#for twinside arc

[alienturnip]

Finished FF16 a few days ago and I do have some (long) thoughts about it, so I'm noting them down below. Reactions include the Waloed & Origin arcs.

Tagging @zadien as you requested <3 My thoughts won't be organized but I'll try my best to articulate as I go. Wall of text alert!

I think this is yet another case of "the story didn't satisfy me a lot but the characters bewitched me body and soul" so here I am at the end of the roads... with a lot of grievances toward how the story was structured & written but also impossibly attached to the cast haha, needless to say I have fanart ideas planned and incoming.

Things that I enjoyed a lot:

CliveJill's scene with the snow daisies, where she tells Clive that she wants to spread her wings after all this is over. MY GIRLFRIEND... YOU SHALL HAVE THE WORLD.

Jill being so good with acting dkfjsl <3 <3 she's so cute....

Jill being as much of a ruthless mtfk as Clive, they're soooo in tune when it comes to wrecking havoc

Everything about Joshua he brings SO SO MUCH to the table both with his personalities and the themes he represents. I would ramble if not for fear of this post's length...

Dion's contradictory demeanor hahahahaha - he insisted everyone call him "Dion" but wouldn't shut up about "Ifrit" and "Phoenix", he also refused Harpocrates' gift but then gave another to Clive 2 seconds later, then sauntered off without even checking if Clive likes it or not...

I generally bemoan the lack of discussion on Dion's relationship with his country's imperialism and his hands in that (like, everything about him was perfect to address that topic even in very brief ways?), BUT I highly enjoyed Dion's theme about the loss of personhood and to be reduced to a vessel of power and worship, his multifaceted relationship with the concepts of power & duty & hierarchy. So subtly yet powerfully done with so little screen time... I think Clive's own engagement with the theme (which is supposed to be his central theme) comes short in comparison.

Dion's side quest with Harpocrates also scratched my brain in INCREDIBLY ways, but again I won't ramble too much in this post...

(Hahaha by this point I think everyone knows who my fav is)

Dion & Joshua's dialogues are all so well-written (maybe save for Joshua's last speech...)

Everything about Mid & Gav, they're beautifully done, I love them they have such solid places within the narrative and lovely personalities too. When I watched Mid navigating the Entreprise I was just squealing and cheering for her! Her talking about the dream of flight and the danger it might entail, and her plan of turning such a weighted topic into a lighthearted treasure hunt! My gosh 💗 Gav's drinking scene with Clive is also especially touching, I felt a lot for his burdens.

Lady Isabelle may I have your hand in marriage--

Clive holding Joshua or clutching his body...... breaks me every time I love love LOVE tragic siblings

I can honestly write an essay for each of the characters (especially Jill & Dion my thoughts about them are overflowing) but they will have to be separate posts at this point, let me know @zadien (or anyone else reading this 🫣) if you'd like me to talk some more.

NOW onto the criticisms proper...

Waloed & Origin arcs were pretty underwhelming, mostly because I feel like they haven't offered anything new that wasn't already resolved in the previous arcs...? I enjoyed Barnabas' vibe but his impact on me was a big fat 0, and here comes the conundrum because, well, I'm guessing him being emotionless & devoid of a personality is supposed to be the point with his worship of Ultima, but even that was not done well... All his bedroom scenes kinda ruined all of that, not to mention the out-of-nowhere 'mother' appearances that the story doesn't even bother to explore aside from showing her naked body (Benedikta got the same treatment after her death my god I'm so sorry my beloved)...

Idk what I'm supposed to take away from the character and, in consequence, the Waloed arc? I know nothing of who he was, his dialogues didn't even match Clive's growth at that point - again, why is Clive questioning his humanity NOW of all time, when the story has been going so well? Could they have, idk, shown Clive's fear coming back to him after reuniting with Joshua & discovering Dion's descend to madness, so that they can segue into the Waloed arc more smoothly - that despite Clive's best intention he may lose all his control at the most crucial point and ruin all that he holds dear (like Dion), and that he never let go of his guilt at Phoenix Gate, and having Joshua back unwittingly brought back the nightmares he'd lived with for 13 years? Maybe that would give his identity crisis at the beach some more substance instead of "Barnabas bested me twice and now I'm wet and sat" situation he got going on... I am thankful for Mid & Dion's arc & CliveJill romance & everything about Joshua but the main villain & plot points felt so distant... MY BRAIN WAS NOT SCRATCHED

(I adore Mid & Dion & Joshua hahaha they're so colorful in 3 entirely different directions, my silly children)

I am also not really convinced by Ultima's writing. The plot reveal of him being a God who created humanity but then abandoned us all *could* have been pretty powerful and on point if it wasn't executed in such fragmented ways. If only they dig deeper into one or two specific aspects of that concept to explore...

