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2. OK, suppose they go back to 3AF. What are they gonna do? No-one has the resources to stop the old Cocoon from crashing, nor to save all the people. And no-one could have made the time capsules necessary to bring the others to the future. The point is, they needed to go to 500AF to stop Caius. Also, they couldn't bring Lebreau and the others forward to avoid paradoxes.
3. The old Cocoon was gonna crash regardless and kill the majority of the people living on Gran Pulse (there was no-one living in the old Cocoon by then). If there's no-one on Gran Pulse, the crash is harmless (well, apart from leaving crystal sand everywhere). Hence the new Cocoon. Maybe a wall could have worked, but that's not certain, considering the crash is comparable to a meteor crashing on the planet. And I don't see how that was for nothing: it saved everyone on board the new Cocoon.
4. Unlike Caius, Serah didn't have the physical eyes of Etro, it's just an ability called the "eyes of Etro". I don't see why that should disappear at the same time as the goddess.
5. Not everything needs to have a happy ending (see the Empire Strikes Back for a well known downer ending). The whole plot was a setup for the ending of the trilogy. It definitely isn't a stand alone plot, as should have been clear by the 'To Be Continued' at the end.
6. Snow explained that Lightning told him how to time travel using the gates. It's not Shiva that lets him go around the timeline.
7. Yes, by fixing the timeline, she ceased to exist. She should have died back when the Purge happened (remember how she said she dreamt of her death?), she was alive because of a paradox in the broken timeline.
8. That's not the fault of the game or the story. That's on SE for their ridiculous decision to limit the DLC to post game. Otherwise, yeah, Sazh is in Serendipity.
9. And what would be the point of going back to before the events of 13? Remember, they're trying to fix the timeline, not create even more paradoxes.
10. She is, and her turning into a "human" is an effect of the Chaos, as there are other examples of this in Lightning Returns.
I'd say it's still worth playing the Requiem of a Goddess DLC (it's pretty fun, IMO), but it's not gonna explain a lot (it only explains why Lightning is a crystal at the end).
#2. Live their lives peacefully? Drop by to find Hope and warn him of the potential future dangers? Leave someone else to sort the cocoon problem once they've provided all the necessary informations and special materials picked up during the time-travelling? There isn't any need to bring anyone to 500AF because there is nothing special about 500AF in the first place.
#3. Allegedly... but it crashed and that didn't happen. The crash was frankly pathetic. The air got a bit dusty. It couldn't even disrupt the flight of the various hover-vehicles about the place. It barely even scratched Academia and it was pretty close to it. The stupid thing is that the new cocoon was right in its path, and being full of gaps as it was, people were honestly in more danger IN the new cocoon than just a few extra kilometres away on the surface.
The crash wasn't comparable to a meteor. It was comparable to a Titan or Long Gui falling over.
And even if that did pose a threat, just stopping it from falling or dismantling the whole thing so there was nothing left TO fall would have made more sense and been more efficient than building a whole new hole-pocked orb.
#4. Because it was empowered by Etro, and there is no reason to assume it would work without her, given her role as a deity governing life, death and time.
#5. I didn't say it had to have a happy ending. I'm saying that everything that was done was a complete waste. Nothing was achieved in the end. Lightning never came back, the timeline ended up more broken than it was at the start, and Caius didn't even stay dead. It was all completely pointless.
#6. Did you even do the Paradox Endings? Snow time-travels on his eidolon bike without using a gate in the one you get for declining the artifact from Alyssa.
#7. No such paradox relating to her presence was fixed. There was nothing that happened between leaving 4XX and arriving at 500 that consisted of anything more than Serah and Noel escaping their respective dream-traps.
#9. Because there might have been paradoxes in the past too. Because given the constant nonsensical blathering about changing the future changing the past too, they never actually involved themselves in the past.
3. Nah, we just didn't get a chance to see the full after effects, since the world ended right after.
4. Are you going to continue on to Lightning Returns? Because there they kinda explain where all those powers come from (asking because if not I could just tell you now).
5. Yup, that's the middle part of a story for you: it's not over yet.
6. I know exactly the ending you meant, and I'm telling you, it's not Shiva that lets him time travel. And besides, none of the paradox endings are canon, and that one is the most obvious "just for fun", so I don't understand why you think that one in particular should be seen as real.
7. Oh? So you know exactly which paradox it was that kept her alive? For all we know Caius himself just resolved it to erase her, since she'd done her job of trapping them.
9. There weren't, though, because the split in the timeline started at the end of 13. You're faulting the game for something you wish was in it, not for what's there.
You think what they did in a timeless space is going to magically undo itself and not have happened if they go back to 3AF? It doesn't work like that.
All they need to do to save the world at that point is to go back to 3AF... then leave people three reminders: Don't wake up Fal'Cie, don't build Titans, and do something about cocoon before it falls (p.s. Here, have a bunch of graviton cores, they'll be useful eventually). Everything resolved.
