[FGO JP Main Chapter] Lostbelt 7: Nahui Mictlan ~ The One Who Rules the Planet

[OnesFleetingGlory]

...Man, just realized that the ORT fight in LB7 is intentionally a direct callback to Tiamat in Babylonia

Spoiler:

-Unstoppable monster who visibly moves across the map as we do anything we can to slow them down
-When they awaken, new life forms emerge and the environment itself changes
-They both have name changes - Babylonia to Mesopotamia, and Nahui Mictlān becomes ORT Xibalba
-We lead them into a trap set by Ereshkigal (though unfortunately it completely fails with ORT ;_
-They're both effectively immortal at the start, and someone imprints the concept of death onto them - Beni was even taught how by KH, the one who did it to Tiamat.

Dammit Nasu really went ahead and made Babylonia 2.0 lol

I already called it ever since the way the map was shown and how they hyping up ORT confrontation and 'blockades' in each underworld. They're all telltales of setting up an epic battle.

[pinetree]

Pretty much anyone with divine lineage can be written off. Descendants of the gods are known for their pale skin and blond hair in the nasuverse. Maaaaaaaybe a little bit problematic, but I think it's less whitewashing and more rooted around that one problematic idea.

As far as the mesoamericans specifically go... I don't know if it's true or not, but if it's a lie it's a pretty well known one. The mesoamerican deities were known for their pale skin. The whole story about how mesoamericans thought the white Spaniards were gods because of that, and how they thought Cortez was Quetzalcoatl because of it. Makes sense that most of them would be white following that theory.

That's only Quetzalcoatl, and yes, it's also totally fake.

[Delastogos]

There's no way this isn't an intentional reference. There are parts of LB6 you could compare to Camelot too. Sadly it seems like any parallels if any were only planned for LB7, and any further back than 6 you can't really draw comparisons between. It would've been funny if all of Part 2 was really just Part 1 Alter

Well, several parts of Part 2 contains/expands a lot of characters or concepts from Part 1. In a lot of ways, doing justice to characters that maybe didn't get their due at the time while also tying itself more closely to the wider Nasuverse.

[OnesFleetingGlory]

There's no way this isn't an intentional reference. There are parts of LB6 you could compare to Camelot too. Sadly it seems like any parallels if any were only planned for LB7, and any further back than 6 you can't really draw comparisons between. It would've been funny if all of Part 2 was really just Part 1 Alter

Ironically enough, the ones that got parallels were EoR chapters, in Events and Main Chapters:
Shinjuku><Traum
Shimousa><Heian-Kyo
Salem><Imaginary Scramble

Not sure with Agartha, maybe Tunguska?

- - - Updated - - -

Also, any info on the date for banner 2? I'm curious on Kuku's FA, and see if it's a better shot than my current avatar.

Oh, maybe it'll also include Beni Alter.

[VTKajin]

Traum and Tunguska both have Agartha energy tbh. But I feel like Agartha's hard to do a "sequel" to because its theme is so broadly applicable to Part 2 as a whole.

[idpersona]

Banner 2's usually drop unceremoniously and without announcement exactly 1 week after banner 1,so kuku will probably drop Tuesday.Hopefully with Itzcalli or Beni Alter(copium).And after the Drake Alter disaster of epically stupid proportions,i think Agartha is memoryholed.Who'd have thunk that having a waifu seggs a random non self-insert male onscreen would piss people off.

[threeunderscore]

There's no way this isn't an intentional reference. There are parts of LB6 you could compare to Camelot too. Sadly it seems like any parallels if any were only planned for LB7, and any further back than 6 you can't really draw comparisons between. It would've been funny if all of Part 2 was really just Part 1 Alter

Atlantis is just Okeanos again from the perspective of Jason with the crew dying left and right for the player side instead of the enemy.

[Formless Creature]

Pretty much anyone with divine lineage can be written off. Descendants of the gods are known for their pale skin and blond hair in the nasuverse

As far as the mesoamericans specifically go... I don't know if it's true or not, but if it's a lie it's a pretty well known one

Is this true for all gods? I thought it was just the Babylonian ones.

The whole "Spanish were thought of as gods" is referenced in game. If it is meant to be just true then either Nasu didn't do his research or was willfully ignorant for the sake of referencing a popular legend.

First off, let's begin with where the claim started to begin with. See Cortes had ordered the local Totonac tribe people to imprison an Aztec tribute collector, since they were subservient to the larger empire. The Totonac people were hesitant since this would amount to a declaration of war, but Cortes said he would take responsibility.
Bernal Diaz del Castillo who was there at the time but would only write about it later said as such:

The act they [the Totonac nobles] had witnessed was so astonishing and of such importance to them that they said no human beings dared to do such a thing, and it must be the work of teules. Therefore, from that moment they [natives] called us [Spanish] teules, which means gods or demons.

