#ardyn feels more like a victim than a villain and i love that take thank you

[sunsetzer]

Does anyone else get the impression that the whole point of Episode Ardyn was to reveal that the real villain of ffxv was Bahamut all along or is it just me

[secret-engima]

For Gentleman Ardyn verse, how do the kids react to Noctis? What's their relationship with him like? Does Noctis accidentally pick up a Hero/Villain name like he picks up his teacher job in my last ask? Also, I hope that you are feeling better. I really love your writing!

Thank you! I am feeling way better (for now, and hopefully it sticks this time).

-I feel Noctis shows up pretty early in the whole mess, back when its just Ardyn and Tenko, so after some initial surprise and rockiness, Noctis is officially everyone’s Cool Big Brother™. He loves all the kiddos Ardyn keeps bringing home, probably brings home one or two of his own.

-He sees Izuku’s “quirk” two days after it “manifests” and fixes his Uncle with an indulgent look and a raised eyebrow. Ardyn refuses to admit what he’s done, just smiles winningly. Noctis sighs and joins in helping teaching Izuku how to not kill himself with his new “quirk”.

-Totally picks up an alias, but surprisingly ends up on the radar as an Underground Hero??? Even Noctis isn’t sure how that happened, but he suspects the rat principal had something to do with it, because Nezu wasn’t one to take “no” for an answer when he spots a good potential teacher for his students, which he decided Noctis definitely was. So... Noctis apparently has an Underground Hero license that labels him as the Pro Hero BladeDancer which- okay it’s not the WORST name but really? You couldn’t think of something better?

-Noctis is honestly a little ticked off when he learns that if he and Ardyn do the SAME THING (barring murdering an entire trafficking ring), Ardyn’s will go onto his rap sheet as the mysterious and horrible Adagium while “BladeDancer” will be praised for his decisive hero work. There is no difference between what the two of them did and yet one is a villain and the other a hero and frankly Noctis thinks it’s a load of garbage.

-Tells Ardyn’s kids as much more than once.

-Laughs his head off when he ends up helping Ardyn’s pet Underground Hero Eraserhead to teach a class that has three of his “brothers” in it. Izuku, Shōto, and Hitoshi are a Fear when they see Noctis walk into the classroom for the day. Because Noctis has helped train them before, they know just how Insane he can get. They know they’re in for a world of pain.

-Noctis is also totally there when AfO comes calling, but nobody knows that because Ardyn gleefully takes all the credit for the gruesome discovery on the news. Noctis doesn’t REALLY care whether or not anyone knows he was part of that, he’s just glad the guy is gone.

-Eraserhead at one point takes a long hard look at Adagium’s rap sheet and list of how his victims die and then takes a long hard look at BladeDancer. Probably follows him around out of paranoia for a while because What If. Noctis just laughs in his face when he sneaks up on Eraserhead trying to sneak up on him. When asked about it he shrugs and says that he’s hardly the only person out there with a blade-based quirk.

-On a random side note I feel like EVENTUALLY Ardyn pulls some strings and gets himself an Underground Hero license and a license to kill just so that if/when he’s ever discovered as Adagium he won’t have to go through the drama of Toshi and Aizawa being “betrayed” by him or anything, this way he can just be known as a pro hero who went deep undercover in the underworld and did some terrible things to solidify his “villain cover”. There’s a separate hero name on the license and a fake paper trail hinting at a deeply buried undercover op just in case anyone goes looking too and Noctis is honestly Very Unimpressed that it is so easy to get a license and fake story under the table like this. But whatever. As long as it keeps Uncle and the kids safe from any unnecessary drama.

[moralhymn]

Warning, this is pretty long and it’s pretty opinionated, but I had to put this out there, so... Here we go. Shoving it under a cut so people can ignore it if they want.

I don't even know where to begin on the episode. Maybe let's start with the fact that Square took Ardyn's character and just completely rewrote him. In the game, it's a wonderful motivation; he was given these powers by the Astrals to take daemons from people. He was given the chance to help the subjects of his kingdom and he did his best. The motivation he had? It came about from the fact that he took those gifts and used them as he thought was best, for the betterment of the people of the lands, and in return for this selfless crusade in taking in the daemons? Ardyn was rejected by humanity, by the Crystal, by the Astrals, and betrayed by his brother and humankind alike. He went from altruistic healer of the people to this spiteful, vengeance driven creature and he suffered for over two thousand years because of this, all to wait for Noctis to be born and put an end to him. By the end of the game, he's so very tired, you can see it in him, and he did what no other Final Fantasy villain has done; he wins.

