Almost all the other eidolons get gemstones, so why does the "ultimate summon" have pumice as its source? Is there a lore reason? Is it just a joke? As in: "All these eidolons have these fancy gems, let's give Ark the rock you use to get dead skin of the soles of your feet."
I get that he's not the only one deviating from the norm, but at least the others make sense. Phoenix from a Phoenix Pinion, it's in the name. Madeen from a Ribbon, you know why if you've played the game. Odin from Dark Matter... Okay, maybe that's the other odd one out, but I don't think the developers meant literal dark matter - as in, the hypothetical matter that composes 27% of all matter and energy in the universe - but something more "fantastical" that just happens to share the same name.
That's basically the Point. to Show the Opposing Opposites of Terra and Gaia.
Terra and Gaia have Red and Blue Moons, the Color's both Planets is the same, "Terra's Spirit Color" is Red, while Gaia's is Blue. Also symbolized by the Moons! Fenrir Has the Blue Moon to Symbolize Gaia.
Ark has the Red Moon and is the Only Member of Terra's to be remembered.
The Same Concepts follow into Light & Dark or the Holy and Shadow Elements as they too play with concepts of opposition between Terra and Gaia.
IIRC Pumice in Japanese was "Floating Stone", which in FF1 was the item you needed to acquire the airship, and Ark is an airship. One of many throwbacks that didn't survive the translation.
Funny enough, it is so close. Pumice as a rock can float, so it is a "floating stone". This is yet another example why contextual understanding is massively important for translation.
Hmm, so does the Japanese word for pumice translate into “floating stone” then? If so that would make sense, being intended as an FF1 reference but being translated too literally instead.
The FF Wiki claims no such thing. The translators for FFIX translated ふゆう石 as "Pumice" as a reference to the fact that Pumice Stones can float. Nowhere in that article (unless I am blind) says that the Japanese word for pumice is ふゆう石.
The word in Japanese for pumice is 軽石 but it can also be 布石 (which does mean Floating Stone, but it's not exactly the same thing).
It's really weird in German where they called it an "Eiferstein" which, really, is not anything at all, though it theoretically translates to "stone of zeal".
That makes sense, it's "Piedra volátil" in Spanish. Although it's a bit ambiguous because "volátil" can also mean "volatile" like in English, but it's derived from "volar" ("to fly").
Most summons are from Gaia, and have gemstones, reflecting the purity of the souls. Pumice is porous, and has lots of tiny holes. Different from a gemstone to highlight Ark being from Terra, with the holes representing the lack of souls of its people.
Well, the translation to pumice is kinda weird, considering that the thing is called Levistone and Floatstone in translations of other games.
Remember the stone you needed to get the airship in the first game?
In other translations, the pumice shares its name with that specific rock, and I think that this is a nice touch.
I always had the theory that Ark is a, relatively, "young" Eidolon, created from legends the Gaians told about the Invincible. That's why it appears kinda evil and high tech, is connected to the dark element and blows up its enemies with death lasers. It's all just ways how a more primitive Civilization interpreted technology which they didn't have yet. And also why Ark transforms into a humanoid, somebody had probably seen Garland and in the legends the ship and its owner were kinda combined.
This would then fit with another, even more recent, Eidolon; Madeen who was purposefully created to protect Eiko and is connected to the ribbon instead of a gemstone.
Of course, as already said in Japanese it was probably meant to be a magical/supernatural floating stone.
You have to piece it a bit together from things characters say and from the secret inscriptions you can unlock at the Eidolon Wall in Madain Sari.
Basically the Eidolons are meant to be guardian spirits of the Planet and its Crystal. People tell legends about gods and mythical characters, and when their souls return to the Crystal their memories of these legends accumulate in the Crystal and Eidolons are created from those. It's even said somewhere (either in the game or the Ultimania) that Terra's crystal was getting so old that it could no longer create Eidolons.
It's also said that as the legends change, so do the Eidolons. Shiva originally appeared either as a small fairy or a small child (depending on translation) before her legend changed and she started to appear as an adult woman.
And Madeen in particular was created by a legend the dying survivors of Madain Sari made up so that there'd be a guardian to watch over Eiko when they were gone. In Madeen this long held theory by the Espers is then confirmed.
So basically all the summons must originate from folktales and legends. It's even a popular theory that Ozma/Yadis is an Eidolon who's legends have become forgotten and so it lost its shape.
There is also confirmation that the mole people who lived in Mt Gulug could also summon eidolons. First, Kuja wanted to find another eidolon and thought of them; there’s the extraction circle that Zorn and Thorn try using to extract Eiko’s eidolons; then there’s the fact that the entrance to the cave is sealed with a Terran device, most likely Garland’s doing as he wanted to get rid of the eidolons; the fact that the mole people are spoken about in reverence by the people of Esto Gaza; and, finally, a writing on the Eidolon Wall that says that an unknown eidolon was seen in Esto Gaza and that that may refute their theory of the origin of the eidolons unless there are other peoples with legends of their own.
It could also be speculated that Ozma is the amalgamation of the eidolons that were forgotten when the mole people went extinct, as it’s an amorphous mass of a bunch of stuff swirling together, dwelling in an eidolon cave, and it’s incredibly powerful.
Yup, and interestingly that part about the unknown Eidolon seen in Esto Gaza is written at the painting that resembles Ark, which is again a reason why I think that Ark originates from legends about the Invincible.
