okay so because i've calmed down, i can talk about the whole trilogy.
one
a very meh story. the whole cocoon/l'cie thingie was too confusing and the whole time the game treated it like a greek epic. you know when you are reading a greek myth and it's about two gods, then there appears a 3rd god that suddenly talks as if he/she was there the whole time, and you never even heard their name before? that's how i felt.
as you know by now i have a huge adoration of hope. i believe he is the best character in the series now that i have watched the whole thing. but bias aside, i believe he also grew the most out of all the characters. i also liked sahz, as i have a soft spot for single fathers since they are horribly underrepresented in society as well as anywhere else, and his strength to overcome the rage he felt at vanille for keeping her secret. the rest of the characters, even for lightning's change of character with hope, weren't that interesting. and here's the thing; if you are going to drop us in a society that doesn't take that much time to break down and explain, you have to focus on your characters, right? well, that wasn't done correctly to me. the characters theirselves only bonded with each other in duos, not together. therefore in the middle of the game when they were all together, if you really break it down, they aren't fighting for each other because they care about the group as a whole.
to explain myself further, take the first avengers film. none of them really got along as a group. but say they paired cap with widow, iron man with thor, and banner with agent coulson. then there's the loki invasion. they weren't only to save new york (and the world), but for their friends in the original movie. but with the changed plot, captain america's will to fight isn't exactly fighting for the group, he's fighting for widow because he has bonded with her only, iron man with thor, and so on.
that's what it felt to me. there was no specific reason for them all together since they were separated for so long, and even when they were together, we didn't see a lot of interaction. so when the story asked for me to have any emotional involvement with them as a whole, i couldn't give it.
and again, because i was barely hanging onto the whole society structure the game was set in, i could only rely on the characters, which is why i'm mainly talking about them in this game.
two
cocoon and l'cie are almost completely thrown out so that's good, i don't think anyone cared about that stuff anyway. because we knew next to nothing about serah, the story is switched to her so we can understand why lightning and snow love her for who she is, blah blah all that.
my biggest problem with this game is that it literally is 99% boring. what goes on, really, is noel and and serah jumping from time to time, witnessing what will happen in the future while they get the gate keys. lightning and almost any other character taking a step back from the spotlight isn't even a problem for me, or at least necessarily. since i was almost entirely character focused the last game, i was the same with this one, so my problem with the game was on noel and serah and there being absolutely no character development.
one could argue, "Well, at least their relationship grew right?" but serah says in the very beginning she trusted noel, and minutes later noel swears to protect her. regardless of any legitimate reasons why serah and noel chose to do such things, this sealed the deal of any chance for their relationship to develop. nothing changes between these two, not even their surroundings, until caius appears for the first time. and even THEN, they STILL go around finding gate keys soon after for most of the game. it's...boooooriiiiiiiiiiing. (i must admit though, the best part of the entire game has to be that OST, just wow. the forgetfulness of the previous game was nowhere to be seen in this one, i can see some really hard work was put into this one.)
caius however, is the best character in the game. unlike what his character design showed you to expect (edgy af edgelord of edge), he's really a character who publicly bleeds pain. his dialogue is AWESOME, his (US, idk about the japanese one) VA does him so much justice of who he is. he just wants to save yeul, to stop her suffering. a simple goal but has so much efforts and consequences to it. what's more, we understand his pain. he wasn't given the task of watching over yeul for a couple of times, sat down and logically thought to himself "She'll only go through this again and again, if I stop time then she won't have to die". no, he silently suffered for who knows how many years, and his last attempt was to have noel kill him to end it, and even that didn't work. it's perfectly understandable, but still not justifiable. as i mentioned before this post, caius perfectly mirrors thanos' pain and desire to fight (and they are both rather purpley!); neither's will to battle is inherently wrong, it's what the sacrifice takes. however, they are still sympathetic. if you had it in your head that you were only one in existence to save the universe, what would you do to save it? what sacrifices would you do? if you had that one someone you loved until the end, what would you do to save and protect them? would you do anything, no matter the cost, whether it be your live, other lives, or both?
thanos and caius' POV is touched on, interestingly, in the series thus far. the oerba yeul story is a bit like thanos' scenario; she saw the future of her people and knew they were condemned. however, as she knew could do nothing to protect them, she still shut up the monster that attacked them and the result was even worse than what was supposed to happen. had she had the will to stand still and make the very hard choice, she could have saved her people, even if they were doomed to die, and she wouldn't have been cursed as well.
as for situation 2 - in the first game, fang says that if it was required, she would haul down the stars for vanille. and there's no doubt that she would do that very thing. for caius, he wants to destroy time. pulling the stars from the sky as well as obliterating time itself would indeed have some heavy consequences, but it wouldn't matter to either, as long as the person they care about is safe. what's not to understand about that?
