"In this scene, we learn the true purpose of Ultima's schemes, his true motivation, and that purpose is a bit disappointing in how base, selfish, and human it is. The only thing Ultima cares about is self-preservation, he only cares about his own survival. He only cares about living one more day. It must be asked: is staying alive really worth all of this? All this death and strife? What even is life to a creature like Ultima? It's not like he has any friends or hobbies. What is he even going to do for all of eternity in his lonely paradise?" What made Ultima click for me was realizing that Anabella was a parallel character to him. You could swap the names and pronouns and that argument there would apply just as well to Anabella's betrayal of Rosaria. Hell, Clive basically confronts her with this argument when they meet each other in Twinside. Anabella betrayed her family and her country to preserve the Phoenix's bloodline. What do _they_ matter? Just start over with a new family and found a new country! EZPZ. She and Ultimalias basically have the same kind of meltdown/temper tantrum/"you _inferior being_ think you could _possibly_ understand ME?!" way when Clive exposes them for how heartless they are. Both of them are selfish parents who feel nothing for their children other than as a means to an end, would sacrifice their children for their own goals, are motivated by self-preservation, and completely miss the value of life. If Anabella had loved Clive despite not being chosen by the Phoenix, she would have had **two** Dominant children to take pride in. If Ultima had cared for humanity as a present God, he would have achieved his paradise. Both of them failed though because of their selfishness. What's sad is that Ultima probably cared more about Clive than his own mother did. Clive is his precious Mythos in the same way that Joshua is Anabella's precious Phoenix.
In reality, she would *four" Dominant children, technically three and a dog. Because Jill is her adopted daughter and Torgal is Dominant-lite for begin a frost wolf.
That is what I love about the true purpose. He is selfishness driven to the extreme. He is the survival instinct driven to the extreme. He is an "All powerful all knowing God." But as you slowly defeat him he breaks down, revealing childish selfish afraid being who panics and screams when his plans dont go his way. "I cannot end! I am the End!" and "You cannot have Logos! You are not a God!" quotes show this perfectly (there is one more about how Clive should just die, because he cannot win). They are Kindergarden rules 101 - "I win because now that I am losing I am changing the rules."
@darkvalkyrienz8393 I went back and watched again. You are right. He switches to singular after he absorbed the others. Isn't that backwards though? He was single by himself and when he had all his kin fused when him, shouldn't then he use "we" language? Idk he's weird but he did start to show real emotion after that point as well so it's all very interesting how he changed after the fusion
@@pikachufan3588it's a fair point to make that we kinds encountered multiple Ultimas, like the one we originally encounter was sealed in Joshua, only to break out after Joshua died, then there was the one we fought at Waloed's MC, and the one who summoned Origin at the Dominion. So it's easy to say that this is why "we" was used at first instead after the fusion
There are a few times before this where Ultima refers to himself as a single person (Atop Reverie he asks Clive "Tell *me*, how does it feel?"; in the Interdimensional Rift he states "And so, *I* cast forth the seeds of humanity"; among other instances). I see the Ultimas' shared consciousness acting like a choir, with Ultimalius as its lead. And when he refers to himself in the singular, it's his "voice" rising to the top, dominating the others. Before the final boss fight he absorbs them into his own being--so, until such a time as they once more separate, only Ultimalius exists as an individual. I think this is partly why he condemns humanity--he believes self-preservation on an individual scale is a mark of sin, as opposed to how (in his opinion, obviously) his own people most value the *collective* good (in this case, uniting with Ultimalius so he can use their power to cast the "Raise" spell). You can find some parallels here to the antagonists Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus in FFXIV, and how they view the mass sacrifice of their people to create Zodiark as a noble act which proves their superiority to the self-interested peoples of the Sundered worlds. In some ways, Ultimalius is a total distillation of the Unsundered Ascians' most monstrous traits.
I noticed there’s a big thematic mirror between the way most people treat the bearers and how Ultima treats humanity. Both are exploited, viewed callously as mere resources to serve an end, and then to be discarded. But both forcing bearers to use magic, and wielding the godlike power Ultima has, is killing the world. So both try to escape it and save themselves, whether throwing all bearers under the bus or sacrificing all humanity. And both are astonished and appalled when these things they viewed as lesser can still rise up and stand on their own. In their eyes these things are a resource, how dare they exercise free will. And both are filled with a bitter hypocrisy, unwilling to admit that the fault is their own, and that is ultimately what leads to their undoing.
