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Final Fantasy VIII/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
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*** Nobody ever said there was only ever one Sorceress around at a time.
*** This. The exact number of Sorceresses is never stated. There could be literally hundreds of them running around, especially if, like Ellone, their powers are weak or not flashy.
*** Ellone must have received her power from an unknown sorceress when she was very young.
* Ellone being a Sorceress does raise a different question: why didn't Ultimecia simply possess her directly? While Edea and Rinoa are obviously the ''most'' vulnerable to possession because they inherited Ultimecia's power, Ultimecia not only also possesses Adel, she possesses Rinoa and sends Seifer to capture Lunatic Pandora specifically for the purpose of releasing Adel so that she could then possess her. Laguna's plan for neutralizing Ultimecia involves SeeD killing Adel and Rinoa inheriting her power to remove Adel as an option, ensuring that Ultimecia will possess Rinoa. Adel never inherited any of Ultimecia's power, so if being a Sorceress was what enabled Ultimecia to possess her, and Ellone is a Sorceress, why did Ultimecia have to chase her all around the planet instead of simply possessing her and gaining access to her power that way? (Aside from the fact that it would mean the world would have ended in Time Compression when Squall was four and there'd be no story.)
** My guess is that Ultimecia could only possess sorceresses that were in the same direct line of succession that she was, past or future. Then, if Ultimecia's succession loop includes Rinoa (possible, considering the future thing) but not Ellone, that would explain why she never possessed Ellone. Alternately, there's something about Ellone that interferes with the junction machine, or there was a safeguard on the machine preventing it from being used on her, or something along those lines.
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** To deal with the first question, when the Lunar Cry happened in Centra, it hit the Crystal Pillar while it had no Lunatic Pandora surrounding it, and the Crystal Pillar was buried underground. The Cry focuses on the Pillar, after all. When the Cry hits Esthar the Pillar is inside the Pandora. Note that right as it reaches the Pandora, the Pandora causes the fall of the monsters to break up and fall with less force than they would normally. The energy field around Tear's Point probably also factors into that. Also, if the last Cry happened inside of a century, then there's a good chance that the monster population on the Moon simply hasn't had time to rebuild to numbers large enough to do that much damage. So, the likely cause of the Centra crater was the impact of vast numbers of monsters and vast amounts of magical force on exposed bedrock without either the Pandora or Tear's Point to break up the fall. On the other hand, the monsters falling on Esthar fell with what was likely far fewer numbers and with mitigating forces breaking and dispersing the force behind the impact. And there's no evidence that a Lunar Cry happened at the crater in Trabia.
*** I believe the Ultimania confirms that the crater in Trabia was the result of a past Lunar Cry, but I am hardly an authority on the subject.
** If the Lunar Cry is a natural process, then there could be any number of reasons why one Cry would obliterate half a continent while another would simply leave a crater. Remember that in real life, natural disasters can very wildly in their magnitude. Just look at volcanic eruptions; for every Vesuvius we've got hundreds of less violent eruptions. Or look at earthquakes; for every 8.0+ that rips apart a chunk of the surface, we've got hundreds or thousands of minor tremors. The event that smashed a good part of Centra into tiny bits is likely an outlier resulting from an extremely strong and rare Cry event, whereas the one that pounded Trabia was far smaller. The one that hit Esthar was mitigated by the Lunatic Pandora and Tear's Point.
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*** And "womanizing" is thoroughly irrelevant to whether or not he's a competent soldier, and for the rest of the game Irvine is a completely reliable and supportive party member.
**** Not to mention Irvine isn't a SeeD anyway. He's a Galbadia academy student, but not a SeeD. Don't believe me? Play again and check.
**** Which leads me to wonder why he of all people was chosen. He himself says that he "always chokes".
***** Because he's lying about choking. He was chosen ''because'' he really is a sharp shooter; he says he "always chokes" as an alternative to saying "See, I'm choking on this mission because that witch out there is my adopted Mom, and, oh, guess what, ''yours'' as well".
**** The assassination operation was ordered by NORG and Martine, not Cid. NORG and Martine apparently didn't know about Irvine's connection to the Kramers. They would have no way of knowing Irvine would choke when being asked to shoot his own mother.
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*** Yes, Quistis acts unprofessionally. ''That was why she was demoted from Instructor.'' Selphie breaking down when her home was destroyed is a result of a condition most people suffer from called "being human." You know, when you find out your home was destroyed and many of your childhood friends are dead, it tends to affect you... unless you're a sociopath. ''Oh, wait a second.'' And Irvine hesitating to shoot: he's being asked to ''shoot the closest thing he has to a mother''. Unless you're a completely heartless sociopath, you're ''going'' to hesitate.
**** We already discussed the sniper issue - he still went through it despite hesitance and his personal feelings did ''not'' affect the outcome of the mission. Selphie acts professionally on the mission. She's actually only emotional about the * threat* of her home being destroyed, which is a bit more rational since that is a time-limited, high stress situation. When she actually sees the remains of Trabia, she's a lot calmer. She also manages to destroy Galbadia's missile launching facility on a mission she leads, and the player is rewarded if Selphie chooses to do this with minimal outbursts and violence. "Has an outgoing personality" is not a mark of unprofessional behavior. Quistis has actually been reprimanded for her unprofessional behavior and relieved of certain authority, so apparently they ''do'' pay attention to their charges behavior. It's still not the wacky abuse of power scenario - she didn't, say, set Rinoa on fire for dancing with Squall. And for that matter, Selphie didn't summon Diablos to blow up Galbadia in angry revenge.
**** All of this is addressed by the fact that they're in a stable time loop. Cid and Edea created an army of teenagers because when she passed on her powers/possessed her, the dying Ultimecia accidentally revealed to Edea that she (Ultimecia) would be defeated by a teenage mercenary named Squall... who happened to be in Edea's orphanage.
**** Strictly speaking, Irvine's hesitation ''did'' affect the outcome of the mission. The entire point to it being to shoot the Sorceress while she was distracted. It can be speculated whether or not she could have stopped the bullet if he'd fired earlier, but that doesn't change the situation at hand. In a military operation, hesitation to carry out orders can get you court-martialed, whether the operation succeeds or fails because of outside circumstances. Since Irvine's professionalism is what's being called into question, the delay is still relevant.
*** Unless you're an emotionally dead and absolutely sociopathic robot, being asked to shoot someone who amounts to your own mother is going to cause ''anyone'' to hesitate. Yes, Irvine hesitated, but that was because he was in extreme circumstances. That doesn't make him unprofessional, that makes him ''human.''
