#FFVI

[enerjax]

Locke Cole & Celes Chere to go with my Terra Branford piece 💕💕💕 What Final Fantasy portrait should I do next?? 👀✨✨✨

[msgier]

Locke Cole by Michael Firman

[thedoomedhometown]

Doma Castle from FFVI: Magical, Chemical, or Both?

The event: In FFVI, when the Gestahlian Empire decides to invade Doma Castle, a castle situated on a river moat with water running under it, Kefka decides to poison the entire castle via the water supply rather than engage in combat, therefore engaging in an act of chemical warfare.

The water of the river changes color (at least as well as we can see in pixel art), and people begin to succumb to the poison, with those closest to the river - the guards and such - falling first. Those in lower levels of the castle itself proceed to die, with effects ascending quickly but also dissipating quickly outdoors, while collecting indoors: the king is fatally poisoned, but a guard walking down through it survives long enough to die and, when the character Cyan runs downstairs, he seems relatively unaffected in that he doesn't show effects.

The analysis: First, let's just get the simplest Occam's razor out of the way, because that's not the point of this kind of analysis, but I'll acknowledge it once again for the sake of those who somehow missed the pinned post, the description, and everything else, to save you the effort of leaving such a low-effort comment and looking like a troll

Simplest Occam's razor: "It's only a game, a Wizard Did It , it was just magic, and Cyan had plot armor because him dying would have meant the end of the game."

Bad-faith Occam's razor: The above, but add "and it says SOMETHING about you that you'd put this much thought into it"

I am fully aware of both arguments, and I recognize the validity of the first as a possible and indeed probably the most likely interpretation. (it is, indeed, a game and a piece of fiction, the writers probably didn't care or if they did didn't expect anyone else to, it was just magic to advance the plot).

That said: if you're still here reading this, I assume you came for the deeper analysis. Then join me below the cut, to take apart the events of Doma Castle, as described above.

The geography alone is the first clue we would be looking at here: a moat of water likely connected to a water system of some sort, and the water color was changed. This would point to whatever substance/action was involved being capable of reacting with water. While the pixel depiction is purple, we'll just assume the color change could have been to any color because depicting simple muddiness or cloudiness would not have been able to depict well.

That contact with the poisoned water or consumption of it was not necessary to kill points to the next point: whatever went into the water had to be a substance that converted to a toxic vapor when combined with the water, or that displaced breathable air and created dead air.

Also, the deaths progressed inward and upward, yet dispersed quickly. The only character that died from exposure at the highest point indoors was the king, who was already older and weaker, and Cyan was either unaffected or less affected. This shows that whatever was involved was something that collected at ground level, blew through the castle, and dispersed with ventilation as it did, only strongly affecting weaker persons indoors once it reached height.

Generally, this would mean the substance either created dead air at low heights but didn't wholly displace oxygen the higher up and more indoors the characters were - similar to carbon dioxide in the real life disaster of [TW: graphic descriptions of real human death due to asphyxiant gas exposure] Lake Nyos's limnic eruption

OR

was a chemical substance that reacts with water, similar to the chemical "accident" due to utter negligence at [TW: graphic and very traumatizing depictions of real human death due to toxic chemical exposure, racism, corporate greed so bad it is indistinguishable from malice, enraging content] Bhopal, India involving the reactive chemical methyl isocyanate. [Interestingly enough, I wonder if, seeing with the name of the character involved, Cyan, this was actually partial inspiration if any of the canon writers knew of it? Although that is super speculative, and I do not have any proof of it!]

And this brings me to something to a theoretical way the characters could have survived the disaster -aside from having gas masks or other proper PPE - if you want to do an alternate take - those at the top of the castle should have moved indoors and sealed off the outside as much as they could immediately, and those already indoors should have moved upward and inward to the last of the safely breathable air for the time being, waiting for the concentration to disperse enough that moving down and out away from the water would be safer.

The geography was also probably what helped contribute to the survival of anyone who made it out and downward after such as Cyan - the flowing water and wind would have both contributed to dispersing either carbon dioxide and restoring survivable oxygen levels and/or dispersing MIC to a survivable level of immediate exposure, which, as time passed, would have made the source area that he ran past safer than the inside of the castle for a long period of time, where confined spaces would have remained "dead space" or toxic levels of MIC would have collected in less ventilated areas. By choosing evacuation rather than continuing to hole up in the castle once the outdoor amount had dispersed to a less-fatal level, even if inadvertently to go join the fight against the troops following up after the poisoning, he likely saved his own life.

So one takeaway I want to offer here is that even sometimes just the few smallest clues in your writing of a disaster can indicate what it is, what caused it, and what it does. You don't need to do an entire infodump like this analysis - just pick a few consistent things, a few consistent threads that can be picked out under examination. For example, the detail that the water changed color pointed out water reactivity as a component and that the guard near it died first followed how exposure generally works - e.g. had the king died first, or characters at distance died first like some random on the other side of the planet, that would have made this just "who cares, a wizard did it" rather than something that, the more you look at it, becomes an even deeper and more horrifying thing just because even a few, possibly research-informed, details were included, just enough to make it make a degree of sense.]

And because I want to offer some advice that might help you if you ever are unlucky enough to suffer a Bhopal or an East Palestine or [TW for lots of descriptions of human suffering and death] any of the other innumerable chemical accidents that have happened in the real world (since in the real world, you are FAR more likely to be the victim of corporate greed and unsafe practices than a psychopathic clown supervillain who won't stop at anything) OR if you're writing the survival or aftermath of a chemical-related disaster in a story of your own: If you see/smell something unusual or see a mist or fog or smoke - especially after a nearby explosion or fire or in a closed, confined space - and/or if you feel suddenly, overwhelmingly ill, or you see other people who seem unconscious or dead especially in a closed confined space or near it - Move as far away from the dead/dying/more severely ill as possible, do not go to help them because you will likely join them rather than be of any help. ideally upwind and into the closest, tallest indoor space with clean air, turn off HVAC systems, and wait for instructions on when/if to evacuate.]

[liketheinferno2]

setzer he confounds me

[beauh]

[taxkha]

Final Fantasy 6

[susscrofaaa]

[tayasigerson]

I love Locke's scenario! This is where they use the stolen clock key to find a secret passage out of the rich guy's house.

I watch a lot of playthroughs where someone is playing FF6 blind for the first time and it's always great to see them play this sequence and figure out how to escape. Some people discover the hidden hallway in the rich guy's house when Terra, Locke, and Edgar are in South Figaro for the first time, but they can't go further than the clock because they need the clock key.

[the-ertceps]

Doodle

[scarletlotus182]

Ngl I've never been crazy about Locke/Celes. I've always felt like it kinda undermines Celes' character and the romance just felt very forced to me.

[allisonmckenzieart]

Celes Chere - Final Fantasy VI

[michaelfirman]

[deathberi]

FINAL FANTASY VII EVER CRISIS: FINAL FANTASY VI CROSSOVER ↳ Aerith x Tina/Terra • Cloud x Locke • Sephiroth x Edgar • Tifa x Mash/Sabin

[butchvashwood]

redraw of amano's terra branford. i love her so much

[liketheinferno2]

two of them

[yshiku]

Amano's Esper Terra