Iâm glad to know you like my meta! If you wanna reply to any of it feel free, I love talking about this stuff. I actually didnât think of the Moogle Chocobo Carnival being a dream, but now that you mention it I would totally believe it. Itâs really useful, actually, cuz it gives us another canon example of a dream aside from the Platinum Demo. Then again, you can wear the chocobo t-shirt during the rest of the game, so maybe it /was/ real⊠I donât know O.o
And OMG, yes, Prompto wouldâve loved being there, if it was real. I wanna make Prompto happy so I really wish you could take him thereâŠ
Re: Regis. His kingly title is The Father, while the other kings all had names like The Wise and The Wanderer. So you would think that Regis was the absolute best dad any prince could ever have. But in fact what âThe Fatherâ means is that he was apparently the only dad any Lucian prince ever had, because all princes other than Noctis were raised strictly to be kings, without parental love⊠including Regis himself. What this means is that Regis does not know how to parent, because he was not parented himself.
He also doesnât know how to be a person apart from being a king, which is the same thing that Noctis struggles with, as I mentioned before. Actually, I think that becoming a father was what made Regis realise that âking selfâ and âperson self/father selfâ could not be the same thing. So the second problem here is that Regis never really learnt to put his âking selfâ aside and have an independent identity. Thatâs why he never has time for Noctis. He is too busy being king and doesnât know how/when to say âI need to stop now and take some time for myself/my son.â Because he canât do that, he could never teach Noctis how to do it, either. So Noctis is confused about how heâs supposed to become king, which to him means becoming like his dad and not being himself and not being free anymore. So yeah, youâre totally right about Noctis not wanting to become like his dad.
((I think Regis wanted to see him off in that scene as king and as father to give him a double blessing, but youâre right - Noctis totally misinterpreted it :/ ))
Not only that, but in an effort to protect Noctis from the future/give him space to grow, Regis told him exactly nothing about any king stuff at all, leaving him underprepared and worse, feeling like his dad didnât trust him. Some of the stuff Regis does say to Noctis is kinda toxic (ie: âYou place a great burden on those who would bear with youâ) and worse than giving him no information at all. But itâs also stuff that Regis probably heard from his own parents, so make of it what you will.
In sum, Regis is guilty of:
1. Not knowing how to maintain a personal identity > leads to him neglecting Noctis and failing to communicate with him and setting a bad example for how to be a person and a king at the same time
2. Being overly protective and failing to tell Noctis about the future > leads to Noctis feeling dis-empowered and underprepared, even betrayed, like his dad doesnât trust him
3. Passing on bad lessons from his parents, lessons which tell Noctis he is not allowed to have a personal identity > this is the thing which messes Noctis up the most imo
What Regis did right:
1. Making Noctis feel loved
2. Letting Noctis go to school, live independently, and have friends
Regis is not a bad person. He is honestly something of a victim, the problem is he kinda fucked Noctis up so itâs hard for me to feel sorry for him. But he was a single father, with no idea of how to parent, simultaneously running a kingdom, and his kid was The Chosen One. So yeah, Noctisâs relationship with his dad was bad, but you canât look at it as a simple problem of Regis being a bad father. The bad parents in this situation were Regisâs parents and all the ones who came before them.
Phew! I hope this wasnât too much talking from me. I kinda had a lot more thoughts about Regis than I thought I did XD