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Auldrant is Derris-Kharlan
  • It makes sense, doesn't it? The Qliphoth looks like Derris-Kharlan, it's a world where mana/"fonons" is everywhere, it's implied that every inhabitant can use magic/"fonic artes" (thus making them elves, further cemented by the fact that there is only one race), and the Tower of Rem is an Expy of the Tower of Salvation, which linked Derris-Kharlan to Sylvarant/Tethe'alla.
    • Considering their longer years and most likely extended/slowed down aging (as noted in another WMG below) compared to our world, not unlikely they "evolve" to the point they are elves.

Tales of the Abyss takes place in Tales of Phantasia's negative mirror universe, and the God Generals are the evil versions of the Phantasia cast.
  • Largo=Cless. Revenge-based tough guy characters who often resort to violence before logic.
  • Asch=Chester. The outsiders. They are closely related to the main protagonist in some way (Chester is Cless's childhood friend; Luke is Asch's childhood clone) and spend the majority of the story separated from their parties. Both are playable for a small portion of their respective games.
  • Legretta=Arche. Both have ponytails. Legretta's apocalypse-bringing devotion to Van is an exaggeration of Arche's fangirl mannerisms toward Chester.
  • Arietta=Mint. Mages who talk to animals. Both are very close to their dead (adopted) mother. Arietta's forest friends may be a reference to Mint's general affinity toward druidism. Also, just look at their character designs. Look at them.
  • Dist=Klarth. The silver-haired scholars of their team. Both use indirect combat abilities that are treated as obscure trades in their respective universes (command over Summon Spirits in Klarth's case, command over robotics in Dist's).
  • Synch=Suzu. Ninja characters with virtually no attachment to the main plot.

Van and Tear aren't real siblings
  • Seriously, considering the age gap, perhaps Van's mother had an affair with another man before Hod fell, and the man died during Hod's fall, and she never revealed her affair. In that case, thank goodness Tear and Van had the same hair and eye coloring, or people might've suspected that they were half-siblings.
    • Actually; I know people who have similar age gaps in real life. My eldest uncle for example has two siblings who're young enough to be his children. I think Amy Carter was also like that, too. (Her siblings were way older than she was, right?) I assumed Tear was like that.
    • It's easy to justify the age difference: their parents had each of them and gave Van that Name to Run Away From Really Fast Because The Score Said To. If Van was allowed to read the seventh fonstone as a child, whichever one of his parents was descended from Yulia certainly did, meaning they must have been aware that Van was going to destroy Hod. That just adds another level of hell to Van's already awful childhood...
      • Actually, the destruction of Hod was on the Sixth Fonstone, which ends in ND 2018. Hod was destroyed in ND 2002.

Kristoph is Jade's Evil twin.
  • They are too similar. Scarily similar.
    • Oh God. Poor Klavier.

Deader than Dead is the end of all Non-Seventh Fonists
  • While normally injuries can be healed and the dead revived on the battlefield, Frings dies because it takes him too long to get to a seventh fonist, which would explain why Jade performed a fairly untested procedure on Nebilim instead of telling his companion to run for a seventh fonist. According to mythology, seventh fonists go to the Fon Belt when they die, since their seventh fonons would contain their memories which explains why Ion is able to give Tear the true meaning of the Fifth Fonic Hymn if she sings at his funeral even though he died of fonon dispersal and there was nothing left to heal. This means that when Jade or any other non-seventh fonist dies they will be Deader than Dead, due to lacking Auldrant's version of a soul.

