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personalapocalypseAs promised on Day 5, here's a meta post about the various forms of magic - more specifically the sources of the various forms of magic - in Final Fantasy VIII. I have various things that I'm writing about them, and maybe a bit of meta about it will actually help me get it out, since I've been trying for a long time.
This mostly began with me trying to figure out how Limits fit into the game mechanics, especially Blue Magic - one of my absolute favorite things in FF, but also kind of hard to justify.
We know from the game that Sorceresses can cast magic unaided. (So can Selphie, but... I haven't figured that bit out yet. Some sort of eidetic magical memory to recall spells she's seen before under stress?) That's probably an incredibly rare ability, and they're probably the only people who can, aside from the above exception. They're basically humans cursed with a divine gift that makes people hate and fear them; there isn't as much to say about them that hasn't been said by the canon, so I really have less to say about them than anything else here.
Next, Guardian Forces. First off, there either have to be a lot of GFs that we never see, or the same GF must be able to possess different people as long as they're a certain distance from each other. It's really the only way that GF use in Garden makes sense at all if anyone but the protagonists ever use them, and presumably they do. Squall and company aren't the only SeeDs, and apparently even cadets use them to train. There are quite a lot of cadets in Balamb Garden.
I favor the latter option. I don't know if physical distance is what matters, or some other form of spiritual distance, but it at least explains why the GFs can all be contained within a group of three people without depriving the rest of garden. Somewhere, Shiva is able to be in someone else's head along with Squall's. I don't know how that translates to the "wild" GFs that we meet; maybe someone else had already "discovered" the Brothers and has him in their heads, or maybe the splitting up is a function of pacts they've made with Garden.
This would make the GFs fairly powerful, IMO, since they're able to split themselves up like that. I tend to write them as fallen gods of a sort, and I really like the idea of the Guardian Forces being the fallen enemies of Hyne and fundamentally opposed to the Sorceresses, which is why they're willing to let these kids carry them around in their minds, and why they're able to essentially possess them... except that if they were enemies of the Sorceresses they wouldn't be letting Edea or Rinoa carry them around in their heads.
So maybe instead they're enemies of Ultimecia, and were somehow cast down by her in some distant past or alternate future, and so they're angry and allowing these children to use them to take revenge. They've probably been around for a long time, and that Garden isn't the first group of people to use them (although a lot of places are going to balk at using things that steal your identity and memories, so Garden's probably the first place in a while to use them on any long-term basis.)
So far we have two sorts of cosmic power - the GFs who are fallen gods (maybe in the Lovecraftian sense?) and the Sorceresses who directly get their power from Hyne. Where does Blue Magic come in?
This is what I came up with: Imagine that there's a fairly small community that lives in a relatively isolated area - not isolated to the point that they don't know what's going on around them, but enough so that they're hard to invade on a whim. They don't like the Sorceress or the GFs because they don't trust making deals with the various gods, but they have to do something because if they don't they'll be steamrolled by magic. They just aren't strong enough to fight on their own.
So they find a way to convince the monsters around them to offer them power - or to coerce them. Either way.
Here's my rationale for why monsters have enough power to learn from - monsters canonically came from the moon, right? The Lunar Cry is specifically said to have occurred "many times in history," and every time it happens, the world is flooded with monsters - sometimes enough to destroy nations. And the monsters can change the mundane monsters that they're around just by being around them - to say nothing of the possibility of the monsters breeding and adapting to their new world, and possibly even interbreeding with Terran beasts, if there's enough genetic similarity. There's a huge correlation drawn between monsters, magic and the moon - one of the things the Sorceress can do is call the lunar monsters. [ETA: That might be a piece of personal canon only, actually. I thought that the Sorceresses were the ones who controlled Lunatic Pandora, but now I can't find any reference to it, so take that with a grain of salt.] So I think it's not a huge stretch of logic to think that they have power that someone could tap into and use.
I'm not entirely sure how yet - I have vague ideas floating around for fic involving rituals amongst the original Blue Mages, and lab experiments mirroring them involving Quistis in the modern day. A lot of parallels, mostly amounting to a different pact than the one made with the GFs, and centering around the idea that the monsters (both lunar and terrestrial) want to be free of the Sorceress's influence as much as the people who bargain with them. It's probably some sort of generational pact, so that their descendants are also able to use their power; I think that's how Quistis was able to use it. Which kind of makes me think - what would the conditions of the pact be? Quistis has to use something in order to use a monster's ability. Does she literally have to consume it, like an animal would?
