History Headscratchers / TalesOfTheAbyss

* By the end of the game everyone learns that Hod and Akzeriuth were destroyed in the "same" manner. That is by the destruction of their respective passage rings. This also had an additional effect that becomes very important: The Hod Ring (8th) and Akzeriuth Ring (5th) supported Albertesque seal, a hardwired lock that prevented the Passage Ring system and the Sepherioth it controls from being tampered with or manipulated in anyway. Both rings were destroyed by induced 7th Fonon Hyperresonances - Ring 8 was destroyed when the Malkeuth military hooked Van to a machine to produce the chain reaction, and we all saw how Ring 5 was destroyed. Both events are constantly compared to each other but if you look closely they couldn't be more different. The Akzeriuth Ring was pulverized along with it's entire "shrine" and the result was the core area it alone supported basically imploded, crumbling into nothing with only the cores of the surrounding Mountains surviving to fall into the Qlipphoth, the rest of Southern Rugnica only survived due to the areas proximity to the Chesed and Binah Rings which probably temporarily picked up the slack - as Asch notes at the end of Ortion caveren. As such the destruction of Akzeriuth can only be described as utterly violent and pretty much instantaneous - if we take the cutseen's pace as real time it took about a minute or so from the disruption of the 5th Ring to the complete implosion of Akzeriuth. On the other hand when St. Binah begins to crumble due to Van shutting down the the Binah Ring, Tear notes that even with the Sepherioth Tree gone, the dividing line is temporarily keeping the land aloft, and she gives the example of Hod taking a hours to days to fall below it and make the actual plunge into the Qlipphoth. St. Binah does pass the line and falls into the sea of misama, and it does so for all intents as a single intact chunk of land. After this happens, when Field Marshal McGovern asks what is to be St. Binah's fate, Tear then states that it will eventually - in the near term - sink into the liquefied mantle and be destroyed, remarking yet again that it took Hod nearly a month to sink after it fell. This lends to the idea that like St. Binah, Hod took some time to fall and when it did it stayed together as a single landmass before it eventually sank into the mantle over the course of several weeks. This ultimately suggests that Hod's fate was far more like St. Binah's close call then the cataclysm that was the end of Akzeriuth. The question is why? Especially as it seems - if the lore we are provided by the game is to be believed - that the manner of their destruction was exactly the same - induced Hyperresonance?

** With the change in the environment by the land dropping, it's plausible that more difficult-to-deal-with monsters moved into the Valley over time. It's also been a good passage of time since moss has grown on Eldrant's remains (despite nobody looking any older). In fact, Natalia alludes to Luke's coming-of-age ceremony, which might be a clue to how long it's been. If she means Luke, and not Asch, then it's been about ''11 whole years'', since you come of age at 18 on Eldrant. 11 years for monsters to grow and move into and around Tataroo Valley, since the other side of the creek sported harder monsters to deal with. It's likely at least part of it was the emotional impact. After all, they last saw Luke when the sun was setting, ie heading into night time. Feelings themselves are dangerous. He probably means Tear's feelings on that front, and might feel genuine concern that in the past who-knows-how-much time since Tear lost both of the people she loved most in the world that she'd give up and just let the monsters destroy her, no matter how low-levelled they are. If you look at her in that scene, she's not acting like her usual tough self, and [[BlankFaceOfShame the camera doesn't]] [[HiddenEyes show her eyes much]]. She's very sad and vacant, and her movements are rather lethargic until the very end, when she starts to run towards Mr Ending over there.

* Why did Yulia [[spoiler: hide the Seventh Fonstone]], when it [[spoiler: shows the imminent destruction of the world she loved so much]]? The end of the Sixth Fonstone promised prosperity to Auldrant. [[spoiler: Well, Kimlasca, anyway. The Sixth Fonstone was pretty clear that Malkuth got the short end of the stick there, since the Score was pretty clear that Malkuth would lose the war and His Imperial Majesty would die]]. If that's all they know of it, people are bound to follow it, right? Eternal, ever-lasting, "unprecedented" prosperity sounds fantastic, right? So people would follow it to bring future generations to that prosperity. If you really wanted the world to [[spoiler: avert the Score you wrote down]] because you love the world so much, why would you [[spoiler: hide the thing that says the world will end in death and disease with the miasma consuming the planet]]? For that matter, why would you even [[spoiler: write it down]]? Would that almost make this an IdiotPlot? And Yulia's not the only idiot here, why in the name of Lorelei would you follow something like that, if there's a whole entire section at the end completely missing? It'd be like an inexperienced baker trying to bake a cake where the instructions don't say how long to bake it for. They can follow the recipe to the letter, but what will they do when it comes time to bake the cake? Will they get lucky, or will disaster happen? Who knows?

** An official [[http://aselia.wikia.com/wiki/Auldrant?file=Auldrant_Structural_Diagram.png structural diagram]] of Auldrant uploaded on Wiki/TheOtherWiki reveals that the diameter of Auldrant is 11,470 km (For reference, Earth's diameter is 12,742 km), and the diagram reveals that the distance between the Outer Lands and the Qliphoth is 30,000 m, which is only 30 km. So in other words, when the Outer Lands descend back down into the Qliphoth, the overall diameter of Auldrant would only decrease by 30 km, making its total diameter by post-Absorption Gate just 11,440 km. The geography wouldn't really change much except for some slight squeezing of the crust, making it slightly more compact and prone to earthquakes.