#3. It was a flop. It was a flop because they'd already fixed the cocoon falling issue several times and Caius had been trying to reinstate it in different ways... but by the end history had changed quite a few times since the Dying World scenario that Noel knew. It wasn't knocked down by the Titan war. It wasn't knocked down by the giant flan. In the end, so far as I can gather, it was the act of retrieving Vanille and Fang from it that finally broke it after a few hundred years wear and tear.
There is no reason to believe the outcome would be the same given differing input.
#4. I will... eventually. I'm a bit burnt out on FF for now.
#5. They could have just skipped it then. Gone straight from FFXIII to Lightning Returns because nothing happened that wouldn't have happened anyway.
#6. Of course the paradox endings are canon. They're just offshoot timelines that aren't in the direct causal chain for the main ending.
#7. One in the Bresha Ruins, obviously. Since that was near Lake Bresha where the purge took place and the event that stopped her dying happened. The only way any of this could possibly make sense is if the Bresha 100AF gate is always accessed and fully dealt with without going to 500AF... which isn't the case since it is an optional gate.
#9. That is why this is in the afterthoughts section at the end. Because it is a conspicuous absence.
3. Then you've not paid attention. Retrieving Vanille and Fang was only possible at that point *because* the pillar was already falling apart, it wasn't the cause. And how is saving the human population of at least Academia, if not the whole world, a flop?
5. No they couldn't. How do you go from the happy ending of 13 to LR where the world is literally ending? They had to explain how it happened, and a recap wouldn't work.
6. Not in the direct chain for the main ending means not canon, because they didn't happen in the main timeline. They're "what if" scenarios.
7. We got clear proof during the game that paradoxes from different areas affected each other, so I don't see how you can make that claim.
And no, Serah didn't die "almost immediately". They had a freakin chat on the beach in Valhalla while Caius slowly faded away. Complete with Noel dramatically stabbing the Soul Edge rip-off into the sand. They didn't make some mad rush to the 500AF gate, but audibly chose that one and discussed it as they went. And Serah didn't even die immediately on the other side of the gate since they had that funny little falling sequence and the conspicuously easy landing on the deck of an airship.
#3. Clearly I paid more attention than you did. The pillar was an extension of their L'Cie crystalisation effect in the first place. Without Vanille and Fang in there, there couldn't BE a pillar. A certain amount of damage to it was necessary in the first place to get them out, but removing them from the pillar was a guarantee that the whole thing would fall apart immediately.... much in the same way that decrystalised L'Cie in other cases didn't leave all the decorative crystal bits behind on the ground once they became flesh and blood again.
They could have been retrieved at any point in time assuming their location inside the pillar had been ascertained, but yes, it would have required digging into the pillar to get them, and yes, it would have come crashing down instantly...
And the fall of cocoon was a flop, as I said. It doesn't make any sense for you to just pick up words and dump them into different contexts then act like you're asking a valid question. What I made perfectly clear the first time was that the impact of cocoon dropping wasn't the huge world-destroying disaster it was made out to be. The impact was tiny. Completely pathetic. There is no way in hell that anyone more than a few kilometres away from the impact zone even needed rescuing.
#5. Of course they could. If they'd just done nothing, the result would have been exactly the same: Serah dead (of old age back in the first century), Noel in the future (700AF instead of 500AF, but who gives a sh!t about him anyway?), the Goddess dead (due to being killed by Caius directly instead of being killed indirectly), Caius in his little timeless space with Yeul, Lightning still stuck in Valhalla (being crystal on the throne or whatever)... and of course chaos spilling out all over the world and fůcking all of time up anyway (rendering all the paradoxes irrelevant).
#6. Canon is a meta-concept. A declaration of validity or lack thereof based on source material and intent. Where branching timelines occur that connect at least on one end to the canon timeline, then the branching timelines are also a part of canon. It is not disconnected like gaiden content, it isn't redacted like test content, and nor does it come from an unofficial source since it was a part of the game.
You might as well be claiming that the events of 400AF are non-canon just because the timeline was shifted into the 4XXAF version. You're just being ridiculous.
#7. People change location. People influenced by a paradox in one location can move to another and cause indirect knock-on effects. Hence the interconnectivity between the Bresha Ruins and the Yascha Massif. But there isn't much that can't be accounted for by that. The thing with the flans and that dragon was a direct time-portal much like the gates.
But nothing that happened in the Dying World was in any way related to anything Alyssa had been involved in. There was nobody else there, it was a different location, and nothing to connect it at all short of the tenuous association of Serah and Noel themselves.
In short, it doesn't parse.
[Edit]: Fixing the mess made by the Steam censors is such a fůcking waste of my time.
