: It just seems unlogical to me that an age should only be
: 500 years long. An age of 1000 years makes more sence.
: Like after the defeat of every Leveler a new age is
: started.
Jason Jones himself explicitly stated in a prerelease interview that the cycle was 500 years of light and 500 years of darkness. That's prerelease and so not necessarily canon but it shows Bungie didn't think it was so illogical.
But on the subject of logic: if it were a thousand years of darkness and a thousand years of light, why would the Leveller show up again at the end of the thousand years of darkness just to get killed when the cycle turns to light? And conversely, if the Leveller always dies, then it seems rather odd that he would somehow manage to succeed in ushering in an age of darkness despite dying every other millennium. Conversely again, if he sometimes lived on when it's the Dark's turn to win, how does he manage to not destroy the world over the course of 1000 years of his reign?
Myth 3 has a plausible enough just-so story about Moagim dying but succeeding with the Myrkridia who then weaken over time allowing mankind to barely survive the thousand years and requiring Mjarin to come back and finish the job... but positing that everybody gets just unlucky enough to accomplish that "dark but not completely destroyed for a thousand years" balance, every dark cycle, seems a bit implausible to me.
: Return in the following age - that would indicate than an
: age is indeep 1000 years long. Since the Levelers and
: their fallen Lord appear only once in a thousand
: years.
That logic doesn't follow. For example, a hero who helped Tireces to usher in the Age of Reason (a light age) could then return in the Wind Age (or the dark end of the Wind Age) under Moagim, even if there's only a thousand years between when Tireces shows up and when Moagim dies. Heroes and Levellers have their big showdowns at the beginnings of light ages and the ends of dark ages; when a light ages is just turning to dark, the hero is just becoming the Leveller, and there is no showdown.
: We know that Moagim was the Leveler in the Age of reason
: - because he ended it.
: Then we know that by the time Connacht appeard the
: Myrkridia had ruled the lands for "hundreds of
: years".
: And then we know that Connacht was the Great hero of the
: Wind age who drove the evil Moagim from the land.
: So since a Leveler appears only each 1000 years, and
: Moagim was there in two ages - age of reason + wind
: age this would suggest that each age is 1000 years
: long.
Heroes and Levellers are around during the segue from one age to another. Connacht ended the Wind Age, but then he ushered in the Age of Light (and/or the Wolf Age). So which age was he the hero of? Moagim ended the Age of Reason, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't around during the Wind Age too (setting aside the question of whether the Age of Reason is a part of the Wind Age). We might well say that "Balor returned to end the Age of Light", and also that he was the Leveller of the Wolf Age (even if the Age of Light is not part of the Wolf Age).
Which raises another interesting point of evidence:
"A race of warriors who betrayed the light when Balor promised them immortality. Three hundred years later, their decayed bodies still walk, held together only by rotting bandages and the desire to rend flesh from the bodies of the living."
-Myrmidon Description, Cast of Characters, Myth TFL Manual
So evidently Balor was around (as Balor, the Leveller) 300 years before TFL! That would seem to indicate that the past thousand years were not all sunshine and rainbows, but that they have gotten progressively worse over time, eventually leading to the hopelessness of TFL as Balor has almost won. Since we know that Connacht defeated the Myrkridia a thousand years before TFL, this is perhaps the strongest bit of textual evidence that every thousand years begins with a Light victory and then turns Dark by the end.
Likewise, Moagim could show up to end the Age of Reason, and then spend the next 500 years trying to destroy the world with his Myrkridian army, coming very near to victory, only to be defeated by Connacht in the end.
: Furthermore it would suggest that Moagim was the Leveler
: in the Age of Reason and Mjarin the Leveler in the
: Wind Age because from what i know it is not possible
: for a Leveler to return twice in the same incarnation.
: So still this question remains in place: Age of Reason=
: Moagim
: Wind Age= Moagim again?
: Wolf Age= Balor
: or
: Age of Reason= Moagim
: Wind Age= Mjarin
: Wolf Age= Balor
Age of Reason = Tireces begins, Moagim ends.
Wind Age (incl. Age of Reason) = Tireces begins, Moagim ruins, Connacht ends.
Wind Age (excl. Age of Reason) = Moagim begins, Connacht ends.
Age of Light = Connacht begins, Balor ends.
Wolf Age (incl. Age of Light) = Connacht begins, Balor ruins, Alric ends.
Wolf Age (excl. Age of Light) = Balor begins, Alric ends.
Or looked at person by person:
Tireces: ends Sword Age, begins Age of Reason (and possibly Wind Age in the process)
Moagim: ends Age of Reason; reigns over (at least the end of the) Wind Age
Connacht: ends Wind Age, begins Age of Light (and possibly Wolf Age in the process)
Balor: ends Age of Light; reigns over (at least the end of the) Wolf Age
A lot of this is conjecture either way. All we know for certain from the canon (Bungie) texts about the relation of heroes/Levellers to named ages is that Moagim ended the Age of Reason, Connacht was "the hero of" the Wind Age and began the Age of Light, and that the Wolf Age is when Balor destroyed Muirthemne.
That Tireces began the Age of Reason is only suggested by his name only being mentioned once in the same sentence as the only mention of the Age of Reason. That Connacht ended with Wind Age is not really suggested anywhere; for the longest time, we thought the Wind Age was the age Connacht began, synonymous with the Age of Light. Nobody ever even considered that Connacht had begun the Wolf Age until Myth 3 said so*; from Bungie text it is obviously the most recent, dark, period, and only with the notion that each age is 1000 years long does the idea of extending it back to Connacht's time make any sense, but then what of the darkness during it?
*And in light of that, I think my theory that the Age of Light and Age of Reason were parts of the Wolf and Wind ages respectively has no basis anymore; the Wind Age was the dark period following the Age of Reason and the Wolf Age was the dark period following the Age of Light. Which just means Myth 3 is wrong in yet another way. Of course, that would suggest, together with the Voluspa theme, that the Axe and Sword ages were both just dark periods too, and we don't know the names of their corresponding light periods:
First Era:
Unknown age (Light)
Unknown hero defeats primordial unknown Leveller, but becomes a new unknown Leveller.
Axe Age (Dark)
New unknown Leveller tries to destroy the world, but is thwarted by a new unknown hero.
Second Era:
Unknown age (Light)
New unknown hero defeats new unknown Leveller, but becomes a second new unknown Leveller.
Sword Age (Dark)
Second unknown Leveller tries to destroy the world, but is thwarted by the new hero Tireces.
Third Era:
Age of Reason (Light)
Tireces defeats second unknown Leveller, but becomes the new Leveller Moagim.
Wind Age (Dark)
Moagim the Leveller tries to destroy the world, but is thwarted by the new hero Connacht.
Fourth Era:
Age of Light (Light)
Connacht defeats Moagim, but becomes the new Leveller Balor.
Wolf Age (Dark)
Balor the Leveller tries to destroy the world, but is thwarted by the new hero Alric.