*** Again, he has a history of this, apparently. And if so, it's not an isolated incident. Disobeying orders in the military is quite possible, if there's a conflict of interest, but it's nonetheless subject to disciplinary action. I understand Irvine's hesitation at firing, but he absolutely refused without an explanation. The problem is, when did he realize whom he was supposed to shoot. If it was at the beginning, why did he accept without a word? If it was upon seeing Edea, why didn't he speak up then? It was at a mission-critical moment that he sprung this up, and THAT is the unprofessional part.
*** Going to copypasta a response from the actual topic thread:<br />It's entirely possible that Irvine didn't realize exactly who the Sorceress was until the mission had already started, and by then it was far too late to switch snipers. As for why he didn't say anything, it might be because the Sorceress being his mother ''would not have changed what was expected of him''. Reworking the plan at that point was not an option, and he had a role that no one else could play. Yes, someone else could have handled the sniper rifle, but we're specfically told that no one else on the team could have made that shot. It's why Squall didn't just take the rifle and take the shot himself: It was take a chance on Irvine or have the exact same result as if he'd been unable to do it anyway. Irvine ''knew that''. It's not unrealistic to think that he attempted to psych himself up for it the way a lot of people do before doing something they ''really'' don't want to do: "Okay, I can do this. I can do this." He might have even believed it. But when the time came, he couldn't.<br />On top of all of that, if he'd revealed having that kind of connection to a Sorceress and actually had been believed, he likely would have been under ''severe'' scrutiny and regarded as a potential traitor. We're given multiple examples of just how understanding and reasonable the system is ''not'', and how quickly accusations of war crimes and false charges are thrown around. Revealed his connection and not taken the shot? Traitor. Kept his connection hidden and not taken the shot? Coward. Better to be considered a coward than treated like a potential accessory to mass murder and world domination.
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**** Plus one of the teachers has a whip.........
***** Squall states that the SeeD cadets are taught to dance as a part of their training when he explains to Rinoa that it's a potential cover skill.
**** It seemed like it was pretty common practice, back in the day, in real life. The hoity-toity high society types had to know the latest dances, most of which involved big group productions. This troper remembers it coming up when studying the Rococco period in Art History. If you want to hobnob with the elite, you'd better learn the latest waltz.
** ''Also, no one thought about dancing differently when the teachers weren't around or doing some other shenanigans like spiking the punch bowl?'' Teachers were ''quite'' clearly in attendance, as shown by Quistis' presence.
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*** Edea had close mental contact with Ultimecia, to a point where she was able to fully understand Ultimecia's plans. Its no coincidence that Odine figures out how Ultimecia's time travel foolery works ''after'' he's met with Edea. If Edea was able to understand Ultimecia intimately by being under her control, then its no stretch to say she figured out how she travels back in time - especially as Odine built a ''working'' mental time travel device out of someone's already-existing ability to do the exact same thing. Since Odine has already extensively studied and built devices working around time travel, then ''yes'', he ''is'' the authority on how it would work.
** Also, you may want to consider the fact that a [[Stable Time Loop]] may already exist - and Edea, the one person who can unquestionably verify it, ''knows'' it exists. She ''knows'' that Squall will defeat Ultimecia, and when she is taken over by Ultimecia, she learns everything about Ultimecia to allow him to defeat her. In other words, not only is Time Compression necessary to complete the loop, but Squall and his comrades are destined to defeat her.
** Actually, the endgame plan does make sense, from our characters' perspectives. After all, the plot was cooked up by Laguna, the resident guy who makes crazy, risky plans (when he doesn't just barge in shooting) and Squall agrees to the plan because, honestly, that's how he rolls half the time anyway. Presented with a choice between killing/imprisoning Ellone and rushing into the future on a risky plan to defeat Ultimecia, they're going to go with the latter, and probably not even consider the former. Its entirely in--character for the both of them.
*** Okay, let me see if I've got this whole thing down exactly. Ultimecia is trying to compress all of time. And Doc Odine says that she can do that by using Ellone to go further back in time into the mind of another sorceress. And this will essentially make her a God, right? HOW Ellone has this power isn't explained in the game at all, or really, why the sorceress wants to do this other than the fact that, evidently, in her timeline, people have been persecuting sorceresses for eons and one day SeeD will supposedly kill her, something that only happens BECAUSE she tries to do all of this "going into Ellone" stuff. Now how can they prevent Ultimecia from using Ellone? Let her...compress time...and this will somehow send them to the future so they can defeat Ultimecia and thus bring an end to her plans and then, by believing REAAAALLY hard in love and friendship and all that, they can find their way back. Now, we can't just kill Ellone, it has been argued, because one, she hasn't really done anything wrong, two, she IS family and three, the sorceress would still be alive and she might be able to find someone else just like Ellone. But this is relying on BIG guesses. For one, Ellone isn't a sorcereress. Her powers aren't over magic at all. They wouldn't be passed down to someone else at all if she dies, therefore nobody else would be able to do what Ultimecia wants Ellone to do, meaning her plan would be screwed over. Two: if Doc Odine is so wise and knowledgable about time travel and stuff, why doesn't he just get to work on building a time machine? The place is a futuristic machine-filled utopia. They can't throw a few years and billion dollars of work into that sort of tech? Or maybe work on a magical way to travel into the future beyond feeding Ellone to Ultimecia? Three: believing...really hard...in friendship and love...will bring them back. This is a huuuuuge gamble. There is NO remote guarantee they'll come back. And they have no plan b! What would have happened if they failed to kill Ultimecia? Everything would have been screwed over. This is FAR too big a gamble to take without some kind of backup plan, but nothing's ever proposed. In short, shooting Ellone in the back of the head might end up more of a delay than a way to stop Ultimecia entirely, but at least they know for SURE that it would delay her, they've NO idea if Laguna's plan could work at all!
*** ''For one, Ellone isn't a sorcereress. Her powers aren't over magic at all. They wouldn't be passed down to someone else at all if she dies, therefore nobody else would be able to do what Ultimecia wants Ellone to do, meaning her plan would be screwed over.'' Nope. Dissidia confirms that Ellone is indeed a Sorceress. A Sorceress with limited powers, but a Sorceress nonetheless.
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* Why doesn't Rinoa have her father's last name?
** Because they are sufficiently at odds that she stopped using it and took her mother's maiden name instead. She calls him "that man" and refuses to speak to him; it's not that much of a stretch that she'd stop using his surname, especially since being obviously related to a Galbadian general probably wouldn't do anything good for her credibility with the various factions of [[La Résistance|La Resistance]] in Timber.
** Maybe names just come from the mother in this world. Squall takes his mother's name too: it's implied that Laguna and Raine were already married before Squall was born, so why not Squall Loire (besides the fact that it would give away the twist)? And we only ever see Mama Dincht, so Zell could have taken his name from her.