so there's my proposal on how i figure caius to be the best new character of the series. and it was only literally in the last hour of the game that i was interested in, and then it ended! more interestingly, the ending of this game is very infinity war feeling, since caius apparently wins anyway.
three
of course, you know i'm more than happy to see my hope in action yet again. i completely enjoyed watching his interactions with lightning, even if he was a fake. but what i enjoyed the most was watching the difference of lighting now than to the first game. she actually had a lot of guilt and love for her friends, which as i wouldn't have assumed from before. what really surprised me was her reaction to see that snow had changed, and when she came to the realisation that she depended on him. the second time i was shook was when she felt absolutely horrible for sahz and his son, when sahz had mentioned before that he and lightning barely knew each other. i guess it could be partly because she's half saviour so she feels like she needs to save these people, but it can't ALL be that, right?
what REALLY sealed the deal was her reaction of mog. even she cared of him and his kind as well. i thought it was really good of S/E to put out this side of lightning.
however, she still wasn't running around being a saviour for the sake of her friends. she, too, mirrors caius as well. just as fang would bring down the stars and caius erasing time, lightning allows herself to bend to the will of God Himself just so she can save serah. in addition, even when she realises she has no feelings inside herself whenever she looks of thinks of her, even so she still pushes on for her sake. so the characters and their actions that show their protection and love of their loved ones that doesn't make caius so different from them all.
speaking of...
i'm not sure if it was right or not to curse caius to a doom of loneliness and even more pain. on one hand, he deserves to pay for all the chaos he's done to others, but on the other, why not kill him? it's not like the killing of time would make others suffer, they simply wouldn't exist anymore. i'm also disappointed that his arc was so lonely, painful and short. especially after the ending we had before, this is what happens? his epic theme song means next to nothing now. his position in the game shrank just as noel's did, unfortunately.
but outside of that, i just have to jump to my favourite part of the game, near the end. the move to the other planet. i had never realised how much i had deeply personal relations with the setting of the game until i saw it. just as the world was degrading for hundreds of years, so was the previous house that i lived in. me and my family had to suffer with a dying house. it easily reached 90 degrees in the summer, and had such freezing temperatures in the winter you could see your breath in the living room. mold grew in the bathrooms and the garage. it was terrible, and that was only a few of the many problems that was pure torture. and we lived in it for 10 years. and then we have this new house we moved into, and so many of us had struggled having this as home, some of us even had anxiety about it. as i was watching the ending, seeing lightning with the help with her friends to the new planet, i suddenly came to the realisation that we were all trying to find a way to make the house as a home,
alone. and even for all that terrible things that happened to us, we went through it together, to the end. it's rather ironic that we were closer in harder times and the better times (or better house), we didn't know what to do.
that's what this game showed me. the new planet is so symbolic of our new home. and yes, we have only been in this house newly a month. we don't have a lot of furniture in here. we haven't broken into the house at all. but you would expect a person to come out of a terrible situation and come into a new one to react differently than with fear and anxiety, right? and that's why the 13 cast in this game spoke to me. they were all moving to the new planet together, and had no intentions of leaving anyone behind. because sometimes, you don't need a person in the bad times; you also need them in the good. ironically, this game brought me to reality. it showed me that my family was here all along and they are with me and love me as desperately as i love them. i wasn't alone. i never was. and we're all going to live in this better house together. just as we always did before. and i thank S/E for waking me tf up about this, because i was surely falling down to the pit of hopelessness. that's what makes this a masterpiece. it's my own personal masterpiece, and it saved me.
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but even for my adoration, there is still a huge, unfixed gaping hole in this series.
and it's the so called love that S/E tries to make us believe, and i'm not buying it.
now, i'm not talking about the love of friendship, which is clear here. i'm talking about the "love" lightning has for serah, and the forced romance of the series. and here's the reason why.
you might ask, "Well you didn't bring up Caius' love for Yeul? What about Sahz and his son?" that's because those types of love are automatically received as endearing and passionate. the fatherly affection caius has for yeul is understood. we also have sympathy for him because he suffered watching yeuls die eternally. we know of their love for each other in returns as well; since multiple yuels love him so much they either want to set him free or keep him. thus, we see the actions of yeul and caius acting out on their love. with sazh, no-one can deny the powerful love of a parent. again, it's expected. and we see him act out on his love, seeing the entire reason why he's with the cast is because of his son. and you might bring up vanille and fang, which also doesn't count. we know their history and we see their actions out of love for each other. therefore, it's not hard at all to believe they love each other (for whatever the fans interpret they are).
