- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is all very well reasoned, but it still leaves open the question of why her secret section of SeeD remains in good standing with the rest of the PMC. Is someone blackmailing her?
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
- Location
- Spain
Ok, lets untangle this. I don't think is that complicated.
The sorceress has always been refered as The Sorceress. Singular. And we have heard that sometimes girls get kidnapped to become a new sorceress.
Hypothesis: There is only one sorceress. She is a bodysnatcher that keeps herself inmortal by stealing a new body every generation.
Edea is the latest victim but retained selfcontrol for a while, and created SeeD to kill her future self.
Hm... plausible, but at the same time, straight from Cid's mouth:
So at the least, I don't think Edea specifically created SeeD with the purpose of killing herself, though granted she could have just not wanted to tell her husband "yeah this is a complicated future mind control security suicide plan".
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
That could be "You silly, they'd never fight me!" or it could be "You silly, they'd never fight me! They'd fight the ancient bodysnatching evil that's going to take over my body in a few years!"
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
Imagine if Deling knew not only the true purpose of the SeeDs and the Gardens, but that Edea was also a founder. That speech would have been really confusing: "How dare you persecute the Sorceress!" says the person who set up three schools expressly for that purpose.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have vague memories of NORG, mostly because when he appeared I went 'wait, Balamb Garden is controlled by the Honey Monster!?'.
I definitely appreciate the double-fakeout of 'it was about the money all along', but very much do not appreciate the 'I'm sorry, can't tell you shit, we're only in Disc 2 and haha fuck you'. You can easily avoid that sort of shit with better plotting, don't do that shit, it's infuriating in an unenjoyable way, not in an engaging way. 'I don't know/what the fuck drugs have they been giving you' would be a way more satisfying answer from Ellone, and why would this random woman know anything about cross-temporal possessions anyway? Even if she does, she can lie, and it would be more engaging!
I definitely appreciate the double-fakeout of 'it was about the money all along', but very much do not appreciate the 'I'm sorry, can't tell you shit, we're only in Disc 2 and haha fuck you'. You can easily avoid that sort of shit with better plotting, don't do that shit, it's infuriating in an unenjoyable way, not in an engaging way. 'I don't know/what the fuck drugs have they been giving you' would be a way more satisfying answer from Ellone, and why would this random woman know anything about cross-temporal possessions anyway? Even if she does, she can lie, and it would be more engaging!
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It wasn't a red herring; the Moospiracy, Cid's Secret Goals; the twist was more that there were Two Guys who each represented the two different kinds of evil here: Norg, driven by Greed, and Cid, driven by Pride, so to speak.
What happened is that the guy who wanted to brainwash children into being super-soldiers to help his wife become the Sorceress Supreme or whatever, that guy defeated the guy who wanted to brainwash children into being super-soldiers to just do warmongering for profit. It wasn't a red herring that one was a cover for the other, it was that there was tension between a faction that was mostly interested in maintaining the status quo, and one who wants to, like, burn down the world or something.
If anything I'd say that the story is more that the capitalists who just go along with it to make a buck (Norg) end up getting rolled and dragged deeper by the scarier guys who will do atrocities out a convinction they're Morally Correct (Cid).
Well, since you're asking, yes he did, although to gloss over that spoiler with pablum, he very much had his Own Deal that was different than these other characters.
And honestly, I think it's was good idea and I liked that Final Fantasy kept doing Amnesia Arcs. Sure it's soap opera melodrama, but when you're ending up trying to save the world from some kind of magic demon god trying to turn off plate tectonics or whatever, "High Melodrama" is already the genre, so it's fine.
So the Amnesia Thing allows you to have a character that both goes on a journey to learn secrets of the world, taking the Player along for the narrative arc; while also having that journey, those secrets, be intensely personal, deeply rooting the journey in their emotions and allowing them to have a specific, individual Relation to what's going on. And the fact that it's always deeply related to what's going on with the world's Magic - Galuf had amnesia as result of faulty Dimension-Shifting, Terra was brainwashed with Mind Control, Cloud got all screwed on Reincarnation Science Experiments, and now Squall has magic contracts with demons that eat memories as payment, or whatever; because the Amnesia, how it happened and why, is intrinsically part of the plot instead of an excuse the writer uses to dole out information conveniently, it means that "solving the Amnesia" becomes a part of the story, that the characters take agency over.
