<\/div>Okay, so it’s just a bunch of nuns for us to deal with.<\/em><\/p>\n Then we get another view, and suddenly the nuns are gone. Instead, there are legions of knights with rifles, and a bunch of forbidden machina.<\/p>\n Okay, so NOT nuns then? Looks like we’re about to assault an army in an entrenched position. This seems like a terrible idea.<\/em><\/p>\n The next cut shows our heroes leaping into battle. Bullets are flying everywhere, but nobody seems worried. Tidus is even smiling.<\/p>\n I get it now, this is a JRPG where bullets do as much damage as a stiff slap.<\/em><\/p>\n Then there are a few standard encounters with robots and guys with rifles. Also there are nutjobs with flamethrowers, even though they weren’t shown in any of the previous cutscenes. I love the idea that Seymour decided he wanted a bunch of dudes with FLAMETHROWERS to defend his wedding ceremony on this narrow platform. <\/p>\n Our heroes make short work of the mooks and reach the platform where Maester Seymour is trying to marry Yuna. Then we get a cutscene where the party is surrounded and captured by dudes with guns.<\/p>\n What? So now that we’ve killed almost everyone, we get surrounded? And our heroes are afraid of guns, when the last few cutscenes established that bullets are just an annoyance?<\/em> <\/p>\n Yuna didn’t try to send Seymour during the confusion during the assault, when all the guards were ostensibly busy and her friends were fine. But now that her friends are captured and have guns to their heads, she conspicuously tries to do her little sending dance. Seymour threatens to kill them, and she stops. <\/p>\n Seymour then kisses her. Afterward he orders his men to kill her guardians, even though they’re the only leverage he has over her. Which doesn’t matter, since none of the soldiers pull the trigger. I don’t mean they rebel. Everyone seems ready to kill the party. They just feel the need to pose for suspenseful music and dramatic camera angles first. You might think this is one of those “moment suspended in time” kind of deals, but then we see that while everyone was glaring at each other and doing nothing, Yuna somehow moved about ten meters to the edge of the platform. <\/p>\n Yuna threatens to jump off the tower if her friends are hurt. She tells the soldiers to throw down their weapons. They don’t, but they do lower them slightly. Then she jumps off anyway, even though nothing has changed to make her friends safe and her life was the only leverage she had to keep them alive. She calls an Aeon to catch her.<\/p>\n The guards continue to stand around doing nothing while this happens. Seymour, too. Rikku shouts for everyone to cover their eyes. I don’t think anyone does. The guards certainly don’t, even though they heard her say it. They also don’t shoot her, despite the fact that she’s obviously about to attack them and they’ve already been given orders to kill the entire party. Rikku throws a flashbomb and the party runs off. <\/p>\n I’m not sure why the guards were blinded. Even if they didn’t look away, they’ve got helmets that cover their eyes. The flashbomb can’t make them any more blind than they already are. <\/p>\n And of course, nobody fires a shot.<\/p>\n The best part of the scene is where idiot Seymour casually watches the flashbomb land at his feet and he stares right at it while it goes off.<\/p>\n The entire scene is incoherent madness. We randomly switch between pre-rendered cutscenes and in-engine cutscenes. And every time we switch to a different view the position, composition, and presumed threat level of the enemy forces seems to change. Between camera cuts the author constantly loses track of who has leverage or for what reason.<\/p>\n I realize this is Final Fantasy and we’re not allowed to nitpick all the stylistic quirks of the series. I can accept a story that trades in tropes, cliches, and in-jokes, but at some point you have to put your foot down and insist the writer adhere to the basic concepts of time and space. I’m not asking for realism here. I’m willing to believe whatever the game says about the position of our foes and the threat of firearms. Just PICK SOMETHING and STICK WITH IT.<\/p>\n But whatever. The guardians escape. Our heroes realize that Yuna is most likely heading for the temple, even though that’s an obvious move and Seymour can just have his goons camp the exit. She’s completely driven to complete her pilgrimage, and refuses to give up even in the face of hopeless odds. Sure enough, they’re all reunited and subsequently captured at the end of the puzzle trials. They surrender even though here the odds are better than they were on the wedding platform.<\/p>\n The party is put on trialThe kind with judges, not the kind with glowing spheres and lame puzzles.<\/span> for… what? They are charged with “crimes against Yevon”. But their only crime has been killing Seymour, and he’s present at the trial. So they’re probably not on trial for that. What did Seymour claim they’d done wrong? <\/p>\n In their defense, they counter-charge that Seymour murdered his father. They’re basically confessing to being vigilantes and killing a head of state because he was a bad guy. Is that wise? It’s hard to tell. We have no idea how justice works in this world. It’s safe to assume the Maesters don’t preside over every case of murder and larceny in Spira. We don’t know who enforces the law on a day-to-day basis. It’s hard to tell if this is a really egregious show trial, or if their judicial system just sucks. I suppose it’s possible that both are true.<\/p>\n They have no proof regarding Jyscal’s murder, but Seymour casually confesses to it anyway. They claim that Seymour is unsent, which is like finding out the Pope is a zombie. This ought to cause a scandal. But plot twist: Grand Maester Mika is also unsent. Yevon is corrupt to the core. <\/p>\n The party is sentenced to death.<\/p>\n I have to pity poor Wakka here. It’s been a hard process of watching his beliefs unravel. First he saw Operation Mi'ihen. While that seemed to reaffirm that the teachings that Machina Are Bad, it did so at the expense of showing that the Maesters themselves don’t really respect the teachings. Then he arrived in Bevelle to see that the Maesters are also massive hypocrites who guard their temple with machines and weapons supposedly forbidden by their own teachings. Then he found out the Maesters are also politically corrupt, which was followed by finding out they’re also unsent. <\/p>\n And while he doesn’t know it yet, his faith is going to take a few more knocks before the journey is over.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>“Inescapable” Prison Easily Escaped<\/h3>\n
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