#duodecim

Part 1: A Brief Summary of Garland

This is Garland.

Garland was once a knight of Cornelia and well beloved by all. However, his heart belonged to one person: Princess Sarah of Cornelia. However, Garland had unknowingly been corrupted in some fashion. When Sarah rejected the knight’s feelings, he snapped: He kidnapped the fair maiden, locked them both in the Chaos Shrine and killed anyone who tried to save her.

Eventually four travelers appear, each holding a crystal fragment with radiant light. The King, suspecting that the four are the Warriors of Light, tested them by tasking them with rescuing Sarah. The four entered the Chaos Shrine and fought Garland. Cornelia’s best wound up slain, liberating Sarah and ending his tale.

...At least, one would think.

Eventually, the Warriors of Light realized that the energy that the Four Fiends had siphoned from the crystal was converging upon the Chaos Shrine. Learning of a true villain who had fled through time, the Warriors of Light chased after, arriving at the Chaos Shrine 2000 years in the past. It is there that they defeat the fiends once more and confront the real villain: Garland.

Wait, what?!

Garland explains (and the ending elaborates):

As Garland lay dying in the Chaos Shrine, the four great powers (i.e. the crystals) sent Garland back in time. There, Garland would absorb their powers and send the Four Fiends forward in time who, in-turn will bring Garland back. Garland himself would reign as Chaos for a time, but eventually the power will leave him[1]. In effect, this creates a time loop that will allow Garland to live forever; Just ignore any silly questions or issues like “Doesn’t Garland only exist within the loop now?” and “That’s the most pointless form of immortality ever”.

At some point however, a freak miracle happens: The Warriors of Light manage to defeat Chaos in the past, one of two ways the cycle could be broken. As a result, the entire cycle collapses and is erased from existence. The game notes Garland is among the people waiting for the Warriors of Light in the new future and while it is ambiguous, one could draw the conclusion that the event that caused Garland to snap no longer occurred and he was back to the paragon that he once was.

[1]Some retellings embellish a few details (MoH makes the fiends natural creatures and gives the corrupted Garland an entitlement complex, Brave Exvius and few other sources imply that Garland’s rage gets stronger with each cycle, giving more of a end-goal).

Part 2: A Not-So-Brief Summary of Garland.

This is Garland.

Garland was pulled into the past by his own hand to continue the time loop that would result in him living forever. However, at some point during the 2000 year long wait, he is suddenly hit with a realization: This was a terrible idea. But alas, despite no desire to continue the plan, he knows that eventually his rage will get the best of him, he will make “an irreparable mistake” and that he is doomed to live out the Cycle once more, a thought that leaves even the mighty Garland afraid.

However, he finds that he has hit a snag: Rather than being in 2000 years into the past, he is actually in another dimension. More specifically, he is in World B, a parallel version of his world that was already in ruins. There he meets three people: Cid, a Lufenian scientist hired by 'the state’ to make a superweapon. Cosmos, a manikin of Cid’s wife created to control said superweapon after Cid and his wife refused to work with 'the state’ any further. And finally, the superweapon in question, a nameless manikin created by stuffing memories from 10+ people into one manikin, and has the innocence and disposition of a newborn child.

Intrigued by this creature which looks akin to the form he is fated to take, Garland bonds with the creature, later dubbing him Chaos. Shinryu, who entered this world prior to the others stumbling upon it, appears and soon a pact is made: Cosmos would become the Goddess of Harmony while Chaos would become the God of Discord and the two would use pawns created by Cid summon warriors to act as their pawns and wage war with each other. Each time one side won, Shinryu would purify those that fell (while also absorbing their memories to become stronger, unbeknownst to everyone else) and the battles would continue. With each cycle, Chaos would grow stronger in hopes of him becoming strong enough to return to World A, with Garland acting as his mentor and faithful servant out of sympathy.

However, it eventually became clear that that the cycles would not end any time soon. In fact, it became clearer and clearer that the cycles would never end. Realizing that he has effectively traded one cycle for another, Garland does the only thing he could do to cope with his fate: If he is to do endless battle, then he may as well savor it. Garland became (or at least, put on the appearance) of one obsessed with battle, all to mask his despair at being a slave to fate.