I am especially fond of the idea of Ultima as symbolic for "the absent parent" and "the narcissistic parent" (both in the intimate familial context and the wider context of head-of-state/leader figures), which could have paralleled SO WELL with Anabella & Sylvestre & EVEN ELWIN had they not cut off Anabella's presence immediately after her death, or had they make Dion reflect deeper upon his relationship with his father beyond "I killed him I am so sad", or had they make Joshua's and Clive's memories of Elwin more complicated - maybe in how they (especially Joshua) worshipped his as their father & leader, but less so as a man, someone human & flawed? And then they can explore how the children gaining autonomy & freedom despite their parents & the circumstances that shaped their childhood as a direct mirror to them breaking away from Ultima? The frustrating thing is, I THINK they did try to do that, what with all the Inner Voice snippets and the initial buildups and all, but the execution keeps coming up short...

Ultima & the Eikons as symbols of "power that binds & enthralls" in contradiction with Clive's fight for a "free world" could've been much more relevant and poignant if maybe they allowed us to get more invested in Ultima's backstory (flashback cutscenes perhaps? more involved murals? a more multifaceted discussion around the concept of will? some attempts at humanizing Ultima's race so that when Clive says "you're just like us" we feel it a bit deeper?) instead of just having the guy monotonously narrating all the plot twists... my god. Not to mention all the on-the-nose dialogues of power of friendship & crude slavery allegories... I don't know! I think Square did NOT do it well in this one.

That's all I can pull from the top of my head at the moment! Ready to hop into replies or asks to talk some more, but yea!

[meteorstricken]

"But why didn't Jill go to Origin?"

In order to understand this, you need to keep FFXVI's themes of duty and atonement in mind. The reason Dion felt compelled to show back up and offer his aid as Bahamut was because it was his means of atoning for what transpired in Twinside, and it was very much framed as a *suicide mission*. He had promised Joshua his aid once matters with Annabella and Olivier were resolved, but with how poorly that all worked out, he clearly comes to view laying down his life as his duty.

However, Jill had already accomplished this part of her arc. She returned to Mt. Drustanus and killed Imreann--the one who coerced her into acting as a killing machine for a time, much like Ultima coerced Dion to lay waste to Twinside. Joshua, Dion, and Clive are the three characters who've been uniquely manipulated by Ultima. Jill was never possessed or puppeteered or primed out of control by Ultima--again, for her, that villain was Imreann.

As for Clive and Joshua, there's plainly a unique matter of duty. They're built up as the only two characters who've acquired the power (Clive) and will (Joshua) necessary to take down a god, and so they must. It has to be them, at the least.

Meanwhile, Jill has made peace with herself by the time Origin pops. Jill has done her duty and atoned. Had she gone to Origin, she might have gotten a few cool lines and a couple of hits in, and then Ultima would have very likely killed her, as he seems to have with Dion.

And for what? To help protect Clive and/or Joshua once more? Wouldn't we be having a sad conversation about yet another female character made to give her life for a man then? Isn't it a good thing that Shiva's Dominant didn't fall into that benighted "women in fridges" trope? Is it not enough, given the ambiguity of the ending, that the major female character is the *only one* who definitely survived?

I think it's wonderful that Jill is such a beloved character and that fans want to see more of her, but I think we need to keep in mind that our desire to see more of a character than we did doesn't automatically translate into evidence of their having been poorly treated.

(PS: You want to see a real case of a fridged character? Look no further than Benedikta. The only thing that makes it somewhat forgivable in this case is that I can point to male characters who eventually suffered the same, but the fact that she went first, was revealed to have a complicated past in retrospect only, and was primarily framed as a "shrieking harpy" raises a critical eyebrow for me.)