This is why I defend Ultima as a villain and not just another example of the "kill god with the power of friendship" trope. Dude's the embodiment of the system you've spent the entire game fighting, with all of it's excesses and flaws. Turn every nation in Valisthea into a single person and that person is Ultima. Your fight with him is symbolic of humanity overcoming the system that has oppressed and divided them for the past thousand years, instead putting their faith in a better tomorrow that will be a struggle to reach but is worth striving for.
At least Ultima physically doesn't have the ability to empathize, Humanity has no such excuse. ...well, his species probably _did_ have something like empathy if only so they could have a civilization of their own, but it was probably more physical in nature like a hivemind rather than having a part of your brain that pretends to be someone else so you can guess at it. So it basically all boiled down to a communication error.
Harry Lloyd's cold monotone performance carries an impressive range ironically. It can feel alien and sinister, like when he tells Joshua he will know how it feels to burn without a hint of effort or emotion, but it also feels genuinely sad and pitiful when he is asking Clive about what he hopes to achieve leaving humanity as it is at the end of the game. He isn't being sarcastic, he is genuinely pondering and asking, like a confused child.
It's normal. He's a God wielding all the power of magic whilst his opponents hold tiny fragments of his own power. Notice also the comments in the final fight against Ultima. For example when he launches FLARE he says: "You know nothing of magic". It's badass and logical.
Ultima simply assumes the world will inevitably die while Clive eats him. He never even considered that Clive might eliminate magic and actually solve the problem he created. Ultima's magic is as important to him as his own life.
Which makes sense since the way he sees it Magic is the impetus that drove humanity to strive for more and more after they gained free will. So the idea that a human might choose to destroy magic entirely would seem impossible to him.
@_____2219 Makes sense. Magic no longer exists so now there's no way to drain the world of Aether, so now the world can replenish what was lost since there's no longer a rapid drain.
@@_____2219 It's a sure thing that nature will recover. In the early botanist sidequest, it has been mentioned (and proven at a later time in the new Hideaway) that the Blight just "makes the soil forget who she was". Blighted soil can recover with the correct treatment.
I like how Inhumanely-Human and Humanely-Inhuman Ultima is. Like a gross misinterpretation of humanity deconstructed and concentrated, always fearful and full of doubt.
I just think he would be better in Metal Gear than in Final Fantasy. That's the issue with FFVII existing, specially with Remakes, when SEPIROTH is a thing in your franchise you need to be truly espetacular as a villain just to be respected. Despite how weak FFXV was, we also have Ardyn setting the bar really high for next titles.The truth is that despite the nice reflexions he can inspire on the player, next year nobody will even remember he was a thing.
@@bigbangrafa8435 The only Sephiroth has going for him is a great chara design and memorable Final Boss Theme, in term of personnality and development he is a really just a basic boring villain.
Sephiroth also has a cool build-up as a godly figure even as a human before he had the god complex. There is that. Otherwise, there is not much but a facade. It does help the idea that Sephiroth is empty, once as a tool of Shinra, and then as a person who may or may not be influenced by JENOVA. That is to say, the literal idea and reality of Sephiroth is cool and deep, but his character is not.
A fun thing I just thought of is that we are very much Ultama’s children. His sole goal was self preservation, and at no point did he anticipate that his creations would also share that desire . Both creator and created want to live. This is something so fundamental that it’s a part of life. But while he defines life as simply not dying. His creation has a broader definition of the word
I think his view on life is more complex than your cynical point of view. Don't forget Ultima is not a single individual, it is a collective of minds of a civilization that is older than humanity and was way more advanced. Their view on life is less naive than Clives. It's like an iq meme, where the low iq take is "life is simply not dying", the midwit take is "life is to strive for something" and the high iq goes full horseshoe "life is simply not dying". In the end, something dead can't life.
Anyone who's lived in hard times knows how provisional the definition of living becomes as it shifts from one inclusive to luxuries to one solely focused on efficiency for survival.
Such an interesting essay! Ultima is the one character in FFXVI 's main story which I appreciated the least. However, this narrative analysis made him a little better in my eyes for sure
Its really a shame that so many saw ultima on a very surface level and quickly went into generic boring villian. Withouth thinking of why? Is super obvious that CBU3 made his on porpouse. Withouth nobody carering to read into it. Ultima is suppose to be creepy, weird, alien like, no behaving human.