The Zao Ruins were built by Dorfs.
  • The place almost seems to have been designed by someone that embarked in an arid biome:
    • The ruins are almost completely built within a large, extensive cavern.
    • The ruins can collapse upon themselves when given a sufficient shock, as Sync claims. Stone-fall and cave-in traps are extremely common and fairly easy to set up in Dwarf Fortress.
    • The Zao Desert was supposedly much more fertile than it is now. What are Dwarf Fortress dwarves really good at? Why, tuning otherwise habitable places into inhospitable wastelands.
    • The civilisation that built the ruins no longer exists. In Dwarf Fortress, the failure of a fortress isn't just an option, it's a staple of the game.
    • Dwarves have a fondness for building massive, sprawling structures which frequently double as weapons of mass destruction, for no apparent reason. Said structures also have a tendency to backfire spectacularly when the wrong lever is pulled. Now, why would you build an underground city around and on top of a piece of ancient technology that's holding up the planet's crust, knowing full well that any failure in the machinery will drop said city into the Qliphoth? Because it's dwarvenly.
    • And finally, Giant Desert Scorpions are highly prized pets and war animals in Dwarf Fortress. You must fight one in the second visit to the Zao Ruins.

There will be an Enhanced Remake of the 3DS Version on a Sony system
Because Namco LOVES Sony, and they love to give the middle finger to Nintendo, Microsoft, NA, and PAL Territories. (PAL especially.)

Leia is the living reincarnation of the real Natalia.
  • It just so happens that the real Natalia's soul ended up in Xillia where she was reborn as Leia.

The Score doesn't actually say anything.
The Score is just sound, and a Scorer reading it is analogous to a fortune teller reading tarot cards, but with notes and chords instead of pictures. It explains why the Score is vague on important things like the world's future, yet detailed enough to tell people what to cook for dinner, and completely leaves out important things like fomicry. Yulia developed the guideline for interpreting the seventh fonon, and the Planet Score is just her personal interpretation of what she observed when she asked "what does the future hold?," and nobody ever questioned it because the Order of Lorelei has a monopoly on Scorers and questioning Yulia would be heresy.The Score is purely a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, and the characters aren't screwing destiny because there isn't actually any destiny to screw.
  • but at the same time, the Score seems to know what Van is intending to do, if what Lorelei says in the end and the "destruction of Auldrant" (and the war) the Score mentions anything to go on. It DID predict that, and Lorelei does indeed speak, so it may have spoken with Yulia about the future it foretold. It definitely says it foresaw future when speaking with Luke in the final anime scene before the credits. Maybe I don't understand what you're getting at, but the Score does indeed mention big events like the War of Rugnica Plains, and Van's plan. The game states that the party members are the ones who screw destiny, not the villain, who was following exactly what the Score predicted. The Planet Score seems to be the one that predicts big events, like the War and Van's plan, and then there are individual's Scores and then Scores about the weather. They're Yulia's Score, broken down into different parts for simplicity's sake. The Closed Score is presumably just made up of Scores dealing with death, like Hod, Akzeriuth, and the War. So it does predict big events, and the only reason it's a self-fulfilling prophesy is everyone follows it because it will bring "prosperity to all of Auldrant", which... well.

Noelle is psychic.
Whenever you leave the Albiore in the middle of a continent, if you go to any port and "depart", you'll be in the Albiore outside said port. Even if you park it in Yulia City and take the Yulia Road to Daath, she'll fly to the Outer Lands to pick you up. While this may be explained by her just figuring if you're not in the city, Daath is the only other place you could be, this is not the only evidence. If you're on the Kimlascan continent, you can either depart from Baticul or go through the marsh and depart from Sheridan; either way, she's at whichever one you go to. If you go halfway into the marsh (from the Baticul side) and then head back to Baticul, she'll be waiting for you there. This means she's not just heading to the other side if you take too long, she knows where you're going and decides to meet you there.
  • Or the party might contact her off screen when they arrive, telling her where they are and they need her.

Lorelei knows Luke & Asch's names because...
...They're mentally linked, and a person's identity tends to be among their strongest memories. Lorelei can read their identities from their minds, but their other memories (including others' names) are too faint for it to read. Hence referring to Van as "one who would seize glory": it didn't know his actual name.

Cheagles earn their names, and until they do so, are simply called 'Mieu' until then
This explains why Mieu was so pleased when Luke gave him the "name" Thing. He mentions in two skits ("Mieu's Name" and "Luke Overdoing Things") that he's pleased to have the name, and considers it a good name. Mieu is, after all, the word they say to communicate.