Of course, all of this is contrasted by the Warrior of Light. He is one of the Warriors destined to clash with Garland and while Garland himself is disillusioned at the possibility of breaking free of the Cycle due to having lived it for so long, the comparatively new Warrior of Light has faith that it will be broken. After being confronted by the Warriors of Cosmos for one final time, Garland reveals that Chaos intends to destroy both himself and the world. When asked if he is alright with this, Garland simply states that all he needs is to find another cycle and the soul of strife shall endure.

Eventually, Garland would be pulled into World B again, this time to fight on behalf of Spiritus, one of the two new gods of the newly rebooted World B. The new world ends up under the threat of Shinryu (Who’s still miffed that Cid went back on their deal and wants that sweet sweet energy) who ends up defeated. Garland leaves behind a copy of himself to act as one of Spiritus’ champions for the sake of rebuilding World B via battle energy and goes home.

This is also Garland.

(Well, so’s the guy above, but this makes for a better segue, so shush).

This Garland is (presumably, OO is kinda strange with this relation) the Garland that was created due to the events above. He hungers for battle and...

Look, I’ll break character and level with you here: Opera Omnia’s plotline is kinda spotty to me. I was on and off in Act 2 and by 3 I stopped caring for reasons that are obvious if you’re familiar with this blog’s wheelhouse. Not helping matters is that it’s unclear in and of itself how OO relates to NT, being more of an alternate continuity than a continuation. But I do know some of the things about it, especially as pertaining to the end of Act 2.

Things have gone bad and Shinryu is getting ready to snack on the World of Respite/Conflict/whatever the nature of the world kind of drifted the more its significance became stressed. The Warrior of Light leads the heroes into battle against the villains who are opposing them because of course they are. The last of these villains is Garland who, despite the world crumbling around him, still wants to battle. But don’t worry, Garland does want to preserve the world. After all, where else will he do battle?

Just as the original Garland is implied to have turned to battle to cope with his situation, this Garland turns to battle to cope with his existence, or rather his lackthereof. The Warrior of Light succeeded, meaning that Garland returned to being the honorable knight he once was... But this Garland is derived from the Chaos which no longer exists.

Eventually, the damage is done. The world begins to collapse. The Warrior of Light sends his newfound allies into the new world, choosing to remain with Garland. Then, to keep the world stable he and Garland clash for eternity until Act 3.

Some more Garland shenanigans happen in Act 3, but this section is long enough as is and I do not want to discuss Act 3 so just know that WoL and Garland have been slowly but surely being pushed as the new gods of Harmony and Discord respectively. 

But Garland’s not the only one in the running for that title...

Part 3: A Very Brief Summary of Chaos (?)

This is Chaos Advent, formerly known as Chaos (?).

Chaos Advent awaited the Warriors of Light in the Chaos Shrine. Based on Princess Sarah’s description of him, he appears to be Garland: The Knight of Cornelia who left to vanquish Chaos and not only never returned, but seemingly faded from the memory of all but Sarah. In truth, Garland had fallen to the darkness and now wishes to become Chaos.

Jack punches his face in and darkness fades away to reveal... a just-narrowly-not-a-teenage girl named Neon. 

Neon did not believe that Chaos existed and sought to give the people hope. Thus  she took the guise of Chaos to give the people a physical representation of Chaos to defeat, in hopes of inspiring hope.

But what of Garland? If “Chaos” wasn’t him, then who was he?

Well, to say his true identity would be a spoiler. If you are truly

It’s Garland.

Jack Garland.

Jack is Chaos.

Part 3.5: A Brief Summary of Jack

This is Jack Garland.

He wants to kill Chaos.

Jack Garland is one of the four Warriors of Light alongside his friends Ashe and Jed. Soon, two more followers join the Warriors of Light (3): a girl named Neon and a woman named Sophia. Together, the quartet (5) go to awaken the crystals with the help of the mysterious Astos, the king of Dark Elves. While awakening the crystals, however, they fight four monsters that are guarding them. These monsters turn into humans when they die and Jack’s allies begin regaining their memories... slowly revealing that they’ve done this before and they themselves are the monsters.

When the party returns to Cornelia, they find that they have not saved the world and, in fact, things are even worse as the crystals intensify their respective elements. They hunt down Astos who eventually reveals the truth behind the Stranger Project, with further pieces coming in as monsters attack Cornelia. Despite Jack and his allies’ efforts, the monsters kill the royal family, including Princess Sarah. It is at this point that Jack’s memory begins to return in full force and the full picture starts setting in.