Either he wins and Eos burned to the ground and Noctis is dead, or he loses, he gets the peace he wants, and Noctis is still dead. Either way? Ardyn wins. He gets what he wants out of the situation which he’s managed to set up entirely to his advantage. A lot of people made mention of this during the fight against Ardyn and given that I just beat 15 again the other day, there’s an honestly tremendous tragedy in the fight against him. Ardyn is tired. He’s been suffering for his entire life and he’s tired and wants to rest. Noctis finally gives him the chance for this. It was well done and it was gorgeous and it was painful and tragic and just wonderfully done in the vein of the stories where the hero laid his life down to save the people. Given how much 15 drew from such elements, it was wonderful. You saw, in the end, that Ardyn was as much a victim of the Astrals as Noctis was. That they were both used by the gods. You got to understand this motivation about him. And it was brilliant.

The anime prologue took all of this and they rewrote it entirely.

Instead of exploring the many, many options of like - Ardyn's time as a healer or his need for revenge against the Astrals or explaining how this power came to him or any other interesting topic that I would have loved to have been informed on, they decided to go with what was done in the prologue. They took the spite and the vengeance that was interesting and they shoved Ardyn from "fascinating villain who had once been a hero" and that delicious mix of sarcasm and everything and fucked it up by going, instead, with the whole thing of "this is his episode and it's not even about him really it's about this bullshit romance plot that isn't even a subplot but the entire plot and point of his character" instead.

And then there's Aera.

Aera who, quite honestly, had the character development of a blank sheet of paper with maybe a few scribbled lines on there; if you think that’s overstating it, it really isn’t. Her death produced no emotional response in me whatsoever because I certainly couldn’t find it in myself to be attached to a person without any personality or substance. She was made specifically to just be killed off by Square. Who was, somehow, the first Oracle and founder of the Fleuret line and yet died. All to make Ardyn's motivation for taking down the Lucis Caelum family manpain. Because, apparently, he was in love with a woman he treated with distant politeness and displayed no interest in whatsoever. And while people are saying that he was in love with her, due to how he reacted when she died, that's not good enough. If I had seen someone I cared about being hurt in such a fashion, I'd be losing my shit too; doesn't matter if I only love them or am in love with them. I'd be losing my goddamn mind trying to help them.

Also, there's the fact that she was there, conveniently, to be cut down exactly when she was. You specifically see a shot of Gilgamesh barring her from interfering when Somnus and Ardyn begin hacking at one another and yet, again, for the sake of manpain and angst and convenience, somehow she's in the way when Somnus takes that one cut at Ardyn and he gets to see her falling down and then, again for the sake of shitty plot convenience, she dies in his arms. Huge amount of horseshit right there.

Now, see, if this woman was so important to Ardyn, then surely he would've mentioned her in the game, right? At some point she would have come up. But given that they made her up for the sake of aforementioned manpain and "ardyn's being driven to revenge because his girlfriend died", I just genuinely cannot accept her right now. But in all the datamined information and everything else that people have combed through for the game and whatnot, there's absolutely zilch mention of her at any point, so that furthers the whole fact that she was created JUST to be killed and provide Ardyn with this NEW motivation that he apparently is going through due to what they're saying in the prologue which is a crock of ridiculousness that has me so fucking angry.

Another reason why I'm angry over the prologue is that this whole romance plot was forced upon Ardyn outright and the people who ship Ardyn and Aera have seemed really obnoxious about this. They took this character who had very understandable motivations for his wrath and whatnot and boiled it down to the trope of "het relationship where woman dies for sake of revenge" in 2019. In 20-fucking-19. One artist I follow said that people wouldn't have been upset if it'd been a gay relationship where Ardyn's lover died, if it had been a man or Gilgamesh, since people do ship Gilgardyn, but yes, yes, we would be. We'd be mad because he had been interesting before due to the lack of 'romance hurr lover died hurr revenge revenge revenge hurr'. We’d be mad because gay character death is an awful plot device that too much fiction relies upon. We’d be mad if it was romance, period, because that just does a lot of damage to Ardyn’s character, in my opinion, thanks to the fact that they went with the whole romance thing.