Arietta and Anise used to be friends, before Arietta was replaced as Fon Master Guardian by Anise.
I really get this vibe when Arietta and Anise are talking. Anise, for her part, definitely does not hate Arietta, whatever she says. When Ion goes to tell Arietta he's a replica, Anise stops him, because as Largo says, Arietta would have killed herself if she knew her Ion was dead and replaced by a replica, let alone that she was working alongside one., and as it stands, she goes little more than berserk when the Ion of the story dies. When Arietta "dies" at Mt. Roneal, Anise cries. When defeating her again, Anise is still sad, but pretends otherwise. And yet again, in the Abyss lab, when defeating her replica, Anise is visibly upset by having to kill her again and again. Anise accepts Arietta's duel simply because it's the only thing Arietta chose for herself, the one time Arietta was not Van's puppet. Arietta repeatedly calls Anise a traitor, and hates her for replacing her as Ion's closest and most personal guardian. Arietta harbours a deeper hatred for Anise than the people actually responsible for killing her "mommy". In battles against her, at least for me, she seems to target Anise the most. Yet there's just something in their dynamic that makes me think they were once friends, even good friends. Likely Anise saw how Arietta was so shy, meek, and lonely, and taught her some of her spells, which explains why they share spells, to protect herself and make herself more useful as a guardian to the Fon Master. They never really talk like they were enemies from the start, like Luke and Asch. They have a dynamic more like Jade and Dist, that of old friends gone sour.
  • They probably were friends. The way Anise's parents talk about Arietta, it sounds like this is the case. It's very likely they trained to be puppeteers at the same time, and became good friends through the fact that they possessed the same amount of talent and both were probably the youngest trainees (which is what Anise's special chapter in the Manga implies; Anise was the youngest trainee). Maybe they both worked together to become just as strong as everyone else, and taught each other spells. I'd actually go so far as to say that when their friendship went sour, it was sometime after Dist modified Tokunaga for Anise. I got the impression that was unique to her as far as puppeteer work goes BECAUSE Dist was the one who modified him for her. Until then, it's safe to assume Anise used Tokunaga the same way Arietta uses her own doll. After that, Anise became better at puppeteering than Arietta and as we learn in the skit "A Lady's Secret", Anise keeps how it works a secret (that, or because Dist did it, she doesn't actually know). If she wasn't able to explain it, that would probably upset Arietta, but not enough to wreck their friendship. I'd say Anise and Arietta began to drift apart after Arietta was put on as Ion's guardian but remained friends despite this, and the "traitor" thing was Arietta being removed as Ion's Fon Master Guard and being replaced with Anise who I think thought she'd be working with Arietta, not replacing her, since I believe she didn't know exactly when Arietta was pulled out as a Fon Master Guard (I believe she says at one point in a conversation with either Ion or Largo something like "Hey, two years ago was when I was made a Fon Master Guard!" and the topic of conversation was Arietta's removal as a Guard because of Ion). Anise is a traitor because she replaced Arietta, then proceeded to fall in love with the same person as Arietta herself loved, and again surpassed Arietta.

Jade was never supposed to be born.
Jade was the one who created the very thing that threw the Score off track, the person who created fomicry, which would have led to the planet's ultimate demise, which was originally supposed to happen through miasma "turning the world to dust", presumably from seeping up through cracks, and the places where Hod and Akzeriuth fell, meaning that Van's replica land was not foreseen, despite what Lorelei implies when speaking with Luke at the very end. Jade was the one who threw the Score off track, not Luke.

Humans on Auldrant age half as fast as humans on Earth
If you look at a book in the Daath library, you can read that one year on Auldrant is approximatively twice as long as a year on Earth. However, characters don't seem to be twice as old as their given age would be.