[cosmic-metanoia]

The Abhorrent Mother

***Major Spoilers for Final Fantasy XVI***

Calling Anabella the "devil" or a "bitch" sounds like a term of endearment rather than an insult. There are no words that accurately embody this woman. In my book, she wins the award for the most evil villainess which shows just how well-written she was! But it did get me thinking...in addition to the countless atrocities she committed, could it also be because she shatters the stereotype of the sacrificing and caring mother? Do we perceive her as more evil because of that?

In many cultures and religions, mothers are depicted as being soft, feminine, caring, unconditionally loving, and sacrificing for the betterment of their children and families. The character archetype of an "evil father" exists but that typically is more well-received.

When it comes to Anabella, it's as if she is the ultimate sacrilege of the pregnant mother who carries, gives birth, and loves her children dearly. Normally, with her attitude, we expect the classic "evil stepmother" archetype in full blossom. Clearly that is not the case here. I recall how some folks in the FFXVI discussion forums were waiting for the big reveal that she was indeed NOT Clive and/or Joshua's mother - because how could someone so evil give birth to two righteous sons? Turns out nope - she was, indeed, their biological mother through the bitter end!

If she was just an evil stepmother, that would have been incredibly commonplace and trite - making her their actual mother made her all the more impactful. Afterall, evil comes in all forms.

I also read that a few people had hoped she would get a redemption arc. I'm glad she didn't. And I'm glad that her and Clive never reconciled. She was too far gone and the years of verbal and emotional abuse could not be forgiven by Clive, Jill, and others. She betrayed her family, her nation, her people and started a chain reaction that altered history all to obtain more power, more riches, and an "upgrade" to her future royal bloodline.

When Bahamut/Dion killed the Emperor, sacked Twinside, and killed Olivier, all that she had built was ripped from her within minutes. (Also, notice how she did not even think to herself 'Hmm....why is there no blood or body?' after Olivier dissolved away into thin air upon being stabbed through. )

At her end, she had nothing left but to face the consequences of her actions. And I could only imagine that seeing her beloved Joshua whom she thought was dead drove the fear of some divine retribution right into her.

Personally that scene really hurt to watch - how Joshua was the last person to offer her his hand when no one else would. But that speaks more to who he is as a person. To be fair, the last time he saw his mother was when he was 10 years old and he was the one person she showed a shred of decency albeit because he was the Phoenix. Otherwise, she would have tossed him aside like she did Clive.

When she frantically swiped her blade at him and cut him in her madness, I thought, "Yep...time for her to go! How dare she hurt our beloved birb?!"I also thought it fitting that in the moment of escaping accountability, she died by her own hand. It was heartbreaking to see Joshua witness yet another parent's death right before his eyes. Clive and Jill looked away in pity for her.

She could have been the mother of not one but two Dominants and be remembered in history for that. But she threw away her family happily with both hands.

The lesson here - "some of the most poisonous people to walk the earth come in the form of family." Sure, people do deserve forgiveness depending on what their actions were but there are rare times when a so-called redemption arc is not earned and not deserved.

One final lesson is that as a child, you have the power to be different from a horrible parent and that fact is glorious.

[semi-imaginary-place]

FFXVI Rewrite Part 5: Origin, Ultima, and the Ending

With the last Mothercrystal destroyed and the final seal on Ultima broken, the apocalypse begins. The sky breaks apart into dark roiling aetheric stormclouds casting the world into eternal gloom. Aetherfloods spill across the lands poisoning all life and turning it akashic, the remaining crystals fail. There is no nation left standing in Valisthea. The one force that would have fought against Ulima’s rule Waloed is in disarray. The greatest champion fighting for free will was Banabas who is now dead. Congrats on making things worse! Isn’t free will and making choices great? The party much now scramble to figure out what is going on, all the while the realization of how badly they messed up slowly dawns upon them. Like in the actual game’s post Twinside section, the party scrambles to recover from the Waloed attack while also fending off compounding problems of starved beasts, Fallen machines, akasha, and wraiths. Now though Origin has also risen into the sky destroying all hopes of salvaging Twinside. The party travels around Valisthea piecing together the deteriorating situation with the destruction of the Mothercrystals and wonders if this is what Ultima wanted since they stopped bothering them several Mothercrystals back. Doomsday cultists start popping up. In particular will be the savior cult the Circle of Malius who are much the same as the are in the actual game striving to make all people akashic as they see it as the ultimate pure state free of mortal burdens. This formerly suppressed underground faction now runs free now that Barnabas is gone.

