alley-cat-sunflower:

so… you know how Ardyn claims that only mortals feel pain, and doesn’t react to Shiva’s cold or the party’s attacks? not to mention his absolute calm when he finally dies in the corporeal realm? well, I have this headcanon that he just… can’t feel anything anymore, physically. the Starscourge never took him over or turned him into a daemon, but its effects on him are just as devastating. he’s been living the last who knows how many centuries or even millennia pretty much numb, or near to it.

and yeah, he got used to it, maybe even took some degree of pride in his lack of natural limitations. he’d always been resilient, even as an ordinary man, but once he stopped experiencing pain, nothing could stop him anymore… and, since he was also unable to feel the more pleasant range of sensations, nothing could distract him from his spite either. he probably came to see it as an emblem of his uniqueness, something that sets him apart from everyone else more tangibly than just his brilliance.

the thing is, to delve more into conjecture, Ardyn’s numbness is a result of the Starscourge, which the Oracle is meant to cure. so after Luna touches his arm, based on the way he looks at his hand afterwards, it is my theory that—as Oracle and designated healer of the age—her humanity interacts with the remnants of his humanity, temporarily nullifying the Starscourge and all its effects. when she touches him, I think he actually feels it.

and, if the fury in his eyes and the scorn in his bearing is any indication, Ardyn hates that. he can’t stand Luna’s reminder that he was once human, much less her implication that he could ever be human again, even in death. that’s the first time we ever see him lose his composure, and it’s because she doesn’t lose hers. she just reminds him that the concept of mortality once applied to him too. and however much he seeks peace in death, he can’t seem to let go of what he has become in order to to find it.