In the ending, Asch and Luke are re-merged into one person

If you look at the part at Ortion Cavern and the contamination sidequest, you may recall that both Asch and Luke were doomed because of the Big Bang effect. This, combined with the deaths of the originals when Van was making all those replicas, suggests that something is taken from the originals to make replicas, meaning that both original and replica are somehow incomplete. Additionally, the title song, Karma, talks about the two becoming one (translation here). Moreover, the person in the end who returns has characteristics of both Asch and Luke. Conclusion, Luke and Asch are re-merged into one person.

Related to the above, the Contamination Effect works differently for Luke and Asch than anyone else.
Jade seems to start to suggest to Dist once the Catalyst sidequest wraps up that it's possible that Luke would be the one to survive the Big Bang. While it could be chalked up to a desperate wish because he's actually friends with Luke and not Asch, but that's not how Jade works. He doesn't place value in false hopes or things that aren't possible. Jade also says that fomicry can't make isofons, way back before Akzeriuth. So therefore, it's entirely possible that the only reason Luke and Asch are perfect is isofons because Asch was (somehow) born with the exact same fonon frequency as the Seventh Fonon.

Auldrant has nukes.
Or at least, something very much like nukes. In one of the group's visits to Peony's palace, Anise makes a throwaway comment about a fonon bomb, to which Peony responds with an uncharacteristic Dude, Not Funny!. Recall that fonons are Auldrant's versions of atoms, in that they make up everything. Thus, a fonon bomb would be Auldrant's analogue of an atom bomb.
  • Actually, they have both; there are several times when fonons and atoms are mentioned in the same breath. Not that this changes the possibility of fonon bombs.

The science behind Auldrant's 765-day year.
Auldrant is a pretty interesting world in that it's probably the only non-science fiction planet to have actual details about its orbital period. We know from the information in Daath's library that a year on Auldrant is 765 days, which is twice as long than a year on Earth (365 days). However, there is a problem with this. In order for Auldrant's year to be that long, the planet would have to be much farther out from its star than Earth is from our Sun (assuming Auldrant shares the same distance of 1 AUnote ). By calculating and measuring the amount of time it would take Auldrant to complete one orbit, its determined distance would be about 1.87 AU, which would put Auldrant in between the orbit of Mars and the Asteroid Belt. At this distance, Auldrant would be far too cold to even sustain life, but that's assuming that the star it orbits around (Rem) is a G-type star like our Sun. If the star is a hotter and more luminous F-type instead (making its habitable zone more spread out at a farther distance), then it's entirely possible for Auldrant to remain habitable and still keep its long year.
  • Supporting the hypothesis that Rem is a more energetic star than our own is that Auldrant is stated to be the system's second planet. A planet orbiting a G-type star at 1.87 AU would be expected to have at least two or three planets with inferior orbits, but increasing a star's energy output also inhibits the accretion of planets, so an F-type star would explain why Auldrant has only one inferior planet.

Humanoid Replica are more than just copies
Replicas don't just exist as copies of the original. They are remnants or aspects of the original's personality made manifest in physical form. They may not have the original's memories, but they will exhibit personality traits from the original. It isn't until they fully mature in personality and appearance do those traits manifest.
  • For example, Luke may represent Asch's deeply buried better qualities, such as optimism and honesty. Now that Asch is bitter and mistrustful of others, he might just see Luke as a representation of what he could have been like had Van not done what he did.
  • Another example can be seen in the original Ion's three replicas present in the main story before his death.
    • The Ion in the main story is the manifestation of the public façade the original Ion put on to hide his disdain for the world and its people. However, the current Ion's personality is genuine by comparison.
    • Sync represents the true personality of the original Ion, as he shares the same hatred for the world that abandoned them both. The first Score reading the original Ion read prophesied that he would die at the age of twelve, while Sync was deemed a failure and was thrown out and left to rot until Van found him.
    • Florian, as dictated by his name, represents the innocence the original Ion lost once he learned he would die in the future.
  • Gelda Nebilim's first replica, though deemed a failure, seems to embody traits from Gelda's past, like her lack of moral restraint and cruelty.

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