Recently I've noticed some interesting things about the Ancient Castle found while submarining in the World of Ruin.
Some exposition...
During the War of the Magi, somebody, presumably a mage, attacked the castle and petrified Odin as well as the human queen, who had fallen in love with Odin despite human-esper romance being taboo. When exploring the castle, you can take Odin's magicite to the queen where it will transform into the magicite Raiden.
If you recruit and take Terra to the castle, she will remark on the queen's diary, realizing the parallels between the queen and Odin and Madeline and Maduin.
On its own, this is already pretty interesting for Terra and her family. Her life and conception were not as abnormal as she once thought. She surely has less reason to fear herself. But it's unsaid why the castle was attacked in the first place, so was it because of the forbidden romance? If Terra were to consider as such, it may be why her sentence trails off ("Love between a human and an esper...").
However, there's something else that really intrigued me. The sprite used for the queen is a grayed out, petrified Celes in her opera dress. Now, obviously this was used to make the sprite distinct from other generic female NPCs while also saving cartridge space. But wouldn't it be fun to consider the narrative implications regardless?
The immediate thought I had was that the queen represents Celes and Odin Locke. Celes's fondness for Locke goes against how she was taught to behave and feel as a soldier, not to mention he's with the Returners. The themes of forbidden feelings are especially poignant with the sprite being of Maria, the character whom upon playing Celes realizes her new situation. And Odin sacrificed himself to protect the queen as well, like how Locke nobly and tragically promises to protect Celes.
Maybe, if you want a crack theory to play with, you could say the queen is Celes's ancestor.
With Odin and Locke having these ties, perhaps the queen also represents Rachel. With both Odin and the queen being petrified, it's similar to how Rachel was placed in stasis and Locke... in sort of an emotional stasis, if you think about it, unable to move on from her. They both lost something that day, but the queen giving Odin the strength to ascend to his Raiden form does remind me of Rachel's spirit urging Locke to move on.
And for those still caught up on the human-esper relations...
Perhaps Celes always had an admiration or fascination (or feelings for) Terra, what with her natural magical powers, regarding which Celes may feel shame after learning how Magitek is created. I could go on with this line of thought, but I think that's a post for another time.
Oh, did I mention Celes's ultimate weapon is called "Save the Queen"?
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