Now the first problem with this is that "teule" is not even a word. What it probably is, is the Nahuatl word "teotl" translated into the Totonac equivalent and then into Mayan and then into Spanish, so there's already some loss there. The meaning of "teotl" is complicated but it's not really equivalent to the European ideas of 'god'. It's probably closer to 'kami', in a way, but even that doesn't really cover it. Basically any supernatural being (including things like saints) in Christianity or even European folklore in general would be included under this term. Some of the sources I found even have 'teotl' as meaning something closer to 'divine power' or 'domain' (as in "the fertility deity possesses the 'teotl' of fertility, and her idols also in turn have 'teotl'")

So some of the Totonac people might have believed that the Spanish were not quite human, or perhaps had some sort of supernatural nature. From then on the Spanish would refer to themselves as 'teotl' to the natives and they would in turn refer to them as that. Whenever Cortes arrived at Tenochtitlan, Montezuma said the following:

[Cortés], I know very well that these people of Tlaxcala with whom you are such good friends have told you that I am a sort of God or [teotl] ... I know well enough that you are wise and did not believe it but took it as a joke. Behold now, Señor [Cortés], my body is of flesh and bone like yours ... that I am a great king and inherit the riches of my ancestors is true, but not all the nonsense and lies that they have told you about me, although of course you treated it as a joke, as I did your thunder and lightning.

This is Montezuma basically saying in his polite and backhanded way as was expected of Aztec rulers that "you're running around calling yourself a god. I don't call myself a god. you should stop" (By the way for that matter, the whole thing about Montezuma giving his empire to Cortes was probably misinterpreted too). So no, he never believed that the Spanish were gods either.

Regardless, the Spanish never understood what 'teotl' really meant until later so it was just accepted as fact that the natives thought they were gods.

Now way after the conquest, this myth got conflated with another one. There's an Aztec myth about a king in Tula named Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, who by the way probably was an actual person but we don't really know anything about how he REALLY lived. He's kind of like the Mesoamerican version of that one legend a bunch of European folk heroes (incl. King Arthur) have where he goes away and then says he's gonna come back when his people need rebuilding. Basically, he gets tricked by his court who was jealous of him (some versions of the legend that explicitly identify him with the god Quetzalcoatl have it be that Tezcatlipoca in disguise chased him away. This legend is referenced in Tezcatlipoca's FGO profile IIRC) into going into exile. He gets mad at the people who betrayed him and then he sails east and says he'll come back someday.

Now "sailing due east" here probably meant to the Yucatan Peninsula since that's where you get if you sail east of the Basin of Mexico, but whatever. Later sources, including christianized Nahuas who had essentially internalized this narrative to help with conversion, began to say that this was Cortes. Cortes himself never made mention of this and Diaz del Castilo makes vague references to some prophecy or another, but keep in mind that by the time he was writing his stuff the "Quetzalcoatl is Cortes" legend had already been long underway.

So yeah, basically, anyone who is trying to tell you that the Aztecs believed the Spanish were gods are either misinformed, trying to push something, or way simplifying it. Anyone telling you that Montezuma, specifically, believed Cortes was a god, is definitely wrong.

[madarra]

Fair enough, although I once heard a crackpot theory that he's so pale because of his armor, which prevented the Sun's rays from ever touching his skin or something along those lines.

Mind you, crackpot theory.

the reasons i heard is that Karna in the coloured art is considerably pale compared to all the other indian characters

[Nanashi(kari)]

I still have no idea what thought process they went through with Karna.

Isn't Karna just designed to look like a visual kei musician?

[Link0306]

Okay, so now that chapter 13 is translated on Neobenedict's channel, I got a question about Eresh Alter:

Spoiler:

So I get that Eresh became an Alter so she could get stronger and better help Chaldea.

But why did she stop us from leaving her Underworld, defeated and imprisoned everyone, and try to make us work as slaves? I don't understand how that helps Chaldea.

As a side note though, I am happier with Eresh's content here than I was expecting.

Spoiler:

Eresh Alter's not exactly the same person as she normally is, like some people were saying elsewhere. It is more of a nuanced change compared to Protea and Beni, and as Dumuzid said she is kinda more like Ishtar now. Also I liked her talk with Nito a lot, and how she was sacrificing her own personal dreams in order to do what's best for the Human Order. But again, that still leads back to my question above...

