#zalbag

Zalbaag, you glorious fool, you’re such a mess.

SO OKAY LIKE

Some background.

This was my first Ivalician ship.  Fell in love with FF tactics (still quite possibly my favorite game of all time) and of course its awesome character designs and plethora of beardy guys.  Zalbag is the head of Prince Larg’s knights.  It made sense!

But you know the WEIRDEST PART?  These guys are TOTALLY proto Vossler x Ondore.  Maybe visually more than plot-wise, but it’s the same prince/ruler x dutiful knight bullshit in both cases.  If anyone’s compared Larg and Ondore’s character designs too, dead ringers. (I mean makes sense given same concept artist) They even have the excessive jewelry, fluted collar, long coat/tunic and pimp cane thing going on.  Ondore wins bonus points for being less of a tool and not having a bowl cut.

Vossler and Zalbaag both have that heart’s-in-the-right-place-but-major-priority-problems kinda thing.  And they both SPOILER SPOILERY MCSPOILERTON

Moral of the story is that...Krozin’s fetishes/ships are super predictable?  Idk why I was so excited about this.

The Tower - The Hanged Man

Every morning, before dawn, he crawled from bed, struggled into his padded shirt, and ran to the practice yard where his breath fogged the air.

"Your form is off. Hold your elbow higher."

Zalbag never offered praise. He only nodded silently and moved to the next lesson: how to hold a shield, parry a blow, grip a sword.

"No. Pay attention. Do it again."

Ramza's shirt was stained with dirt and sweat and blood. Every morning, he pulled it over his aching shoulders.

"Better. But you'd still be dead. Do it again."

given what happens later in the game, it's understandable that there's this perception of Zalbaag as a hapless victim of his elder brother's machinations. i myself even saw him as a sort of "lone man of honor in a den of thieves" kind of character for awhile

but never forget- it was he that lead the charge on Ziekden Fortress despite claims that the attack was to wait until Tietra's safe return, and it was he that gave Argath the order to shoot. he doesn't value the lives of commoners any more than Argath does, and even Golagros is shocked by this- surely the leader of the most chivalrous, highly-regarded order of knights in the country wouldn't endanger the life of an innocent?