@Splintered: I'm telling you, 500AF Yeul was creepy in a cool and relatable (as you said) way.
I find it interesting that 3AF Yeul saw Lightning as some sort of a mother figure. Yeul's relation with her families were tragic as well, and I find this really sad.
The fact that Mog's pom-pom makes its bow form automatically do a target-lock on an enemy explains a lot of how Serah is suddenly proficient with a bow. We could have assumed that she used a bow during the timeskip between XIII and XIII-2, or did Archery at school or whatever, but this canon explanation clarifies it. I also like the image of Lightning using Mog once. Cute.
She could see how the goddess Etro had come to be there, and how Etro could not understand like a human did. Etro had given powers to the first little thing, a human girl, whose soul had arrived in Valhalla. That soul hadn't sunk into the darkness like the other souls, and she had sent it to be born again and again back to the world where the rest of the humans lived. Etro did not see that she caused suffering for the girl with this action, she had only love and gentleness. She also gave powers to a man who protected the girl seeress, as she came to be known after a while, for she was constantly surrounded by war and strife and needed a companion.
This is the part I don't understand. What's wrong with Yeul's soul?
To expand on how and why Etro can't comprehend the same way as a human does:
It was because the Goddess had no use for time or senses. Because she was a human, Lightning could barely differentiate the future or the past, but the Goddess is probably not differentiating them. She was seeing and hearing everything at the same time. Conversely, the Goddess was just seeing as if it was an accepted routine and felt that there were things that she would never comprehend.
Lightning also saw herself, and how she had sinned gravely against the goddess by taking arms against another human being - she had been forced, but it was still a sin, the goddess grieved for the fallen no matter who they were. And she saw how the goddess granted the wish of herself and the other l'Cie by taking away their brands, even though they had sinned.
This part is certainly debatable. On one hand you can't really say they have intentionally sinned because it was all self defense, I mean, they were on the run in XIII and being pursued by soldiers who'd kill them without a second thought. On the other, these soldiers are humans who were strictly following orders and were under a different and false belief but also likely had families or loved ones of their own. Not only Lightning should be carrying this burden though (the other main characters should be too) but since she saw through all this at this moment she must have felt it in a heavier magnitude.
A man was standing nearby. He tried to tell her to not be there for the goddess, that the time of destruction would not be for hundreds of years yet, that she would never be able to go back to her family and friends if she stayed. But Lightning refused to go. She would stay for the goddess. She would help fend off the destruction. The man, a mere illusion, faded. Lightning stayed.
Okay who is this man I need to know now.
The entirety of Alyssa's chapter made me not like her even more, and also realize more how tragic her existence is.
Also, the award of being the most interesting Yeul of them all goes to 500AF Yeul.
Sighs deeply again for these stories not being incorporated in-game. Jun Eishima wrote these, the same author of Episode Zero and One. Can't they hire her to write the in-game story instead/have her work on it along with whoever was in charge of it?
) who eventually will be the last Yeul? The one Yeul herself wished a happy life for? PLOT TWIST