[Gelious]

Okay, so now that chapter 13 is translated on Neobenedict's channel, I got a question about Eresh Alter:

Spoiler:

So I get that Eresh became an Alter so she could get stronger and better help Chaldea.

But why did she stop us from leaving her Underworld, defeated and imprisoned everyone, and try to make us work as slaves? I don't understand how that helps Chaldea.

As a side note though, I am happier with Eresh's content here than I was expecting.

Spoiler:

Eresh Alter's not exactly the same person as she normally is, like some people were saying elsewhere. It is more of a nuanced change compared to Protea and Beni, and as Dumuzid said she is kinda more like Ishtar now. Also I liked her talk with Nito a lot, and how she was sacrificing her own personal dreams in order to do what's best for the Human Order. But again, that still leads back to my question above...

Because she's got carried away with the whole "be perfect goddess of underworld" and took it a bit too far. On top of being an Alter (which in her case means greedy and selfish as Ishtar) and wanting to keep MC always by her side because she likes them.

[Link0306]

Because she's got carried away with the whole "be perfect goddess of underworld" and took it a bit too far. On top of being an Alter (which in her case means greedy and selfish as Ishtar) and wanting to keep MC always by her side because she likes them.

Hmm, but that doesn't sound right either -

Spoiler:

Everything else there was about how she was being super selfless, to the point she agreed to be an Alter, gave up her ability to return to Chaldea, and destroyed the flowers she had Dumuzid plant despite that being her dream (and at least the last part was AFTER becoming an Alter). She was even encouraging Nitocris to give up on her personal issues and dreams too, and focus more on helping the Human Order.

[Gelious]

Hmm, but that doesn't sound right either -

Spoiler:

Everything else there was about how she was being super selfless, to the point she agreed to be an Alter, gave up her ability to return to Chaldea, and destroyed the flowers she had Dumuzid plant despite that being her dream (and at least the last part was AFTER becoming an Alter). She was even encouraging Nitocris to give up on her personal issues and dreams too, and focus more on helping the Human Order.

Servants getting carried away and going against their Master's wishes or Chaldea's purpose is nothing new.

[OnesFleetingGlory]

I was right that Nito Alter is an ally from the get-go instead of 'Zotz's victim, and her usurping his domain really helps turn the table. Though I don't get how he can be killed with just that, while he's unkillable fighting ORT. The MTL isn't clear enough on that.

[Ismail2002]

From what I heard, Nito Alter basically guilty trip Zotzs to unalive himself using Anubis Authority to Judge his sins by the weight of all the humans that was sacrifice for Zozts to kill ORT

[Link0306]

I was right that Nito Alter is an ally from the get-go instead of 'Zotz's victim, and her usurping his domain really helps turn the table. Though I don't get how he can be killed with just that, while he's unkillable fighting ORT. The MTL isn't clear enough on that.

Yeah gotta wait until better translations are out. Though I think I heard Nito was able to judge Camazotz for his sins since she was now channeling Anubis - the judge of the dead. Meanwhile ORT was probably just trying to physically destroy Batman.

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...Man, just realized that the ORT fight in LB7 is intentionally a direct callback to Tiamat in Babylonia

Spoiler:

-Unstoppable monster who visibly moves across the map as we do anything we can to slow them down
-When they awaken, new life forms emerge and the environment itself changes
-They both have name changes - Babylonia to Mesopotamia, and Nahui Mictlān becomes ORT Xibalba
-We lead them into a trap set by Ereshkigal (though unfortunately it completely fails with ORT ;_; )
-They're both effectively immortal at the start, and someone imprints the concept of death onto them - Beni was even taught how by KH, the one who did it to Tiamat.

Dammit Nasu really went ahead and made Babylonia 2.0 lol

Okay, so now that chapter 13 is translated on Neobenedict's channel, I got a question about Eresh Alter:

Spoiler:

So I get that Eresh became an Alter so she could get stronger and better help Chaldea.

But why did she stop us from leaving her Underworld, defeated and imprisoned everyone, and try to make us work as slaves? I don't understand how that helps Chaldea.

Going back to the above two points for a sec -

Spoiler:

From a meta perspective, Nasu may have also wanted to add in another parallel to Babylonia. Eresh was pretending to be evil while secretly being good in her own way, culminating in a fight with her.

Plus we fought the first two Altered Servants in the 2nd and 4th layers, so gotta keep up that trend too before making Nito Alter an ally.

[GDB]

I think I'm finally at the ORT marathon. How many bars/fights/teams do I have to field before they all get restored for the final fight? Want to plan it out while my AP gets restored.

[Ismail2002]

17 in total

[AmADo VII]

17 in total

cutting ORT in '17 pieces' heh.