TW: torture, prison guard brutality
Galbadia - D-District Prison
-I think I was expecting a big time jump, but this seems to be pretty soon after the Edea fight.
-Also, I was expecting it to be Squall dreaming of Laguna, but it was Zell.
Squall’s not here. I’d be totally cool with the story actually killing off Squall and focusing on the remaining characters to stop Edea, but I give that a 0% chance of happening.
-Oh wait – it WAS Squall dreaming of Laguna! Zell says he dreamed of Ward. Who is bored af and just wants to be rejoined with Laguna.
-The SeeDs seem to be in a prison at the moment, and Rinoa (both brilliantly and creatively) broaches the idea that if Zell has this connection with Ward, and Ward works in a prison, and THEY’RE in a prison, then…
That’d be nice, but I still believe that the Laguna sections are in the past, now more than ever.
-And Rinoa is way smarter than me. She wasn’t thinking that Zell should talk to Ward and break them out, but rather that she should draw on his experiences from seeing the prison in the dream world to break them out. YES! Zell recognizes this place.
-We swap scenes to Squall waking up in a prison cell. No wounds.
-This is more like a prison crate than a cell. It gets picked up and moved by some turbolift thing.
Even the prison design in this game is detailed, ornate, vibrant.
-The SeeDs (it’s really “SeeDs plus Rinoa,” but for convenience I’ll just call them the SeeDs) hears a noise as the prison crate moves.
-lololol – the dialogue box refers to one of the guards as “Mean Guy.”
-Mean Guy lives up to his name. He’s a real asshole of a prison guard. He and a buddy start beating Zell and kicking him.
The Byron Hadley School of Prison Guards.
-He’s there for Rinoa also. She goes along willingly and bravely.
Head held high.
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Squall and Seifer
-Back to Squall’s cell. Seifer, or “Fucking Seifer” as I think of him at the moment, enters.
Knocks Squall around (big man aren’t you? Squall kicked you into next Tuesday at full strength) and summons two red hedgehog monsters to take Squall away.
-A new room. Aw, really? Torture time?
This is weird. Seifer demands to know what “SeeD” is for Edea. Um. You were there at Balamb. Wasn’t it common knowledge?
-Ah. He wants to know any secrets learned after Squall became a SeeD, though there aren’t really any that I saw.
-Yeah. Torture.
With electricity.
-And now Seifer is threatening to torture the others if Squall doesn’t talk. Eat a bag of hell, dude.
-Seifer confirms that he’s living his dream.
That’s a pretty messed up dream to have. I’m not sure if his dream was literally to be the knight loyal to the Sorceress or if he just wanted to be someone in authority.
-Huh. The more Seifer talks, the more pathetic he is. He seems obsessed with this drama playing out in a certain way. [“Angel” spoilers] Erzvaqf zr n gba evtug abj bs Yvaqfrl ZpQbanyq, qrgrezvarq gb or Natry'f nepu-eviny.
Interesting to me to compare this “good vs evil” thing to Squall’s philosophy as discussed with Irvine, that they’re really just two sides fighting for different goals from perspectives of moral neutrality.
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The SeeDs
-Selphie tries to cast Cure on Zell (love when games use mechanics in the story), but there’s an anti-magic field.
-That orange hedgehog thing that looks like Tails slightly comes in carrying a plate, and trips
Then Mean Guy comes in and kicks Tails?? Why? Isn’t he on your side? I know he’s literally called Mean Guy, but still.
-WOOHOO!! Selphie and Zell stand up to Mean Guy and get him to back off the hedgehog. Selphie heals him up. New party member maybe?
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Torture-R-Us
-Seifer mostly wants to know why SeeD opposes the Sorceress. That’s… well, it’s not a bad question. SeeD are mercenaries. Who’s paying them to do this? Or maybe they just don’t think they’d survive as an organization under the Sorceress.
-Seifer is attacking the Balamb Garden. Why. WHY. Seifer, I know you’re a jackwagon and a half, but you had friends there, right? People you liked?
-The plan is to destroy the Balamb Garden and then have Seifer hunt down individual SeeDs, but Seifer sucks. There’s a reason he wasn’t made a SeeD. I’m not worried about Hunter!Seifer at all.
-What gets me here is that it’s EDEA who thinks Squall knows something, not Seifer. I thinks he’s right, but I don’t know how. Maybe some small bit of information that Squall learned and disregarded but which has secret importance.
-Choice time. The interrogating Warden keeps zapping Squall. He can either say “I want to die” or lie and ask to live. This is some dark shit. I’ll go with “lie.”
Lol. Squall says the goal is to spread seeds over the world to fill the world with flowers. That’s a very Winhall-ian answer. I call this the Aeris Plan.
This is a really weird lie. He says they want to spread flowers over the world to destroy people’s will to fight (because flowers are pretty and they’re easily distracted I guess?) and then invade.
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SeeDs
-The Snarf-looking dude is still in the room, but I can’t talk to him directly. They need a plan to escape.
HOLY SHIT SELPHIE WTF
Snarf quite reasonably freaks the hell out. Selphie says she’s kidding, but Zell doesn’t think so. I really love Selphie’s character. She’s bright and chipper and sings train songs and is clearly a top-ranked bloodthirsty mercenary who has no qualms about brutality.
-Zell’s going to try getting them their weapons back. He has fists for weapons after all, and has Ward’s knowledge of the prison layout. He lures in a guard as Selphie and Rinoa pretend to be sick, and the knocks the guard out when the door opens.
-Yay! Snarf is coming too.
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Around D-District
-Snarf isn’t in the party menu, so I can’t equip him any GFs. He may be temporary, like the ghosts on the Phantom Train in FFVI.
-We start on Floor 7 and head up to Floor 8. Two guards there guard the weapons. Get ‘em, Zell!
-I know magic doesn’t work here, but hope GFs do.
Yup.
-Hee! Snarf stomps on the guard’s corpse.
-Back in the cell, each party member gets her weapon back and have a nice little cartoon moment where the we zoom in on them flexing with their weapon. Selphie spinning her nunchucks (or is it nunchaku or something for plural?) around and Quistis Indiana Jonesing her whip.
Even Snarf gets a moment where he thrusts a paw in the air and squeaks.
-LOLOL YES! Three people come into the room: a guard, Private Wedge, and Lieutenant Biggs. Nice to see ya again!
Mutual recognition.
-Biggs is out for revenge because we got him demoted.
-Biggs’ dying (or at least losing) words: “W-Why? What’s below lieutenant?” Sorry bud. Never fight enemies packing GFs.
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Next time: prison break!
