#kain;

  It’s easy to place Cecil up against Golbez if we’re looking for a Light vs Dark theme, the same way we’d put Fusoya up against Zemus. That’s neat, it’s a pretty classic theme, but personally, I’m way more interested in Cecil vs Kain. At first, they seem pretty similar, There’s a point in both their development where they diverge completely after Cecil goes up the mountain.

  Once he becomes a Paladin, Cecil has this celestial, alien, ethereal perfection about him. As if his clear, confident change in attitude isn’t enough, his palette swap hits you over the head with a large plank marked "I’M A DAMN ANGEL”*. Then you get a nice chaser in the form of the Moon Vibes he starts serving. This is great. I can’t think of any other moral alignment jumping FF character who does it with so much conviction, or so convincingly, if I’m honest. 

  Kain, of course, didn’t do that. His palette stays a similar dark purple and black, typical “dark knight”, aka “questionable, probably a bad guy, might poison your salad”. The split apart in their aesthetics is what really brings your attention to comparing them, imo. If Cecil is this miraculous, beautiful alien knight here to save the world, Kain is his opposite in the sense that he’s nothing remarkable. He’s so fallible, so human, and everything that happens to him highlights flaws, sometimes massive ones, in him; while Cecil has his positive traits brought out and and spotlit. This isn’t the same as Light vs Dark/Good vs Evil (even though there’s definitely still a thread of it running through), this is straight up Perfect vs Imperfect**, or, better: Higher Purpose vs Aimless Wandering. 

  As an individual, events aside, Kain isn’t a bad person; he’s just a person. He’s jealous, insecure, defensive and overly distant at times. But everyone is. We only start to think of him as an antagonist after Golbez gets hold of him, and even then the things that make him “bad” are just these same human traits magnified by x1000.

  Example: He kidnaps and holds Rosa captive; but he said himself that while his actions were dictated, his thoughts weren’t. He didn’t argue. I wonder if that’s because, with the addition of Golbez’ control and influence, his love for Rosa was boosted to a totally irrational level where he really thought that she’d be better off safe and confined with him than out and about with Cecil, despite her own wishes. I’m not romanticising that, by the way; it’s heinous. But it happened. When he breaks free, he expresses genuine remorse and shock at his own behaviour. There’s nothing impressively evil going on here, is what I’m getting at. He doesn’t want the world, he doesn’t want power or control for himself, he just lacks a “calling”, the same way a massive percentage of the human population do. He was easy to pilot.  I feel like I should clarify here that I’m talking in-game only... I’m not saying I sympathise with actual kidnappers in real life. We’re talking about mystical mind control pushing someone over that limit into a blurred space between madness and logic, not natural thought process. Following what I’m saying here, if you’re not sure what to do with your life, copy your dad’s career path. Become a dragoon. Get a lance. Deal with your existential ennui by getting good at jumping. Don’t kidnap the princess.   I absolutely love his Lunar Trial. That was some 👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good shit.    That’s what I want for his endgame. I understand why they took the path of “fixing” him by making him a Holy Dragoon to stand beside Cecil instead of opposite him; but in mirroring Cecil’s choices, a piece of Kain is removed. If he rejects all the things that make him who he is, all the things that brought him up to the present, what’s left? If he joins the Red Wings, what’s left? He became a dragoon to follow Ricard. He loves dragons. His description says his “heart is with” them. Making him a Holy palette swap isn’t just a victorious outfit change, it’s like saying “this guy doesn’t work as a person; junk him and start over”. ** To me, anyway.   His Lunar Trial saw him face his own “darkness” and accept it, work with it instead of rejecting it’s existence and allow himself to be at peace with it. That is fire. That is what I’m  👌 👌👌 👌 about. He gets some serious new equipment as a reward.    “This should be the end of everything... Right? Kain?”   That’s him talking to himself instead of treating his mirror-self like a monster. But even then,   “This is the way it should be... Right, Cecil? Right, Rosa?”   He still has to ask his friends for help understanding what’s up.   Disclosure: I’ve struggled with depression, anxiety (That’s a New One!) and some other smaller stuff since I was a kid, so maybe that’s why this option means a lot more to me than just scrubbing him clean and giving him shinier armour (as it seemed to happen in canon; I know RPers give more detail and add more nuance than that). I don’t like to paint everything I write with a thin layer of Charlie, so I won’t project that onto him, but I do write him with a sort of disassociative disorder. Personally, I think all MH issues are on a spectrum, and Kain is on the “milder” side; so he won’t be doing any outrageous, bad-movie “split personality” stuff. 

  Apart from everything else, referring to what I said earlier about Holy Kain being beside rather than opposite Cecil; this is pure opinion here, but I think Cecil needs someone to stand opposite. It would be so easy for him to become complacent with everyone around him in awe of him and praising his genuinely inspiring achievements. With someone who could criticise him close by, I think he’d probably be reassured that he really was on the right track. If he was getting anything wrong, being too soft or hard on a problem, letting anything slide, Kain would tell him even if no one else would.

  Anyway. Kain Highwind is a damn goldmine and a treasure. I love him. If you made it to the end of this very very words post, Namingway bless, may RNG not completely shit on your playthrough, and thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.