i wish i could say the same for siblings, but lightning and serah fail on this example many times over. while the love of family (and thus siblings) is to be expected, we learn quickly through that they both weren't on very close terms. and we know that lightning regrets what she's done in the past for serah and serah desperately wants to connect with her again, but this doesn't change what we are shown (or rather, not shown) in the games. we don't get any flashbacks of when they were better together, in fact we only get ONE flashback of them before the game took place, and it was when lightning was an ass to her (REGARDLESS OF ANY LEGITIMATE REASONS). not only that, but we are introduced to serah as some person to be saved, so there goes any chance of lightning and serah to interact (how convenient as well). what's more, the last two games try to show us how bonded they are but they are both separated almost the entire time, and lightning's regret-filled monologues in the games isn't going to cut it either.
and there were chances to change this. remember what 2 was all about? finding lightning because serah loved her so much? when lightning finally arrives to explain to noel and serah what really is going on, neither attempt to even hug or show any amount of joy! in the past, there could have been a secret cutscene or whatever that could have had serah remembering parts of her childhood. easily, someone could have written her to say "This is the tree that I used to play with Lightning at. We used this tree a lot, we climbed it, had picnics, and she would read me stories from my favourite book before my nap." we need SOMETHING here, and time travel seemed to the most obvious and open way to write in literally anything, but there was nothing. so when they finally reunite at the last game, it's so lackluster it's almost laughable. lightning had more of a worried reaction about snow in returns than she did for serah EVER.
and now for the two romances,serah and noel. just wtf. they might as well as just thrown snow out of the cast since he's as good as useless throughout the story and is only good for lumbering around feeling guilty about serah for whatever reason. you see, with romance, especially with FF, we get to see the couple meet in whatever situation, bond by enjoyable scenes and/or gameplay, and understand when they fall in love with each other and decide to tie the knot. but with serah and snow, we don't get a hint of that. we are told they are engaged (therefore in love), but we don't understand a single reason why they feel those things for each other. serah is introduced in the game with the personality of a blank sheet, and she and snow love to nickname himself as a hero when he did almost NOTHING to save her. yes he defeated the monster at the end of the game, but he did that with everyone, not himself especially. and then in 2, we only see snow and serah for less than an hour, and yet again where the heck is the heroism? noel is right, snow wasn't a hero at all to go running after that flan, he surely would have died and how exactly would that be so heroic for serah? there's no proof of him being this "hero* he and his fiance claim him to be.
and then there's noel. a new character with a new background right? what's he going to bring to the table? who's he fighting for, and for what reason? what is his shadow of mystery going to reveal-
oh. he too has a romance we're automatically supposed to connect to for absolutely no reason and have to suffer with the entire game. but, at least in this scenario, noel actually has a personality. headstrong, takes promises seriously, charming, he even has a bit of sassy snarkiness in him. we see his flaws on how he is quick to judge and
perhaps makes heavy decisions too quickly. he's a genuine person. okay, now what about the girl he loves?
she's just a girl who dies. and...smiled?
okay, so as of this minute i haven't read the book that predates the game, BUT who will even read the book before the game? i know it's merch and all but you just can't rely on people to read the book to understand. besides i don't know if the book is related on why noel loves yeul or not, and that's not my point. i'm talking about the games here, and what i see is a copypasta of serah and snow's "love". seriously how many people cared about his obsession with yuel? compared to those who sympathised with caius? who? WHO.
and then in returns he still loves yeul for HUNDREDS OF YEARS. this doesn't prove his dedication to yuel it just makes him look immature as a character. he surely should have had time to grow up and realise "Wait, compared to what I am now I barely knew her, wtf am I thinking." also, the same can be said for snow, but at LEAST we understand his pain 1% more than noel since we at least saw moments of them together, no matter how rare or unfeeling they were. we saw NOTHING of yeul and noel, making our disinterest even drier. moreover, i was totally convinced yeul didn't even love noel in the same way since she was obsessed with caius. it wasn't until the last bit of the game S/E went "Oh shit, Noel wants Yeul. Quick, make her love him too."
there's a reason why people ship noel with serah and lightning with snow. and yes, part of it has to do with the fact that anything will be shipped. but another part of it is that
we actually got to see these characters develop together. MOUNDS more than with their apparent "lovers". (and it's harmless of course, but snow even flirts with lightning.) what was S/E thinking? you know if there isn't a romance in 13, it's perfectly fine. you shouldn't have just lazily made the stupidest couples in the entire FF series just because you've had romance for so long.
and that brings me up to this subject. i came across this 100% by accident, but it's a podcast on how the love stories in FF have come to a halt. i didn't hear all f it, but one if the hosts said that she thought luna was a friend to noctis, even for their apparent marriage. now how badly written is
that? i don't know, but i'll find out eventually.
anyway here's the link:
https://www.finalfantasyunion.com/podcast/433/final-fantasy-union-episode-179/
while my post ends here, i don't want it to end on a sour note. i detest the romance in this series, i do. but because the romance is so empty and forced, it's easy to look past. i really enjoy this story. i haven't adored an FF since 9. so if anyone wants to discuss anything about it, even the romance, i'm very open to it.
okay, that's it. goodbye for now
