Thread: Patch 3.3 (Trailer) Discussion (2.x - 3.2 Spoilers)

Originally Posted by CyrilLucifer

Now Lahabrea? He's fun. And is an interesting case where the villain learns from his mistakes and corrects them throughout the course of 2.X (thanks for mucking that up, Igeyorhm; you should have killed the WoL when you had the chance. Also, stop being impatient and put that crystal away, that's not a good -). Plus, I'm not going to lie, his little impatient whining with his arms across the chest at the end of 2.0 was adorable. I'm not even going to try to defend my reasoning there.
Elidibus? Super interesting. Incredibly so. Do I need to explain why? I don't think this needs an explanation.

Really? Lahabrea did not learn from his mistakes, and thats was his doom at the end. I thought that was very clear.
His way of thought was that if you can beat someone with an stick, use a bigger stick instead and that didnt help him at all.

I only agree about Edibudus. He sees all with a different perspective and he does his moves carefully. But he still thinks that he hasalready the fight won.

Frederick, I went over how Lahabrea learned from his mistakes in a thread about 3 months ago when you said exactly that same thing.

It's actually Igeyorhm that makes the mistakes in HW - Lahabrea is very precise and much more controlled in his behavior in 3.0 than he is in 2.0. The one time before the ARF that he actively interferes with you is the Vault - and by all rights, he would have succeeded had the WoL not had plot armor. Play through 2.0 and 3.0 again and you'll see how differently he acts regarding you.

Also keep in mind that 2.X is basically all about Lahabrea succeeding. Those Extreme Primals? He gets exactly what he wants from you with them. Primal Pet Project (the one two triggered the idea for which is very likely the WoL)? Completely successful - on two occasions!

Quoting myself from the last time you said this.

You're conflating underestimating a foe with not learning. It's not on him that our Blessing became a Super Blessing in 3.0 (possibly from Minfilia's sacrifice) paired with us becoming stronger as well. If anything, he didn't underestimate us in the ARF, hence why he has Igeyorhm with him in order to counter our strength, since it was clear that one Ascian is not enough to take us down. He was definitely more prepared that time. If anything, it was Igeyorhm who underestimated us. Twice. Once after Bismarck, thinking we wouldn't get the Blessing back and that we weren't a threat. The second time was in the ARF when she popped out her dark crystal early.

If it had been Lahabrea with Thordan after Bismarck, we probably wouldn't have survived the encounter. He wanted us dead; Igeyorhm seemed to just want to do her duty (also shown in their pre-battle dialogue in the ARF to further the evidence for this).

He did learn, precisely for the reasons I stated. He started taking advantage of the Echo in mortals (Ysayle/Shiva), when earlier he was basically just tossing its mortal usage away as weak. He found mortal use of the Echo useless until we beat him out of Thancred with it.

Lahabrea underestimating us would have been him coming alone to the ARF, thinking he could defeat us that way. Not learning would have been him continuing to view mortal potential with Echo as worthless. He does neither of these things.

So I'm not sure how you can say all he does is get a bigger stick. He changes his strategy entirely.

Originally Posted by CyrilLucifer

Quoting myself from the last time you said this.

You're conflating underestimating a foe with not learning. It's not on him that our Blessing became a Super Blessing in 3.0 (possibly from Minfilia's sacrifice) paired with us becoming stronger as well. If anything, he didn't underestimate us in the ARF, hence why he has Igeyorhm with him in order to counter our strength, since it was clear that one Ascian is not enough to take us down. He was definitely more prepared that time. If anything, it was Igeyorhm who underestimated us. Twice. Once after Bismarck, thinking we wouldn't get the Blessing back and that we weren't a threat. The second time was in the ARF when she popped out her dark crystal early.

If it had been Lahabrea with Thordan after Bismarck, we probably wouldn't have survived the encounter. He wanted us dead; Igeyorhm seemed to just want to do her duty (also shown in their pre-battle dialogue in the ARF to further the evidence for this).

