#the tyrant

So, for a little context, I wound up getting him in Normal Raid roulettes, and while normally when I’m playing Gunbreaker I don’t even have a second to breathe, let alone think (SO MANY BUTTONS ALL THE TIME AAAAAAA), a thought came to me in between dodging space rocks all the same.

The Tyrant’s whole gimmick is about fighting for a history that’s intentionally been erased.

Obviously setting aside the Tyrant’s true motivations and his part to play in the President’s plan, when I first hit his confrontation cutscene outside of the Arcadion, I… wasn’t all that impressed. Yadda yadda grand history yadda yadda defiling tradition etc. etc. Been there, done that, burned at least one empire to the ground that tried that card. But thinking on it now, it’s a lot grittier than I’d previously given it credit for.

Not gritty in the “grim dark future of Eorzea” kind of way, obviously. But gritty in the inherent conflict between his words and the culture of Alexandria as a whole. The Tyrant sets himself up as a bulwark against the marauding newcomer, one without any shred of respect for the old ways of the Arcadion and the history it represents. But what would he know about that history? What would anyone? Alexandria as a nation forsook the past in favour of an unchanging, unmoving present. Everyone who has ever died within its walls is scrubbed from history’s pages the moment they stop breathing. They never were. They will never be again. Even Arcadion, which removed the regulators from those inflicted with psychonekrosis, treats them simply as ascendant legends. Untouchable. Unreachable.

So it all rings a little shallow, doesn’t it? The Tyrant’s grand posturing about protecting the Arcadion’s legacy from an un-enhanced upstart. Obviously this is all just a front to bring about the ending the President has been looking for. One last chance to rile up the last hope of Arcadion and bring its tragic legacy to a close. And yet I can’t help but feel there’s something more to it. The Tyrant’s speech isn’t a dismissive spiel about the fading history of an arena of spectacle.

It’s a plea.

Remember us. You, who do not wear a regulator, whose memories cannot be tampered with.

Remember the Arcadion. Remember all the fighters who lived and fought and died within its walls.

Remember me. In case you fail. In case the cure fails.