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monk-of-figaro · 2 months ago

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I keep going back-and-forth on the question of, "Did Sabin and Edgar maintain contact after the fateful coin toss?"

At first I was pretty insistent that they must have maintained contact, and one of the biggest arguments for that is the subdued, lackluster reunion the brothers share after 10 years. Given how emotional Sabin is, I just can't imagine why he would be so blasé about being reunited with his twin.

Then again, I've seen arguments that they did NOT maintain contact, and the explanation for their tepid reunion kind of boils down to: neither brother knows how their relationship stands because, well, they haven't talked in 10 years. Does the other brother hate them? Do they blame them for the choice they made? Are they themselves dealing with some unexpected baggage or repressed feelings at seeing their twin again?

I truly don't know which version I like better. The latter gives a lot more layers and complexity to their relationship, which is pretty compelling to explore. But the former feels more in-line with how close the twins were their entire life up to the coin toss.

Although, I suppose the exact terms of Sabin leaving the castle are not really clarified. Was he on the run? Did he need to hide, or maintain a low profile? Had he always intended to train in the mountains after he left the castle, or was that something he sort of "fell into"? Those kind of details would likely play a role in whether the brothers maintained contact or not.

(Why have I stopped writing about them again???)

Thank you, @wsancho, for keeping the Figabro brain juices flowing! ☺️

Figaro Twins’ Coulda, Woulda, Shouldas

On a previous post I wondered if the twins could have maintained communication during their 10-year separation. My guess is that they didn’t, given that the High Priestess doesn’t know what Sabin’s been up to; Edgar doesn’t seem to know either, and he’s surprised to find out where he’s been living and who he’s been hanging out with.

But Sabin’s initial reaction to seeing Edgar felt off. Too casual and carefree for someone who sees his beloved big brother for the first time in a decade. Even if they had maintained communication, this still feels off, impersonal and unaffected.

The brothers shoulda hugged and celebrated seeing each other but they didn’t. With the characters being who they are and without putting blame on the devs, how could this make sense for these boys? Like, WHY WOULDN’T THEY HUG, GODDAMNIT?! 😖🥺

When Sabin first saw Gerad he didn’t react much either. We can blame it on the good ol’ “platform limitations” and “time restrictions”, but I like to take canon as is and figure out how it could work in service of my personal, self-indulgent narrative that makes me happy 🧐

So my theory is that, as much as Sabin looks up to Edgar emotionally and intellectually, he doesn’t really expect Edgar’s diplomatic approach to work.

Before leaving Figaro, Sabin wanted to avenge his dad, but his rage completely deflates when Edgar puts the focus on politics, like everyone else in the castle. Sabin may have convinced himself that he’d have to do this alone, even against Edgar’s established diplomacy. Not only does Sabin know Figaro’s situation before Kefka’s attack, he knows of the Returners hideout (some gamers interpret this as “the Returners not being great at hiding”, but one can know, for example, that Edward Snowden is in Russia or that Osama Bin Laden was in Afghanistan; but finding them requires slightly more knowledge than that. Sabin knows exactly where the Returners hide). I don’t think he had direct contact with them, but seems he had been actively looking for the information, not just learning whatever came his way.

Sabin loves his big brother and wouldn’t go against him, which is why he waited for diplomatic efforts to fall apart, as they did. But until then, Edgar’s decisions are very much the same of those who let his father perish. Sabin might have mixed feelings about Edgar because they had been on opposite ideological sides (imagine if Edgar had replied “We're climbing this mountain to meet up with my guest Kefka and escort him to the castle” Yuck! 😒).

Edgar had been reacting a little more to hearing about Sabin and to seeing him again, but I believe he prevents himself from showing too much and tries to keep his cool at all times. Also, after seeing so little reaction from Sabin, he might have gotten the impression that Sabin isn’t as comfortable with him as he used to be, so Edgar keeps his distance and accepts whatever Sabin chooses to express; after all, he set Sabin free in all possible ways. He’s not conflicted about Sabin and is not trying to maintain the distance, he’s just respectfully passive.

Of course Sabin trusts Edgar’s intentions. I think he’s having a bit of “emotional jet lag” (like he just learned that his surrogate dad got murdered by his surrogate brother and then tried to kill him too, or something 🤔), but as soon as Edgar tells him that diplomacy went to shit and they’re getting ready to strike back, Sabin is onboard, driven and even excited; if there were any doubts, all dispel once he finds himself on the same team as his bro.

Then there’s the part where Sabin jumps into the river to fight Ultros. It rubs me the wrong way that he pushes Edgar aside and jumps anyway. Sabin is not listening to reason and he’s not really a team player here. He’s trying to protect Terra from Ultros, but it’s very much an overreaction and I think it has to do with his need to prove himself and his disfavor for Edgar’s more passive methods (and with Sabin not having been part of a team ever before).

