Two New Verses!

Two New Verses!

ROYAL GUARD. - POST-XVERSE

Lunarre survives the battle with the hellions and Lord of Calamity, having joined forces with Sorey and the group after becoming invested in their struggles, full of hope he hadn’t felt in a long time. He was also purified in the process.

After the celebrations end, however, Lunarre is left not really knowing what to do with himself. He is baffled, then, when Alisha offers him a job as one of her personal bodyguards.

Once the shock wears off, Lunarre starts laughing at the irony, but gratefully accepts. Starting a new chapter in his life, he cuts his hair, dons a new uniform, and gets to work.

SERAPH. - POST-ROYAL GUARD VERSE.

As if things couldn’t get more ironic, the ex-thief, ex-assassin, ex-hellion, ex-Royal Guard Lunarre finds himself reborn as a seraph. Of course, as with all humans who become seraphim, he has forgotten his human life. However, traits and emotions garnered from his previous life have carried over.

As a result, Lunarre can’t shake a sense of humorous irony that someone like him is now a seraph. A fire seraph, at that.

Lunarre finds himself drawn to many places on the continent of Glenwood, Ladylake in particular, for reasons he cannot recall. He wanders, searching for forgotten memories and traces of his past life.

His true name is Movawu Ivuwriluk (’Lunarre Overcomes’).

hi there! in reference to your last post, rose's supressed resonance does extend to hellions - the dragonewt they fight in tintagel looks like a whirlwind to her until she starts perceiving mikleo, then sees dezel, then the dragonewt in the background, so it makes sense that she wouldn't have seen lunarre's hellion nature until that point.

Oh right, I forgot about that. Though by that logic wouldn’t Lunarre have also been similarly invisible, as a hellion, like the dragonewt? Though maybe there’s a difference between human-turned hellions and animal-turned hellions?

Fandom: Final Fantasy in general?

⊱send me a fandom and i’ll tell you…⊰

am i familiar with it?

Only from playing Kingdom Hearts 2 a while back. Cloud is one character, and I vaguely recall others. I would have to look them up, but off the top of my head I draw a blank. From what I recall, Cloud was a dark/angsty character with baggage. Had a history with a guy named Sephiroth, who was a definite bad guy (???). Sephiroth had black wings (????).

[Edit: On research, the other characters included Cid, Leon, Tifa, Yuffie and Aerith. I liked Aerith’s design in particular. I seem to remember her having some sort of chemistry with Cloud. Cid was fun. Leon was cool.]

do i like the fandom itself?

Nothing other than that (apparently) the general consensus among the fandom is that Final Fantasy 2 is the worst of the games.

who’s my favorite character?

I recall liking Cloud for his anti-hero vibe (I think it was an anti-hero vibe…) when I played Kingdom Hearts 2, and wishing that he was the character I was playing instead of Sora, all due respect to Sora. 

if i had to choose, who would i roleplay?

Nobody, on account of my abysmal knowledge of the series. I would have to research like all hell before I even dared. And would have to play at least some of the games. And even then I’d probably stick out like a sore thumb among the hardcore/long-time Final Fantasy fans.

A Hellion with No Purpose

I swear making Lunarre an aimless, wise-cracking Observer of All was the worst thing they could have done for his character. Even in the games he had a drive, while not particularly explored or examined, he at the very least had one. Namely, vengeance.

The anime, on the other hand, stripped Lunarre of his loyalty to, betrayal of, and ultimately his desire for vengeance against, the Scattered Bones and his former boss Rose. It stripped him, also, of his desire to pursue Alisha for longer than the plot would allow. Three episodes in and suddenly Lunarre is more interested in sightseeing along with Alisha than having her for dinner.

In so doing, Lunarre becomes little more than a stand-in for the audience. An observer with little to no influence on the plot unless the plot or, more specifically, Alisha focus, demands. He even outright declares himself an observer, and has little ambition to move from his solitary perch overlooking the plot at all unless pushed.

The rest of the time Lunarre is content with muttering to himself about what he sees and how excited he is, like a good audience-stand-in. As the Observer of All he adds precious little to nothing to the flow of the plot nor to his own character as the story progresses. It makes his sudden attempt at redemption at the end utterly baffling.