There is something i noticed about Clive. After he lost Joshua the first time, the light left his eyes. In anime and games etc if there is no shine to the eyes that means two things: either the person is physically dead or they are dead inside. Clive had barely any emotions at the beginning of the game. Think about it: he loved Torgal so much but when they reunited there was no emotional reunion that one would expect. He had a glimmer of emotion towards Jill but it wasn't anything more than protective. And again no emotional reunion. What sparked that light to come back was Gav calling to Clive for help-just like Joshua had. And it was that love for his brother that stirred his emotions again. The cutscene actually shows the light come back to Clive's eyes before he saves Gav. Clive was very much like Ultima. Sights set on one selfish goal and emotionless to all else. But Clive had just enough love left him to reignite what he lost and face his own reflection and overcome it.
I'm pretty sure Logos refers to Aristotle's paradoxical assertion that slaves lack rational thought (i.e. Logos), despite living in a world where anyone could be a free man one day and a slave the next - which is why Ultima asks, disbelievingly: "have you become free...?" Like the slave is defined purely in relation to the master, in Ultima's view, humanity did not exist independently from the purpose he had given them as their master, and this is the moment in which he finally realises that he has created something which now exists for its own intrinsic purposes instead (and therefore doesn't need him)
I think it also is something of a Biblical reference. Christ is called “the Logos”, which is translated as “the Word”, by John in his gospel account. It denotes both the notion that God Himself, and the specific person of the Trinity that Jesus was, as being the embodiment of logic, intelligence and reason, while also being a distinct descriptor of Jesus as being a manifestation of God that can be understood by humanity, since John chose to use “logos” to describe Him instead of any other the other words in Greek for “words” and/or “speech”, all of which either definitively describe a form of language that is unintelligible or comprehensible, or are not specific about whether it is speech that is understandable or not. Paul flat out states that “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” in Colossians 1:15, which makes this last point clear: That while God could not be clearly or fully understood in the past, in Christ, we can see the character of God clearly. There’s a lot that happens towards the end of 16’s story that makes it clear that while Ultima was willing to throw his creation aside, Clive has taken up the role of savior in the hearts of many of those who Ultima abandoned. Joshua states that Ultima lacks the connections he’d need to win because he spurned the faith humanity could have put in him, and many of them have instead put their faith in Clive and his vision and desire to create a new, free world. Clive occupies a Christ-like place in the narrative when viewed this way, while Ultima almost seems like an analogue to the demiurge, which is what the gnostics believed “God” in the Old Testament was (which is a heretical interpretation in Christian thought), mixed with Deism (another heretical belief, which holds that God created, but largely neglects and is uninvolved with, the world). Interestingly, the word for “image” in that same verse is “eikon” in the original Greek. And when we consider that Clive is the dominant of Ifrit, which is that Eikonic manifestation of Ultima’s corporeal body, the Christ-likeness is even more clear, since Clive then is the “image” of Ultima in that way. Granted, the similarities aren’t anything close to a one-for-one to orthodox Christian thinking. The story really does seem almost like it draws upon Gnostic mysticism and theology more than orthodox Christianity, down to how sin is discussed in 16’s story, and is clearest in how Ultima seems to have been inspired by the demiurge, the evil god of the Old Testament who tried to keep humanity subjugated to his will, and constantly tried to wipe out any who stood against him, until Christ came into the picture as the true God and ushered in freedom from tyranny. Even the idea of Clive “becoming Logos” is a very Gnostic idea, since many of the Gnostics believed that Jesus achieved divine enlightenment (Logos) through gnosis (means “knowing”, and specifically referred to spiritual knowledge of the divinity within the self). Sounds familiar, right?
@@melting.asphalt Probably because of how similar some elements of it are to Buddhism. As an example, the goal of achieving “gnosis” in Gnosticism is very similar to the goal of achieving Nirvana in Buddhism, since both entail attaining some kind of enlightenment, and both religions also feature a heavy emphasis on self-improvement in order to reach that enlightened state. Buddhism is something that’s culturally familiar to many people in Japan, whether or not they practice it, so it makes sense to me that so many would latch onto a more Western system of thought that’s similar to their own when trying to find inspiration outside of their own cultural influences. It’s different, but still fairly familiar.
@@elishaj2977if you've played Xenogears, you could wonder if Jenova isn't basically Myan who dropped the Eldridge on a primitive planet to rule it.....the story line of Xenogears spans 30000years after all and many eras have occurred before the end game and Deus final destruction.
