Basch: Think you can fight?
Reks: I'm fine Sir
Basch: How old are you, Reks?
Reks: Seventeen, Sir
Basch: Young. Family?
Reks: My brother is all I have left, Sir. He's two years younger than I, living in Rabanastre.
Basch: So young... You're barely old enough to be a man, you shouldn't be forced to wield a sword.
Reks: No Sir, I want to fight. For my homeland, and for my parents!
this exchange between Basch and Reks really made my ears prick when I started my randomised job run
Basch fled Landis at 17, far too young to be able to fight for his homeland, for his twin and their mother. with his brother left at home, it's not hard to see where he's feeling the similarities between himself and Reks here - you can see the pain writ clearly in his face, how he's still feeling like he dishonoured himself by abandoning family and country 😭😭😭 despite the fact that he left with the intention of training to be able to help his country, he's still trapped by the cage of that regret and dishonour, even 19 years later
Join us for the first of two events this year to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of Final Fantasy XII! @ffxiievents will be running a Randomised Job Run of the game from 1st-31st of March to commemorate the Japanese release of the game in 2006.
Sign up here on google forms with your username (this can be your tumblr url, bsky, discord or any nickname you want) and select from the following two options;
Fully Randomised Job Run: Two random Jobs generated per character. All Jobs will be unique and you must not change any for the full playthrough
Simple Run: No job randomisation, just a simple full playthrough of the game
All updates and randomised jobs will be tracked based off the form you submit, and the selection can be edited if you change your mind.
The event will begin on the 1st of March (whichever timezone is the 1st for you) and will conclude on the 31st. There will be a weekly check-in post held on FFXII Events on a Sunday where all participants can update their progress and discuss the playthroughs, and I will be reblogging any posts discussing playthroughs for the whole of March. Please use the tag #ffxii20thRandomJobRun or #ffxii20th for any posts!
The aim isn't necessarily to complete the game within the month, nor to have the fastest completion - just to have fun replaying the game with a timeline and an optional challenge via restricted Jobs, and to commemorate the game we love!
If you have any questions, please send an ask or reply to this post!
WARNING: Long rambly "meta" by someone who hasn't dusted off their essay writing skills in over a decade incoming. Also spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.
I recently got to the Phon Coast in my current FFXII playthrough and man. The scene when you enter the Hunter's Camp really sort of encapsulates the heart of the whole story for me. Balthier finally opens up to Ashe about where he comes from and how he became a sky pirate and why he's so concerned about her attraction to the nethicite, which is itself a great distillation of the game's themes of power and its corrupting influence when there are no outside perspectives to temper it. But it's set against the backdrop of Vaan and Penelo just… being kids. They race each other to the beach (they've probably never seen the ocean, have they?) and play and joke around with each other. It's one of the few times we get to see them so carefree.
An earlier scene between the "adults" (Ashe is still a teenager, and Balthier, for all his worldly experience, is barely into adulthood himself) is also presented in juxtaposition with Vaan, Penelo, and Larsa messing around like kids, again one of the only times we see them acting like normal teenagers, Larsa especially. That scene in particular was meant to show how young Larsa is, to highlight how his convictions come from a place of youthful idealism and set up the tragedy of what happens when his world view, in particular regarding his family/Vayne, is shattered by the realities of war and the actions of people whom he believed to be honorable. We'll get back to that. I just love that the game uses these scenes to showcase what exactly it is Ashe is fighting for: a world where her subjects, these kids, barely younger than herself, can be free to be dumb teenagers pushing each other into the surf and cracking jokes with one another.
All throughout the early game, Vaan and Penelo both are shown as shouldering responsibilities that should be beyond their years, explicitly because of the war and the Archadian occupation of Rabanastre. Penelo takes more of the straight and narrow, to be sure, helping Migelo out with his shop and keeping to conventional work. But even Vaan's hunting of rats in the Garamsythe Waterway and picking pockets is framed as "work", something he does to put gil in his pockets so that he can get on from day to day. Various NPCs throughout the city say some manner of, "Up to your usual 'work' today, Vaan?" in the opening chapter of the game, and just about every orphan child you talk to in Rabanastre talks about picking pockets and running hustles to get money, so it's not even like Vaan's thievery is unconventional in the context of being an orphan in an occupied Rabanastre. Beyond even that, he and Penelo are seen as leaders, or at least people to look up to, by the other orphan kids. They talk about Penelo like she's a manager or some other higher-up on the chain of command for Migelo and Dalan's errand runners. After completing the Rabanastre leg of the Three Medallions quest, Kytes tells Vaan that he doesn't know what to do with himself now that Vaan isn't around as much to need his help, and one of Filo's sky pirate trainees (I think it's Fussbudget?) admits to Vaan that it was always comforting to know he and Dalan were there to help out the younger kids.
