So, this statue has always intrigued me. This was taken in Keycatrich Trench, the best vantage point for this honestly very peculiar statue. It’s the closest you can get to it, but you can easily see it anywhere in Leide. If you pan the camera out as far as possible, you get some perspective as to the sheer momentousness of its size. It’s huge.
The “small” piece you see here is the top of the statue, but if you keep going up, you’ll be able to see the body and the base, which have broken in separate pieces.
Better game scientists than I would be able to tell you it’s scale compared to, say, Titan, or Bahamut, or some other landmarker. But as you can see here, it literally towers over the statue of the Founder King, which in turn dwarfs anyone who stands before it.
Unlike the statues of the Kings of Lucis, this statue isn’t aggrandized in anyway- in fact, the sculptor looks as if they took extreme measures to bring out the inherent suffering seen in the model of the piece. The brows are drawn together tightly, as if in pain, the visage is sunken, and the hands look almost frail. The only thing obscuring the figure is the long, flowing robes it has been depicted wearing. But despite the humility (once again quite unlike any of the statues of the Kings of Lucis), the arms are raised up and out, as if in welcome.
Or in benediction.
Because if I’m right (and I’m pretty certain I am), this is a statue of Ardyn. Done back in the day when he, not his brother, was the literal defining feature of the Kingdom of Lucis. People would have flocked from all over the world to find peace at his hands. They would have been able to see this statue for many miles away, by land or sea. It would have been the first thing you saw upon entering Lucis.
It makes me wonder- for what purpose what this statue constructed? Was it during the Healer’s lifetime? Or was it In Memoriam? If it was constructed in Ardyn’s lifetime, he would have been a literal “larger than life” figurehead in their time, mesiah and rockstar all meshed into one. It’s no wonder Somnus felt a little jealous, if that was the case.
And if it was constructed after Ardyn’s death? Well... that only shows us how small Somnus still felt compared to his big brother. And how huge the burden of guilt he carried.