I really do like most of the sidequest storylines especially Dion and Harpocrates’ quest, however a complaint I had was that their placement right before the final boss dropped the pacing off a cliff. In this rewrite the last section is being expanded so there is time added here for Clive to rally people and finish their storylines so that the finale can be uninterrupted. This includes the final part of Jill’s character arc where she reckons that for all that she has talked big and tried to help people, she herself still does not quite know what it means to live on her own terms, but she thinks she is finally starting to understand. Jill wants to travel the world, to help the people out there who don’t know how to fight for themselves yet and to find herself. In the actual game the Jill-Clive romance is primarily hindered by Jill’s poor writing having tried to fix her writing here I have no objections to the romance anymore. However, I was never a fan of romances and am of the mentality of that if it isn’t needed it shouldn’t be included. For example, in Tales of Arise the relationship between Alphen and Shionne is the center point around which the rest of the story revolves and while it could have been a friendship instead of a romantic one, there is no Tales of Arise without Shionne and Alphen’s relationship. This is not the case for FFXVI, even in this rewrite Jill is not the deuteragonist (if anyone it’d be Joshua), as such Jill and Clive’s relationship is not central to the story and really while I’m not opposed, I feel a romance just gets in the way of the story, if there’s to be any romance I would rather it just be implied or optional. Dion and Terrance should still kiss because that is bold and revolutionary in a way the portrayal of any straight couple isn’t, also they’re side characters so it doesn’t matter this story isn’t about them. Before the final dungeon is also the time to show how life without magic sucks. FFXVI sort of glosses over this very briefly but I think this point should be integrated into all the final storylines, without magic people have no safe drinking water or fire, disease begins running rampant, industry grinds to a halt, and food production halts so people begin starving in the streets in mass, and Clive has to see all this knowing this is what he’s done to people.

The party eventually learns of Ultima’s plans to destroy the world and enslave humanity by flooding them with aether and turning every living thing akashic. At the same time, they record increased aether concentrations gathering around Origin, as the Blights worsen as Ultima repurposes the same draining mechanisms as the Mothercrystals, He turns the very chains that bound them into his servants. Instead of loredumping via a ten minute monologue at the end of the game, now would be a good place to drop bits of lore and worldbuilding like how in this version dragons, frostwolves, and such were the original inhabitants of the world. Ultima is the last surviving active member of the Fallen whose ancient civilization made all the ruins encountered across the game. Ultima and the Fallen brought humans to Valisthea and created eikons by enslaving the power of the land’s original inhabitants. Eikons are a phenomena of the recent centuries and a sign that the seals were weakening.

As a lover of JRPGs I found it immensely disappointing that Origin was just some cutscenes and not a full dungeon so I’m making it a full dungeon in this rewrite. Ultima is trying to draw in Clive and possess him anyways (as well as the combined Ifit-Phoenix fire eikon) so they would try and cut off the rest of the party. Dion is able to break a hole in Origin that Clive enters into with Joshua, however Jill is cutoff, and under constant assault she seals the hole after them to stop pursuit. In addition, the Fallen forces are marching from Origin to turn every person akashic and Dion and Jill are needed to hold them back. As such Dion and Jill as the two that can fly stay outside to stop pursuit of Joshua and Clive, as well as to try and contain Ultima’s forces from murdering and or turning everyone on the continent into akasha. This would be a nice scene to show all the factions of Valisthea that Clive has met and negotiated with coming together to ward off extermination. Like the Trinity Accord can actually be something meaningful as a defense accord rallying humanity’s last remnants. Origin will be a classic final dungeon boss gauntlet with no way to exit until the player beats the game. Every set of floors (5? 10?) will be a boss as Ultima seeks to weaken Clive.

