infynim

It’s a difficult time for all four of em it’s supposed to be, with the loss of Lunafreya, Ignis losing his eyesight and Noctis grieving there was two choice of characters to push the plot along Prompto or Gladio and with what happens shortly after this it was best it Gladio.

Gladio is so different from Iggy when you think about it them showcasing Gladio being rather pushy in that way to get Noctis moving was a showcase of that.

It also shows the impact of the injuries on everyone they don’t know if Ignis would be able to keep up they’re hurt they’re scared

Gladio is at his best on the train.

Yes. However Comma

Gladio I think is at his best because the train on top of forcing a confrontation and shift in the (atrocious) status quo, the whole thing is forcing Gladio to break his stoic silent ‘not gonna talk about it’ vibe I feel like he tends to have.

I think for most of the game, Gladio’s screwed over by not getting to show a full range of emotions the way Noctis or Prompto or even Iggy get to show.

(Yes I think this could have been helped if him getting shoved into the Regalia by Ravus was marginally more impactful and if he had been honest with Noctis about why he was dipping for a week and if he’d been more emotionally vulnerable during episode Gladiolus and if he got to actually fend off an equal or greater threat at the power generator but that’s… that’s a whole rant)

i think gladio's character arc was meant to be slightly different, once upon a time. i think that somewhere along the line, in some unspecified unknown draft of the story, iris was meant to die in lestallum.

that's why you were forced to spend time with her in the previous lestallum visit. you get to know her, you get to see how important she is to gladio... and then you complete the trials of ramuh, and she's not picking up her phone anymore, and when the bros get back to lestallum she's gone.

gladio was off frolicking in duscae, protecting noctis from imps and shit, while iris was murdered by the empire. so they go beat up the damn imperial base, and gladio is full of rage (definitely not grief), AND then gets his ass handed to him by ravus, and and and…

you see how he would be feeling weak. couldn't protect iris from the empire, couldn't protect noct from ravus.

so gladio delivers noctis to cape caem and tells him, i'm done. this is a losing fight, and it's just not in me to do it. and he leaves. and that's what episode gladio was meant to be about. cor finds him and is like, psst, gladio. let me explain to you all the ways in which you will come to regret this IF (when) noctis is gone.

gladio comes back genuinely stronger not because he has a cool sword or whatever, but because he genuinely understands how important it is to protect the very very very few people he has left.

but obviously that didn't happen. idk if its because it was never planned and i'm just tweaking, if they didn't want to kill two out of the four female characters this game has, or if they didn't want gladio to outright abandon noctis (even if for a time), and i guess i'll never know.

B. I actually really like this. And I think just the minute change of- yes still wanting to prove his strength to some degree but also being bitter and angry and *done* with the fight because Iris died and Ravus The Angry Twink shoved him Radically Changes Everything. Okay— namely it changes how Gladio’s interacting with Gilgamesh and his trials, how I think Gladio would behave with Noctis, and also carries some dramatic irony for Altissia

Coming at Gilgamesh from a place of rage and a place of Giving Up and a place of I Can’t Do This Anymore makes Gilgamesh’s whole ‘bro you need muscle and mettle’ *mean* something. Because it gives Gladio the chance to develop something he didn’t have before if he’s explicitly not able to stick it out with Noctis through hell or high water

Iris’s death I think would force Gladio to be the first one in the party to go through ‘the person I loved most in this world died and I wasn’t there to protect them when that’s my *purpose*. Which means on the train, he wouldn’t be coming at that fight from seemingly a place of not getting what Ignis and Noct (especially Noct) went through in Altissia. He gets it. He gets why Ignis did everything in his power to protect Noctis. He gets why Noctis is crumbling with his grief. But they have to stand up and keep moving. This war is only winnable that way. They need to direct their anger and pain at the empire, rather than cut themselves down with it. However you’d want to actually frame this my point here is that these are lessons he can learn from Gilgamesh/lessons he can learn that Gilgamesh never did and it can make his DLC Matter