I've been reading a bit of the threads here, took a peek at some of the game pages, looked over some notes, played a bit of SSH's Prologue, sat around and gave it some thought...
I don't think Althena is immortal; not the "undying" kind of immortal, at least.
Up until her last (apparent) rebirth as Luna, it would be more fair to suggest that Althena was "eternal". That would explain the necessity of her rebirth(s) every so often.
That would raise more questions, but the more I lingered on them, the more it started to..."make sense".
Why would she even need to be reborn to begin with? Why can't she just...BE Althena then, now, and forever, sitting atop the Goddess Tower, governing as godlike entities do and all that jazz?
What if it was necessary? What if (apparent) divinity made flesh simply couldn't survive for long, but the divine soul still burned, so to speak?
How did she tag along with her Dragonmaster and affiliated future-Heroes without being flanked by a travelling entourage of worshipers and honor guard?
What if THEY didn't know or recognize the goddess? What if Althena, in her human guise, didn't know herself? What if her ragtag band of friends and buddies-in-arms didn't realize it, either?
Let's try to break it down:
Althena dies atop the Goddess Tower, because maybe it happens there on a somewhat-regular basis, and her essence spreads across the Silver Star.
Maybe her death creates a newborn baby like it did with Luna; maybe it doesn't. The point is this: her divine power is scattered across the planet. In time, it will reassemble and converge...somewhere. A few might be privy to the specifics or just have a sixth sense of sorts to recognize Althena even if she doesn't recognize herself.
In the meantime, there might be a time of peace and prosperity (they can only be so lucky). Or maybe the world plunges into an age of warfare.
Several generations pass (maybe even a century, if we're lucky), and some teenager or young adult is suddenly hit with the realization: they're the goddess Althena reborn.
The literal powers that be have "returned", and with it, her memories of past lives. With restored wisdom and the magical strength of ages, she quickly goes to work.
But what of her Dragonmaster? The allies that accompany her knight could very well be optional, but the Goddess is never without her loyal Dragonmaster, but she doesn't have to start completely from scratch: the dragons are there, as well as Vane, and there's the always present Goddess Tower (and everything/everyone that reside within it). She could easily seek them out while awaiting for her knight to pass their Trials. Catch up on old times or remaster old abilities.
Or maybe she already befriended the future Dragonmaster prior to her reawakening: they lived in the same town, crossed paths as complete strangers, and so on. Regardless of who takes up their mantle first, both Knight and Lady eventually answer the call to action and do what they do best: fight the latest flavor of evil and help the people however, whoever, and wherever they can.
Time passes and the Goddess is whisked away to the Goddess Tower and the cycle begins anew...
And now I bring back the idea of "divinity made flesh": the soul is strong, but the flesh is weak. Maybe she's having a crisis of "faith", maybe she's getting frail with age...or maybe the power of divinity is too much for vessel of flesh and blood and goddesses like Althena "die young". Her body is deteriorating is some fashion (maybe it's not obvious to the naked eye), and after some time amongst the inhabitants of the Silver Star, she and the Dragonmaster travel to the Goddess Tower, where she remains vigilant until the next time she deigns it fitting to rejoin the populace once more...
Except we know that she isn't always up there.
Which brings me to another detail: the Dragonmaster. They aid and protect the goddess Althena, yes, but what if that extended to...safeguarding her, especially during her rebirth?
Let's roll back to the Goddess Tower, the point at which her rebirth would theoretically take place: she can't be reborn if she's still alive, right? Maybe she dies naturally, her physical form too exhausted to function...or maybe she can't, for some reason, and that's why there's ALWAYS a Dragonmaster alongside the goddess: protector, assistant, and personal confidant to an eternal being, her eyes and ears when she can't be everywhere at once.
Either by nature or not, Althena "dies", and the cycle begins anew.
Overtime, this cycle (intentionally or not) creates the legend of the immortal "Goddess of Light", best known for her unmatched beauty and equally incredible voice, who resides atop the Goddess Tower for generations, occasionally leaving the safety of her sanctuary to travel the world alongside the Dragonmaster and their companions...
And the rest, as they say, is history.
"What about the Dragonmaster?"
What of 'em? They fulfilled their role, and aside from Alex and Dyne, there aren't many stories talking about the past Dragonmasters after their tenure. Maybe they went back to quiet life, swearing themselves to a vow of secrecy or something. Maybe they despaired over the "death" of Althena, possibly by their own hand(?), and/or never left the Goddess Tower, remaining vigilant in her stead until she returned...IF she returned in their lifetime.
"But so many people would've known--!"
Would they? In SSS/SSH, the only person who knew with absolute certainty about Althena's then-recent rebirth was Dyne and that was because HE WAS THERE. Ghaleon was also present to some extent, but spent the next 15 years plotting to replace Althena, and had to scour the Silver Star, capturing various songstresses in his search for that same goddess. Quark was the only other person that could've known, but either he feigned ignorance when he first met Luna or genuinely forgot until much later (maybe dragons are just privy to sensing otherworldly things?). With a small pool of people somewhat familiar with the situation, it shouldn't too hard to keep a lid on on things.
Which brings me to another thought:
Would Ghaleon have known about any of this? How much would he have known? I mean, people KNEW about the goddess being reborn every now and again, but did those books ever get into the specifics, if there were any to begin with?
...
Maybe all of this is gibberish, the mad ramblings of someone with too much time to spare and even more time to ponder details left unexplained. But there's a good amount of narrative blind spots and between Eiphel's brief rant toward Althena and the varying levels of difficulty some characters had in harnessing Althena's power (Eiphel could not, Ghaleon required Luna, and I think Lucia did it with zero effort), I started to liken LUNAR's goddess to Street Fighter's M. Bison. I think I subconsciously thought about Rayearth, too, but I digress.
Unlike Althena, Bison's "rebirth" is more controlled, specifically so he can return ASAP: modified replacement bodies, ready and waiting for the Psycho-Powered Phantom to possess it, but the very power he wished to wield without restraint would erode every mortal shell in time, so he's constantly running through each vessel while his scientists work tirelessly to improve on each replacement body, and so on. And when he does return, there's no downtime: without skipping a beat, he's back to world conquest until he "dies" again...IF he dies again. It's all but stated outright in SFV that he's using the same body from the previous game.
There's no good way to "end" this, so I'll just stop here. I feel like I've lost the plot and/or point somewhere, and if I linger on this any longer, it'll never end. And all this started when I realized that they released the mobile port on Android several months ago. Heh.
Until next time...IF there's a next time.
