<\/div>Starting off, we don’t actually have a solid reason to come here. If we choose not to use the nethicite, we have no reason to disturb the Sun-Cryst whatsoever. Even if we choose to use the nethicite, we still don’t actually know how to do so, because we never asked. We have chosen to determine on the way whether we have arrived for no purpose whatsoever, or merely to attempt something we cannot accomplish.<\/p>\n
Despite constantly browbeating Ashe to destroy the stone rather than use it, everyone in the party, even Reddas, seems to be perfectly willing to go mournfully along with her if she carves an entire suit of nethicite armor and Iron Mans her way across Ivalice, scorching every man, woman and infant to molecules in the name of her power-lust.Note to self: Get that game made!<\/span><\/p>\n We park all the way across the island from our destination, fighting mutant plants and giant insects to even reach the entrance, whereupon we fight a zombie dragon for the right of entry into the tower proper.<\/p>\n We then fight our way up one hundred fucking floors worth of elementary-school puzzles, a three-of-four set of guardian deities, giant beast-men, fallen angels, living bombs, dragons, zombies, zombie dragons, evil horses, skeletons, ghosts, giant frogs, pterodactyls, sorcerous megachickens, a blasphemous abomination, and the general creaking and cracking of Reddas’s and Basch’s hip bones as we ascend more stairs than should rightfully exist.<\/p>\n Upon reaching the top, we watch our party’s helmswoman, an actual (sort-of) head of state, careen wildly back and forth across a buffet line of various motivations, before we are preempted by three of our worst enemies, who arrived in two independent groups and by means which we ourselves possess but did not think to use.I grant that Venat and Cid may have straight-up teleported. Cid did leave Draklor by airship, but he might have just flown to the Five Guys across town and noshed a burger, giggling with Venat while she shared his mountain of fries and our party’s sorry asses hightailed it to Balfonheim agog over the mystery of Giruvegan. We more or less deduce that he never left to Giruvegan himself, so for all we know he just hunkered down until Venat sent him a text (\u201cthey at the cryst bb lmao XD\u201d) and then blinked themselves to the top of the Pharos just in time to put Gabranth in the unemployment line. On the other hand, Venat more or less abstains from using her power to directly aid her human allies, and I can’t really see her transporting Cid around when he has the means to fly there himself. Ergo: airship!<\/span><\/p>\n The first of these enemies urges us hysterically to pursue the course of action most threatening to him and his allies, to satiate his own inscrutable personal whims. The party, with difficulty, declines, with aid of a tortured skein of pure dis-logic and spite.<\/p>\n Ashe then totally alienates herself and possibly all mortalkind from the Occuria, the Undying, a race of immortal, incalculably-powerful creatures whom we know terrifyingly little about; other than, taking these claims with appropriate skepticism: that they once absolutely dominated the entire world at their whim; that they chose to grant humanity near-total freedom only through their sense of relative mercy and goodwill; that they control an unknown number of doomsday weapons humanity can scarcely comprehend, which they have been known to grant to those willing to carry out their will; and that the carrying out of their will largely results in the extinction of those who oppose them or detract from their unknowable goals.<\/p>\n Reddas, the man whose entire life since the tragedy at Nabudis has been defined and controlled by that event, and who works violently against those who oppose his new ideals, sermonizes about not letting the past control your actions or lead you to violent reprisal.<\/p>\n Gabranth’s attempts to create an enemy that he and his allies could not hope to defeat, and which they otherwise could destroy easily whenever they chose, having been spat on, he attacks a group of seven people with whom he was ordered to parley, and is defeated utterly\u2014 though not killed.<\/p>\n The second of our enemies, Cid, explains in plain terms everything wrong with that last paragraph, and for this insult Gabranth attempts to take his life. Gabranth is again routed easily by a literal god, who again does not kill him.<\/p>\n Having cast it away in a symbolic gesture, our party’s potential superweapon is recovered by the enemy most singularly knowledgeable and capable of its use, who immediately uses it to accomplish his long-held master plan, which we, through sheer inaction, do nothing to prevent. This plan could not have been accomplished if we had not left the superweapon on the floor, or indeed if we had never shown up at all.<\/p>\n Having already accomplished his objectives, Cid attempts to destroy the party rather than flee, as he easily could. The party obliges his stalling tactic, choosing to ignore completely the Sun-Cryst, which we now fully intend to destroy, and the destruction of which at this moment could well halt or hinder Cid’s plan.<\/p>\n Venat, a being of near-unstoppable power, who only moments ago so proudly swore to work as an equal partner with Cid and the Empire, watches passively as the party slays Cid outright in battle, stepping in to assist only when Cid has already been mortally wounded and shall momentarily expire.Do note that, while this doesn’t jibe with her stated<\/i> motivations, it fits perfectly with my read on her character in the broader view.