#ff13 trilogy

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Some Cordelia Chase (Angel the Series A.K.A. the Buffyverse) and Serah Farron (Final Fantasy XIII-2) parallels.

And for once I don’t feel like explaining it all. LOL

Hello friends! Only ten more days left until the start of Lightis Week!

I don’t have any subpar edit for this. I’m just speaking off the cuff here.

I know she’s not real. I know she’s just a character, a much maligned character in a much maligned game trilogy. I know she’s flawed. But I also know what she means to me and how she’s helped me.

I saw myself in Lightning immediately. Aggressive, dismissive--all that anger hiding a very obvious hurt. I never lost my parents, never had to raise my sibling on my own, but putting away innocence too soon, stopping myself from happiness, from comfort, from all the free years of childhood? I know how it feels to lose that. I know how it feels to have that taken away, and the bitterness it leaves in you. With Lightning, there was no place for his bitterness to go but into fighting as a soldier, and later as a renegade l’Cie. But she turns all her wounds into action. She finds a way to make suffering mean something, no matter how deep that suffering is, and no matter how impossible the odds.

She fought fate and gods; she was lost in a nexus of time and space; she died, crystallized, and came back out as the forced champion of a false god. She lost, and she lost and she lost--she won the war (against the fal’Cie), but lost so many crucial battles (getting lost in time, Serah’s death, her broken soul) that were in no way things she could control. Her story showed that you can fight so hard and still have life knock you down, because you can only fight so hard for so long on your own before it’s just not enough.

And that’s the painful part of Lightning’s story. All her strength and courage weren’t enough in the end, but she wasn’t alone. Her strength and courage helped considerably, yes, and were used as a pillar or an icon for the themes in the trilogy, but Lightning is truly only as strong as the people around her, the people supporting her and challenging her--and sometimes this came from the same person! Lightning’s story is the story of her comrades, her family, her partners--it’s the story of her enemies, too.

#LightningWeek ► day 5 ► Emotions —

sangfroid x grace; resolve x relief; desperation x contentment

This celebration week is testing the limits of my subpar editing abilities lol. I wanted to put the emotions on the pictures, but there was no way to get them to look nice. So I settled on editing six pictures/scenes, adding in a brighter color scheme/softer saturation, and just figured I’d waste time by talking about it.

Sangfroid means calm and collected, but it’s literally French for cold blood. Lightning’s whole life has demanded that she be a detached, composed fighter (”Still your mind, move on instinct” “Forget about sympathy” “It’s not a question of can or can’t. Some things in life you just do”). It’s not until after LR, when they all enter the new world, that she can have anything like a normal, peaceful life, which is where “grace” comes in. She’s still poised, still calm and composed, but now it’s no longer in the context of battle.

Resolve ties into sangfroid. Lightning had to (if you’ll forgive the slight pun) steel herself again and again for the struggles that came her way. Facing off against Snow in LR tested her in more ways than one, which is why I chose that particular screenshot. Seeing how far he’d fallen, how much hope he lost and despair to which he’d succumbed was not only a surprise, it was a fright, but she couldn’t let her fear and grief show. I chose her smile at the end of XIII to contrast this because I feel like it’s one of the rare, truly genuine and relieved smiles we’ve seen Lightning show in the series. It warmed my heart that it came at the time of Serah and Snow’s reunion.

#LightningWeek ► day 3 ► Favorite Appearance — FINAL FANTASY XIII

→ This solitary young woman speaks little of herself—even her true name is a mystery. She is known to others simply as 'Lightning'.

—I actually had to think about this one a bit. FFXIII-2 had Lightning at one of her lowest points (trapped in an alternate dimension, constantly fighting an impossible battle as a goddess’s champion, only to lose her sister and fall into a crystal sleep for centuries), which I consider vital for her character development. Lightning Returns had her at her most ruthless and reckless, facing off against God himself on a mission she has no interest in surviving, just as long as Serah was safely restored.

But XIII was crucial in setting up Lightning as a flawed, stubborn, yet determined young woman who only grows stronger by the faith she puts in her family, her friends, and her partners. We see her realize just how wrong she’s been all this time, not only about her revenge plot, but with how cruel she’s been to the people she loves: shutting out and isolating Serah, dismissing and flat out belittling Snow, contributing to Hope’s semi-villainous breakdown, etc.

But she doesn’t stay at these low points. She learns from them. She owns up to them. She repairs the damage. XIII!Lightning is all about repairing damage.

We see her learn what it means to put your faith in others, instead of demanding to do it all yourself (her chat with Snow in the flower field is one of the most meaningful moments they have in the series, and they get a lot, which breaks my heart). We see her learn that fate and gods can be defied, a chain of history can be broken, and life is worth fighting for. No matter how difficult it is, no matter how painful or pointless, the fight is always worth it.

#LightningWeek // day 2 // Favorite Outfit — COSMOCRATOR x Lightning Returns.

—A holy garb, imbued with the life of all creation and blessed by the spirits which turn even the stars in the sky. Locked ability: Cosmic Arts Lv. ★

While the stats are tricky (boy, all the times I got oneshotted in this...), I think this garb + shield combination are such a raw and harrowing look for Lightning. She’s facing off against God in the third game, and one of her garbs involves being a cosmos creator herself. She just owns this look thoroughly, and I loved how inhuman parts of the outfit were (the skull, the eye distortion, the claws). It’s a very strong look for her--plus she levitates in the menu idle screen!