Lunarre also has a strange and utterly baffling habit of constantly questioning his own motives for being in whatever location he planted himself in, as if self-aware that his actions, as a fictional character, are controlled by the gods that are the Writers and so forth.

Unfortunately, it seems that Lunarre’s constant questioning of himself, even manifesting as rhetorical questions when asked directly who he is and what he is doing in such-and-such a place.

Example: In episode 20 of Season 2, Maltran asks Lunarre who he is. Lunarre’s response is quite literally ‘I wonder?’ It doesn’t occur to him to simply answer with his name.

From my perspective, there are two main problems with his anime portrayal.

Problem #1: His Brief Appearance as a Human

We are shown Lunarre as a human, working under Rose’s leadership as a member of the Scattered Bones. If the game is anything to go on, then like in the game Lunarre will have by this point been with the guild for two years.

This alone completely fucks with Lunarre’s identity crisis, as it appears.

He is onscreen as a human 54 seconds. I know, I timed it, including the time in which he was masked, fighting Alisha. 

From what we saw, Lunarre was loyal to Rose and a keen fighter, though unable to match Alisha. 

That, coupled with the fact that he is a member of an assassin’s guild and has likely been such for two years straight, calls into question how he could be anything but serious in his belief that he belongs to the Scattered Bones, that he is part of it. 

You don’t join something like an assassin’s guild for the luls, and you certainly don’t stay there two years when you’re not sure if it’s really the job you see yourself doing long-term. Rose certainly wouldn’t have tolerated someone like that in her guild. Game!Lunarre certainly considered himself a member until his behaviour got him kicked out.

So why does he leave? And why does he suddenly become the most uncertain man in the entire Zestiria universe?

Lunarre, as in the game, never removes his assassin uniform. He keeps his tie to the guild despite so abruptly and nonsensically leaving it, and he bears no grudge or ill will towards it or Rose. Neither what little we saw of his human life nor his transformation into a hellion give the audience any indication that he transformed and went rogue other than because he’s batshit crazy. 

Yes, there was a slight indication that Rose’s comment could have set him off, but it’s one comment, with no history of similar comments or treatment that might have made this particular comment mean anything. It certainly doesn’t give the weight necessary to give credence to the fact that LUNARRE BECAME A HELLION because of it!

If we had been given more insight into what could have been a mind steadily disillusioned with the assassin lifestyle, a man realising he is, for whatever reason (let’s say skill) the black sheep of the organisation. We could have seen how he feels belittled by Rose, perhaps, or underappreciated, or lacking in fulfillment. It would have gone a long way to explaining why Lunarre became a hellion after Rose told him he was ‘no match’ for Alisha.

Perhaps that is what they were going for, but it is so poorly conveyed it goes unnoticed under the maniacal cackling from the newly-transformed fox hellion.

Problem #2: No Time, No Effort, No Shits Given (Until it’s Too Late)

The identity crisis could have been a very interesting. it could have been a rare, intimate insight into a more in-control hellion’s mind. 

Lack of time and focus on him, even through other characters, who by and large forgot his existence until they discovered his dead body near the end of season 2, meant that his entire ‘arc’ was botched practically from the start. 

The smatterings of appearance he made only raised eyebrows from confused viewers, wondering what he’s still doing here. He either comments on what the audience can already see, or acts like a deranged lunatic simply content to watch cool shit go down. Only as the series draws close to its finale do the writers suddenly realise Lunarre exists and has had no resolution yet. 

Unfortunately, it falls flat on its face (much like Lunarre does as he dies) because there has been no build-up, no tension, no time or effort given to invest in his character before. Why should the audience give a shit now, when they have never been given a reason to prior?

When there has been no build-up, there cannot be any pay-off. At all. Only confusion, disbelief, and annoyance.

Thus, as the main cast inexplicably take time out to have a minute’s silence over Lunarre’s dead body, the viewer can only sigh and mutter “Can we just get on with it? Who the fuck is this guy anyway?”

You'll probably going to end up preferring the manga.

From what I’ve read of it I already do! ;)