Crystal Tower: idle speculation on the future

[Fenral]

it seems a waste to have been relegated to a side-quest, away from the main storyline.

We agree on that, at least. While the CT story did bring Nero "back" and reform him a bit, because of the completely isolated context and the role he plays in this story, he can never actually influence the main storyline ever again, at least not according to the rules currently on the table.

My main issue with how G'raha was handled comes from a (possibly accidental) secondary character allusion I noticed in the interim between 2.3 and 2.5, as well as a few tertiary chracter allusions I noticed after. The primary allusion is, of course, Desch, an amnesiac guest party member who, upon reaching the top of the Tower of Owen, regains the memories he had lost and, in the urgency of the moment, throws himself into the tower's reactor to stop it from destroying the Floating Continent. The "amnesia" in G'raha's case, however, is a little different.

The secondary is where things get sticky for me, because the way G'raha's backstory is set up he much more closely resembles Zidane, from FF9. (They also have a ton of superficial visual similarities). Zidane also has a lost memory, of "where he came from," and with that memory as his only clue he goes out in search of his "home." I'd end up spoiling most of FF9 to go deeper into how that plays out, but I can spoil that his adoptive father beats the living crap out him for thinking that some vague memory was more important than the home he already had. In the same way, I wanted to punch G'raha for suddenly defining himself solely on a genetic, not even technically his own, memory, as if that was all he ever was. There's a huge logical leap in there that wasn't required for Desch, because Desch was actually retrieving his identity, but is required for G'raha.

As for the tertiary? Aya Brea, from Parasite Eve, and Yuna, from Final Fantasy X. For both, just note the eyes. Aya's internal struggle with maintaining her own idenity in spite of awakening as a genetic superhuman is, of course, the core conflict of Parasite Eve, and G'raha's "get a load of my glowing eyes" closeup is, perhaps unintentionally, a direct callback. Yuna, well, two-tone eyes, destined to sacrifice herself for the good of all mankind? A bit of a stretch, I guess, since while G'raha is sacrificing his current self, he isn't technically dead, but my feelings towards both characters are the same. In that I'd smash the ancients for either.

And no, I didn't say he was "throwing away" his future, merely denying himself the right to participate in the creation of that future. Seeing him reduced to the "you're so wonderful Mister Warrior of Light" role after everything we went through together wasn't, for me, the satisfying character resolution that I know it was intended to be.

"Oh, but he does have a future! It's the one you create!"

Yeah, I get it, but it's a tragically passive exit for a character who introduced himself by completing your quest objectives for you. Even though they apparently thought sealing a teenage catboy inside a giant phallic symbol was a perfect way to represent the bright future of all mankind (which is, I guess, impressive in it's own way) I can't help but feel like he deserved more as a character in the playable time-frame of ARR.

Which wraps right around into that Eureka tease they ended on, and the ongoing discussion of would they really end it there? No point in lighting the Ahriman signal to ask for spoilers (though I'm sure his eye is watching, and probably judging me), but they did manage to leave us with a surprising amount to chew on.


(Ammendment: there's also one GIANT FFXIII character reference I forgot to include in the above. Let's just say it felt like he was finishing his Focus and setting me on mine.)