I hope this isn't redundant but what does Dissidia say about Garland...

[Anzu Mazaki]

According to the original FFI? Just after reading the FAQ (nicely done, explained a lot ) I was curious about how this whole Garland-being-some-created-being-having-Chaos'-memories became the kidnap-Princess-for-arbituary-reasons-fallen-knight.

Its just interesting to consider, since the canonical reasons for Garland having turned evil has always been questionable because FFI had so many different script versions. In the original game it said he was evil due to some trivial matter, and implied he simply "wanted" the princess, while the most recent ones say it was due to lust of power. Yet Dissidia presents a new idea in a sense that he was never just a normal, powerful knight in Cornelia, but had always been Chaos. But how the heck does that make him go nuts one day and decide to kidnap Princess Sarah?

I've played pretty much every version of FFI out there, so I'm interested to see what ideas are out there XD.

 

[Ryushikaze]

Garland is both always chaos and a normal knight of Cornelia.
Let's look at this through his personal timeline.

Chaos exist, is a force that mitigates chaos, destroys only when needed.
Lufeine take an interest, want to control.
Cid figures out how to do so, is forced to create Garland, who he and his wife raise as their child for a time.
After a time of being used as the Lufeine's weapon, and being kept from his adoptive parents, they find him again, being used and kept in line by a clone of his mother. They take him and try to escape. In the attempt, a soldier shoots Garland's mom and she dies before his eyes- or at least he and Cid so think. In reaction, He rends time in twain and flings himself into the future. He does not remember his past beyond this point
He lives as a normal knight of Cornelia for some time, until he becomes fascinated by Princess Sarah and kidnaps her. The reasons for such are unknown, but reminding him of his fallen mother subconsciously seems entirely possible. Enter the WoL, who kill/s Garland, causing him to summon the Four Fiends, who bring him back to life, and send him back in time, where he creates them again, and apotheoses into Chaos, after remembering the horrible past inflicted on him previously, and later, previous cycles of the time loop.

I think wanting the princess and a lust for power are both valid reasons, just symptomatic of deeper causes, re: his past detailed in the Cosmos reports.

 

[Tetsujin]

Garland is a video game villain from the 80s. Those don't need a reason to kidnap princesses, they just do.

 

[Makoeyes987]

I think that Garland kidnapped the princess in order to lure the Warriors of Light to the Chaos Shrine to battle him, defeat him, and thus propagate the cycle of revival. The entire crux of Chaos's immortality time loop is Garland being killed, sent to the past, and thus becoming Chaos again and again and again.

 

[Ryushikaze]

I think that Garland kidnapped the princess in order to lure the Warriors of Light to the Chaos Shrine to battle him, defeat him, and thus propagate the cycle of revival. The entire crux of Chaos's immortality time loop is Garland being killed, sent to the past, and thus becoming Chaos again and again and again.

It doesn't quite work, since each new timeloop begins 'fresh' with a Garland who doesn't remember he's Chaos yet.

It could, however, begin with Garland having been 'seeded' by the Garland that was Chaos to act on impulses he does not understand to ensure the timeloop begins. Granted, that's inherently paradoxical, but so is the whole timeloop up until the WoL actually 'destroy' Chaos, presumably preventing his 'ReSeeding' of Garland to continue the timeloop. Or simply preventing the existence of Garland, but given how similar the rest of history is stated to be, it's likely the events of Garland's past did happen, he's just not being controlled by his future self from the past or whatever incident causes him to go rogue in the timeloop timeline occurs.