#teol

- The book opens with a one page musing on how Light and Darkness came from the Void, the balance of Light and Dark, etc etc. While the Void being a concept in every FF world is implied in the games, it seems more explicit here.

- The main party of the FFI adaptation is a Warrior (Setro), a Thief (Zauver), a Black Mage (Teol), and a White Mage (Flora). This is the standard party comp since the PS1 version, but that’s a topic for another day.

- The character designs are all over the place: Setro is implied to be based on the Warrior’s famicom appearance (”...red hair like burning fire”) while Zauver is described as blonde. Flora and Teol are not described physically enough to tell which version they’re based on, and due to character/story descriptions using images of the CGI scenes/renders, pretty much none of them have images (WoL makes an appearance above the story summary, as a result).

- The Warriors lack their memories, though it’s implied that they have been traveling together for a while prior to their arrival in Cornelia. This is the running theme of the story, as I’ll describe later.

- The crystals take the form of crystal pendants that the Warriors wear, much like WoL in the CGI scenes for FFI. The crystals are as follows:

Setro: Fire

Zauver: Wind

Flora: Water

Teol: Earth

- When the king sends the Warriors out to rescue the princess, the Warriors are stopped by some knights who ask them to spare Garland. The knights note that Garland used to be a paragon, but after leading a squad into the Chaos Shrine to stop a surge of monsters, he suddenly abducted the princess. While we don’t get to see “pre-madness” Garland, his description in the summary calls him “...an exemplary knight, full of love for his country and protective of the weak.”

- Garland is portrayed as being arrogant and having a sense of entitlement. He believes the logic that it is “right” for the strongest knight to marry the princess, although he claims that Sarah “does not understand my love”, which fits SE’s statements that Garland kidnapped Sarah because he was in love with her. 

- The fight with Garland is mostly between him, Zauver and Setro. Teol manages to distract him at a critical moment, saving Setro from being killed, and Flora heals him after Garland’s sword nicks a bit of his flesh, causing Garland to target her. Zauver saves Flora and distracts Garland, allowing Setro to kill him.

- Setro feels guilty about having to kill Garland and has to convince himself that it had to be done.

- Sara doesn’t give the Warriors the lute in this version, but she does tell them of what is happening in Melmond, which is their next destination.

- Everything from Pravoka/the Western Keep to Melmond is skipped over; This means that Bikke, Astos, Matoya and Elfland are all encountered offscreen.

Part 2: Melmond

- Zauver pilots the boat, and later the airship.

- Melmond plays out about the same as the game: The Warriors arrive, go and slay the vampire, are told by Sadda to relight the crystal and defeat the Lich.

- How the Dia spell works is elaborated upon: The undead can only consume life energy via bodily fluids such as blood. Dia is basically a weaponized version of Cure, as undead can’t handle direct life energy.

- The discrepancies between the elements and Magic is also explained: Thunder = Wind, Blizzard = Water, Fire = er, Fire, and Earth is technically not counted in the sense of the ground, but in the sense of the earth’s life energy (i.e. Cure = Earth). Setro speculates that this is why the earth fiend is undead. This could also be a nod to the fact that there are only two earth-related spells in FFI (Quake and Stone), so the author chose to tie into the x, x-ara, x-aga spells instead.

- The Warriors of Light nearly die in their battle against the Lich, only prevailing when a paralyzed Setro throws himself on top of the Lich, leaving an opening for Flora to kill the Lich with Diara.

- All of the fiends have pretty metal deaths, all things considered. It’s not Stranger of Paradise but still surprisingly brutal.

- Teol uses his pendant to relight the crystal. It speaks, telling the Warriors of Light that they’ve restored one crystal, but there’s more work to do. Zauver asks it questions relating to the warriors’ missing memories (getting louder as he does until he’s practically shouting), but the crystal doesn’t answer. Setro is confident that the answers lay ahead, though.

Part 2: Crescent Lake/Mt. Gulg

- At Sadda’s advice, the Warriors head for Crescent Lake, where they meet Lukahn and the Twelve Sages.

- The Sages explain the backstory, with the notable difference being that it is specifically said that Kraken and Tiamat laid waste to “the civilization in the north”. The Warriors are then pointed in the direction of Mt. Glug because Marilith woke up due to Lich dying and if she absorbs the Fire Crystal’s light, either the world will freeze or Marilith will set it on fire.

- Setro locks blades with Marilith, proving her to be stronger, and Marilith’s flame is able to dissolve Teol’s Blizzara spell; Due to the FFI world working on Rock-Paper-Scissors logic, this means that she’s stronger magically too.

- Teol, for his part, does blind Marilith later (allowing Setro to strike a blow) and uses another Blizzara to help Setro weather Marilith’s flame.

- Setro, while ready to die if it meant saving the crystal, is given a golden opportunity after Zauver throws a dagger at Marilith’s eye. Setro promptly deals the finishing blow.

- The Fire Crystal is relit by Setro’s pendant. Very slightly beforehand, Zauver notices a floating rock and nicks it. This will be important in the very next chapter.