And that's not even getting into the people we meet who can use magic and who probably don't use GFs, like the Galbadian army that you fight in Timber. I usually treat that as something like a FFXIII manadrive - the magic is taken from another source, the way that GFs can Draw magic from their enemies, or possibly refined from items. Only GFs can do that ingame; it's not a huge stretch to think that Sorceresses could do the same. Considering that all of the units that the party fights that can music are the soldiers under some Sorceress or another, it would make sense that she's somehow granting the magic directly to them, or storing it somehow in a thing that they have to use to cast magic. It wouldn't provide the same benefit as a GF, but it would be a lot less dangerous. And more feasible for outfitting an army.
This mostly began with me trying to figure out how Limits fit into the game mechanics, especially Blue Magic - one of my absolute favorite things in FF, but also kind of hard to justify.
We know from the game that Sorceresses can cast magic unaided. (So can Selphie, but... I haven't figured that bit out yet. Some sort of eidetic magical memory to recall spells she's seen before under stress?) That's probably an incredibly rare ability, and they're probably the only people who can, aside from the above exception. They're basically humans cursed with a divine gift that makes people hate and fear them; there isn't as much to say about them that hasn't been said by the canon, so I really have less to say about them than anything else here.
Next, Guardian Forces. First off, there either have to be a lot of GFs that we never see, or the same GF must be able to possess different people as long as they're a certain distance from each other. It's really the only way that GF use in Garden makes sense at all if anyone but the protagonists ever use them, and presumably they do. Squall and company aren't the only SeeDs, and apparently even cadets use them to train. There are quite a lot of cadets in Balamb Garden.
I favor the latter option. I don't know if physical distance is what matters, or some other form of spiritual distance, but it at least explains why the GFs can all be contained within a group of three people without depriving the rest of garden. Somewhere, Shiva is able to be in someone else's head along with Squall's. I don't know how that translates to the "wild" GFs that we meet; maybe someone else had already "discovered" the Brothers and has him in their heads, or maybe the splitting up is a function of pacts they've made with Garden.
This would make the GFs fairly powerful, IMO, since they're able to split themselves up like that. I tend to write them as fallen gods of a sort, and I really like the idea of the Guardian Forces being the fallen enemies of Hyne and fundamentally opposed to the Sorceresses, which is why they're willing to let these kids carry them around in their minds, and why they're able to essentially possess them... except that if they were enemies of the Sorceresses they wouldn't be letting Edea or Rinoa carry them around in their heads.
So maybe instead they're enemies of Ultimecia, and were somehow cast down by her in some distant past or alternate future, and so they're angry and allowing these children to use them to take revenge. They've probably been around for a long time, and that Garden isn't the first group of people to use them (although a lot of places are going to balk at using things that steal your identity and memories, so Garden's probably the first place in a while to use them on any long-term basis.)
So far we have two sorts of cosmic power - the GFs who are fallen gods (maybe in the Lovecraftian sense?) and the Sorceresses who directly get their power from Hyne. Where does Blue Magic come in?
This is what I came up with: Imagine that there's a fairly small community that lives in a relatively isolated area - not isolated to the point that they don't know what's going on around them, but enough so that they're hard to invade on a whim. They don't like the Sorceress or the GFs because they don't trust making deals with the various gods, but they have to do something because if they don't they'll be steamrolled by magic. They just aren't strong enough to fight on their own.
So they find a way to convince the monsters around them to offer them power - or to coerce them. Either way.
Here's my rationale for why monsters have enough power to learn from - monsters canonically came from the moon, right? The Lunar Cry is specifically said to have occurred "many times in history," and every time it happens, the world is flooded with monsters - sometimes enough to destroy nations. And the monsters can change the mundane monsters that they're around just by being around them - to say nothing of the possibility of the monsters breeding and adapting to their new world, and possibly even interbreeding with Terran beasts, if there's enough genetic similarity. There's a huge correlation drawn between monsters, magic and the moon - one of the things the Sorceress can do is call the lunar monsters. [ETA: That might be a piece of personal canon only, actually. I thought that the Sorceresses were the ones who controlled Lunatic Pandora, but now I can't find any reference to it, so take that with a grain of salt.] So I think it's not a huge stretch of logic to think that they have power that someone could tap into and use.