@@elishaj2977I’d say jenova is closer to the elder god from legacy of kain. A foreign parasite attached to the cycle of life feeding off of the world manipulating its inhabitants for its own means.
The reason magic causes the blight is the same principle as the mothercrystals causing it which Cid explains; the act of casting a spell draws aether from the land and eventually sucks it dry. That said we don't know if Ultima's race suffered the crystal's curse (petrification as a result of using magic) like humanity did
@@espio30Something interesting is that in 14's world the same is true, and has nearlly happened once before. The War of the Magi, the 6th calamity in this world, was fought betweem Black and White mages. *Thousands upon thousands* of them. Something to remember is that Black and White mages when we play XIV are few and far between, due to both forms of magic being outlawed and heavily controlled respectively. Instead the most common forms are the far less dangerous Thaumaturges and Conjurers. The differences being the more basic forms draw only on the Aether of the user, where as Black and White magic both draw on the Aether of the Star.
@@espio30 Well FFXIV the world can def run out or have too much ether (At least in regards to a concentration). There's a whole dungeon in FFXIV takes place in a area pretty much that is post-Blight (Recovering but had all the aether sucked out of it) called The Burn. And in FFXIV too much of ether can cause one can transform and morph, although in FFXIV we haven't seen what overexposure to unaspected ether does, but it very much likely would look like going Akashic
@@Alovon I don't think unaspected aether would cause a transformation, Tempering is specificially the imbalance of the aspects within a person, and Sin eaters/Voidsent are the polarity (Umbral/Light and Astral/Dark respectively) getting shifted too far to one side. That said, Bahamut isn't a specific element and he could still Temper, so we have no idea. Going Akashic seems more like a Sin eater, Voidsent, or even Terminus Beast transformation than that of being tempered though.
@@cassandramaccarthy3337 Bahamut could still Temper because any kind of aether, aspected or not, can become Astral/Umbral. That is what his calamity was - such a dense concentration of aether that *everything* became Umbrally charged. Becoming Umbral charged is itself an imbalance. An element would just dictate what it looks like, if there's no elemental bias then it's just a very aether-dense transformation and who knows how that ends up.
I liked Ultima to begin with when he was presented as just a creepy, eldrich entity. But the more I think about him and the final battle against him, the more I am intrigued by his portrayal. I especially like how he started displaying more and more emotion as Prime fused with more of the others. But I think my favorite defining momemt for him is his Limit Break in the final battle, because its a inverse of when Clive used it. Clive used Limit Break when he accepted the truth, that he and Ifrit were one and the same. Ultima however uses Limit Break to deny the truth he has refused to acknowledge most of 3rd act, that him and his creations are the same, share the same desires, and the same will to live. He thought all of humanity would be like Barnabas and the Circle of Malius, and just bend to his will alone, only to be proven again and again that was wrong, by his own vessel no less. I honestly didn't think I was going to end up desecting Ultima's character much as I was playing but honestly I'm impressed about the ampunt of layers he has ended up having.
29:40 it's interesting because one of the enemy during the fall of the dominion is called Necrophobe which means being afraid of everything surrounded by death
It’s also an ff5 reference (and technically 9 since Necron is based on Necrophobe). But yes, many of Ultima’s minions reference things that are either undead or have a fear of death. The Lich in particular also plays into this. While Lich do occur in many ff games, when you look at what a Lich is, it plays into that theme. A Lich is a powerful magic user that lives in undeath. One could argue their fear of death is so great, they choose immortality through undeath than accept a peaceful end. Thanatos is also a death god and is one of the Hunts…. As is Prince of Death, who is an advanced Lich. And all the Undertaker variants also support an angle of Ultima and a fear and association with death.
Clive's words to Ultima as he lay dying, goosebumps. Never give up guys. As dark as the abyss can be. Get back up. Heroes who walk the path of the Struggler know this is truly the way.
Oof if that hit you, wait till you hear the villain resolve statement in FFXIV. (If you havent played that is. The same team that made this game is responsible for the 2.x onward of FFXIV) CBU3 are really good at developing Villains, and then having the WoL have that final conversation with their adversaries.