Lufenia faced a problem: Cornelia’s darkness buildup was getting too intense. In just 2000 or so years, the buildup will reach critical mass and blow up the kingdom. It is at this point that a “mysterious collaborator” appears who gifts them a dimensional matrix crystal, allowing them to manipulate time and space. All the collaborator asks in return is that Lufenia pipelines the excess energy generated by the resets back to them. With their shiny new toy, Lufenia engages the Stranger Project: recruiting people from other worlds (?) to go around and maintain the balance between darkness and light.

Unfortunately, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and in this case, the road quickly became a highway..

Lufenia became arrogant with their newfound tech. Staging their own collapse, Lufenia moved to a pocket dimension where they could observe other worlds.  Out of the Cornelians’ reach, Lufenia began experimenting with the world, warping and mutating its inhabitants and changing regions to resemble those in the other dimensions they’ve been peeping at.

Fortunately for Cornelia, Jack Garland would not stand for this. Jack concocted a complex plan beginning by giving his Dark Crystal to Princess Sarah. As a result, his memories were totally buried. Then, Astos and his friends would push Jack and lead him down a path that resulted in him becoming Chaos.

And said plan concludes with the other Strangers attacking Jack, forcing him to kill them.

The plan works. Jack storms the Chaos Shrine, heads for Lufenia and absorbs their Darkness made Manifest. The Lufenians decide to cut their losses, sealing off the station connected to Jack’s world. And when Jack’s boss tells him to look out for the Warriors of Light, she gives Jack an idea...

At the Chaos Shrine, Jack and his friends/fiends hatch a new plan: Create their own Warriors of Light to act as a beacon of hope for Cornelia. And if they must die for Cornelia to no longer worry about Darkness, then so be it.

Meanwhile, Jack’s boss is pissed that Jack got one up on her. Initially, she lures Gilgamesh to Jack’s location before sending a Death Machine in hopes of killing him. When that fails, she sends Lufenia into chaos in order to claim two pieces of crystal ore: One that gives her power over the Interdimensional Rift and one that allows her to create manikins.

All of this catches the attention of a lone moogle. The moogle is not from Lufenia but World B a world of eternal conflict. But the world that the moogle hails from is reliant on the future of Jack’s world, and if Jack’s world gets erased, the Moogle’s will go with it. Thus, the Moogle brings Jack to Lufenia in order to stop Jack’s former boss Nil from preventing that future from coming to pass.

Of course, the moogle is no ordinary moogle: Said moogle is actually a manifestation of Cosmos’ will and is implied to have been active behind the scenes for quite a while. The Moogle’s endgoal  is to to push Jack into the role of the new God of Discord (whatever happened to Spiritus is left unsaid, assuming the moogle is even referring to a post-NT timeline).

Upon defeating Nil, one of two outcomes occurs.

In the first timeline, Nil drops the crystal, which Jack refuses to use. The moogle questions Jack in ways implying that it wants Jack to pick up the crystal, but Jack refuses. He and his allies go home and live out their roles of being defeated by the Warriors of Light.

However, in a Different Future (TM), The Emperor of Palamecia (who had previously appeared in Lufenia, having tailed the moogle) appears after Nil’s death and seizes the crystal. Jack naturally beats him up, but accidentally absorbs the crystal in the process. His future secured, the moogle informs Jack that now he must take his role as the God of Discord and that he, opposite and alongside the Warrior of Light as the God of Harmony, will be the foundation for a new world.

Part 5: Now that that’s all settled

What’s the problem with Jack and Dissidia Garland being the same individual?

Because it ruins both Dissidia Garland and Jack’s characters.

Dissidia Garland is a natural extension of FF1 Garland. Even in the original game, it’s said that Garland used to be a paragon of Cornelia until very recently. In some of his interactions, especially those with Chaos, you can kind of see it.

In the end, Garland is not just a villain, but he’s a man who’s trapped. Trapped in a destiny of his own making. He’s just as much a victim of his own scheme as anyone else: But the difference is that he himself created it.

As a certain well-known movie once put it:

It also adds to his relation to Chaos. Garland was reminded of himself when he met Chaos, which is why he becomes Chaos’ right-hand. If one takes supplementary material into account, then the spinoffs alluding to Garland’s rage getting stronger over the course of the cycles could relate to Chaos’ fate in Dissidia as well: Becoming more and more powerful with each cycle to the point that 012′s post-story storyline takes place in a nightmare reality where the cycles never ended: Chaos snaps and kills both sets of warriors, reduced to a Feral Desperado... Thing.

Is that what Garland could have potentially ended up as?

Meanwhile Jack’s story is different. Yeah, sure he and his friends become Chaos and the Fiends and that’s a bummer, but the story as a whole is a “The Real Story” type deal. Thus Jack and his friends aren’t the real villains, Lufenia is. Pay no mind to how little you’ll pity them when Tiamat forces them out of their sky castle.

Jack’s story is still tragic, but the bitterness of it being a consequence of his own actions is lost. Garland ruined the entire world all because his rage got the better of him. He has no one but himself to blame and the hopelessness it’s implied that he feels suggests that even he himself knows it. Jack’s massive plan is a direct response to Lufenia’s shenanigans.  Jack’s situation is more akin to Ramza’s, where he and his allies will go down in history as monsters as no one knows the truth.

However, all of that is ok, because Jack’s story is not

This is not his own masterpiece.

This is also ignoring all of the dev interviews and even the moogle and the Emperor saying that Jack resembles the man from the world of conflict, but is not actually him.

Fin: A Brief Conclusion

IT’S TIME FOR THE OBLIGATORY FF3 MENTION/RANT

Onion Knight in Dissidia is a character I love-hate. I can’t say I hate him all that much: I main him in Dissidia 012, he gets lots of good fanart, I used him extensively in Record Keeper and Brave Exvius  and his “little shit” attitude is fun.

But, I do not care about Onion Knight’s story. Indeed, as I alluded to above, when Onion Knight became the main protagonist of Opera Omnia’s story, I completely lost interest. I was even annoyed at how the finale ended.

Is it Onion Knight’s fault though? YesNo.

While I like Onion Knight, I prefer Luneth, Arc, Refia and Ingus. Onion Knight standing in place of the does not endear me as much as him standing alongside them. Perhaps it is because they don’t involve the FF characters in the plot, but Record Keeper and Brave Exvius understand this. Record Keeper even implies a connection between Onion Knight and the remake characters.

By contrast, Opera Omnia, the game where characters actually interact and can flex their characterization, which of the two groups is in the game at the time of this writing, and which isn’t: The four who had vague personalities in the source material or the one who only had a personality in the fighting game spinoff (Hint: It’s the one that’s only a single character)? 

At the same time though, I don’t want Onion Knight removed from the series either. Not only because of what my big issue with him is (one of a few, admittedly), but because I know that there are people that like him. I’ve been on the receiving end of the “neglect” stick, but I don’t necessarily want the other group to be simply take my place. Both can co-exist.

But what does this have to do with (Jack) Garland?

Because Garland is the same, but also different.

Opera Omnia does not hide the fact that Jack is Garland. Jack even gets his Garland armor as an alternate costume, recreating Chaos’ pose from the game logo.

But unlike Cecil or Yda, whose alternate forms cannot co-exist, Jack and Garland are treated as separate characters. As Garland was away for quite a while, they could have found some way for the Warrior of Light to restore Garland’s sanity or write some way to turn Garland into Jack or otherwise. Instead, they had Jack show up and interact with Dissidia Garland. And while Dissidia Garland is based on a Garland that no longer exists, Jack’s comments at the end of the Act suggest that he isn’t from that point; He intends to use the power of light to find a way to get home so that he can build his own Warriors of Light. If Jack truly is from that fixed future (and still alive, given that SoP was ambiguous with Jack’s fate in the true ending and the fact that Jack and his friends aren’t from Cornelia, look the timeline nonsense is weird, OK?) then why does he have memories of a timeline that no longer exists (whereas WoL at least has the excuse of having been there and lived, “memories buried in his heart” etc etc.)? 

With how blatant a tie-in the Different Future DLC is, it is inevitable that Dissidia Opera Omnia will tackle both Jack and Garland (Act 3 started, but hasn’t done too much yet. Act 4 introduces Neon and Astos to liven things up). Only time will tell where the story goes exactly, but so far, all indications seem to treat Jack and Garland as separate characters. And you know what?

That’s probably the best option.

Still, regardless of how one feels, there are fans who love Jack. 

There are fans who love OG Garland. 

They don’t need to be explicitly connected to co-exist