During the ascent to the top or Origin the final secrets of the game are revealed and the lore scattered throughout the game brought together. To reiterate, the Fallen drained the resources of their homeland and turned it into a wasteland, their civilization collapsed and the survivors fled upon the mothership Origin to a new world. Coming to Valisthea, they came into contact with the native lifeforms such as the dragons and began a war of conquest for control over Valisthea. The Fallen made eikons out of draconic aether to use as war weapons against the dragons themselves thus why eikons are elemental themed. Eventually the Fallen with their eikons and advanced technology kill most of the dragons but not before most of them were killed as well. As a last resort the last remaining dragons sacrificed themselves to seal the last Fallen away the Eldest Wyrm’s body fragments, becoming the Mothercrystals. The Mothercrystals much like dragons themselves have a strong connection to the aether of the land and while not ideal, a side effect of the Mothercrystals is that they feed off of the land’s aether to power their seals. Because this was a last ditch effort it’s full of problems including that the seals take an unsustainable amount of aether and after the land is drained of aether the seals begin to fail. Mining and using crystals sped up the breaking of the seals as well as the spread of the deadlands as the Mothercrystals drained the lands to fuel the seals. Ultima is the last active Fallen who awakened as the seals weakened. The reawakening did not go as he hoped as the other Fallen only remained as aether. Ultima seeks to flood all of humanity with Fallen aether made of his people’s souls to truly reincarnate them, replacing the original aether of the world with Fallen aether. Origin now acts as the focal point amassing aether and releasing Ultima’s forces.

At the top floor of Origin Clive and Joshua find not only Ultima but Anabella and Olivier. Anabella and Olivier transport to Ultima’s eden space ship which is revealed to be the red star Metia; Origin acts as the connecting point between Valisthea and Metia. Ultima reveals that the Fallen are the true humans of this setting. The original humans created soulless shell or dolls for them to later fill with their own aether, reincarnate, and thus save their civilization. All the characters the player has met were these husks created by the true humans, the people of Valisthea were never meant to be people on their own with wills and thoughts. Similarly, Mythos like in the actual game was the chosen vessel for Ultima to fill with the eikons, ascend to godhood, and power the casting. But like most plans, things have gone wrong and now created fights Creator. Ultima tells Clive and Joshua that they and their brethren were only ever imposters wrongfully claiming the title of humanity their masters: the true humans. As creations of humans, they belong to humans, their wills exist only as an extension of the true humans’ wills. “In Ultima's eyes, mankind's greatest sin is the awakening of free will—his servants straying from the path their creator laid out for them and forging one of their own. However, Clive contends that this is a sin by which Ultima is equally stained—and indeed, if humanity is indeed Ultima's creation, does not their every action, every emotion stem from him?” (Mysteries of the Realm: Sin).

Clive and Joshua face Ultima in his Ultimalius form as in actual FFXVI for stage 1 of the final boss fight. After beating Ultimalius, Ultima transforms Stage 2 is a giant kaiju eikon battle is space. Like in the Bahamut fight, Ifrit and Phoenix combine, however where Ifrit Prime was an incomplete fusion, this time the fusion is in full and the true Eikon of Fire emerges: Adonaios v2.11 (other possible names are Sabaoth and Belias). Ultima uses the beta testing version Adonaios v1.8; 1.8 comes from the incorporation of all 8 elements plus Ultima, 2.11 comes from Adonaios having to be split into two but left unfinished by Ultima for Clive to collect the remaining eikons. In game Ifrit Prime just looked like the Ifrit model with 2 feathers glued on, Adonaios v2.11meanwhile looks like a 50:50 fusion a molten red eikon with wings, horns, a feathered tail, and a jagged beak. Adonaios is slimmer than Ifrit but overall bigger with the feathers. Adonaios v1.8 meanwhile looks like the figure on the murals, a fusion of all 8 eikons and elements however it is falling apart at the seams even as Ultima fights with it because it’s an abandoned draft version. Late in the stage 2 fight Clive and Joshua are losing and draw upon the remaining power of the eikons of whom only Bahamut and Shiva are left. This drains the remaining eikonic power from Jill and Dion, grounding them and making the Valisthea fight hopeless, the Ultima fight now all or nothing. Stage 3 of the final boss fight takes place aboard Metia. Metia was an alien spaceship all along, but more accurately it is a control satellite from which to coordinate the revival of humanity. Clive, Joshua, and Ultima have all mostly used up all their power in the previous stage. In this final stage of the fight Ultima transcends and returns to his original appearance that of a human, Clive and Joshua are no longer fighting some strange monster but someone they would recognize as human. In stage 3 Clive cannot semi-prime. In the end Ultima is killed and his species is now extinct.