Now, before someone gets offended at me and goes but this is because you’re a shipper and doesn’t this interfere with your ships? and all that, no, this isn’t the reason why I’m angry over the romance. I sincerely believe that had Square given us more than thirteen convoluted minutes of unreliable narration, had they given us time and development on the relationship, then it would be alright. Sort of. I wouldn’t be happy about it, still, because Square obviously pulled this out of their ass, but I could accept it far more easily than I can accept what they gave us in the form of the prologue.

Romance has its time and its place, however, with all of that being said - and I do not believe that it was needed in the prologue. Yes, I can understand the whole “Ardyn was a prince, he would probably have had a betrothed” aspect going on, but making it Aera and pulling all of what they did was such a shit show that I look at the way that they wrote Luna and Noctis and how beautiful that was done ( and I will defend all Noctis ships to the death except one that I don’t ship and will never ship, so leave me be with how much I love LuNoct. ) and then at the prologue and it’s just very, very jarring. It’s very sexist. They made a female character up and then killed her off for the sake of a man feeling emotional pain and nothing more, nothing less. She wasn’t a person. She was just a fluffy bit of plot device they decided to weld, badly, into the canon.

And people are saying that this humanizes Ardyn. People who were apparently fans of his before. And that has me so fucking angry too.

Because anger and spite are very, very human emotions. Ardyn was already humanized. He was already showing such emotions and he did. Not. NEED. A ROMANCE SUBPLOT. TO MAKE HIM SEEM "HUMAN". Ardyn had plenty of motivation. He had so much of it before and to shove this bullshit onto his character and have people say it makes Ardyn more human? It doesn’t. If Aera had actually been intended from the start of the game, if she had actually been important to him, then he would have mentioned her at least once I imagine, if she was actually the reason behind his need to stick it out for two thousand years and destroy his brother’s bloodline. For him to never make mention of her, once, would have made him less human and less relatable as a person. But of course, Square is retconing this, so we’re supposed to just accept it for what it is right now.

The fact that people are flocking to Ardyn now, at all, because he has this "uwu tragic baby angsty baby" facet to his portrayal by Square is outright infuriating. It's taken his character and it's warped it and mucked it up and it was extremely unnecessary for Square to do this. Ardyn was a gorgeous character who had once been a helper and a healer, who was wronged, who wanted retribution for what was done to him. There was no reason for Aera and the romance, none whatsoever, and that really got me so mad. Like, I had been hoping Square wasn't going to do that, low-key anticipating that they would, and was quite disappointed. Ardyn didn't need a love interest to give him reason for his revenge. He already had reason enough due to what had happened to him. Giving Ardyn the bullshit reason of what Square’s saying he had in terms of ‘my brother killed my girlfriend’ is just a genuine insult, not just to Ardyn’s character, but to Aera’s as well.

Now, I know I can’t make an entire judgement on things before Ardyn’s DLC drops, not on his relationship with things, not on Aera, none of that - but there are a lot of issues with the prologue that I am genuinely hoping will be expanded on in the episode and resolved. And if shipping Ardyn with Aera makes you happy, then do so! There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not my cup of tea, I will admit, but not because it’s a hetero ship. It’s because there’s nothing evocative in there for me. However, I am honestly concerned that they’ll keep her undeveloped and nothing more than a creation of fluff and a couple lines and I’m pretty sure they’ll give us nothing of her personality or motivations or anything of what she wanted or any background and that she’ll be there only for Ardyn to be inspired by her death as Square’s making him out to be. I imagine that Somnus will get more development than she will. I’m pretty sure Somnus will have more development than she will.

Who knows, though? I may be pleasantly surprised. But I am genuinely not holding my breath at this moment in time on that.

All I’m saying is that, as much as people seem to be gleeful that Ardyn has a canon ship? Please look at how Square’s set this up and please see how poorly they’ve written this. I know people will make attempts to fix it in fic and art, but the fact remains that this was very poorly written and that it’s utterly bullshit that Square decided to go with the whole “dead woman for man’s pain and motivation” route and that there are so many reasons why it’s worth being mad at this.

Please see that Square really fucked up with doing this to Ardyn and to Aera.