*** It's implied that the people in Winhill really didn't like Laguna, plus Squall never actually met his dad because he was born after Laguna had run off to look for Ellone. That's two plausible reasons for why he would have his mom's name instead of his dad's when he was turned over to the orphanage.
**** Really? I never got the impression that they didn't like him. Well, okay the shopkeeper but he seems to be rude to anyone from out of town.
**** Winhill seems to be a fairly insular community, and they really ''didn't'' seem to like Laguna there very much. Aside from the shopkeeper (who is not nearly as rude to Squall, though it might be a different shopkeep by then), there's also the woman at the flower shop who unsubtly suggests that Laguna doesn't have any reason to keep sticking around and should be getting back to Deling City; when Squall visits in the present, she talks fondly about Raine and says "If only she'd stayed away from that outsider." There's also a man who talks about being opposed to letting outsiders into town, and about how a wanderer named Laguna lived there for a while and caused a lot of trouble.
*** For what it's worth, Raine's last name is not necessarily "Leonhart". Her maiden name is never given in the game or any supplementary materials - "Leonhart" being Raine's maiden name is total [[Fanon]]. Squall's name could have come from anywhere.
*** Yes, that's a distinct possibility. But it's very possibly Leonhart, the name Leonhart had to come from somewhere, and giving away her surname as Leonhart in the flashbacks would have, once again, given away the twist.
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**** The Revolver doesn't discharge it's bullets. The Hyperion does and the Lionheart definitely does (note, it's an assault rifle handle/cartridge). Ultimania's canon explanation isn't very conducive to the vibroweapon bit, which seemed to be mostly reactionary fan defense for lack of an explanation at the time (though even still, there are others).
*** It's not vibrating in the sustained fashion of most [[Vibroweapon|Vibro Weapons]] - it's firing a blank, creating a momentary burst of recoil that adds power to the impact of the blade, which is close enough to the same concept that it falls under the general description of a [[Vibroweapon]]. The "explosion" that we see in the animation is partly an illustration of that, and partly a visual cue to let the player know that they timed their trigger-pull correctly and are doing extra damage (in the same way that ''every'' character has a light show of some sort when they connect with their weapon of choice, even when it's Quistis's whip or Zell's fists).
*** A blank? While there may not be much place to criticize one form of fan wanking over another, the Ultimania's description of the Gunblade doesn't mention vibration or any kind of violent reaction. It's a very reaching connection to make from a 'wave of power', which in the context of [[FF 8]]'s setting, vibration would be rather mundane. Also note Seifer's trigger-pull when he slashes Squall. Vibroblades with a clean cut? Eh...
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** The problem isn't that she has a simplistic motivation, it's that she has ''no'' obvious motivation except vague hints.
*** And that separates her from Sephiroth how, exactly? Sephiroth wants to destroy the whole world....for some reason relating to wanting to become a god. Ultimecia wants to rewrite reality....for some reason pertaining to becoming a god. Hell, Kefka of all people wanted to destroy the world ''for no reason except because.'' There's not much of a difference.
*** See the squiggly lines in Sephiroth's speech bubbles every time he talks? They're not just flavor text. He was originally searching for the 'Promised Land' that would grant boundless happiness, since he thought he was the descendant of an Ancient. Scratching out that option, he decides to meld ''with'' the Planet by crashing a meteor into the face of the earth, causing the planet to expend most of its energy to heal it. He'd be there absorbing the energy and becoming a god. He explains it. Jenova first started out infecting the Ancients from long ago with a virus that mutated them into monsters, and while there isn't an explanation given for ''why'', we have up to that point given by the Icicle Inn tapes. The difference between Sephiroth (or Jenova) and Ultimecia is that the person that if it isn't an evil person going in to some depth of their plan, the other person could plausibly explain the bad guy's motive doesn't simply say "it doesn't matter why, let's keep going". Might as well have a giant hand come up right then and give everyone a middle finger.
**** See the squiggly lines in Ultimecia's speech bubbles everytime she talks? They're not just flavor text. She is a vengeful, violent, psychotic entity who wants to pay back people for persecuting Sorceresses, and btw will become a god over a new universe after compressing time. She says this very clearly and distinctly. It is very obvious what she wants and why she's doing it, if you play the game. And I can't help but note that you didn't provide any ''actual'' reason why Sephiroth did what he did. ''No'' reason is ever presented for why he is trying to destroy the world beyond the fact that he wants to become a god. If Jenova is controlling him, then why is ''Jenova'' trying to become a god? No explanation for this is ever given in the main game, beyond...well, vague and unclear hints. Sephiroth's motivations for most of what he did are unclear, beyond obviously going mad and desiring power.
***** For some people (This Troper included, admittedly), the prospect of becoming a god doesn't need a motivation. Why you want to become infinitely powerful doesn't need to be explained, because the answer to the question is "to be infinitely powerful". It's a motivation in and of itself.
*** This troper actually thought Ultimecia was one of the better (if not the best) FF villians in terms of backstory and motivation. The only unfortunate part being you had to go back and replay the game before anything that Edea/Ultimecia said made sense. Suddenly the talk about the blood-thirsty sorceress from your nightmares makes sense once you consider the events of the game would likely end up in the historical record and people would be on the look out for "Ultimecia". This coupled with the already unfavorable opinion of sorceresses (see Adel's reign and Rinoa's fear that everyone will hate her after she becomes one) it may have escalated it to a near witch hunt. After a bit, some sorceress finally snapped and said "Fuck it, you want Ultimecia? I'll give you Ultimecia." Cue Time Warp.
*** Ultimecia is better appreciated as a villain when you DON'T try to read too much into it for things that aren't given. That she isn't vividly described or set up as the 'prime evil' is THE POINT. This ties directly into the ambiguity of good/evil, which is a recurring theme brought up by Squall in much of his internal dialog. In the end, why Ulty is doing what she does, who she is and why, is all irrelevant. She is the enemy, and SeeD has a mission to accomplish. It isn't supposed to be satisfying, it is supposed to be bittersweet and leave the reader to question why the approach is necessary. Selphie comments on this in her journal, where she actually sympathizes with Ulty's situation. No fanfiction of Ultimecia's past required. She's good as-is.
