One thousand
years still hasn't passed. We were woken by galdr, not by mankind's war.

Ashera: It doesn't matter.
[cutscene – the battle between Begnion and the Laguz Alliance]
Ashera: During my long sleep, beorc and laguz continued to fight. The children
of flesh will never learn nor grow. Time will pass as always, but nothing
can change the destiny of mankind.

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that it's the goddess of chaos who insists on sticking to the letter of the promise?

Anyway, my brother chanced to ponder a little interesting thing that I think ties in quite well:

Text from my brother:"So anyway, how does Ashera know if she is awoken by the galdrar or release(as opposed to war)?"
Me: "I'm guessing she felt the amount of chaos in the world. If there wasn't enough chaos to wake her, then it must've been the galdr."
Bro: "Crap so when micaiah awoke her, might have well have been chaos? With Lehran convincing her that it was? She was convinced, I suppose."
me: "That's what I'm guessing. Because there was so much chaos that it was practically the same thing."

Comments

[arivess.livejournal.com]

That's some desperation...

[amielleon]

Yeah.

Touching the medallion shortly after the Serenes Massacre while he was all confused inside probably drove him nuts a little.

Have you finished RD yet? XD;;

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I... uh. Haven't. >.>; Especially since brother moved the wii upstairs again.

[amielleon]

Ahh.

A lot of this is second-playthrough endgame details.

[arivess.livejournal.com]

I think I kind of haven't been avoiding spoilers anyway, so, um.

[myaru.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you wrote this. I can't say "I think Lehran is immune to physical damage" without looking like a fangirl, but he places himself in danger quite often without even flinching. He also runs straight into a burning forest, full of angry beorc who are hacking his clan to pieces, and somehow comes out unscathed. He doesn't seem to be worried that he's in a dungeon (in PoR) in which many of the prisoners are being tortured, he walks all over Crimea helping people when it's a war zone, and yeah.

Although, if the Mantle is made of Order, so to speak, then it might only date back as far as the Three Heroes. Ashera is unwilling to hurt Lehran or see him be hurt (I think her line about getting rid of the things confusing him kind of hints at that), so I can imagine her casting that blessing on him when he insisted on helping Altina. Or even so he'd stay alive through her sleep. Ashera is (ironically) sentimental.

It would be interesting if she did it to make it harder for Yune to approach him, but it doesn't seem to have that effect. Too bad~

ANYWAY. Mantle = immortality was the cornerstone of my Elysium arc, so we should be happy I never finished it.

I think Lehran has lived much longer than his natural lifespan would allow - long enough that Rafiel would call him an ancestor, rather than a great-great grandfather, etc. Someone of that relation could justifiably be called just "grandfather," or patriarch, or elder, but they call Lehran their ancestor, and as I recall, the original Japanese made that perfectly clear as well. I think he's ancient, but not the first life form. The themes of the game make it unlikely he predates the other laguz races.

Just for the record. :P But I really liked the idea, so I wrote it.

[amielleon]

Well, technically that's all just protagonist fare... *shot*

Ooh, good call on the Mantle time. I've been pondering a lot about the Three Heroes, and personally I'd speculate that Ashera used Lehran (whom she was close to) as a vessel after Ashunera's split. The circumstances surrounding Yune in RD lead me to think that a newly-split goddess (the one who doesn't have the energy to drown the world) might need such a person. Plus, parallels with Micaiah!

So, Lehran with Ashera in tow travels with the Three Heroes for this purpose, so Ashera protects him alongside the rest. But personally I favor the approach that Altina and Lehran meet and fall in love over the course of the war. I suppose if they'd known each other beforehand it would be quite different.

Honestly... when a heron or dragon calls someone their ancestor I just have a major wut moment, because their generations are insanely long, and it doesn't sound like the beorc and laguz (in their present evolutionary forms) took very long to jump at each others' throats. No one in Serenes seems to think much of the fact that their ancestor Lehran was around for the Great Flood stuff, and that was "only" ~800 years ago. (So maybe three or four generations back. Being generous about their curve of aging, maybe 7 at best.) I think it was a thoughtless moment on the creators' part.

Glad you clarified though.

[myaru.livejournal.com]

So, in other words, Ashera couldn't maintain a body during the war, and used Lehran? That has interesting implications. Did Yune have a body in the flashbacks? I could swear I've seen a screenshot where she looks solid, but have never gotten to those scenes myself. :/ It'd be interesting if she was only able to materialize after Yune was sealed, because the balance clearly shifted after that event.

I figured Lehran might have met Altina several times before the war, but only became acquainted with her during the conflict. This would make a lot of sense if he was Ashera's vessel, also. We know Lehran was the leader of the bird clans, but Altina's status before becoming a hero is up in the air. It's hard to speculate how they might have known each other beforehand, except with Lehran as proxy for the goddess.

Maybe he just robs cradles for his wives. :D

This is why I originally thought Lehran had to be ancient - because otherwise that terminology is like... what. Come on. But herons only (hahaha, only) live up to a thousand years, right, and the siblings look pretty young. They were probably all born a few hundred years after the flood at the earliest. I once thought it'd be cute for Rafiel to have known Lehran very briefly in his early childhood, but that would put Rafiel in the 800 year range, and that's a bit close to the end for him to be looking so good.

That is, unless herons really do die beautiful. That's MY headcanon.

[amielleon]

I'm like 99% certain that the only solid Yune you ever see is in the official art.

It really is up in the air! I think that's pretty much approaching pure headcanon territory.

Herons do live up to a thousand years, but the age of sexual maturity is another matter. Nasir remarks at one point in PoR that the laguz take a comparatively short time to hit adulthood, and then almost all outward signs of aging come to a stop. So, fudging a few figures, you could have quite a few generations in there...

Of course, you'd have some pretty weird customs in rulership there. Dudes reigning through three~four generations before kicking it!