Sabin coulda listened and stay put, but I think his detour helps build his character. Sure, he meets and brings along new people and new information about what’s going on in the world, and all those are very important things for the plot; but I see a subtle mellowing down of his temper. He’s separated from the group and can’t help to constantly wonder if his brother is safe (the English translation makes it about the group, but in the original he’s worried about Edgar). I think he knows he kinda fucked up. Things worked out fine, but he seems less impulsive afterwards and more willing to listen.

Knowing that Edgar cares and worries about Sabin as much as he always did, I can see why it’s a little jarring when Edgar doesn’t try to save him after the encounter with Ultros, especially because recently the FF6 Rom Hack, Divergent Paths, was brought to my attention (thanks @monk-of-figaro ❤️) and it had me thinking whether Edgar woulda jumped in like “any sane brother would”, to quote the mod. And well… I don’t think Edgar is a “sane brother”. He’s a righteous king and there’s nothing sane about that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Seeing Sabin float away hurts my feelings way more than the devs intended to, and I’m sure Edgar would fear for his little bro, like he probably feared for him for an entire decade (Sabin was a sickly and overly emotional teenager leaving home for the first time to go who knows where). But if there’s one thing that distinguishes Edgar’s way of ruling is that he makes the hard choices:

Observes his father’s poor health knowing that he’ll soon die an untimely and unnatural death. Edgar makes the hard choice of seeing his own powerlessness for what it is and accepting that all he can do is witness his dad’s decay. Someone sane would have been in denial of this and focused on finding the culprit and avenging his father. Instead, he went through the same emotional turmoil as Sabin, but quietly, alone, and in the course of weeks or months as his father’s death came closer. And this is how Figaro was spared from becoming another Doma.

Witnesses Sabin’s meltdown after the king’s death and makes the hard choice of giving him the freedom to remove himself from the toxic environment. Someone sane would have escaped with him or tried to talk him into staying, and Sabin would have probably agreed to it if Edgar guilt-tripped him or simply told him “I want you by my side”. But Edgar wouldn’t sway Sabin in any way, no matter how badly he wanted him around. Sabin was too attached to Edgar and could never define his individuality if he kept doing whatever Edgar did or told him to do.

And when Sabin gets his ass beat by Ultros and is at risk of getting drowned or found by the Empire and killed, Edgar chooses to stick with the program. A sane brother would have gone after him, but the mission was to keep Banon alive and getting him to Narshe for negotiations. It’s not only “game over” because you fail the minigame, it’s game over because Edgar has been a double agent for a decade and the resistance can’t fully trust him like they do Banon. For the rebels to be on his side, Edgar depends on having Banon’s trust (this isn’t stated anywhere, but it’s only logical). Terra was not a Returner then, she was still doubtful and Edgar never wanted to force his ideas on her (like Banon), so leaving this to her was not an option either. Losing Banon is losing all chances of saving Figaro, while losing Sabin would cause Edgar to lose his mind, an entire nation would still survive. The right choice is the hardest of choices and Edgar’s judgment is on point; as it has been since his adolescence.

Hell, even when Edgar proposes his idea to Banon and gets rejected, it happens to be exactly what they end up doing (in the English translation he proposes “to make magical weapons” but in the original he talks only about “acquiring magic of their own”). Who knows what Banon’s plan was before meeting Terra. After meeting her, I believe his plan goes something like this:

Phase 1: Collect underpants. Talk to Espers.

Phase 2: ❓

Phase 3: Profit. Peace.

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to see more interaction between the FF6 cast (still do 🥲). Fanworks do a great job filling in the blanks, as I’m sure the devs intended, but self-indulgence is a tradeoff that prevents from discovering character traits that are easy to overlook and can be difficult to make sense of, especially for characters who operate in a state of maturity or conditioning or emotional strain that is difficult for us to access or even begin to understand.

I love that Sabin is such a lively, honest and self-motivated dude, that he grows and learns exclusively by doing. He does, he fucks up, he learns. And he laughs out loud while at it 😁❤️ Ultimately that’s how true wisdom is acquired, only by experience (there’s no such thing as acquiring wisdom from others’ experiences, you only remember the wisdom your soul already possesses by learning about how others articulate and express theirs).

On the other extreme it’s heartbreaking that Edgar is so freaking talented that he can see where the system fails, and having both talent and power, it’s up to him and him alone to come up with real solutions. No other character in this entire cast could pull off any of this shit as smoothly. To paraphrase La Femme Nikita: “[...] because when you lead, we survive.” And Edgar knows this 😕

This is unfathomable for most of us. I’m nobody, so I get to sit on my ass and talk about what the politicians should do, and what the sports coaches should do, and what the movie directors should do. I also get to make mistakes and fuck up my health and my finances and my career and my relationships and my home, but no one else’s. And because I’ve got this luxury it’s easy for me to say what would have been. If the FF6 devs did things my way it would have been not the masterpiece that it is. Heartbreaking as it is, it tells the stories of these (fictional) people organically and faithfully.

