Masterpost
Day Eighteen: Mother Knows Best
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| God, I wish. |
I had hope before, now I have none.
The section after that anti-climactic battle with the Sorceress doesn't get off to a particularly good start.
The writers seem to be under the impression that having Squall lie on top of his sheets fully dressed and running an internal monologue is at all interesting.
His 'oh no, poor Nina' monologue doesn't even last all that long before he goes to see her, raising the question of whether it was even necessary.
Wouldn't it be more effective if afterwards it was him by her side instead of him having a nap?
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| "... I love to watch you sleep." |
Also, really? They didn't cut her out of her clothes and put her in a hospital gown or something? It doesn't even seem like they bothered to take her shoes off.
Not to mention that they left a comatose woman next to an open window without even putting the blankets over her.
Dr Kadowaki, you are the worst doctor that I have ever laid my eyes on, and need I remind you that Reed Richards has a doctorate?
... I can't believe I just wrote that...
-Minor existential crisis-
Before Zog can do anything particularly weird, Quistis calls him over the PA system and tells him that they need to head to Edea's House, because that's where she is.
Wait, you guys just let her go?
Why?! Why isn't she in custody somewhere?
I get you were panicked over Nina, but come one! There are five of you! Two of you to help Nina and the other three to incarcerate the Sorceress. It's that simple, get with the damn program already!
Instead of going straight there, I decided to mess around a little.
On my journey, I ran into both Zell and Selphie in their student uniforms.
I have no idea why. They're not required to be in uniform, and even if they were, they're both fully fledged SeeDs now. Why aren't they in that uniform?
I also ran into this girl:
Okay, sweetheart, when did they have the opportunity to do this? Because the Garden was packed with students during the NORG uprising, and they were stuck in a floating school right up until Fisherman's Horizon. We can presume that very few people took the opportunity to leave, because the number of students didn't seem any smaller during the hot Garden on Garden action.
Which means they would have have to have left after that.
Which was maybe a couple of days ago at most, and means that they would have had to willingly go into a wilderness where the only building nearby is a dilapidated orphanage with a sorceress in it, and there are no transport links.
This seems unlikely somehow.
Now, before I went to Edea's house, I went to the library to check if the Library Couple were there. I wasn't holding out much hope, it'd been most of the game since I'd last seen them.
But there they were.
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| ! |
Clearly not, because the conceited SeeD there asked the Librarian where the girl with the ponytail was instead of confessing his love for her and leaping over the counter to take her in a passionate embrace.
When she offered to help him instead he turned her down.
"Nah... That's ok, thanks."
Do I have any hope at all of this ship becoming canon?
Does he fancy the girl with the ponytail, as the cute Librarian suspects, or does he want to talk to her so he can get a better idea of how to woo the cute Librarian?
Why would you do this to me, game?!
Also, keep these two in mind, because it's going to become relevant later.
Having run out of things to do, I finally went to pilot the Garden over to the orphanage to go and see Edea.
And bam! Sudden headmaster!
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| "Surprise, bitch." |
Many of your students nearly died and you just show up here like nothing happened!
Okay, spoiler alert, Cid is the problem with this section. It's entirely him.
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| Angry? I'm bloody furious, mate. |
The wife he hasn't seen in years because she's been an evil sorceress.
Not to mention the fact that this is all the explanation we get for why he dumped all of this responsibility onto a teenage boy instead of acting like a god damn adult and dealing with the situation himself.
Because, and this is an important thing to remember, children nearly died. I'm not just talking about the teens either, I'm talking about the underclassmen.
You know, the three prepubescent kids?
Frankly, Edea comes across as much more sympathetic than Cid, and she stabbed Zog with a spear made of ice and had intercontinental ballistic missiles fired at two locations full of teens and kids.
She probably comes across as more sympathetic because, unlike her husband, she apologises and sounds like she's actually racked with guilt over what she's done instead of just laughing it off and making excuses.
She recognizes that she betrayed them. She was their guardian and parent for a time, and yet she attempted to kill them.
Zog, Zell and Selphie feel similarly, which has less of an emotional impact coming from them, since they knew about all this for such a short time. Remember, to the player, it's been three or four hours maximum.
My favourite thing about Edea here is that regardless of what they've been through, and what they've done to her, she is proud of them.
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| Aww, how sweet. |
Which is why it's so hard when she tells them that they might need to kill her yet.
A statement that would have had more impact if it wasn't for a very annoying feature of this section.
In order to continue the conversation, it is necessary to have Zog speak to her repeatedly. She'll just stop occasionally in mid flow instead of talking about the subject in one go.
I didn't understand why they did this. Cid would just tell you to talk to Edea, and Zell and Selphie wouldn't respond at all if you attempted to talk to them. The only way to prompt either of them into saying something is to attempt to leave the area, which will cause them to chastise you for not sticking around and talking to Edea some more.
Which I did do the first two times.
This is the first time we hear about Ultimecia.
According to Edea, Ultimecia is a sorceress from the distant future who is seeking Ellone so she can use her mysterious power for some reason.
Edea's evil behaviour previous to this point was entirely down to her being possessed by the Sorceress Ultimecia. She basically had the choice of allowing herself to be possessed, or handing over Ellone. Which is something she was unwilling to do, as she loves Ellone very much.
Edea warned Zog and Co. that they may need to kill her because there's still the distinct possibility that Ultimecia will attempt to possess her again.
She also brings up another possibility, that Ultimecia may posses another sorceress named Adel.
Who Adel is, and what this means for the party and the world will have to wait until tomorrow, in Part Forty Six.
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