And after rewatching the cutscene, I don't understand why you think they should have gone back to 3 AF. Sure, the NORA gang would be there, but only them. Snow and Lightning wouldn't be there, nor would Vanille or Fang, and Sazh and Hope would be in whatever state they were before Serah's journey began (so with no knowledge of any of the recent events). I honestly cannot see why that would be preferable for Serah (I imagine Noel doesn't care when he ends up as long as there are people).
3. Right, under normal circumstances, removing them would cause the collapse of the pillar. But in this instance, the pillar was in the process of crumbling, whether they were there or not. Leaving them there would have killed them for sure. So they saved them while the pillar was already falling apart. Removing them wasn't the cause of the fall.
I did misunderstand what you meant by flop (I'm more used to flop meaning failure, and since you had been talking about how useless the new Cocoon was, I assumed you were still talking about that).
5. Except, no. Caius cannot kill himself or Etro on his own, Lightning wouldn't have been dragged to Valhalla, so she'd have just kept living with Serah and Snow, and Noel would have been left in 700 AF with Caius. And since Etro wouldn't die, the Chaos would stay in Valhalla, and the story would have no reason to continue on to LR. Without the events of 13-2, there's no Lightning Returns.
Was it a waste? Only if you take the events that happened in this game in isolation. Taken for what they are (the second act of a trilogy), they're not useless since they're needed for the final act.
6. Dunno, Paradox endings lead to nothing, they are literally dead ends, the equivalent of bad/joke ends in other games, so I don't see how they can be considered canon. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that.
7. And that doesn't mean that Alyssa's paradox was linked to the Bresha Ruins, but I see this is yet another thing we'll never agree on considering how vague it is.
EDIT: Dying World is linked to the last part of the Bresha Ruins, so we can go there and finish removing all Bresha Ruins paradoxes before going to Academia 500 AF, so regardless, Alyssa ceases to exist by then.
And isn't the fact that they had more friends back in 3AF than 500AF enough? Sazh and Snow could actively time-travel, though the latter had more control than the former. They didn't get Lightning back either way so she is out of the question. Vanille and Fang would still be in the crystal pillar but again, they could just put the rescue plans into motion to get them out earlier with all the knowledge accumulated. Chatting to 3AF Hope would see to that.
The main difference is the entire population of New Bodhum. They didn't even get warned that Serah wouldn't be returning. Think how it must have sucked for them that Serah and Noel just popped in and out of the time pillar for about the first hour and then NEVER came back... nor Snow... nor anyone else.
#3. Why are you acting as though the damage already done to the pillar completely mitigates any influence those two had over it? We have no means of knowing exactly when it would fall if they weren't removed from it. But what is clear is that the crystal pillar stood intact for over 500 years and crumbled mere moments after they were removed. Of course removing them was the final cause.
#5. Lightning being dragged to Valhalla is a consequence of Etra's actions to free most of the team at the end of the first game. That was what kicked things off.
Dunno where you get the idea that Caius couldn't kill himself nor Etra on his own from. Killing Etra on his own was exactly what he was trying to do at the start, with Lightning getting in his way. And killing himself was exactly what he did at the end, when Noel held back his blade.
So no... events kicked off at the end of FFXIII would have resulted in Etra dying and chaos spilling out onto Gran Pulse regardless, as well as the eventual collapse of cocoon for one or two reasons or other. Serah would have died too, albeit of old age.
Differences? Hope might be dead, though Snow might have rescued him unless he was done in by the giant flan, but then he probably wouldn't have made the AI nor the Proto Fal'Cie without Alyssa's help. Vanille and Fang getting out of the pillar would have depended on Hope's survival most likely, unless one of the other remaining members of the team undertook that particular task.
Hmmmm.... the only thing that could possibly have made a difference is if Noel had killed Caius in 700AF... as depicted in one of the paradox endings. Then Caius would be dead without damage to Etra's heart and she would have survived... though that had absolutely nothing to do with anything Serah did either way.
#6. They don't lead to nothing. Ontological inertia is a thing, y'know. Even in fiction. Just because we don't get to see what they lead to doesn't mean that the entire timeline ceases to exist for everyone the moment we're not looking at it any more. All those dead people in the original 400AF... they're still dead. The ruined sandy world of 700AF... that is still there, but a different there.
#7. No, it doesn't prove that it is necessarily the Bresha Ruins... just that it is most likely to be based in the Bresha Ruins because, as we see throughout the game, paradoxes have immediate localised effects. Because most of the fixes in the timeline occur due to fixing NEARBY paradoxes.
