Quote:Jorlem wrote:Very true. This is why I brought up the 'hoop-jumping'; if you become a Heroic Spirit, you stop reincarnating. Your soul gets yanked out of that entirely, and stuck in the Throne for the rest of multiversal eternity.
Actually, that is incorrect. The Heroic Spirits on the Throne are the souls of the heroes, who are distorted/augmented to a certain degree by their legend. For example, Vlad the Impaler wasn't a vampire while he was alive, but has gained vampire powers as a Heroic Spirit because everyone and their brother knows about Dracula.
Anyway, back on topic:Shirou Emiya finds the Enchiridion.
Also, I reread that bit of NXE before my post. "How do you know" is a handwave- it works in NXE because Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, and Gilgamesh are not characters in NXE.
The problem with having an 'Eternal Soldier' reincarnating is simple; where does it come from? Consider, for example, canon Gil- his legend has him as 'the first king'... and yet he died, went to the Throne, and stopped reincarnating. Similarly, any such 'first soldier' or 'undying soldier' would die, become a Heroic Spirit, and have some sort of legend/NP about not dying when they're killed, or being the fount from which all later soldiers spring. No reincarnation there, as far as Nasu mechanics go... so the ES has to be a soul that never became a Heroic Spirit, something other than a human soul (like the Slayer gift, maybe?), or not literally those four people (which ties back into the metaphysical addon package concept, really).
How's this? The Eternal Soldier is essentially a Noble Phantasm. It is the crystallization of the experiences of all soldiers, endowed with the metaphysical 'weight' of all that time and life experience. Spend four years in the Army? You've just contributed to the ES. Be a Spartan warrior all your life? Bigger contribution. It is 'held', in a spiritual sense, by one person in all the world, grafting itself to a newborn's soul as its previous one passes on- not unlike a Sidereal Exaltation, in that way. Back in antiquity, it wasn't nearly as 'big', so its effects- passive familiarity with combat, mostly- weren't nearly so pronounced. That changed while Longinus held it.
Why? Who knows? Something to do with the events of the Crucifixion, maybe? The legend of Longinus, Saint Longinus of the Lance, warping the legend of the memory he carried, or possibly just the Phantasm reaching some sort of critical mass point? Maybe it was just the Roman Empire- all those legionnaires, all career soldiers, all trained in the same disciplines, and forming their own collective legends far and wide- but the Eternal Soldier remembers those times- those *skills*, more strongly than others.
The familiarity that being the Eternal Soldier imparts is a significant leg up learning to fight. The metaphysical weight of it makes its bearer more important, in terms of fate- they will, if the world has any say in it, be a major player in events. If properly tapped- invoked, as it were- it allows its bearer to accomplish feats thought impossible. Not sorcery, but close enough, strong enough, to potentially be mistaken for it. DJ Croft's mantra/boast has all the trappings of a proper Nasuverse spell aria, too, so that even fits!
So I thought you were talking about this Enchiridion at first, Jorlem. I was very confused.
Also, for some reason, I imagined Ikari Shinji finding it. Either of it...
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.