Predictions and Conflict Over the Plot of Final Fantasy Dissidia 012 (Duodecim)

Before closing out this article, I have a few final predictions about things we can expect from Dissidia Duodecim:
—As Dissidia 012 will focus on the 12th turn in the war of the gods (confirmed in this Tetsuya Nomura interview; translation courtesy of hitoshura), the Warriors of Cosmos will all die, and — at the least — Tifa, Kain, Shantotto and Lightning will all stay dead, as the heroes and villains featured in the first Dissidia game were identified as the only warriors still alive. Though it has been suggested by at least one fan that the heroes who aren’t Tifa, Kain, Shantotto or Lightning need not actually die in order for the heroes to lose this round of the war, a conversation between Sephiroth and Garland in the first Dissidia shows that the memory loss all the Warriors of Cosmos — as well as several Warriors of Chaos — suffered from was due at least in part to dying during the previous cycle:

Sephiroth: “As disorder grows in strength, I seem to be regaining my memory. I once took my own life… Perhaps to find a lasting truth beyond this world’s illusions.”
Garland: “That is absurd. You cannot have regained memories from before you died.”

Furthermore, the 2010 Tokyo Game Show trailer for Dissidia 012 features Emperor Mateus making reference to defeat being tied to the heroes’ memory loss during Duodecim’s turn of the cycle: “The warriors of Cosmos, all of whom have suffered defeat after defeat, have no memory of the battles” (translation by hitoshura). Also, the fact that the Warriors of Chaos didn’t lose a round until the 13th turn in the cycle yet several have still demonstrated amnesia is, on its own, enough to show that death and not some other form of defeat is necessary for the memory loss.

In addition to the above prediction regarding those Warriors of Cosmos who will perish, we can also expect to see Gabranth die and not come back.

—Reminiscent of his role in Final Fantasy IV, Kain will likely have shifting or unclear alliances throughout Duodecim.

—Sephiroth will finally make Cloud despair. I think we’re going to finally see Sephiroth sort of win. With Tifa’s death pretty much a certainty, Cloud will fail to save someone else important to him during Duodecim, and this may well break him utterly. I expect that it won’t go quite as Sephiroth hopes, though. He probably won’t get to deliver the killing blow to Cloud. I’m hoping to see Cloud choose to kill himself, actually, just to deprive Seph of the opportunity — leading Sephiroth to choose to kill himself so as to have no memory of this “greatest failure.” He’ll know that he can then start again in the next round of the war, even if neither of them remember that Tifa had ever been part of it.

—With all the attention the manikins are shown getting in the 2010 Tokyo Game Show trailer (again, translations by hitoshura), perhaps the 12th round of the war is when the Warriors of Chaos began employing them for the war effort. Chaos Report #8, where Cid first makes mention of the manikins being used in the war, is very late into the reports, along with other details that are late developments in the war, such as Sephiroth’s suicide, and the cycle of battles drawing to a close.

—Kuja is shown to be a Warrior of Cosmos in the 2010 Tokyo Game Show trailer for Duodecim, so no doubt he will die, lose his memories, and be stolen away to Chaos’ side somehow — probably by the Emperor, given that he did the same thing with Jecht. It makes sense that Jecht wouldn’t have been his only attempt at gaining a crystal. Perhaps this even means that the Emperor gained at least two crystals in the final round of the war.

Kuja’s presence in Duodecim also explains why — even though Garland referred to him as new in the previous game (“We all bear the same fate. You have only been…directed…because you are new”) — the villains seemed to have such intimate knowledge about him, such as Ultimecia being aware of and informing him of his body’s limited lifespan:

Kuja: “No… That’s a lie!”
Ultimecia: “I’m afraid not. Sadly, you are no more than a vessel…a flawed one at that.”

Kuja was merely new to Chaos’ side, not to the cycle as a whole. This also explains how Kuja could be unaware of his own mortality despite knowing all about it before his death in Final Fantasy IX — he had already died and lost some of his memories, especially those most important to him, the same as Firion was shown to have lost his memories of the wild rose in the first game, and Squall was shown to have lost his memories of Rinoa.

—This game’s going to be a real downer.

Thanks for reading! And stay tuned to TheLifestream.net for future plot predictions as new information about Dissidia Duodecim becomes available.