**** Also, as the Ultimania points out, not only are her motivations strongly connected to Greek dramas, but its even used again in the very next game, as well as it not bieng the first game in the series to use this. When Ulti came to power, there was a prophesy that she was to be killed by a 'Legedary SeeD'. The concept of death [Not just death, but CERTAIN death] scares the wits out of Ulti, being the only thing she can't nuke with magic to stop. She desires Time Compression because if she does stop the flow of time, her future will never come to pass. I'm not sure who gave this prophecy, but it's a big deal i guess. Time waits for no man, or sorceress either. The only way for her to stop the future is to effectively stop time itself. There is another point that being a sorceress, apparently everyone knew she was going to be an deicidal jerk, so they treated her like how you would treat her - by trying to lop her friggin' head off for things she was going to do. She hadn't even done them yet. Lastly, this fear of mortality was the crux of the big bad of the third game, when a sorcerer was given mortality as a gift and he wigged out on the world. Secondly, its why Kuja from the game right after this one went psycho. He was always a little psycho, but when he finds out that he is mortal, he freaks out and tries to blow up the world. The only difference between Kuja and Ulti is that we see in-game Kuja's reaction, where Ulti's reaction is backstory. So Ulti wasn't the first to start this pattern, and damn well wasn't the last either.
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*** However it also raises the question why would she insult the crowd in that speech if she knew they won't be affected by it in the least.
*** Because she can. It's a chance to express her feelings.
** I thought she just wasn't speaking into the microphone? She possesses the President- it was surreal.
*** It's revealed in the Ultimania that Edea/Ultimecia used a 'Fascination' spell over the whole crowd. Why, i don't know. I assume its because it would piss you off if you hired a bunch of jester-dancers and taught them the dance from Thriller and nobody showed up.
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*** Adel ''does not'' have the figure of a female bodybuilder, she has the figure of a ''man'', because she is ''a man''. Adel is referred to in the feminine because ''Sorceresses'' are referred to in the feminine. The game never mentions sorcerers, only Sorceresses, and the issue doesn't exist in Japanese.
*** ...please elaborate? Are you saying that in the Japanese, the game never actually specifies that sorceresses are [[Always Female]] and that's an invention of the English translation? I've never heard anything to that effect before now, and there are some elements of the game (such as sorceresses also being called "witches" a la the "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec" [[Significant Anagram]] and Adel's soldiers specifically kidnapping little girls to find her a successor) that seem to contradict it.
**** I mean because of the Japanese language; it's gender neutral. The English version (for some reason) refers to Adel as a she, but Japanese doesn't have a feminine pronoun, only a general-purpose "it". When it's attached to a name, "Sorceress" is only used (in either version) as a title. Having looked it up, the idea that ''only'' women can receive Sorceress powers is anecdotal at best. Ultimecia was kidnapping girls to find a successor, but her knowledge was coming a thousand years after Adel's death; he may very well have been the only male Sorceress, or he may have simply changed his body with his magic. Either way, only the English version ever calls him a 'she', and he is, very obviously, male-bodied.
*** Which doesn't mean anything at all. What you're essentially saying is that the Japanese version is neutral, whereas the English version assigns an obvious gender. Since FFVIII had a good localization and translation, I think it is safe to say that the gender of the Sorceresses was properly translated, especially considering every other Sorceress in the entire game is female or feminine in general, and the information menu explicitly says Sorceresses are female.
*** Yeah. Adel ''does'' have a masculine body model, but she's also ''purple'' and at least twice the size of any of the people around her, so I hesitate to assign ''too'' much significance to body model in this case.
**** [[Completely Missing the Point|Close, but no donut.]]The English version assigns ''gender'', not ''sex''. There's a difference. Sorceresses are referred to in the feminine and the information menu ''is'' the anecdotal evidence. Adel is absolutely male-bodied; that male body is giant and purple, but it's still irrefutably masculine. That also doesn't necessarily make Adel not-female, either, it just makes her transgendered.
*** That sorceresses are always women is supported by the Ultimania guide, which defines sorceresses as: "women who are said to have received their powers from the old god, Hyne." This is, of course, a translation, but one that would be working from an actual noun rather than an implied pronoun.
**** It's possible that male sorceresses are rare enough that they're expected to take on a female identity, rather than differentiate. Sorceress powers (and FFVIII in general, I should note) have a strong matriarchal/motherhood theme. I always read Adel as being a transwoman, myself. Either way, Adel is pretty clearly an exception to most Sorceress rules anyway; giving her a hard and label outside of "Sorceress" is probably an exercise in futility.
*** I beg your pardon? "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec" is a nonsensical phrase. How is it a [[Significant Anagram]]? If you can tell me the un-anagramed phrase, that'd be nice. Also, it may have been a while since I've played the game, but where is it said that Adel's soldiers were looking for a successor? As far as I know, she was hale and hearty. There was no need for a successor. I thought Doctor Odine had Ellone kidnapped so he could study her power.
*** "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec" is an anagram of the [[Arc Words]] "Succession of Witches" (also the title of one of the tracks on the soundtrack) and the word "Love." It's stated in Winhill during Laguna's flashback, and possibly also in other background information, that Ellone and other girls were originally kidnapped in order to find a potential successor for Adel, which is presumably how Odine found out about Ellone's power in the first place.
*** Huh. I never noticed that before. Learn something new every day I suppose. And the point that I should have made is WHY were they searching for a successor? Like I said, she was hale and hearty. There wasn't a need for one, at least in my opinion.
*** ''That'', unfortunately, is never established. Just that they were, for whatever reason.
*** It is entirely possible that Adel was insane. Sane people don't lead countries on plots of global conquest. Or maybe she just wanted an heir "just in case." She may have also been plotting some kind of mind-transferrence in case her body got too old and died. Esthar seems to have the technology base that could support such a plan.
*** It's also possible that her health ''was'' suffering in some way, it's just not physically obvious.
*** Or maybe her being huge and purple isn't a good thing for her? As for male-vs.-female-bodied, we never saw what was under the trunk. The difference between "gender" and "sex" were less well-known back in the 90's (and still a foreign concept to many today). I'm going with "Adel is a big, purple woman-bodied person" on the basis of the creators and NPCs meaning "only women can be sorceresses." If Adel is anything other than just a muscular, masculine woman (and some women ''are'' built like men), s/he's an FTM transgender. (This Troper's opinion, anyway.)
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* When you split up into two teams, and Selphie's apparently dies. There's a lot of "Are you sure?" when choosing who goes on her team, so that when the base explodes you think "Holy shit, this game just gave me a huge amount of responsibility for how the story goes!" The fact that it actually didn't isn't surprising; the problem is that it pretends like it might have, and then undoes this in the most offhanded, tacked-on way possible. ("We hid in the tank! For some reason they decided to use the tank on you without checking who was hiding in/piloting it!") I honestly think her team was supposed to die at some point in design and they chickened out.
** ''("We hid in the tank! For some reason they decided to use the tank on you without checking who was hiding in/piloting it!")'' Yeah, its not like they had Galbadian uniforms or anything that could hide their identity. Oh... ''wait.''