He did learn, precisely for the reasons I stated. He started taking advantage of the Echo in mortals, when earlier he was basically just tossing its mortal usage away as weak. He found mortal use of the Echo useless until we beat him out of Thancred with it.

Lahabrea underestimating us would have been him coming alone to the ARF, thinking he could defeat us that way. Not learning would have been him continuing to view mortal potential with Echo as worthless. He does neither of these things.

It seems he tried, but still he failed big beacuse of more or less the same reasons. He didnt thought we would become so strong in such a short time.
Wasnt his "girlfriend"'s fault, he would have made the same thing on her case. He planed that Thordan would kill us for kim.

Not learling and understumating is more or less the same thing. He fail for undertime the Wol, and hen failed again beacuse of it.

Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

Lahabrea may have "learned", but he still arrogantly assumed that because the WOL used his trump card, he could still flee. He didn't expect Thordon to betray him AND using Nidhogg's eye to suck him in and use him as a fuel for his primal form.

While his arrogance and distaste for mortals are blatant (but let's be honest here: if you worked with all the horrible people he has over millennia, you'd probably dislike mortals as well), I didn't really get the bolded from that scene at all. To me that scene came more off as an anime or manga-styled standoff between two "rivals." There wasn't anything you could really do against him (he's right), and he knew, equally, that he couldn't do anything to you. It was Thordan that tipped the scales for us; it's not like we were magically awaiting him to come to our aid. Our character is just as surprised as Best Ascian in that scene.

We all like to pretend Lahabrea's an idiot, but the Warrior of Light underestimated Thordan as well. That's not something entirely on Lahabrea, because we fell for exactly the same thing. Twice, I might add. Once in Bismarck and a second time in dealing with the Ascians for him. Thordan didn't care who won the battle; he wasn't there to help us, he was there for the Triad and either you or the Ascians were the last thing in his way.

So what does that say about our character?

Belated edit: You're right about the bit that he should have being able to predict betrayal though. That is one of my primary irks of the end of 3.0. This is a guy who has been working with leaders for thousands of years. That's a juvenile mistake - especially because Lahabrea is all about subtle betrayal in using a mortal's desires against them. It feels more like the writers essentially writing him out of the story because they don't want or need him anymore rather than a mistake that would actually be made.

With that offhand comment in the first paragraph I was saying I understand why he dislikes mortals - even if I don't agree with him or believe his actions are justifiable. If he had dealt with the nicest, kindest Spokenkind had to offer instead, I doubt he would be nearly as jaded. As it is, his perception is likely quite stained precisely because of those he worked with.

I'm not trying to get into an argument about ethics and morals here - or even about what makes a "good villain" (because wut? where did that come from?) - what I'm pointing out is only that Lahabrea changed his strategy over time and isn't nearly as stupid as people like to claim he is. Arrogant, yes - but also effective and mutable. He doesn't just "go for the bigger stick."

That is literally the only thing I'm arguing on this page.

I do want to say you're quite heavily focusing on the 2.5 comment - but why does this single "evil for evil's sake" comment hold more weight than the many others he has made otherwise, earlier and later? In 3.0 he's back to "Rejoining for Zodiark" and there's no reason for him to lie with only you and Igeyorhm there. I take this more as the whole "Ascians are not a hive mind;" they have the same overall purpose, which is the revival of their god, but different methods and possibly different goals on the way there.

Though I do find the 2.55 line interesting. I wish we could have seen where it was going to go; instead it was basically a dead plot end unless Pashtarot is going to pick it up for us.

Though you actually bring up part of the reason why I do enjoy him. I enjoy the passive border of restrained and crazy-with-a-purpose of ends justifying the means. It's like dancing on an edge - making the scenes with him more thrilling, so to speak. In comparison to Nabriales, who is more on the crazy side, and Elidibus and Igeyorhm who were restrained.