I'm not entirely sure how yet - I have vague ideas floating around for fic involving rituals amongst the original Blue Mages, and lab experiments mirroring them involving Quistis in the modern day. A lot of parallels, mostly amounting to a different pact than the one made with the GFs, and centering around the idea that the monsters (both lunar and terrestrial) want to be free of the Sorceress's influence as much as the people who bargain with them. It's probably some sort of generational pact, so that their descendants are also able to use their power; I think that's how Quistis was able to use it. Which kind of makes me think - what would the conditions of the pact be? Quistis has to use something in order to use a monster's ability. Does she literally have to consume it, like an animal would?
And that's not even getting into the people we meet who can use magic and who probably don't use GFs, like the Galbadian army that you fight in Timber. I usually treat that as something like a FFXIII manadrive - the magic is taken from another source, the way that GFs can Draw magic from their enemies, or possibly refined from items. Only GFs can do that ingame; it's not a huge stretch to think that Sorceresses could do the same. Considering that all of the units that the party fights that can music are the soldiers under some Sorceress or another, it would make sense that she's somehow granting the magic directly to them, or storing it somehow in a thing that they have to use to cast magic. It wouldn't provide the same benefit as a GF, but it would be a lot less dangerous. And more feasible for outfitting an army.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 12:07 am (UTC)Something to keep in mind though is that ordinary people, according to FF8's canon material, can in fact use magic. What they're using is called 'para-magic'.
[Para-Magic]
'Magic' used by ordinary people is actually 'para-magic'. In essence, it is a technique which involves controlling energy. 'Para-magic' was developed by Dr. Odine. He was the first scientist to research the nature of magic by studying the sorceress. The skill can be gained through proper training. However, with magic, it is difficult to achieve power levels that are comparable to conventional weapons.
GF (Guardian Force)
A GF is an independent energy force. By combining it with para-magic, it is possible to control a tremendous energy. Memory loss is a possible side-effect, but this has not been proven as of yet.
Both of those quotes are taken from the game, from the ... I think it's the tutorial section in the menu? I can't quite remember, although now I'm wanting to find my PC copy and boot it up and double-check.
I also think that since the Lunar Cry has the ability to change local creatures into monsters -- people too, remember the guy in Esthar who turns into an Elnoyle? -- it might be exposing the world very steadily to some sort of radiation. I think that's where Ellone's power fits in, since she's not actually a Sorceress herself. She's what should have been an ordinary girl who either was exposed at a very young age or perhaps her mother was exposed to excess levels of this radiation that began to change her.
Out of curiosity, where did you pull that the Sorceresses call lunar monsters? I'm not familiar with that concept. ^^
no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 12:44 am (UTC)I might have misunderstood something, but I thought that the game stated that the Sorceresses primarily were the ones who controlled Lunatic Pandora and used it to start the Lunar Cries. I might be misremembering, though; I was looking at a wiki entry as I wrote this and I thought I read something to that effect, but I can't find it now. ^^;
no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 12:47 am (UTC)See, now I am going to have to replay the game to look at the Lunatic Pandora little more closely.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 12:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-08 12:34 am (UTC)The thought of consuming one's enemies to gain their powers is pretty disgusting when some of those enemies are Marlboros, but I'd probably be more worried about the power generators and dark matters.
Then again, the Devour command already exists...
...I've come to realize that FFVIII is a pretty damn gross game.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-10 11:15 pm (UTC)I've been poking around the FF wiki site and the available translations for the FVIII Ultimania, and from my understanding, Odine developed a junctioning device for using para-magic. I was wondering if the Galbadian Army, an example of magic users, not summoning, had a separate device than that used over at Balamb Garden.
I'm going to have to find the translations to back me up, but I believe they're the same devices and used pretty much the same, the difference being that if you add on GFs, it extends your physical limitations (you can augment stats), and that doesn't happen without them.
I'm still trying to work out the Blue Magic bit with Quistis and Selphie's Slots ability. Ellone is part of this question, too: Are they carrying some degree of sorceress magic? Could they be examples of sorceress magic being spread thin? It makes me wonder; everyone else in the party (Edea and Sorceress!Rinoa excluded) have physical limit breaks.