I don't know how much it was intentional on the part of the writers, but I've thought for a while now that the way this stretch of Final Fantasy games used Magic Amnesia to drive their Plots, was just really good.
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
While we're on the subject of Squall's magically-induced early onset Alzheimers...
This is horrifying!
...Squall should have known this guy's name. He went to school with this guy for what must have been years, how could he not have known his name? Or at the very least recognize him? It's not just childhood memories about family members he may or may not have seen in years that are being eaten, it's recent stuff like people he's going to school with!
This is horrifying!
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Squall has 255 Accuracy; even if he's under the Blind status, it doesn't really affect his combat effectiveness either way, so however he Does It, that doesn't seem to rely on his vision all that much.
What I'm saying is that maybe Squall just needs glasses. Thick ones
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interviewer: "As a SeeD, how do you deal with the stress and regrets of all the hundreds of people you've killed?"
Squall: "I've killed people?"
Half Moon
In the end, there is no end.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Perhaps he's just remarkably faceblind? I can sympathize with that.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Right, so, we finally got to this twist and I have something I've wanted to propose for a long time.
Everyone who meets Cid FF8 thinks of him as Final Fantasy Robin Williams. Not surprising, given his appearance and role in the story.
But now with this information, knowing these two are a married couple, I think there's a another, better paradigm.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
While that is a funny idea, Gomez would have been 100% behind Morticia taking over a country; he also wouldn't send students to try and kill her, he'd do it himself - that's just how you do proper Addams foreplay, after all.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I heartily approve of this comparison, and only wish you'd done it with Jones and Astin rather than Huston and Julia.Right, so, we finally got to this twist and I have something I've wanted to propose for a long time.
Everyone who meets Cid FF8 thinks of him as Final Fantasy Robin Williams. Not surprising, given his appearance and role in the story.
But now with this information, knowing these two are a married couple, I think there's a another, better paradigm.
- Pronouns
- She/They
On this note, I think I've come to really strongly dislike Final Fantasy's tendancy towards exactly this kind of thing - setting up a flawed and deeply interesting world rife with conflict, only to throw most of it out of the way between one and two thirds of the way into the game only to pivot to defeating the Great Evil of the month. It starts to feel like they don't know how to resolve the plots they set up, or just aren't interested in seeing them through. And it's deeply frustrating! It makes it harder to really get invested in the troubles of the world if we're going to wind up mostly ignoring them to kill some pseudo-god down the line.
I really think I would love these games a lot more of they were able to get your cosmic stakes alongside the more grounded troubles, and have working towards overcoming them being inherently and thematically helpful towards overcoming the greater threat.
Gomez would've also personally dueled NORG instead of just folding.
Selphie makes a better Addams, up to and including the fascination with exploding trains.
- Location
- Texas
I imagine there's a distinct lack of internal dialogue from him, so you're only getting half of the picture.
That's similar to the Alera Codex series now that I think about it. So I suppose FF isn't the only one guilty of it, just the only one brazen enough to do it repeatedly,
- Pronouns
- She/They
I'm certainly not surprised other media does it, but yeah, FF gets extra annoying by having it as a repeat thing. Plus seeing the games in order in this thread while comparing them, it becomes a lot more noticeable.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
FF also handles the "realistic threat applicable to reality stuff" to "cosmic evil" transition a lot better than other games have at least. Like, it maintains broad themes and tone not too badly most of the time.
Contrast, say, Tales of Vesperia where the act 2-act 3 transition is an abrupt 90 degree lurch from musing about the nature of justice and about vigilantism vs working within a corrupt system to a parable about the dangers of fossil fuels and the tension between conservationism and preservationism and ends saying nothing about whether vigilantism or working within the system is more just (despite such driving the first two acts and the protagonist's character arc) but instead making a plea for geoengineering.
Contrast, say, Tales of Vesperia where the act 2-act 3 transition is an abrupt 90 degree lurch from musing about the nature of justice and about vigilantism vs working within a corrupt system to a parable about the dangers of fossil fuels and the tension between conservationism and preservationism and ends saying nothing about whether vigilantism or working within the system is more just (despite such driving the first two acts and the protagonist's character arc) but instead making a plea for geoengineering.
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- Location
- Lost in Hell
She's just thinking very, very loud.
Alternatively, she's whispering to herself.