To answer your question about why the blight is caused by humans, it's because aether is the life force of everything. So when magic is used the crystals draw power from the earth's life-force to make it happen. Bearers are able to draw from their own life force which turns them to stone the more they do so. The mother crystals are giant probes that suck up the earth's life force. Ultima's people are the ones drawing in the life force via the crystal and stored in their bodies and the crystal when they were fully charged. Taking a shard of the crystal is full of aether just like the entire mother crystal, humans can manipulate magic. But the mother crystals and ultima is behind the actually absorption of the life force, killing the planet
To add to this, there is no "circle of life" for aether. Once aether is used in the form of magic, it just disappears, nothing is returned back to the source, and thus the blight happens.
@@aintijustthecutest3863 Yes, probably because the life force is unaspected and magic then turns it into an specific element. That is different for example in FFXIV, where basically everything is made out of the 8 elements of aether, not just life, so moving that aether around with magic doesn't create the issue.
This is incorrect. Ultima originally experienced the blight on their own home planet, hence why they fled. Ultima has the ability to draw aether from the environment via magic, hence the ability to become a mothercrystal. The blight is caused by magic, not by humans. The mothercrystals cause blight via a different mechanism, which is like charging a battery. If humans learnt to cast magic via the ambient aether, then they too would cause blight.
Kinda akin to Shinra Corp slowly killing the planet by pumping Mako out of it for energy......interesting that the same theory is surviving in FF16 too....I haven't played much of 14 so I dont get all the cross references between the 2 universe vcreated by the same team....
@@narusawa74 Instead of mothercrystals draining the aether, primals drain the aether in FF14, so your character goes around killing them, but people summon more cause a god-like being solves a lot of problems.
The best part about “All as One”? It isn’t Ultima’s theme, it’s not even Clive’s theme (though it has the same music as Find the Flame) the lyrics are about Humanity. It’s Clive’s message to humanity. Be as strong as the Eikons, and overcome the challenges ahead: once more into the breach.
I love how the first combat phase starts with ultima’s theme, then the final phase uses “find the flame” which is the theme that plays when Clive’s fights his evil doppelgänger
So slight correction: after first encountering The Blight, 16 members of Ultima's race survived (corresponding with the 16 lights on the Aterite stones). 8 of them formed the Mothercrystals, harvesting aether from the land
And I think the other eight became their guardians. It's why you still see the hooded man model well after you learn it's Ultima. It was probably meant to be a disguise.
I like to look at it from Ultima’s perspective - It’s like taking a nap and you wake up - a d your kitchen appliances are talking about freedom and justice. I would be like: “make my toast and shut up!”. Ultima made a bunch of flesh robots for a task and went to sleep. Woke up hundreds of thousands of years later and they’re preaching about freedom and will - Ultima’s like: “Ahh, hell no!”.
Wait you wouldn’t question why your appliances started talking and having free will? You wouldn’t communicate with them? Once you became aware that they were aware you’d just insist they continue their tasks they were designed for, without choice? Are you a sociopath.
@@sassychespins thats basically what describes ultima in this video. The thing made life but never cared for it except for one life to be strong enough to do one job… make the ultimate toast
Tbh Ultima's callousness and lack of curiosity is a lil hard to sympathize with lmao. But I *do* find this scenario far more sympathetic as portrayed in Nier Replicant and Nier Automata, so I guess the overall point still stands
There are some interesting parallels between Clive and Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. Zidane was also created by a race of beings from another world to serve as a vessel of sorts (an "angel of death"), who spurned his creator in an act of free will. Crystals and eidolons feature prominently in FFIX's story as well, so I'm sure the similarities aren't coincidental.
@@romanw4573 I suspect most people haven't noticed the similarities between the two games because tonally they're so very different. IX is light-hearted and humorous for the most part, whereas XVI is one of the darkest entries in the series. IX is a proof that you can tell a story with serious, mature themes without having to resort to edginess or gratuitous violence, and still have plenty of fun doing it.
Another comparison you could make is the Iifa Tree and the mothercrystals which both have the function of processing a natural substance with souls for the former and aether for the latter. These processes also having negative consequences like the mist and the Blight
On a surface level I appreciated you calling out his speech patterns and the literal voice acting. The sharp little over enunciations that suggest condescension were so great.
My question is, back on their original planet before they escaped and still had the physical bodies of Ifrit/Ifrit Risen (I think there were 16 Ifrit corpses hanging around the Nexus), were they still a hivemind or were they individual beings? If they were individuals, did they merge into a composite being after losing their physical forms?
@@partial-derivative Apparently those where the original bodies of Ultima, back when they travel the stars, they took the new apperence when they converted into one being, another posible reasons is simple, those where the attempts they made to make the perfect vessel, but since they only assumed their power only "reach" this point they couldn't make it better and all of them failed.
