This post is probably a bit on the short side - my real life is a bit hectic at the moment. Anyway, I’d like to look at the world’s calendar a bit. We know there is one, though it definitely took me a while to figure that out. In case you haven’t noted it yet - you know how on the menu screen, it shows a word and a number, like “Dormouse 23″ or “Capuchin 10″? That’s the in-game date.
The Etrian Odyssey calendar system has fourteen months. Thirteen of them have twenty-eight days each, while the last is only one day long. This all adds up to 365 days, the standard number in a year on Earth, fitting with the rest of the implications that this is the same planet we live on. To take Leap Year into account, I’d say ever four years the one-day long month expands to two days. That makes bookkeeping simple and prevents this outlier from slowly working its way around the year.
As for what this outlier is, exactly, in-universe... My best guess is that it’s a New Year festival. Having some kind of celebratory reverence for the day would be an easy way to mark the passage of time for our historians in the Midgard Library and would also explain the setting aside of days that don’t fit neatly into sets of twenty-eight. This day, two days on Leap Year, is a holiday, probably a time of great festivity. It’s the ringing in of a new year, as full of possibilities as the physical world is.
We run into a few problems with the calendar really quickly, though. For one, since the weather never noticeably changes in-game, we have no clue when any of these months are. Furthermore, the order of months has changed at least once in the series. In Etrian Odyssey 2, the holiday “month” is Khrysaor, and the next thirteen are, in order, Emperor, Dormouse, Taurus, Summoner, Tiger, Lapin, Stallion, Phoenix, Uroboros, Aries, Demiurge, Serpent, and Capuchin. In Etrian Odyssey 4, Summoner is the short holiday “month”, followed in order by Emperor, Dormouse, Taurus, Tiger, Lapin, Uroboros, Serpent, Stallion, Aries, Capuchin, Phoenix, Demiurge, and Khrysaor. Same names, different order.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, and I don’t know if the calendars of the other games are any different. My first thought is to say the northern and southern hemispheres have their own systems, perhaps one putting the New Year holiday on the Summer solstice and the other on the Winter solstice, but that doesn’t account for the lengths and names all being the same, just in a different order.
I find it interesting that most of the months are named after animals. Tiger, Stallion, and Serpent are obvious. Capuchins are a kind of monkey, and Lapin refers to rabbits, Dormouse to mice. Phoenix and Uroboros are both mythological creatures, the firebird that rises from its ashes and the snake eating its own tail - interestingly, both are symbolic of cycles, with a particular nod to life and death. Aries and Taurus are both western zodiac signs, a ram and a bull. Emperor and Summoner both seem to reference humans, possibly the archetypes of ruling warrior and wise mystic. Demiurge is a creator being, and Khrysaor is a character from ancient Greek mythology, a son of Medusa (brother to Pegasus) often portrayed as either a giant or a winged boar.
All of this actually puts an eastern spin on the calendar. Consider the months in a separate order: Dormouse, Taurus, Tiger, Lapin, Uroboros, Serpent, Stallion, Aries, Capuchin, Phoenix, Emperor, Khrysaor, Demiurge, Summoner. Or, in slightly different terms, Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Boar, God, Cat. Sound familiar? They’re the figures from the myth of the Chinese zodiac (God invited animals to a feast, Rat tricked Cat about the date, Cat missed it and didn’t get to be in the zodiac, Rats and Cats hate eachother for all eternity). Uroboros and Serpent are mostly interchangeable, but one is mythical, so I used that one for the dragon. A phoenix is a bird, a rooster is a bird, that’s the best link there. I need to reach a little bit in the cases of Emperor and Summoner, but I think my logic kind of makes some sense. A dog is a hunter’s pet, symbolic of physical might, the kind of power wielded by an emperor. Cats are traditionally viewed as very mystical, witch’s familiars, as close as I could think of for Summoner.
So their months are somewhat based on the Chinese zodiac, albeit in no particular order nor maintaining a consistent naming theme. This makes me think this is a result of the combination of eastern and western influences on language and culture as well as the somewhat eclectic collection of information already gathered by explorers and historians. Somewhere along the line, someone must have discovered some record of a calendar system that somehow involved these twelve animals, a god, and a cat. Perhaps they combined this with some astronomical records telling them a year is 365.25 days long and achieved the calendar.
I don’t think we’ll ever have any clue when exactly these months fall, and I’m not sure in the slightest which of the two orders to use. I do like the idea of the New Year “month” falling on one of the solstices or equinoxes, as easy time-keeping reference points. Maybe in another post I’ll theorize some mythology or symbolism behind the months, some kind of connection between the names and what happens in that time of year.