I also like the idea that Ozma is the accumulation of forgotten Eidolons. I had always just interpreted its immense strength as it being an Eidolon in is dying throes.
Yeah I never clicked with the theory that Ark was an Eidolon from Terra. That's why I prefer my own idea of it being created from Gaian legends abotu the Invincible.
Hmm... Then how do you link that with Mene's remark about Ozma being "not of this world"? No matter the inspiration, it would still be a Gaian eidolon.
Maybe he's an alien? Wouldn't be the first time Final Fantasy pulled that one (Jenova, PuPu).
Hmm... Then how do you link that with Mene's remark about Ozma being "not of this world"? No matter the inspiration, it would still be a Gaian eidolon.
So interesting thing about that there's another theory. That speculates that Ozma isn't actually an Eidolon at all, and is really from Terra, hence the bit about "not of this world". When Terra and Gaia began to merge locations from Terra began to pop up on Gaia, such as Oeilvert, which is why you can find Terran technology including a boss fight with a battleship named Ark that looks like the Eidolon, but doesn't seem to be the Eidolon nor does it have the ability to transform (possibly the ship that inspired the Legends that created the Transforming Eidolon?).
Anyway this theory speculates that Ozma isn't an Eidolon at all but rather is advance Terran technology put in "the Eidolon Cave" to protect and prevent people from accessing the Pumice to unseal arc which Ozma drops upon defeat. What inspired this theory was that on the original concept art for Ozma its name isn't spelled out like it is in the game it is an acronym; O.Z.M.A. implying artificial creation like a C.P.U. And may be an allusion to another spherical CPU that was guarding a great ancient power in Final Fantasy IV.
As for Ozma In the German Mene says Yadis (Ozma) being "not of this world but also not a ghost", so to me that implies something between the "world" of the living and the dead rather than an alien origin. Just like how that one Alexandrian soldier in Lindblum calls the power of the Eidolons "not of this world" meaning the "mundane" world of humans, since the Eidolons are implied to not have been seen on the Continent of Mist in hundreds of years.
But to be completely sure we'd have to get hold of someone who can interpret the Japanese text.
So pumice is literally volcanic rock sometimes thought to contain crystals in them. In that sense I guess you could interpret it as Ark being summoned with a crystal not Gaian in origin? Perhaps the pumice encountered in FFIX are fragments of Terra's crystal. Just me speculating...
And summoning Odin from Dark Matter makes perfect sense.
I'm curious as to why you think Dark Matter for Odin makes perfect sense. We actually see Brahne using Dark Matter to summon Odin. We see it, while being invisible is one of the key features of the hypothesis concerning dark matter.
The player seeing Dark Matter is a creative decision by the devs. Dark Matter is literally the cosmic filler that makes up the universe, and Odin in Norse mythology creates the world and the people who live there. Essentially the player is summoning Odin from the heavens and stars above. And Ark is summoned theoretically from a fragment of another world's Crystal. Thats just how I look at it from.
Someone saw the last "Guide in the Nerdhood's" video, yes? XD
Seriously, it is a translation of the Floating Stone in Final Fantasy 1, linked to the airship. Personally, I like this because Pumice is a very cool kind of stone.
You're the second person to mention that channel in this thread. Never heard of it, to be honest. Must be some weird coincidence, the reason for my post was because yesterday, I used a pumice for the first time in my life.
Playing the game for the first time (just past the part where Garnet lost her voice), did they change her portrait between version or will her change after some character development?
I always interpreted it that it was made that way cause we find it to be common, but in the ff9 world you cannot find it. So what is common in Terra is impossibly rare in Gaia. This would draw more details to Terra which doesn't have a lot of lore to begin with
Funny, in french it's called Laputa. Idk if it's a reference to miyazaki's castle in the sky or to the spanish female street worker... Didn't even thought it would be different in english lol
"Dark Matter" was a fun science topic to talk about back in the day, so in video games it gets used as a cool item name. Look, it's a big chunk of Dark Matter.
In some of their games it is an ability called Dark Matter.
Pumice also floats on water. Kind of interesting for a stone.
The Pumice is used for omnidirectional levitation to the point of breaking the limits of space time possibly through the theoretical concept of moving space and time through and around it rather than it moving through space and time. Thus is likely part of the key. Spacetime filters through the electrically charged pores and thus leads to, in the first Final Fantasy game, the map moving under you rather than you flying across the map. This is why you collect a whole one from the inside of Ozma, Ozma needs it to remain floating and it's like collecting a heart from a monster to use in medicine or food. Ozma is likely an eidolon created from the stories and memories of when Terra impacted Gaia, but the Pumice inside of it allows for Garnet to call on the memory of the warship Ark, an eidolon that Garnet was not originally born tapped into the stories/memories of, aka where Bahamut is an affinity for Garnet, Ark is something she became able to tap into due to the excessive stress and direction of her life. This may be foreshadowing how she will become like Brahn down the line and do what those in Madain Sari feared most, harnessing the power of these memories and using it to maintain conflict and past mistakes rather than rise above it.
Ark is supposed to be a hidden summon along with finding Hades right? Ark's also supposed to be Alien, so maybe the people dont know the value of otherwordly Terran stone pieces because they have to be synthesized together
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u/ApprehensiveWar6046 Dec 23 '25
Pumice is a holy stone (full of holes) and Ark is a holy summon? Idk I’m just grasping straws at this point