That final battle with bahamut, phoenix and Ifrit, was like a dream to me, since I was a kid I've imagine how this kind of summons battles would looked like, and it was exactly as I thought it would, just magnificent. 🙏🙏
Things like this, give me this secondary hopefulness. Kids are growing up with these stories, and games, like we did. God of War 5 was also a great tale to tell. Alot of them tales about morals and life itself. And that these lessons may imprint atleast on a few young minds. That we may yet, raise little heroes from this current age.
I agree with your take on empathy. There’s a section of the Eikon battle song “To Sail Forbidden Seas” where it transitions to a soft strings section that seems out of place with the rest of the song. I feel that this part was included to to emphasize empathy and the tragedy behind all the eikons warring with each other as they’re being manipulated by the events that Ultima put in place. All the Eikons/Dominants are victims and have sad backstories.
That is a great take on that piece, but it's common practice in music composition to contrast when going from one section to the next. If one section of the music is bombastic and heart-throbbing the next section could be contemplative, somber, etc. Depending on where the music wants to go or what it wants to tell. Don't forget that music can be a story-telling device too.
"Ultima being a composite being". This is what I thought they were going for, since there were very specific situations where Ultima uses "I" and "We" in the same sentence.
Dion destroying the city of Twinside also mirror's Danny's rampage on Kings Landing. But his was done well for 1 reason: He succumbed to the power of the Eikon losing control, like we saw happen before with Garuda, so it didn't come out of no where.
@@brijor6ff7 No, what happened to him is what happened to Joshua at Phoenix gate, no possesion, just a forced priming caused by trauma and shock, which ultima did egg on after unveiling itself as olivier to dion...naturally after sylvestere got skewered unintentionally.
Dions rampage is also very similar to that of Achilles in the Trojan cycle, but obviously with the change of him being a giant dragon- It's still narratively similar in that a bold and heroic warrior loses his mind and wreaks mass havoc in response to loss of a loved one.
Edit: Just finished, very interesting analysis and I think your conclusion is spot-on, because the same concept/idea of embracing imperfection while abandoning "fantasy" is used during FFXIV. I actually liked Ultima as a villain, despite his dialogue feeling a bit repetitive. Regarding some other points: --------- Magic is created by using aether, which is kinda the energy of all life. The Mothercrystals are sucking the aether from the land, so that Ultima can use the concentrated energy to cast a powerful spell and revive his race. So the Blight is basically the absence of aether in nature. --------- Ultima brought with him 16 survivors, a part of them became the hearts of crystal that were used to drain the aether. This number is also alluded on the symbol displayed during the final boss fight, where the 16 merge to become Ultimalius. The Arete Stone also has the same symbol engraved.
If you check Harpocrate's lore when he is around level 7, it mentions the large basin near Boklad, Dzemekys Falls, was the site of a Mothercrystal which had been destroyed in the past. The entry is as follows: "A vast, circular cavity carved from the Dhalmekian coast, it is here the Mothercrystal known as Dzemekys once stood. In the age of the Fallen, man, hoping to claim the power of the gods, laid siege to the crystal in an attempt to gain entry to its aether-rich heart. Rather than attempt to fend off the assault, he instead responded by destroying the Mothercrystal and its heart--the great crator left behind standing as a reminder of man's hubris." Where it refers to "he", I believe it is talking about Ultima. As the Fallen structures are perfectly cleaved, I believed that this was done at the time that Ultima placed the Mothercrystal there -- which would indicate that the Fallen, predates the arrival of Ultima to the realm of Valesthia.
Right. Creation existed before the arrival of Ultima. It's a lie he tells that he creates humanity, rather he manipulates humanity to create a vessel for himself. Magic and blight is an allegory for sin and corruption. FF has played around with this concept in FFX.
Not necessarily, there could have been an age where the fallen existed for some time after Ultima created them where mankind flourished hence, Barnabas's rhetoric that mankind was given magic and flourished, but gradually pursued sword and flame and abandoned their creator due to desire. Beyond that the entire game goes out of its way to point towards Ultima's status as creator so a small thing like this which could suggest the possibility he isn't, but doesn't necessarily/logically require that he isn't creator cannot be taken to automatically disqualify his status as creator.