*** So if they were hiding in it/piloting it the whole time, why didn't they ''stop the fucking tank''?
*** They were ''trying'' to. Selphie's blog notes that they were basically hammering every button they could in an effort to stop the tank from firing, but that just made things worse, as none of them knew what controlled the tank, and it was running on autopilot.
**** Not having access to a copy of the game, that just begs the question, "Why didn't they just come out and help fight the stupid thing?" or "If she could ruin a missile guidance system, what stopped Selphie from disabling the autopilot in the first place?" , aside from the problem of not being able to have more than three party members at a time. It's a flimsy explanation at best; why allow a crew into a tank, then put it on autopilot with the crew sealed inside it?
***** Keep in mind, they got into the tank ''seconds before the base blew up around them.'' Odds are, they were roughed up a bit when the explosion happened. Even though the thing survived, it still would have shaken them like rag dolls. They might not have been able to get out for a while. As for why they didn't hop out later, while Squall's party was fighting it, I like to believe that until it was thoroughly scrapped, they couldn't get out. Like, the explosion melted the hatch shut, and Squall and his party managed to slice it open during the beat-down.
****** [[Futurama|That just raises FURTHER questions!]] Even if you assume your party is doing the levels of damage the animations suggest (running around the planet is the one that comes to mind first) and could slice open a molten tank, how did they not completely ''crush'' the tank with the missile crew in it? If not, then why didn't the crew die from being boiled alive inside it, which is probably what would happen if the hatch had been exposed to enough heat to melt and seal shut? If not, then what was stopping the missile team from getting out? What kind of idiot puts locks on a crewed land vehicle that can't be opened from the inside in an emergency?
*** If you're inside the tank, you've got a better chance of disabling it by virtue of the fact that you're already inside the damn thing in the first place. As for Selphie ruining the missile guidance system, you did remember how they did that, right? They put in a passcode and fiddled with a couple of settings that essentially just altered the accuracy of the missiles' targeting. They didn't actually do anything terribly complicated.
**** Yeah, but that just means Galbadia's tanks have no reason to be any ''more'' complicated than that.
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== Quezacoatl's Design ==
* Something that struck me as odd; the GF summons monster Quetzacoatl looks more like a Thunderbird, while the GF Leviathan looks more like the traditional Quetzacoatl (winged serpent) of the Aztec religion.
** Heh...you're right. Maybe it's because Leviathan always looks like that in the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series and they couldn't have two summons looking exactly the same?
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== Squall's Separation Trauma ==
* Okay, I'm gonna bite the bullet and ask this. So Squall lost Ellone when he was five and he was completely heart-broken by it. But how in the ''christ'' is it still affecting him so badly ''thirteen'' years later? An explaination around this wiki blames the GFs, which prevented Squall from remembering Ellone and thus robbing him of the ability to deal with the issue maturely, but if he forgot the whole thing how can he still be traumatized? Not to mention that even if they gave Squall a GF regularly when he was a small child, the memory loss isn't that fast acting (Selphie got her first at twelve and by seventeen she only forgot roughly the first five years or so), so he should have had at least a few years to grow up and learn to deal with it. I'm just having problems believing that you can be that much of an emotionally-stunted jerk [[Age-Appropriate Angst|at eighteen]] when you were hurt at the age of ''five''.
**** You obviously never had anyone important leave you when you where 5... that shit can stay with you if you never find something to replace it with.
** He didn't so much forget the whole thing as it deeply affected him and he forgot the entire cause behind it, leaving ''only'' that trauma behind. He knew, somehow, deep down, that people were going to leave him eventually. He doesn't know how or why he knows that, but he ''knows'' that as a fact. For him, it's as deep-seated as any other belief instilled at a young age, except the GF won't let him deal with the issue. And GFs ''do'' act quickly. Selphie didn't lose just five years of memory, she forgot ''everything'' from her past at the orphanage.
*** Well, Squall says that some of them were at Garden already when they were five, so I'm making the assumption that she might have entered Garden roughly at the same time.
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== The Romance Plot ==
* Okay, am I the only one who was going WTF at Squall falling in love with Rinoa? I don't mean that because I don't like Rinoa (I do), or because I didn't see it coming (hell, it was on the logo), I mean because she spends practically the whole game basically poking him in the ribs saying, "Do you like me yet? Do you like me yet?" and getting in the way of everything he tries to do. I guess this may be a case of [[Values Dissonance]], because it seems like the most desireable quality in a girl is how good she is at getting into trouble so her boyfriend can protect her in a lot of JRPGs, but it seems to me like Squall's attraction to her just came out of nowhere toward the end of the game compared to the amazing snark he can put across and how incredibly annoying it was to have to babysit her (and get punished by the game when the plot makes it so you can't). I don't know about other people, but I think I just about lost my patience for the romance plot right around the piggyback sequence.
** It ''doesn't'' come out of nowhere. Most of the relationship's development is hidden in subtext and subtlety. There's a ton of little things that indicate Squall is developing feelings for Rinoa, especially during the second disc. And yeah, Rinoa is constantly poking Squall in the ribs and trying to get him to like her. That because Squall's emotional detachment is so strong that the only way to even ''get'' to him is to bludgeon your way through his emotional armor. And it ''works''. Quistis tries to be a little bit more subtle, and she completely flies over his head, while Rinoa essentially beats him about the head and shoulders in a furious manner, and it registers with him.
*** It does come out of nowhere... if you don't put Rinoa in your party. If Rinoa as a character doesn't endear herself to the player within her first few scenes, she won't be available to have much interaction with Squall. When I played the first time, Rinoa showed up and it was just "Oh, great. The obnoxious girl from the party is wearing angel wing motifs and joining my party. Into the reserves you go, 70-hour-long headache." By the time I had any reason to put her on my front lines, she was so far behind my prime lineup it wasn't worth the trouble anymore, and all this deep romance stuff had gone to waste. Technology limits aside, I think I would have rather had a "you didn't have Squall date Rinoa enough" bad ending than the "despite your best efforts, Squall has fallen for Rinoa and will live happily ever after, fuck you" single ending.
*** Honestly, most of Squall's most significant interaction with Rinoa is plot-required and not skippable. I think it's just player expectations at work - if you're actively playing it as "Squall doesn't like this girl" then you're not looking for subtle cues to the contrary, and since a lot of Squall's characterization is buried in subtle cues and subtext, this can understandably lead to a rude surprise in disc 3.
*** That statement strikes me as subtlely condescending. I think it would be more accurate to say that the "subtle clues" are something which many players would not expect to look for when one is involving themselves with a romance. Furthermore, there's probably a great deal of [[Values Dissonance]] as well, as this ''is'' a Japanese story, and Americans have extremely different courtship standards. I, for one, was turned off to the romance at two points in turn: once when Rinoa bugs Squall to escort her during the concert (it's a [[But Thou Must!]] moment) and second when the two of them have a romantic conversation about Squall's ring . . . while a ''full-scale war is raging about thirty feet away under THEIR command''.