Oh, and as I already said, even if it wasn't in the Bresha Ruins, it most definitely wasn't at the edge of reality / shadow of Valhalla where Serah and Noel were thrown after using the dodgy artifact to leave 4XX... In fact, so far as I'm aware, they didn't resolve ANY paradoxes there, and what Fang did quite possibly qualifies as making a new one. Serah and Noel both met Caius, got thrown into dream-prisons, Serah got help to escape, and then helped Noel escape in turn... and the both of them ended up in the Dying World of 700AF... from whence they, barring optional gates, went back to 500AF... where Alyssa had vanished without a trace.
The only possible explanation I can come up with that doesn't involve optional gates is that it was something Snow was doing in parallel... y'know... since Snow was time-travelling the whole time they were, even if you couldn't see him. It was still happening.
Anyway... yeah, you CAN go to Bresha Ruins, but not doing so doesn't make Alyssa NOT vanish.
Sazh and Snow cannot time travel on their own. Sazh time travelled because he got caught in a paradox that he resolved in his DLC, and Snow used gates like everyone else (he just couldn't use the gates meant for Serah and Noel). Sure Lightning didn't get rescued, but they couldn't know that either way.
More friends is not a good reason. Remember that Serah's goal was being reunited with her *family*. And no, they cannot get Fang and Vanille out of the pillar in 3 AF or even set that plan into motion early, because doing that will cause Cocoon to crash, remember? And they won't have Graviton Cores this time around to make a new Cocoon to save the populace, nor would Serah or Noel be able to explain any of the technological advancements they witnessed, certainly not in any way that would lead to anything actually being created. None of what you're suggesting makes sense as a "better" ending.
Sure, it might have sucked for the New Bodhum crowd, but that's something that happens in real life: friends move on and you can lose all contact with them. They even got a proper farewell and all, so it wasn't that bad.
3. We do, in fact, know that the pillar collapsing was imminent before the two got extracted from the pillar. It's explicitly stated in the end cutscene.
5. Lightning being dragged into Valhalla wasn't a consequence of Etro's actions, but that's explained in Lightning Returns.
I mean, if he could kill himself or Etro, there's absolutely no reason for him to do any of the stuff he did in the game. No reason to train Noel to replace him, no reason to wait so long for another Guardian to show up. He could have ended the timeline and freed Yeul at any time he wanted. Lightning couldn't stop him (remember, he defeated her) and yet he still didn't kill Etro. The only way Etro dies is if the Heart of Chaos is destroyed, and that can only happen after he loses and the Heart is meant to pass to the next Guardian. So no, it doesn't happen without the events of this game.
6. I had in fact never heard of that term before, you'll forgive me for not knowing that's a thing. But anyway, that's kind of my point: we don't see what happens afterwards because it doesn't matter. If you want to think that still makes them canon, you do you.
7. Sure, let's go with Snow fixing it.
You seem overly eager to just accept things the way they're given and try to make up excuses for them being so, even it requires insanely twisted logic to justify it all.
The funny thing is for the most part I ignored a lot of other issues that are far more prevalent across JRPGs in general... or even specifically Final Fantasy (they've got some damned funny ideas about Newtonian physics).
I'm done for now.
I thought it was stupid of noel to fight caius in the first place. He should've known that inside him beats etro's heart, and he can't kill him without unleashing chaos. He should've just sealed him or alternatively, beat him half to death and lock him forever in the coliseum. In the bonus secret ending caius mentioned that they were blind to their true mission, and that he won because of that. What their true mission was is never explained.
I am also confused as to all the yeuls that appeared in the game. If serah has the eyes, doesn't that make her a yeul too? Why does she look different since they are supposedly born with the same features. And how the hell did she get the power in the first place?
Then again I don't understand why etro would give caius her heart. I would expect a deity that can perceive time to be smarter than that, which was frankly a bad idea.
It's a very fun game, if you ignore everything related to the story and its 1-dimensional characters.
There was already a Yeul in Serah's time (you see her and Caius watching Serah and Noel go through the New Bodhum portal). And why would that make Serah a Yeul? It's not like she had that ability from birth, as Yeul does.
All the powers humans get come from the Chaos, one way or another.
Etro thought she was doing him a favour. Turns out, being the only immortal isn't good for the human psyche.
As to your first point, in valhalla, the weak serve the strong. Since we beat Caius so many times throughout the game, I wonder why it doesn't apply to him. Or at least his eidolons.
There are spaces along historia crux that is cut off from the time stream like coliseum, serendipity, and the void spaces, a subspace between the time continuum, where we could battle caius and imprison him there. Maybe with the help of pulse falcie. Better yet, make him an unwilling lcie, let him turn to cieth. If that fails, cut off all his limbs. Nail him to a slab. Then there's nothing he can do. That shouldn't be too difficult for Noel and Serah.
I have yet to play Light Returns, but I hope it has a better story. I'm not really upset about the ending, I just thought that the story could've been more watertight, it feels very disjointed to me.The was no explanation on how Caius manipulates the time stream and create paradoxes, the exact means he achieved that.