Why does Aitrus wear Gehn’s crest? I thought Gehn designed it. Am I wrong?
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As an aside to this very interesting discussion, I’m curious why fans have traditionally assumed the man in the photo is Aitrus. I’ve never found a canon source for this identity.
I’ve always thought it much more likely that he is Gehn’s namesake, Gehn the elder (Aitrus’ grandfather). The fellow in the photograph looks much too old to be Aitrus, who was only 87 at the time of his death, a man in the prime of his life in terms of D’ni lifespans.
On the other hand, I would think the D’ni man in the photograph is at least 200 years old. We have little in the way of hard data about typical D’ni lifespans, but if we judge by what’s been translated in the Books of Kings, deaths earlier than about 280 typically were due either to assassination or disease and thus seemed to be short lives. The longest lived king on record is Lanaren who lived nearly 400 years (396 to be exact). Most of the kings who lived healthy lifespans fell into the 280-380 range of years.
Almost nothing is known of Gehn the elder, though a comment once made by Lord Rakeri implies that he was an upstanding D’ni who died before his time.
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The only source I could find for the man being Aitrus is the booklet of the soundtrack:
