#edea

The Crystal Ball

Duality.

My friends, you probably know by now that I search for meaning in every little thing in a characters design.

Why did the designer choose to this or that are often questions I ask myself.

A characters design, among other factors, is often influenced by the designers personal taste and the time they lived in.

Look at Zell as an example. His design is clearly inspired by late 1990s fashion and his facial tattoo is inspired by Mike Tyson. I do not need to explain who Mike Tyson is. Putting that into historical perspective, back in 1997 Mike Tyson famously bit off his opponents' ear which led to international recognition. My point of view is that Nomura took a lot of things he saw during his stay in the U.S. in the late 90s, specifically 1997-1998 into his character designs. But that is a post for another day.

Back to the thesis! The dear @iffylogic shared a PNG of Ultimecias leg tattoo with me and I could not help but associate it with the sorceresses that are seen in the game, and it may be far-fetched but still something worthy to think about, when it comes to the overall appearance of Ultimecia because the tattoos are there for a reason.

A while ago, I shared with you guys my opinion on how the sorceresses are linked to birds, if linked is the correct word and funny enough, I wasn't the only one who caught that because years prior to my observation, @rubybahamut was writing about this too!

(Edea as a peacock, Rinoa as a dove, Ultimecia as a crow, Adel as a bat.)

The tattoo at the bottom reminds me of Ultimecias final form.

The zig-zag line at the bottom of this tattoo symbolizing Ultimecia wrapped in the red and blue ropes in her final form. I am not sure what it is supposed to portray but considering how the top part of her is ripped open from the rib cage down, I think It's supposed to be blood vessels.

Edeas dress having a lilac to black gradient is also something I noticed just now in regard to the color of the shape on the right. The upper part of the darker shape look like claws to me. How fitting that both aforementioned women have long nails/claws.