But! They're still kids themselves! The other orphans stick so closely to them because they're kids. One of the Demented Merchants in Lowtown tells Vaan their wares "aren't for CHILDREN." The staff in any tavern in Ivalice says they won't serve him because he's too young. Various NPCs throughout Rabanastre express concern for him on account of him being so young and doing dangerous work, especially with regards to him being Reks's younger brother and wanting to watch out for him because of that. The Garif refer to both Vaan (or to be fair maybe Ashe) and Larsa as "Hume child". In one of my favorite tiny bits, when Balthier is trying to get the Dawn Shard from Vaan in the Royal Palace, Vaan clutches it to himself and says in the most teenager-scared-someone-is-taking-something-away-from-him voice, "No, I found it, it's mine!." When the group is absconding from Bhujerba, Fran asks Penelo whether she'll be joining them much in the same manner one might invite a child, and when the same is asked of Vaan he again gives such a teenager response of "Are you kidding? I don't want to stick around here."
It's this tension between "these are kids who act like kids and are young and should be free to act like it" and "these are kids who were thrust into lives defined by war and now have to shoulder the responsibilities thereof, youth be damned" that drives a lot of the emotional weight of the game, for me. Stories of empire and resistance and divine forces and the free will of mortals are epic in scale, but it's these little moments highlighting the smallfolk in the midst of it all that grounds the lofty conflicts. It reminds us who this is all for, and what stands to be lost. Ashe even says as much in that earlier scene. All these children have lost so much to the war. Herself included!
Again, Ashe is only 19, as much in Vaan and Penelo's cohort as Balthier's. In the flashbacks with Rassler she is a dutiful princess, yes, but she also has a youthful, almost playful innocence about her. When they talk about their responsibilities to their kingdoms and the role their marriage will play in that, she says that she will gladly play her part, in such a sweet, bordering naive way. Ever since Rassler's death and the defeat of the Dalmascan-Nabradian forces by Archades, she has been steeped in the Resistance. She is the figurehead behind which they rally, and the driving force that pushes them forward. For two years she has known nothing but war and revenge, being surrounded by others whose entire lives have also been subsumed by the same. Of course a teenager whose every waking thought for the past two years has been occupied by vengeance, whose resistance forces are headquartered in a backroom in the slums where the majority of her would-be subjects have been forced to relocate to, surrounded every day by children who wonder if they'll grow up without the sun and won't talk to their mothers in front of other kids because it's not fair to the orphans that lost their parents in the war, would be desperate for any power that would restore peace to her kingdom.
Balthier sees that wish for something better, and the allure of a stone that promises the means to accomplish it, and of course he sees his father in her. I also have to wonder how much he sees of himself in Vaan. Here's a teenager whose life has been turned upside down from loss, who wishes more than anything to become a sky pirate so he can be "free to do as [he] will", but in reality is looking for an escape. Wasn't Balthier the same age when he did that exact thing? It's no wonder he took Vaan under his wing. Maybe that's also part of why he decides it's time to stop running from his past. Vaan realized back in Jahara that he was running away, and that he's through running, and wants to make a difference. Like Samal, the former sky pirate in the courtyard of the South Sprawl in Lowtown, says, you can never truly be free if you're only running to escape.
Now, after having escaped, regrouped, and become stronger, he's ready to make a difference himself. And in fact it's that act of running away that gave him the opportunity to make that difference. It's more of a tip on mechanics, but Krjn in the Centurio Clan Hall sums it up nicely: Escape, too, has its place in battle. Having gotten free of his corrupted father and Venat before they could recruit him to their cause, he was able to develop his own sense of what is and what should and shouldn't be. Away from the influence of the Empire and the goings on in the Draklor Laboratory, he found his own way. But he, like just about every other character below a certain age (and many characters above it - Basch and Noah were only 16 when Landis fell, after all) in this story, had his adolescence defined by war. He, like Ashe and Penelo and Vaan, was a teenager when his entire universe got knocked sideways. And whereas he and the Rabanastre kids had other perspectives to round out their own (Balthier having Fran, herself having left her insular community in favor of broadening her horizons; Vaan and Penelo having Migelo and the whole of Rabanastre in general), Ashe has by necessity only been exposed to the Resistance and its singular perspective. Now that she's out in the world with others who don't see things the way she does, she has the chance not to be taken in by the promise of power, and Balthier is seizing that opportunity to the best of his ability.
