#lahabrea

two masked men

( — and what lurks underneath.)

it always felt like such a cop-out to me the first time(s) i played arr. you're fighting the big bad guys! and every time gaius pulls out another big attack out of ultima weapon...you get shielded. when lahabrea fires off an actual ultima spell...you get shielded. when lahabrea literally kills you...hydaelyn revives you. and when you strike the final blow against lahabrea, sending him out of thancred's body for good...she's the light in your strike. and even though she keeps saying "this is the last of my power," she keeps doing more stuff. hydaelyn is a deus ex machina in a very literal sense.

but looking back from a standpoint of having gotten much, much further in the game? it actually sort of...makes sense?

lahabrea was one of the three unsundered ascians, right? along with emet-selch and elidibus. for emet-selch and elidibus, you need to be level 80 with a full party of eight people to even stand a ghost of a chance with them. lahabrea is very likely at that level.

and you're alone for that fight, at level 50, with nothing but hydaelyn to help you.

in the end, i don't think it's a cop-out any longer -- i mean, it still kinda is in the context of arr, but you know -- but rather a testament of how far you had to go yet before you could possibly face off with another ascian.

and the thing is that hydaelyn never comes back from that. she never shields you again. she certainly never revives you again. that wasn't a cop-out because the game stuck with it.

Not again

I’ve picked a favorite character and it’s one who is relatively less important than the others

In EN, he is very notably impressed by (dare I say admiring of) Lahabrea. There is a lot more emphasis on how beautiful and spectacular Lahabrea's creations were, and you get the sense that this level of quality is not only expected of Lahabrea, it's as though he keeps raising the bar every time. Lahabrea is(was) someone worth looking up to, was someone he did seem to look up to.

FR has Emet much more subdued. The phoenix has majestic wings (is the apple of the Institute's eye), Ifrita is Lahabrea's greatest work, and both are sublime, but he never lingers on his own thoughts about them. Lahabrea comes across as just another coworker, whose work he is aware of, but has no real opinions on.

At least, until you get to the present day. FR!Emet is so poetic in his mourning for Lahabrea. It wasn't just that he was bold and reckless, it was that he never stepped back when faced with a goal. It wasn't just that he burned out brightly and beautifully, it was that the flame that burned inside him was itself bright and beautiful. It's not that he burned out; it's that even as he burned out, it was all so beautiful. He burned out just like the phoenix and Ifrita: great and blazing.

Contrast that to EN!Emet, who seems so disillusioned and perhaps even disappointed. Lahabrea should have known what was awaiting a burning flame. He was needlessly prolonging an umbral calamity vs already jumping ahead to starting the next one.

Something similar happens with Elidibus, too. EN!Emet finds Elidibus endearing, is explicit in that he gives the Emissary time to choose his words, given his position. Emet is understanding, indulgent even. Even after Elidibus splits from Zodiark, his splintering was shimmering, his smile passing for earnest, compared to the undefined mass that emerges from Zodiark, whose expression only vaguely resembles of a smile.

But FR!Elidibus was not just like a little brother to many of the Convocation members. He was their collective protégé that everyone appreciated. After Zodiark, everything that was supposed to be familiar about him rang strange: his tone, his attitude, his expressions. Emet is almost empathetic: Elidibus is not just uncertain, he's troubled; not only does he not remember, he has no idea what Emet is even talking about; he's not only made aware he's forgotten an important memory, he's made viscerally aware that Emet knows he's amnesiac. Elidibus refuses to look at his crystal, but in FR, he's never looked at it.

Emet is so gentle with Elidibus in FR. He apologises for getting lost in his thoughts. He doesn't just affect the shrug (although the phrasing is less that he's being fake and more that he's trying to sidestep the awkwardness); he shrugs because there's nothing left to say. There's nothing he can say to convince Elidibus either way. He's even relieved Elidibus spares him the need to change the topic by leaving.

In EN, Emet is still gentle, but his phrasing is as though he's given up on Elidibus as he had Lahabrea. There's a finality to his grief. "Will you not look at your crystal?" vs "Are you sure you don't want to look at it?" "Sounds like a real hero" vs the banter of "Technically, it's not an enemy if it's a hero" (since FR!Elidibus mockingly calls Lahabrea's killer a famous hero). "No match for you" vs "I understand." The explicit phrasing that FR!Emet never once considered he would never see Elidibus again.

(And the new life that sprang forth after the Summoning, while they're still debating what to do for the third(?) round sacrifice: EN's "freshly minted souls" vs FR's "new sprouts." The potential in a sprout, the organic feel of it, vs the detachedness of something being newly minted.)

(FR!Zodiark-Elidibus specifying, "You will do what's needed. I, Elidibus, will help you." That subsumation of the person into the role. That emphasis on unrelenting duty. The fact that in the end, all he wanted to do was help.)