#ff6 #thoughts from my brain

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monk-of-figaro · 5 months ago

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FF6 Characters' Astrological Data

In order to give myself a better idea of the FF6 characters and their personalities I often use astrology and other pseudosciences (psychology, numerology, Chinese astrology and human design. Asian media also determines personalities based on blood types, but I haven't found thorough descriptions of those, so I don't use them).

For my first fic I looked into what I initially considered a crack-pairing and found their underlying compatibility to be quite lovely. Then one day @monk-of-figaro 👀 planted in my head the idea of LeoXSabin. They certainly have harmonious traits, but it never occurred to me that there could be anything romantic between them (only because they never fuck in canon. In canon no one fucks anyway and we shouldn't settle for that!! 😤).

I’ve been looking at character’s birthcharts for a while (mostly the twins’ because their archetypal traits are fleshed out better than the rest), but I got curious about the rare ships that I’ve failed to acknowledge, so I checked some synastries (love compatility between two astrological birthcharts). It was fun 😁 Leo and Sabin (or Edgar, since twins share birthcharts) in particular set that shit on fire 🔥👀

So here's the birth data I use, in case anyone's interested:

How I pull astro data out of my ass

The world of FF6 is no place on Earth, therefore the astrology of Earth does not apply. But I don’t care 🙃 The way I go about it, I don’t use birth times (so we miss the houses and rising signs), the birth place is always where FF6 was developed (Tokyo), the birth year is always the year when FF6 was released minus the age of the character (1994 – X), and with the specific birth years, one can determine the Chinese zodiac sign and life path number. I won’t include human design data because I’m lazy 😌

Individual character data

Cyan Birth: Jan 3, 1944 Western sun sign: Capricorn Chinese zodiac sign: Water Goat Life path 4

Setzer Birth: Feb 8, 1967 Western sun sign: Aquarius Chinese zodiac sign: Fire Horse Life path 6

Celes Birth: March 10, 1976 Western sun sign: Pisces Chinese zodiac sign: Fire Dragon Life path 9

Gau Birth: April 5, 1981 Western sun sign: Aries Chinese zodiac sign: Metal Rooster Life path 1

Shadow Birth: April 10, 1962* Western sun sign: Aries Chinese zodiac sign: Water Tiger Life path 5

*The month and day are given by the fandom. Some websites mentioned conflicting official info regarding his age (one source says late 20s, other says late 30s), so I checked the Chinese signs for April 10 between the years 1955 and 1967 to see what more I can pull outta my ass which Chinese zodiac sign could fit Shadow. Looking at the descriptions of the different signs in that range, I cherry-picked Water Tiger for him, making his birth year 1962 (age 32). I like it 😌

Gogo Birth: May 5* Western sun sign: Taurus

*I ain’t taking guesses with this one. The month and day given by the fandom make numerological sense to me (month 5, day 5. Five in numerology means change). I expected their sign to be the changeable Gemini (air element, mutable modality); instead, their sign is as fixated as it gets (Taurus is earth element, fixed modality). The way I see them, fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) have mastery of their element, so changeable mastery begins to sound more like Gogo. Works for me 🙂

Mog Birth: May 11, 1983 Western sun sign: Taurus Chinese zodiac sign: Water Pig Life path 1

Cid Birth: May 27, 1948 Western sun sign: Gemini Chinese zodiac sign: Earth Rat Life path 9

Strago Birth: June 13, 1924 Western sun sign: Gemini Chinese zodiac sign: Wood Rat Life path 8

General Leo Birth: July 8, 1964 Western sun sign: Cancer Chinese zodiac sign: Wood Dragon Life path 8

Edgar, Sabin Birth: August 16, 1967 Western sun sign: Leo Chinese zodiac sign: Fire Goat Life path 2

Relm Birth: Sep 9, 1984 Western sun sign: Virgo Chinese zodiac sign: Wood Rat Life path 4

Umaro Birth: Sep 9, 1990 Western sun sign: Virgo Chinese zodiac sign: Metal Horse Life path 1

Terra Birth: Oct 18, 1976 Western sun sign: Libra Chinese zodiac sign: Fire Dragon Life path 6

Gestahl Birth: October 26, 1944 Western sun sign: Scorpio Chinese zodiac sign: Wood Monkey Life path 9

Kefka Birth: Nov 19, 1959 Western sun sign: Scorpio Chinese zodiac sign: Earth Pig Life path 9

Locke Birth: Nov 24, 1969 Western sun sign: Sagittarius Chinese zodiac sign: Earth Rooster Life path 6

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