And that brings us back to Larsa. Although he is absent here, the conversation in Phon Coast touches on important aspects of his character arc. Like Ashe, he is a young royal whose worldly perspective has been severely insulated by those around him. In Larsa's case, though, Gramis's aim was to shield him from the violence and conniving of his older brothers. While it seems to have shaped Larsa into an individual who values negotiation and cooperation, it had the unfortunate side effect of blinding him to pretty much all the negative aspects of his family and country. So while Ashe's arc is about broadening her focus from the myopic goal of destroying the empire to free Dalmasca, no matter the cost; Larsa's is about turning his gaze inward and realizing the role his own country and kin have in the current and future wartorn state of Ivalice. This turning point for him is what sets him apart from Vayne, and what sets him up to become the hope of a new future for Archades. Vayne means well, he genuinely believes that everything he is doing is for the betterment of mortals. He doesn't question his methods or the collateral damage because he is utterly convinced of his own righteousness and the correctness of his vision. As one of the Garif chiefs says, the Archadians have relied on power to maintain the empire, and have good reason to trust in it, but it doesn't bode well for Ivalice at large. Larsa then, as Vayne's foil, is the one who has seen the effects of his brother's actions, has witnessed the carnage and grief visited upon the peoples of Ivalice in service to Vayne's vision. Because Larsa has broadened his perspective and been exposed to/incorporated those of others, it is he who ultimately leads the empire into a new era of peace.
All this to say that I love the Phon Coast scene as a representation of so many of the game's themes in miniature. XII isn't quite as explicit in what it wants to say as other Final Fantasies, but much like the characters themselves, if you're willing to do the legwork and hear what the various people of Ivalice have to say, your understanding and perhaps appreciation of the story will be much fuller and more satisfying for it.
okay, so I know about the side quest he's involved in and how it's relevant to his name, but this dialogue makes it sound like he has it bad for Vayne sdjgjshfh
-Uhlan should have Drain and Syphon (which should be on the same license, with Bubble and Reverse together on Green Magicks 3 instead). Would play well with Souleater and would give more Dragoon flavor.
-this has irked me since IZJS, but if we're going to reclassify some debuffs as Black Magicks, they should be on separate licenses from the elemental spells. partly because it looks wonky, mostly bc it bothers me that Red Battlemage has all the single-target debuffs except Blind (the best one) and then weirdly gets access to the multi-target Sleepga instead. Red's balance comes from the lack of multi-target options compared to the more specialized casters, so the uneven distribution is a bit weird. anyway: Blind and Silence should share one license, with Blizzard and Aqua together on the other. Beautiful symmetry.
-aight, so Vanish is in Time Magicks now because the power to bend time and space includes the power to bend light, fine. why is Berserk a time spell?
-I get Foebreaker needing a ranged option, but imo handbombs would fit better on Shikari or Machinist, at least thematically
-why do handbombs scale with strength, anyway? does throwing them harder make them hurt more?
-Vanish(ga) is totally useless on its own because, alas, every damned thing in Ivalice can still hear your footsteps from half a map away. If you have both Vanish and Float, however, you can saunter past just about anything, which is a fun little bit of trivia that is not hinted at anywhere in-game, and which took me literal years to learn. Most mobs have a Secret Third method of sniffing out anyone with low enough HP, invisible or not (maybe they smell blood?). Entites ignore all of this because of fucking course they do.
-I've probably logged thousands of hours into this franchise over the years and I have yet to have a reasonable occasion to use Graviga (outside of Kingdom Hearts). Maybe if you're trying to force a group of flans or ghosts to multiply? on purpose??
-why, Final Fantasy, do you only ever give me one level of water magic? X, XI, and XIII are the only ones where water even has more than one tier of black magic availableto you. XII has three tiers but the player only gets the lowest one?? rude
I will ravenously murder every monster in the game for its loot and exp, but not the happy bunnies. Never the happy bunnies. My soul dies a little every time I have to clear out the zone for the Cluckatrice hunt and I have to slay these tiny poofy angels. This run I went so far as to put them to sleep before one-shotting them with my strongest weapon lol. Please tell me I'm not the only one who is this extra about certain monsters
Many things to discuss in this cutscene, but the thing that had me sitting upright like an alerting dog was this. Noah's lived his role as defector (which he is in reality - he joined the people who destroyed his own country), as the loyal hound of the Empire, for so many years at this point and here we see one of the reasons why.
Gramis' astute question about why he never followed Basch when he fled touches a nerve; Noah ties it up as Basch being an 'enemy of the Empire', but that first betrayal by his very twin - leaving their country, their mother behind, leaving his twin brother - that's the thing that Noah's stewed in for all those years. Honing his hatred, magnified by the death of their mother while Basch was gone. Magnified by the mistrust he likely faces from archadian citizens every day.
Gramis asks the same question Noah's likely been fighting against since he turned to the Empire. Would he follow his brother and flee to Dalmasca? This is for another post, but Gramis would know well the type of man who would kill his brother, wouldn't he!!
And from my own sickos perspective, I'm honing in on that line from Noah: 'I follow his every move'. The implications of this! How does he follow Basch's move? Has he got informant in Dalmasca who were reporting to him? I can imagine it perfectly - Gabranth sitting behind his big Judge Magister desk, receiving his latest batch of Basch Reports. Waiting til later to read them maybe, seeing insult in every mundane activity Basch is seen doing. Stoking those fires of hatred and anger and loss that have been burning in him since Basch abandoned them. Ough