The fact that Ultima refers to themself in the plural (“we” and “our”) definitely supports the theory that their race was merged into a single being after sloughing their physical bodies and boarding their souls onto a cosmic ark to cross the universe
A fun detail in the final fight is that halfway through he switches from “we” to “I” as he started losing. “What is mine is mine to destroy” and “mine are the eyes that look down upon you all.” I think this happens because as he starts losing and getting more desperate, he reveals that his godhood is just a facade.
Ultima is a part of godlike alien race that has a hive mind consciousness that is why they all look, talk and act the same. He never expected Clive’s individual consciousness, will and empathy because those concepts didn’t exist for his species which all existed as one and for the same purpose.
A part of the world which is already dead to the Blight. Had Mid taken the ship as a Noah's Ark deal, they would've found nothing but deadlands. That's assuming the ship even makes it to see these lands because Blightwater eats away at everything at an accelerated rate. Sure, the ship would surely have supplies to fix itself up but without prior knowledge, the ship is on a one way ticket to death if they haven't realized just how far away they have sailed into Blightwaters and it may have been too late to turn back without exhausting repair supplies.
@@Lightna Yes! The Blighted Waters was the reason they needed to create 'Origin', the ship they arrived in when they reached Valesthia. They gave up their physical forms because they had no idea how long it would take to get there, and given their experience with the Blight, they had no idea if their physical forms would survive. At least, this is what I've theorized.
@@Lightna But we know there's another continent across the sea that supports life and has some amount of interaction with Valisthea. Barnabas and Cid's lore entries both say that they originated from there and that they eventually made their way to the Twins.
I still love this exchange about Mr. Four-Armed-And-Dangerous. Joshua: "He would condemn us for this? (wanting to survive) Surely he can't be so blind to his own hypocrisy." Clive: "No, not blind. Just... unwilling to accept the truth. That we are one and the same."
Ultima is complicated because he is not human but an alien who was born into a culture of logic and perfectionism. Also, Ultima never cared about humanity and just made them create the perfect vessel he could use to make a new perfect world full of magic and untouched by the Blight. The tragic part about him is that he is heavily traumatized by the loss of his world because of the Blight and it left him emotionless and unfeeling. He worked hard to create a new world for himself and his kind. Because of his suffering, he became envious of humanity's strength in having hope and faith, something Ultima himself lacked or lost. For this, Ultima tortures humanity with years of suffering but fails to break them. In addition, Ultima’s last words were to Clive that humanity is doomed in the long run as it is a species that cannot coexist with each other.
The way you described all of this makes this game's lore seemed like the deepest and intriguing and most profound lore of any Final fantasy game there is ever been. I love it
I enjoy entertaining the idea that Typhon, much like his name sake who challenged Zeus in myth, was likely a prototype Clive who may have commanded some unknown kingdom or even the civilization that revolted at Dzemekys. I'm no greek expert but I believe his wiki states he was defeated by Zeus and imprisoned or "cast down". Ultima playing the part of Zeus in my mind. Typhon does have some very peculiar bits of clothing too and he is used as a test drive for Clive by Ultima who I imagine is puppetering around whatever is left of said Dominant he likely mentally "emptied" with his psychology shenanigans. Also maybe I am imagining this but Ultima did use the word transgressor to express Clive's disobedience at one point. And Typhon's second phase where separate clones of him form together (much like Ultima does later) culminated in a final form referred to as Typhon The Transgressor.
No, Typhon is a monster dragon embodying chaos and destruction, while Zeus embodies order, this is actually a recurring theme in several stories under the name of “Chaoskampf”.
@@MennydorgesERArchive I was not implying it's a 1 for 1 exact representation of the self same myth so my apologies for not clarifying. Just that the developers took liberties to put their own spin on the tale. Thematically, in this particular narrative, I see "Chaos" (Nature, the elements, humanity, ie. Eikonic power) as a good thing to usurp corrupt "Order" (that which seeks to manipulate or control the elements, nature, humanity, Eikons, ie. Ultima) for their own heartless machinations. The FF series has always had a history of dethroning what are essentially false gods or those who lay claim to be one. Basically to the point Clive's primary Eikon ifrit basically looks like a Demon and Ultima's final form in the very final battle looks like a divine being with angelic wings.
What I Notice about the Typhon Boss. Is that he has Foreshadowed Ultima’s Final Form with his First Appearance before foreshadowing Ultima himself with his Second Form (the one with 4 arms). It’s know for a fact that Ultima had planned for Typhon to Test the Vessel, as this is clearly intended upon Typhon’s final statement. But at the same time it shows his staggering level of scrutiny toward humanity.