*** If it came across as condescending then I apologize. I was only trying to say the same thing you just did - that a lot of the indicators in the earlier parts of the game are things that the player is only likely to see if they're looking for them, and that's why some players insist that it's there while others insist it comes out of nowhere, depending on what expectations they had while they were playing.
**** There's also some of the dialogue options; none of them really matter, but occasionally you'll have places where Squall can respond to other characters in various ways. At various points the player can choose to respond to things that serve no purpose but to give Squall a bit more personality; if the player chooses the antisocial, least-friendly options with Rinoa because ''they'' don't like her, there's not much reason for them to bother reading Squall's defensively two-faced issues into it-- the player means it, but Squall doesn't. Do it through the whole game and avoid her as much as possible, and Squall's sudden-onset fixation on her comes out of left field.
** The sudden shift Squall undergoes on the third disc when Rinoa collapses is actually completely in character. Remember that the last person he actually even cared about in any way, shape, or form was Ellone, and when she disappeared on him, he pretty much collapsed into a massive mental and emotional wreck, and he develops a complex about his physical inability to find Ellone after she disappeared (which is why he has that flashback to when he was a young child promising himself he would become capable enough to take care of himself). The same thing starts happening again with Rinoa, with someone he cares about going away, except in this case, he ''can'' do something about it: he's an adult, he's a SeeD, and he controls Garden. Unlike Ellone, ''he can bring Rinoa back''. That's why he goes so far out of his way and to such desperate lengths to save her. And in the process of investing that much emotion into rescuing her, his feelings for her grow that much stronger. It actually all ties together very well, but it is very, ''very'' subtle, and like so much else in FFVIII, simply isn't told outright.
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**** Her suggesting about skinning the Moomba in D-District Prison and wearing its pelt was pretty barbaric though.
** On the subject of Selphie and Quistis, am I the only one to notice that they're the only ones whose Limit Breaks have nothing to do with their normal abilities? Rinoa's a sorceress with a dog, while Squall, Zell, and Irvine's Limit Breaks are a [[Charles Atlas Superpower]] taken to the point of cutting the sky in half, but Quistis and Selphie are using actual magic despite neither being sorceresses nor having magic stocked. And Selphie is pretty obviously a fair bit more powerful than Rinoa. Outside of Limit Breaks, [[Magic A Is Magic A]], though.
* Selphie isn't really more powerful magically than Rinoa. Yes, she's got The End, but it comes up very rarely and usually requires nearly killing the party to trigger. Rinoa's magic stat is consistently higher than Selphie's is at the same level even before she becomes a sorceress, and the gap increases significantly at higher levels. Angel Wing ramps it up even farther, with the added benefit that you can control what range of spells she has to choose from (and thus not end up spamming spells you don't want). Invincible Moon and Wishing Star are nothing to sneeze at either.
* Selphie's not the female lead in the romance story.
** This. It's Squaresoft! The only magic user who matters is the one with a love interest or [[The Last Of Her Kind]]. Rinoa is more or less both.
* Just a thought re: why Rinoa was the one to inherit the sorceress powers - 1X years before the game proper, Edea Kramer willingly took a monstrous, insane sorceress from the future into ''her own mind'' for the sole reason of keeping that creature the hell away from her kids. She was willing to sacrifice her own sanity if it meant none of her girls would be subjected to that. Fast forward to game-time, and deep down underneath the wacky headdress and oddball makeup and being-possessed-by-some-bitch-from-the-future thing, Sorceress Edea is still Edea Kramer. She may not be able to control her own behavior, but her consciousness is still there. When the party beats her and her powers decide to jump to the next girl in line, she still wants to keep it from happening to the girls she raised, i.e. Quistis and Selphie. She would do anything for her kids, up to and including ruin her own life, and that gives Edea some power to keep the sorceress from passing to them. Rinoa, on the other hand, is a stranger to her and has no such protection. It wasn't so much that the magic chose Rinoa, as it was that it couldn't take Selphie or Quistis and so jumped to the only girl in the vicinity who it ''could'' possess.
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== BRB Walking To Esthar ==
* Fisherman's Horizon is a city located in the center of a massive transcontinental bridge. When the party prepares to head for Esthar, they visit it a second time and Squall decides to walk there himself with Rinoa on his back. He ''walks'' along half of a bridge that ''spans two continents''. Even more confusingly, when he gets there it turns out that not only is the entire party waiting for him, but they've searched the enire continent for Esthar, too! I understand that the distances aren't realistically proportioned on the main map, but that does not even remotely begin to make any sort of sense.
** SeeDs have superhuman strength and endurance through junctions. Squall could have easily lugged Rinoa that far, as long as he has rations (and possibly without depending on how the whole "magically-boosted strength" thing works, he may not even need to stop for food). Also keep in mind, Squall and Co. walked on foot across half a continent to get from the train station to Galbadia Garden after escaping Timber. Also, the team hadn't searched the ''entire'' continent; that would be physically impossible, considering the geography of where they were standing. They had only scouted within a few miles of the abandoned train station, through the Salt Flats.
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**** I stand corrected; however, such a wound would be massively debilitating, yet mere hours later he awakens without so much as a scratch. His own incredulity at that fact tells me it's probably beyond your average Cure/Cura/Curaga spell.
*** It might be, but then again, this is the Sorceress we're dealing with here. She probably has healing powers well in excess of what might be doable by simple healing para-magic.
**** Plus, even if Squall is aware of Cure magic, he makes the comment as soon as he returns to conciousness. He is still disoriented at his location and how long ago he was hurt. He could just be surprised that enough time passed for his wound to be cured, as opposed to being surprised that the wound healed. Still doesn't explain why they fixed his clothes, but then again, [[Final Fantasy VII|Aerith doesn't have a giant sword-shaped hole in her shirt either]] and [[Final Fantasy X
*** The reason there's no clothing damage in the series is because it's usually a lot of work to make one or more extra models for a character to showcase such things. The only time I recall seeing someone with clothing damage is the model for Zack in Crisis Core after he's been shot repeatedly. That was on the PSP, a current-gen (soon to be previous-gen) console. FFVIII was on the [[PS 1]], and had a much less refined graphical engine. I know you probably weren't hoping for an answer like that, but there it is.
*** Not to mention that we don't really know the real in-universe power of stuff like Phoenix Downs or Curaga. There's no evidence that the spells are unable to heal wounds that severe.