(Yes, this is the most important thing for me to comment on. Nothing else too important happened this update, I'm sure.)
deadcrystal
Slaaneshi Cultist
- Location
- The Warp
I do have to laugh that in the middle of his anxiety and questions about what exactly is going on, he has a little side thought about how he'll totally dunk on Seifer next time.
Even schools for elite mercenary forces cannot escape him.
Well of course not. He wants to be the professional disaffected mercenary, and his image of that is one that is never 'childish' or 'invested'. He has no stories like that show his involvement in the world as an actual person, because he has spent his life looking down on people who express their humanity.
Squall has spent his years in Balamb Garden deliberately avoiding having a personality because it would be 'unprofessional'. Trying to fit into a mould that literally no-one around him actually cares about.
There are some vibes here, and I could do a trans reading of this with a bit of effort.
NORG sent the order, but the order was specifically for Galbadia Garden to arrange it. So it was meant to be just Irvine and some other G-Garden members as support. SeeD was crucially never meant to be involved, so that if the attempt failed it would look like it wasn't 'Garden wants the Sorceress dead', but rather 'Galbadia Garden, fearing losing autonomy totally acted to preserve its own material interests and position'
Martine lied about Squall's team being part of the mission, and possibly Cid was involved in that side of things as well.
It's interesting that NORG hasn't signed up to team Sorceress. He absolutely wanted her dead, and he isn't interested in capitulating in actuality, merely presenting the image of penitence whilst repositioning, presumably for another attempt at a later time.
Squall got the chance to debrief with Garden staff like he wanted!
It's funny because NORG is exactly what Squall thought he actually wanted in the leadership of Garden. NORG doesn't have ideological motivations. He's not interested in his SeeD's emotional state or thought process. He doesn't want them to have 'hobbies' or 'personality'.
NORG is what Squall wished that Cid was...and when confronted with his ideal, a mercenary force that will abandon a fight out of logic Squall finds it repulsive. With the Dollet mission he obeyed orders whilst Seifer was complaining about how 'they could have been heroes', and yet here...
If you do draw Leviathan then NORG loses access to the Water spell, so the fight should be a touch easier on the second go around.
Also NORG's pod is clearly a gamer chair with LED lighting.
The Garden is a young organisation, so it seems reasonable to assume the idea arose as a response to Esthar and their Sorceress and accompanying war.
This does narrow the possibility space somewhat. If Edea wasn't lying (and as yet we have no reason to think she was), then SeeD wasn't meant to be a contingency for herself, so something fucky-wucky must have happened.
I do laugh that we find out the source of the visions is this girl we meet here, and she knows Squall and the gang don't want them, and she's sorry about making them live through it...but she's not sorry enough to stop.
Yeah, they do a great job showing how his whole persona is kind of absurd.
As a continuation of what I said before about Squall finding out that he doesn't want he thought he wanted, this scene also works for good Squall development.
It's not just that Squall doesn't want to rely on others, he thinks everyone should live without depending on each other. He looks down on people for not doing so.
...and yet, after some pressing, he helps his team mates when they really need it.
He relied on someone and was let down, so doesn't want to rely on anyone ever again. He doesn't want others to rely on him in fear that he himself will let them down.
Delicious.
He has a very distinct silhouette, so to speak! There's no way you can conflate his traits with anyone else, so he sticks out.
I swear there's some joke about how in Fire Emblem it always turns out there's an evil dragon behind everything, and thank goodness for that, because otherwise you might have to deal with all the social and political problems that were major plot points before that.
Being fair, the one time Fire Emblem did decide to make a game where you could potentially pick a side to deal with all the social and political problems from the point of view of different factions, it's resulted in the FE fandom trying to brutally murder each other over said choices for the last almost five years.
(But yes, there is basically always a Dragon or Demon God or Something at the end of an FE game)
Isn't that the whole purpose of being in a fandom, though? The first time you have a Take, you find a horse's head in your bed next morning. Doylist and Watsonian are the names of my knives.
- Pronouns
- Him/He
I agree that it sounds like a successful execution. Creating fandom rivalries, complete with buying 'merch' in burger king to support one side or another, is the goal, not a unfortunate failure state.
NexysDhyArchen
Throne Breaker
It would be fascinating to have a Final Fantasy game, or JRPG really, swap out the order of things. A Hero's Journey to defeat The Demon King being completed by Disc 2... now deal with the multiple kings and churches and Hidden Elf Villages you found getting into politics.