Joshua and Clive are exhausted from climbing Origin as well as the consecutive boss fights but begin to relax with Ultima dead, and then Anabella steps out. Anabella thought she could outplay Ultima by siding with him and then taking over, and now she sees her chance. She steals all the power that Ultima had been siphoning into himself to cast the spell, and redirects it all into Olivier to turn Olivier into a god and who will rule the world, doing what Ultima failed to do. It fails because playing god is a bad idea, Olivier’s body cannot handle the power and it begins mutating him into a deformed humanoid abomination with multiple arms and eyes, bodies seemingly trying to grow out of him. So, the true final boss is mercy killing a child who is falling apart and turning into an abomination but doesn't know it, as he cries that it hurts and begs you to stop. Olivier cannot be allowed to live as they will destroy the world. and the aether is warping his mind and he becomes less coherent as the fight goes on, regressing from full sentences to just screams. Ascended Olivier doesn’t really fight back, he flails around and lashes out when attacked but attacks aren’t particularly aimed at the player and he’s mostly crying and shaking on the ground in pain. Ascended Olivier has a very large health bar and the story will not progress until he is killed, the last save point is before reaching the top floor or Origin. In a game full of epic boss battle, the last is anticlimactic by design, there is no epic music just silence, there is no challenging gameplay, only attacking a child. The gameplay is boring, its grueling, and that’s the point. Clive kills Olivier and then there’s just Anabella.

Much like the Fallen were the creators of modern humans who sought to control their creations and saw them as an extension of themselves, creations that deviated and refused to submit to their will and thus were failures. So too is Anabella a controlling creator who deemed her children failures for not advancing her goals, hating and discarding them to try again with a new child. Olivier was supposed to be her ultimate creation, perfect and subservient to her with no will of his own. The parallels between Anabella and Ultima exist in the actual game so it was disappointing her role ended so early and nothing was done with this parallel. Here is this rewrite, the large-scale destruction of the world by Ultima is paralleled with the destroyed Rosfield family and this final confrontation with Anabella. Anabella is not a warrior, without her soldiers and pawns she doesn’t have and martial power, she is more or less powerless to her fate at this point having discarded all her cards and bet everything Olivier. Clive (and the player) are then given the choice to “do nothing”, “kill”, or “spare” Anabella, Clive after all was the one who suffered the most from her. If “kill” is chosen, then Clive kills Anabella. If “spare” is chosen, Clive walks away but not before Joshua steps in and kills Anabella because even if Clive can forgive her Joshua can’t. If “do nothing” is chosen Anabella kills herself unable to reconcile with a reality in which she has lost.

Clive and Joshua use the last embers of the eikonic power remaining to shut down Primogenesis and Ultima���s plans, landing the Metia at the base of the crumbling Origin. The closing shot is of gang standing together overseeing a ruined Valisthea as the camera pans showing the aether storm clearing, wraiths evaporating, and fallen machines deactivating permanently. The deadlands are still around but a new sprout is seen growing. The credits sequence plays over a scene of Mid yelling to hurry it up she wants to see stoves and water purifiers in every village by the end of the month, shots of people is Valisthea figuring out how to live without magic using technology and innovation, the main characters are seen helping repair efforts. The end card says 4 years, meaning FFXVI takes place over a total of 16 years, from the beginning of the game and Phoenix Gate to the end of the game and Origin. Sun light is streaming through a window as Clive writes in a book which he closes to the title “Final Fantasy XVI by Joshua and Clive Rosfield”. As the timeline is changed here so that Clive is younger for the duration of the game than he is in the real game, his older model can be used here. Clive is using his non-dominant hand here as his dominant hand has been partially petrified from his fight with Ultima. On the desk is a photo of Clive and a bedridden Joshua.

The game’s themes could have been better integrated into the final section of the game. If FFXIV wanted to tell a story about choice, then they should have made Clives’ choices have weight and consequence. If he wants a society free of the Mothercrystals then the game should have showed how he ruined the lives of many many people by destroying them. FFXVI would have benefited greatly from more moral dilemmas like that. There should have also been exploration of the concepts of creation, ownership, makers, what makes someone human. One missed opportunity was not bringing up the relationship between art and artist, is art an extension of the artist or its own thing. The references to Gnosticism were fine but the concepts could have been clearer. There are also just a truckload of small problems and inconsistencies in the game like how Charon is said at one point to have a wide variety of customers across the continent while at another point is said on exclusively trade to the Hideaway. There’s a sidequest about how Murdoch’s nephew joins the Hideaway because he admires Clive and then the game forgets about him (just like they forget about Jill) and only remembers him again to put him on a bus, thus having no interaction with Clive. A lot of worldbuilding is just badly done. I love mysteries but making things misleading and obscure for no reason is not how to do it. So much of it was unclear or convoluted or just pointless even after reading the completed The Thousand Tomes that I just threw the whole thing out and wrote new lore for this reimaging of FFXVI. If a change is not specified than it is the same as in the actual game. I wrote 85% of this in Jun-Jul of 2023, then stopped for lack of motivation. I only finished this for the sake of finishing it because I don’t care anymore. I’m done with FFXVI and it’s poor writing.

