That Garlean guy, what was his name? Gaius Van Baelsar

[Fenral]

I'm not sold on Lahabrea being perma dead either buy that's just my preference to him over Elidibus as our main antagonistist.

I'll accept Lahabrea coming back if it means we get Eldibus as an actual ally.

[Velox]

snip

1.) There is no such thing as good or bad. People do what they believe. The adjectives good and bad are ideas created by mortals to describe the contrast of what they believe in versus what someone else believes in. People view themselves as good and their enemies as bad, and their enemies view themselves as good and them as bad.

2.) Nael was male. The version you see in t9 is not the real him. Which ties into...

3) Nael died 5 years before 2.0 even began. What you see in t9 is his essence, stitched together by the will of Bahamut by using pieces of Nael's memory as a template. One of the last images going through his mind at the time of his death was the unknown woman who obviously I'd tied to his past even if we don't know know who she was. He's essentially a ghost. The real him was killed by the WoL towards the end of the 1.0 story arc.

[Kaiser-Ace]

I'll accept Lahabrea coming back if it means we get Eldibus as an actual ally.

I'm still waiting for the punch line on Elidibus. Like him being us from the future or some other FF13-2 BS.

Really don't like how he seems to know more than even his own team but refuses to tell anyone anything. He's either going to turn out to be Future/Past WoL who is trying to end the cycle of destruction by any means necessary including wiping out existence ala Caius Ballad, or he's going to go completely Kupo Nuts on us and try and pull a Kefka meets Emperor Palamecia on us. Both of which will result in everything he's ever said being miss leading BS.

[Fenral]

I'm still waiting for the punch line on Elidibus. Like him being us from the future or some other FF13-2 BS.

Really don't like how he seems to know more than even his own team but refuses to tell anyone anything.

I'm pretty sure his deal is that they actually aren't all the same team. Beyond that is anyone's guess.

Maybe Hydaelyn is the true enemy after zodiac is defeated

At worst, I expect some part of Hydaelyn's fundamental nature might end up putting us at odds, even as she continues to be classically good and mean well for everyone (as a unit, if not individually).

[Cilia]

So Gaius, we didn't see him die, we didn't recover a corpse, so he can't possibly be Prema-Dead. Not until we drag a corpse out of the Pretorium ruins will I buy it. Even his Helm and Gunblade won't convence me unless his skill [sic] is in the helmet.

So you demand a corpse tied to the bumper of your airship to confirm death?

... man, and I thought I was a sadist...

[Kaiser-Ace]

So you demand a corpse tied to the bumper of your airship to confirm death?

... man, and I thought I was a sadist...

I've just watched enough Anime to know a villan walking slowly towards the camera as his HQ blows up behind him rarely means they were defeated let alone killed. The fact that we don't know what he looked like under his helmet just proves we could still run into him. I'm still betting he's retreated to Ala Mihgo to resume his role as Imperial Vicroy. Possibly going compleatly Rouge and declaring himself King of Ala Mihgo.

[ChazNatlo]

Amusingly, until more recent events, I had a pet theory that Lahabrea, needing a body, took the broken and defeated Gaius and teleported out. Pretty sure that one is shot now.

[CGMidlander]

Amusingly, until more recent events, I had a pet theory that Lahabrea, needing a body, took the broken and defeated Gaius and teleported out. Pretty sure that one is shot now.

Except, he doesn't need one. Nabriales made it pretty clear that Ascians can just keep coming back from whatever. (Except if they're soaked into a sponge and blasted with a Care Bear stare)

[Rocl]

Eh, we know Nabriales and Lahabrea differed in some way. (Lahabrea being "of this world" while Nabriales wasn't.) What that difference really is, or how it translates into differing abilities we don't know.

[Enkidoh]

If Gaius truly isn't dead, he's doing a damn good job hiding that fact from even the rest of Garlemald, as the comments made by Varius and van Hydrus pretty much state that to them he perished. Although given the fact that Gaius was acting pretty much rogue from the Calamity to Operation Archon, and, despite ostensibly operating under their banner, was not actually under Garlemald's actual command, there was incentive for him to 'fake his death' so to speak and go to ground. This is why Nero after all fled the Praetorium after we kicked his butt, and ended up allying with us during the Crystal Tower storyline - he too was marked as a traitor to the Empire and was looking at a death sentence if he returned to Garlemald (Nero even actually said that the XIVth Legion is 'extinct' for all intents and purposes).

Given Gaius's last words though...

Gaius: "And so my conquest ends here Cid... in smoke and ashes..."

...and the lack of any other proof that he survived that inferno, I'm liable to believe this trope is not in effect here.