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== Irvine And The Assassination Plan ==
* So the Gardens are organising a high profile political assassination which could very well alter history for decades to come, effectively in the same realm of importance as an assassination attempt on Hitler, so how do you expect me to believe that the only marksman Galbadia Garden had to offer was the one rookie who may or may not have actually shot a human being before, and is apparently known for cracking under pressure, as the one who'd be executing the historically defining move? I can buy that Quistis is a goddamn idiot, and I can buy that Riona isn't very strategically apt, but for god's sake, Irvine not being able to do the one thing he was sent there to do? Good god game.
** The game later implies that Irvine's "history" of cracking under pressure is at least kind of exaggerated. He's pretty much lying his ass off when he makes his excuses to Squall: his breakdown is specifically because that's his ''mother'' they want him to shoot, and not only that but none of the other kids she raised, who are all on the team with him, seem to realize it or care. Once he's past his conflict of loyalty, we never see Irvine falter again; from approximately Fisherman's Horizon onwards he's probably the most emotionally reliable member of the party. However, if you prefer another explanation: the encounter with NORG afterwards does suggest that the planning of the assassination might in fact have been kind of lacking. NORG basically says that Martine didn't want to be directly associated with the assassination so he grabbed the convenient team of Balamb Garden SeeDs who'd just showed up and dumped it on them. If that's the case then it's not exactly surprising that he didn't necessarily give them the most competent sniper Galbadia Garden had.
** The only reason Irvine chokes up is because he's being asked to shoot his Matron. Once Squall gets him to calm down, he ''nails'' that shot, and afterwards is a reliable teammember. He's just making excuses about choking up when he's talking to Squall, because he doesn't want to say that he's about to shoot his mother, as that's pretty much saying that he's been compromised.
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*** The other SeeD present for that conversation agrees with Squall 100%, expressing reservations only about how harsh Squall is being toward Rinoa. While it's not exactly the outlook of a healthy, socially-adjusted person, for better or for worse, SeeDs are evidently taught to place their contract above their own safety. It's not an attitude unique to Squall. And it doesn't make him a sociopath. Squall clearly ''does'' care about his team members: witness how violently he rushes to Zell's defense at the D-District Prison, something the other squad members comment on. As Squall himself comments in his [[Inner Monologue]] when Rinoa is lecturing him about not showing enough caring to his teammates (paraphrased): "I care just like anyone else. It's just that there are too many things that talking can't help, so why talk about it?"
**** But isn't that AFTER the Timber Owl/Rhino join the team, IE AFTER Riona helps soften Squall. He's not a sociopath by the End but Pre Riona he sure seems like it.
**** The bit I paraphrased is from only just after Timber, on the way to Galbadia Garden, at which point Squall has known Rinoa for all of a few hours and hasn't shown any signs of softening yet. In any case, the point about SeeDs being trained that way still stands - Zell and Selphie are equally casual about telling Rinoa that they'll follow their contract even if it gets them killed. The explanation given for the source of Squall's personality problems also contradicts the suggestion that Squall is a sociopath: he's an insecure person who worries about what other people think of him, and fears losing people or being rejected by them, which are not concerns a sociopath would have and which are things he struggles with long before he ever meets Rinoa.
**** '''How about the fact he said Rinoa plan is dumb, and STILL goes through with it, even though he feels it "a stupid plan that will get us all killed." That's his MO, he says it out right, "Your plan is idiotic but you hold the contract so i'll do it anyway." His concern is filling the contract not the lives of his team or himself.''' Again, this is a plus in ''any military''. In the military, your job is to follow orders, unless those orders are illegal. Orders likely to incur death are just part of the job. The reason soldiers are trained and disciplined to the point of almost breaking is so that duty overcomes the fear of death. Soldiers who don't do their jobs because they're afraid to die cost lives. ''Commanders'' who don't do their jobs because they're afraid to die cost ''more'' lives. Squall (at least in Disc One) is a pretty model example of a soldier and a commander.
**** Most armies don't take jobs from spoiled teenage girls, though. She does hold the contract, but is there any indication that she actually paid for their services? It's a bad move on Cid's part for letting Rinoa borrow a squad of soldiers like they were a car, not Squall's for following orders.
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**** This would be particularly true for a mercenary organization like SeeD, which relies on its reputation for effectiveness in order to keep jobs coming in. Who is going to hire soldiers who are likely to bugger off if things aren't going well? It's also why Cid's letter to Rinoa specifically warns that no replacements will be sent for any of the team members... warning her to use them carefully, since she won't get any more SeeDs when the ones she was sent get killed.
**** The point is not that following the plan would get Squall and his teammates killed. That is, indeed, the proper outlook of a soldier; that kind of risk comes with the territory, after all. The point is that following the plan would get them killed ''and accomplish nothing''. Soldiers are supposed to obey orders save for those which are illegal, but ''blindly'' following orders is frowned upon by commanders who have any sense. Okay, yeah, you still follow them to the end, if your boss insists on it, but you do ''not'' accept orders that will kill you and your comrades for ''absolutely nothing'' without at least protesting the fact. What Squall does is say that the orders will kill them uselessly, but he doesn't really care. Personally, that ain't the kind of squad leader I'd want.
*** That is a good point, but it's important to clarify that what Squall says is not that he doesn't care, but that it's their job as SeeDs to follow orders in this manner, and whichever other SeeD is in the party agrees with him without reservation. This indicates that this is how they were trained, meaning that the conclusion that should be drawn here is not "Squall is a sociopath" or "Squall is a bad leader" but "SeeD is fundamentally kind of messed-up." It's also important to note that this conversation starts because Squall feels the need to stop and talk to Rinoa about how poorly-thought-out her plans are, meaning that he's ''not'' blindly following her orders without question.
*** Also, again in real life, following orders when it's likely to lead to the death of an entire squad tends to happen. That's why they sometimes use the phrase "suicide mission". However, courageous soldiers will STILL follow these orders even though they know they're likely to die or that success will have an insignificant effect. As stated before, that's just what it means to be a soldier, but not everybody is up to that part of the job.
** It's also worth noting that Squall was directly responsible for defeating Ultimecia. Edea ''knows'' this; she saw it personally. She ''knows'' Squall will be a leader and will defeat the Sorceress from the future. Thus, Cid and Edea know that he will be important eventually. There's a ''reason'' why they thrust command into his hands.
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**** I know what you mean, but Ultimecia is still able to do more with Ellone's powers than Squall ever could. I guess it might make sense that it's from Ultimecia's abilities, but I don't remember that ever being mentioned... Either way, Ultimecia is still going back in a way that Squall was never able to. And if it was her sorceress abilities that let her control Edea and Rinoa, was it ever explicitly stated why she could only control sorceresses?