It says something that it ended up being easier to throw out the later 1/3 of the game. In earlier drafts I did originally try to make canon work like Barnabas being one of Ultima’s devout and purifying Waloed by turning it all akashic, or Joshua’s probable death at the end of the game. Like it would have made more sense for Barnabas and Ultima as they are portrayed in the actual game to methodically hunt down and kill every person or named NPC Clive has ever talked to, slowly isolating him from his humanity by breaking every connection he’s ever tried to make. But of course, this removes the cast from having a role in the rest of the game and makes it impossible to keep the rest of the game the same. This rewrite ended up being pretty happy and optimistic because that’s the spirit of the original game. FFXVI in the end is pretty optimistic, which I have mixed feelings about. FFXVI tries have an upbeat uplifting ending and message while also wanting to be a dark, gritty, edgy Game of Thrones knockoff, and while this is very possible for a work to do, FFXVI did not succeed in meshing these aspects into a consistent whole, XVI ends up feeling inconsistent or disjointed. So while I did eventually decide to uphold XVI’s optimistic spirit I did consider another possibility leaning into more of the darker ambience. With the rising of Origin and fight to climb the tower, every major character either is killed or sacrifices themselves for Clive to reach the summit. The Cursebreakers buy time of the ground with their lives, Dion finally gets the absolution of death he has been seeking for Sanbreque, Jill joins Clive and Joshua in the tower but sacrifices herself to hold back the tower bosses and all of Ultima’s forces chasing them up the tower. During the second stage of the final Ultima fight to turn Ifrit Prime into Adonaios v2.11 and truly fuse Phoenix and Ifrit, Joshua who is already dying burns himself away allowing Clive to have all of Phoenix’s power. Clive thus kills Olivier alone, and faces Anabella alone, his fate left ambiguous.

Read this in one long post

Read this in parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 .

[theblueescapist]

Final Fantasy XVI

I have just finished the game, that I started in July after I finally managed to get a PS5 (yes, I'm slow).

Random comments below the cut

The Good

Yes, favourite character is Dion, obviously, but I was surprised by the tiny margin he has for me over...Clive. That I like Clive more than Joshua was also a surprise.

Dion is just...the best?? He is so awesome?? I fail to understand how Squeenix produced such awesomeness?? He's just so magnificent?? Clive may be the protagonist, but Dion is the one who's coded as the (tragic) hero of this game. And yes, he died, but Clive dies too, I don't think it's fridging the gays in his and Terence's case (yes, I am aware that Terence is technically not listed as dead after Twinside got absorbed into Origin, but what exactly do you think is the cause of Dion's desperation when learning from Clive what happened to the city he recently sent his lover to?????); also, the other two gays survived, so that's something at least. Dion is just an unbelievable character with a fantastic arc, I was waiting for Squeenix to stumble with him, and was so pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen. I would have liked to see more of his relationship with Terence, and more of Terence in general, because I do have some issues with the power imbalance in their relationship. They're adorable together, but Dion also has a lot of chemistry with Joshua, who he recognizes as his equal. Apparently in the Japanese version Terence is listed as The Love of Dion's Life (TM), but...I mean, I don't think I'm imagining there was something there, on Joshua's part, at least.

Clive is just...a solid mass of good? He's relentless without being cruel, caring without being overprotective. That he manages to learn to trust people again despite the entire shitshow of his life after Phoenix Gate and before Cid, is saying everything about him. Also, he's just...a gentle person, with very few hangups, and those mostly get resolved. I think that he didn't set out for Origin with the intention to die there like Dion did, he truly meant to come back if possible. He wasn't sure that he could, but he would have if he could have. That's why it's such a sad blow for him when he realizes his body is going to give up on him after all. Yet he doesn't hesitate, because that's not who he is. I do think he's dead, though; I actually don't understand how people can claim otherwise after that ending. Yes, we don't see his whole body turned to stone, and something could have happened to revive him after Jill realizes he died. But. He was meant to write that book, Harpocrates wanted him to; since it ends up being Joshua who writes it, instead, I don't think he made it. Besides, the only person who could have revived him was perhaps Joshua himself, if Clive handed him back some magic besides healing his body, and we know that Joshua can heal flesh, but not that he can turn people back from being stone. I don't think it's possible for Clive's death to be retconned in a DLC in a logical way either.