<\/span><\/p>\n Upon death, Cid dissolves into mist, nothing similar to which ever occurs elsewhere or ever shall occur again. He is then seemingly absorbed into the Sun-Cryst, for reasons unknown and to unknown effect.<\/p>\n Venat, through this, has been using the three nethicite shards to channel the full measure of the Sun-Cryst’s power to the Sky Fortress Bahamut,<\/i> which\u2014 spoiler alert\u2014 is an actual Imperial Death Star, whose might cannot be opposed by any weapon known to man, other than perhaps deifacted nethicite. The Bahamut<\/i> is presumably docked at Archades, meaning that while the stones’ power can be channeled thousands of miles away, the stones themselves cannot receive this power from from the Sun-Cryst from further than arm’s length. Venat, an Undying, is the only creature capable of performing this task, which she is only accomplishing now despite seemingly being able to instantly teleport anywhere in the world without difficulty. This either means that our enemies are thoroughly incompetent, yet still managed to best us soundly, or that they really did need all three lesser stones for their plans to work, in which case we truly did accomplish their task for them: first, by showing up at all, and secondly by delivering the Dawn Shard into their hands because it seemed cute and poetic at the moment.<\/p>\n Despite being used to channel power to the stones\u2014 presumably one of its regular purposes\u2014 the Sun-Cryst is apparently critically destabilized. To prevent its imminent detonation, Ashe and Vaan attempt to destroy it in a fashion that will result in exactly this disaster. Note that perhaps only Ashe might possesses the means to do this.<\/p>\n Venat does nothing to stop us in this attempt, having likely already fled to see her own plans through to fruition. This is either a grave misstep on Venat’s part, or an indication that they have already accomplished everything they need here, and that we are wasting our time, to our peril, by remaining. I would believe either with eagerness.<\/p>\n They are, however, unable to destroy the crystal, as approaching the stone is impossible for anyone except Reddas, who manages it easily for drama’s sake. He then destroys the Sun-Cryst with the Sword of Kings in a grand gesture, resulting in his death and the detonation we were attempting to prevent.While I’m bitching about this, why didn’t Reddas take the Sword of Kings and<\/i> the Treaty Blade for this scene? You know, since he’s a dual wielder, like all Judges? You know, bring his character arc full cicle and comport himself as a Judge while bringing the legendary blades to bear on Sun-Cryst, banishing the scourge of nethicite he once visited upon Nabudis? Eh, whatever.<\/span><\/p>\n The rest of the party escapes by [SCENE MISSING]<\/b>, which must mean one or more of three possibilities: first, that the party must have either run down ten flights of stairs, taken various elevators and waystones ninety more floors down, and fled across the entire island to the Strahl<\/i> before flying to a safe distance, all in the time it took for the crystal to explode after being struck; or second, that the moogle mechanics aboard the Strahl<\/i> had flown the airship to the tower’s summit just in time to rescue the party, proving definitively that our entire assault on the tower was, from the very start, a fools errand of literally deific proportions and a staggering waste of everyone’s time; or third, that however we escaped the tower, there must have been ample time for Reddas to escape with us, meaning he either perished by means other than the explosion we witness, or he deliberately chose to stay and wait as long as it took to accept his death in penance for Nabudis.<\/p>\n If it hasn’t quite sunk in yet: This is the climax of this fucking game.<\/strong> The entire narrative has built up to this scene.<\/em><\/p>\n In sum: because we showed up at all, and conducted ourselves like fools, the Empire was able to accomplish their overarching scheme. Because we failed to make any meaningful decisions regarding our course of action before they did so, we lack any means to oppose them.<\/p>\n Two of our three nemeses present escape, one of them through mysterious means while off camera. The only villain we manage to defeat accomplished his entire role in the plot beforehand.<\/p>\n In not choosing to destroy the Sun-Cryst immediately, we allowed the Empire to carry out their own plans to completion. Because we did not cut any stones of our own before they did so, we now lack any means to combat the Empire’s new and pre-existing weapons, other than wishful thinking and spite. In destroying the Sun-Cryst, we denied ourselves the opportunity to ever do so, even though we apparently could have fled its overcharge catastrophe without difficulty and returned at our leisure to see what remained, if anything, and decide a course of action in cool blood.<\/p>\n And the only black guy in the game dies.<\/p>\n I<\/p>\n that<\/p>\n but<\/p>\n …I swear. I swear, sometimes, once every now and then, I think<\/i> I might love this game. But much, much more often, I am absolutely certain that I hate this fucking game, and that it hates me right back.<\/p>\n Back in Balfonheim Port, Reddas’s remedial freebooter trio mourns his death. I used to think Reddas was pretty cool, but looking back on it now, I can’t imagine what I saw in the pathetic, maudlin old son of a bitch. The pirates point out that Reddas was looking for a place to die satisfied, and they hope he found it. Personally, I look forward to Other Lando’s tortured soul haunting the Cataract in agony till the end of days. Which should be any day now, given how current events are going.<\/p>\n
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