*** Ultimecia isn't just using Ellone's power, she's also using her own sorceress powers, which are considerable. Since sorceress power is something that's passed from one woman to another, it's reasonable to suppose that the sorceress potential, and the fact that Edea specifically inherited Ultimecia's powers and then passed them on to Rinoa, creates a connection between them that Ultimecia is able to exploit.
** ''So, Ultimecia possesses Edea and Rinoa, making them do actions they never would have otherwise. But...Ellone specifically said that the past is impossible to change, as she figured out with Squall.'' Keep in mind that Ellone makes that statement from her own perspective. ''She'' was unable to make changes to the past; that doesn't mean that it's impossible to change the past at all. Furthermore, Squall is able to influence the past in subtle ways, like making Laguna take an alternate route, which he immediately recognizes as being an outside influence.<br />''Not only that, but when Ellone sent Squall and his team into the past, Laguna, Kiros, Ward, and Rinoa never were aware of their presence.'' Incorrect. Laguna, Kiros, and Ward were aware of the presence of the other party members, even to the point that Laguna recognized that his habits were suddenly changing. In addition, the sequence where Ellone sends Squall to Rinoa's mind involves Squall reaching out to Rinoa and her becoming aware of Squall's presence.<br />''But Edea figures out Ultimecia's entire plot, purpose, and name while possessed.'' Edea was also a very powerful Sorceress, and Rinoa's actions immediately after being rescued by Squall indicate that not only is she aware that she's become a Sorceress, but that she was aware that Ultimecia was possessing her. Further, she was aware of Squall's presence in her mind when Ellone projected him into her. It's clear that sorceress powers allow for a greater degree of awareness than that of normal humans.<br />''Ellone's powers also never let Squall or the others outright possess Laguna, Kiros, Ward, or Rinoa. It seems like Ultimecia and Ellone were both using different time travel abilities, but it was also said to be the same power. Why can Ultimecia do what Ellone can't?'' Squall and Co. are ''not'' sorceresses. Even so, they're able to generate subtle changes, but Ultimecia's powers appear to let her control others through the Junction Machine Ellone. Also keep in mind the other difference between the two: Ultimecia is using a ''machine'' that replicates the effects Ellone generates on her own. The Junction Machine Ellone is based on her abilities, but it may actually be more powerful than Ellone's natural abilities (technology tends to do that). So the major difference here is that the possessor is a sorceress ''and'' there's a very advanced piece of futuretech involved.
*** Furthermore, Edea is aware of a sorceress in the future and her concept of trying to compress time, because Squall informed of all of this when he traveled back in time when Ultimecia passed her abilities onto Edea in the past. He explains the sorceress, her goal, and the goal of SeeD when he is back there. This means that not only did Edea know about Ultimecia and her actions well before being possessed, she even knows how the end result will turn out. She doesn't know how or why, but she knows she is bieng possessed by a being that she has already seen die. To elaborate on the time paradoxes, we are shown that Ellone cannot change the past. She can only make other people witness the past. But in making other people witness the past, she is effectively changing it. If she never sent the parties conscious mind to the past, Laguna and co. would not have felt the parties influence, to the point of changing Laguna's habits. This means that the past was changed, in a way which caused Laguna and co. to act different, a completely alien way. This means that you can't change the past, because things have already happened, and if you were going to, you would have already. That doesn't mean that time travel will never happen - just that all instances of backwards time travel already have happened. If you were meant to travel back in time, you already would have - it wouldn't change the you that is now. Lastly, nowhere in final fantasy VIII canon that Ellone is a sorceress. It says that she is in Dissidia, but nowhere in FFVIII or the Ultimania. Junction Machine Ellone is exactly that - A machine which mimics Ellone's power. That means that Ulti's time travel mechanism is based on Ellone, but it is not the same power as Ellone's. There could be completely different rules for both. The only thing that they theoretically have in common is the ability to influence past events. essentially, Junction machine Ellone is something that the concept and prototype is already possible in Squall's lifetime. There's no telling how many revisions and improvements outside of magic the machine has gone through by Ulti's time.
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Granted, I haven't played this game in about 10 years or so, so forgive me if the answer is right there in the game. Squall's motif is a lion called Griever -- wasn't it also something he posessed, that wasn't inanimate, via the ring? I also vaguely recall one of his gunblades being involved with the concept of Griever, as well. Then we have Ultimecia summoning a lion creature called Griever, which she eventually junctions with (so I suppose you could consider him ''her'' Guardian Force). What connection is there, if any? I understand she summoned him because of how Squall felt about Griever, although I don't remember that ever explicitly stated. I just feel like the fact she junctions with Griever means she herself has a deeper connection to him. Or am I reading into this too much and assuming there's something deeper going on behind the scenes, being left unsaid and simply implied/up for speculation?
* Squall uses [[Animal Motifs|lion imagery]] all ''over'' his stuff, from his jewelry and the collar of his jacket to the style of his first and last gunblades, but the only thing he specifically applies the name "Griever" to is the lion engraved on his ring. The game never really explains the connection between the ring and the GF that Ultimecia uses in the final battle, but there are two explanations that seem likely to me:<br />One - Griever is an existing Guardian Force in the FFVIII world, one that Squall has heard about and tried to model his image after, including naming his ring after it. For comparison, he's also heard of Bahamut, another powerful GF, and identifies him by name when the party encounters him in the Deep Sea Research Deposit.<br />Two - The Scan blurb for Griever says that "in Squall's mind" he is the most powerful GF, which I have seen interpreted to mean that Ultimecia actually created Griever based on Squall's mental image as a form of psychological warfare against him (and I seem to recall that the original Japanese text indicated it more definitely, though I can't find a translation now to confirm that). This may also explain why Griever doesn't function like a normal GF and Ultimecia junctioning him works more like a [[Fusion Dance]] than the party's junctions do.
** The Griever is actually a very specific interpretation of a lion: it has wings, and it is on fire. The "lion" motif Squall has is actually that of the Griever: his keychain, the symbol on his revolver, even the connection between Squall (the lion) and Rinoa (the angel wings). The GF that Ultimecia calls is a variation on this theme.
*** That might be overstating a little, I think? When Rinoa asks Squall what the creature on his ring is, he says it is "a lion," and when asked if the lion has a name, he says it is named "Griever." Ultimecia's GF is also a winged lion named Griever, whatever that may or may not indicate about the connection between the two; that is the extent of the significance of the name "Griever" as provided by the game.
*** I'm personally of the opinion that Rinoa is Ultimecia's past form, and Griever is actually Squall. I'm aware that this theory has been Jossed, but I find it hard to take [[Word of God]] seriously sometimes. For a full version of the theory I'm basing this on, go [http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197343-final-fantasy-viii/faqs/28926 here].
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