(Sidenote: I love Noctis more than Clive, but I do believe Clive is the better protagonist, and arguably the better person. The two timeskips work in Clive's favour, because he was given the time to grow as a person. Noctis spends his single timeskip alone, and had no such luxury. Although they both sacrifice themselves for the good of the world, Clive got to live the life that Cid gave him, while Noctis totally lost those ten years --"grant [...] one more day inside this life" indeed.)

Joshua is lovely too, but we never see him struggle and resolve his personal issues like we do for Clive and Dion, we always witness him having resolved them already, and that makes it more difficult for me to relate to him. I just adore how much he and Clive love each other, though, it's so nice to see other types of love being validated so much in any media form. Joshua would have totally been the playboy character had this been a different game genre. I do believe he loves Jote; but he 1000% has something going on for Dion, too. Clive knows Joshua feels something important for Dion, he wouldn't have made his condolences to Joshua upon Dion's death otherwise. Also, Joshua is even more well adjusted than his brother, possibly because he at least was actually loved by their mother.

I didn't believe I could love another Cid as much as Raines, but okay, this one got me. ^_____^ And if the whole Benedikta stuff had been handled better, I actually think I'd have loved him more than Raines, but as it is, they're on equal footing. He's just such a fun character that his depth is totally unexpected. What a role model.

Uncle Byron is love!!!!!!!! The game improves SO MUCH after he's introduced. He's just a ray of sunshine.

Three over four of the most badass NPCs are women, and one of them is a madam in a brothel. It's so nice to see female characters with real agency, and they are so different from each other too! Martha with her pan was so iconic?? And Isabelle was so much better as a diplomat (and as a person in general) than stupid Quinten. And Eloise was smart and tragic, I hated that she got the short end of the stick.

Most of the scenery is so fucking gorgeous

The Bad

All the most powerful dominants belong to men, and female main characters are generally sidelined. Shiva is technically the first boss, but not really. Jill just gives her up to Clive because she loves him. Jill had the potential to be an iconic character like Yuna, and instead she got deliberately benched (read the interviews). Did they think that she would eclipse Clive or something if they gave her more screen time and developed her more than her extra short arc? That's like, not having faith in Clive as a character. I mean, we got more quests for Mid than for Jill, there's clearly something wrong there. Why do we never find out what happens to Lady Marleigh? Don't tell me Jill just left her in the Ironblood's hands without even a second thought! Benedikta is the first real boss for a reason, Garuda is a joke. Benedikta is probably the worst-handled character in the entire game, while she could have been a solid villain like Anabella.

It irritates me so fucking match that elemental magic has no place in this game!!!! If there's a Bomb and I'm freezing it, you need to have me make more damage, FFS!!!!

Why is called "party" when I can't control party members?? Playing as Jill or Cid would have rocked. At least we got to play as Joshua a couple of times, but it really sucks that XVI followed in FFXV's footsteps on this matter.

(this is just a pet peeve of mine) Why is Leviathan "lost"????? Lost where????? I want my favourite element!!!!

The Ugly

I'm very glad the whole "Final Fantasy's answer to Games of Thrones" thing was mostly exaggerated, but I really could not stomach the sexual violence in this game. I couldn't stand it in FFXIV either, and seeing it make a comeback here soured me a lot. It was bad already with Benedikta, but... I'm sorry, but seriously. Child rapists in Final Fantasy is a huge squick for me, it's the one reason why I'll never love this game as much as some other ones. Yes, it's more explicit in the Japanese version, but what exactly do people think Jill meant when she told Clive what she expected would have happened to her if she hadn't awakened as a Dominant???? Jill was 13 at the time she was taken by the Ironblood. And the child they use as leverage against her was much younger. What do you think she would consider so abhorrent as to murderously literally skewer Imreann over it??? These horrifying things happen all the time in the real world, I don't need them to happen in the videogames I play as well.