I absolutely adore this game. Halfway through my NG+ Final Fantasy playthrough. I’m still enjoying enjoying every minute of it. This is my first final fantasy game since PS1…. And I don’t remember anything about it. FF16 absolutely got me hooked on the Final Fantasy universe(s). I plan on going back and playing the more modern titles. I’m super bummed that the series doesn’t continue games because I would love to play a direct sequel that takes place in Valastea.
Yoshi-P stated that if they felt like it they COULD make a direct sequel, given the amount of lore Valisthea has. I doubt it’ll happen, but we do know they’re gonna get to work on DLC
There has been games in the same world. Fianl fantasy 4 than FF4 The After Years FF13 13-2 FF13 Lighting Returns are Nova Crystalis World same with FF 15 an FF Type 0.Also Final Fantasy X an X 2 They actually have a Bunch For Ivalice too FF 12 FF tactics FF War of the Lions So on so yeah there a lot of Games that have continued Story's but Most where so Long you really didn't need a Sequel. Final Fantasy 6, 4, and 9 are my favorites.
@@nerostark4320 I do not think that's the same Shinra they re use Cid a lot but not the same Cid same with Biggs and Wedge are in almost every game but not the same Biggs an Wedge.
After diving deeper into understanding this character and watching move cutscenes, Ultima is a great villain imo. Being so grotesquely indifferent, he doesn't despise or hate humanity like most villains who have such genocidal motives, completely lacking in any emotion.
6:00 there is a lore reason for the blight, as explained by cid, the mother crystals, like the smaller crystals, draw in aether from the air. the mother crystals are just on a massive scale
I just love how you explain, analyze and deconstruct these stories. Also, you just inspired me with your comment of how uncommon it is to see a story of a god losing faith in their creation.
Very good analysis. I love stories where humans are in the thrall of some much greater entity and end up surpassing it. Final Fantasy has done this several times now, but i think it may have been executed most strongly here. Elden Ring does it as well. Its a relatively new sort of story i think, but Im always looking for more
Since you said you don't understand it, the lore reason for magic causing the Blight & Crystal's Curse is very simple. Everything is made out of Aether and magic takes that Aether from either your body or surroundings/planet, thus using that life force for something other than life, draining the life force & causing decay/Blight/Crystal's curse. BTW. I want you to play FF14 so bad. It's made by the same team that did 16 and it's easily got some of tje best villains in all of media. Specifically Shadowbringers & Endwalker expansions.
The conclusion with Clive's monologue at the end can be compared to Hydaelyn's conclusion on why she let her world shatter. Hell, you can say Ultima's story is the same as the Ascians. They destroyed their world with their magic, and the last remaining are just attempting to bring it back by destroying our world.
except I actually sympathized with the ascians because we got to see what it cost them to try to remake the world and what it would mean if they didn't. We got none of that with Ultima, no human connection at all. I think they pivoted too hard in the opposite direction of Ardyn from XV in an attempt to not seem like they were copying (when ironically their ending is almost exactly the same as XV)
I wouldn't say the Ancients destroyed their world with magic, that's a bit of a stretch. Hermes led them down a path of destruction sure, but had that one act of creation not taken place (Meteion and her sisters), Etheirys likely would have never experienced the Final Days nor been sundered. The difference between Valisthea and Etheirys is that the latter has nigh unending aether while aether is a foreign, dangerous substance in the former. In XIV Etheirys is the planet most plentiful with aether, which is all matter, all forces active and benign. Its former residents were literal bottomless wells of incorporeal aether which comprise their souls, the world itself and all life within it is also corporeal aether. XIV's world wasn't destroyed by magic, but by the hubris and curiosity of one man who couldn't simply accept that he did, in fact, live in a paradise. Said Hubris led to the discovery of another force/substance farm more plentiful than aether, dynamis, which in large enough quantities has the capacity to unmake aetherial matter, corporeal and incorporeal. Zodiark and Hydaelyn, conversely, where not destructive beings, but rather deities focused on Etheirys' preservation-ironically, Hydaelyn was actually the more destructive of the two, in the end. We simply are taught to agree with her more because we live through and experience the world she wrought in game. Zodiark, however, had restored the planet and all life within it. So much time had passed since its creation that life flourished anew and the only reason Hydaelyn came into the picture was that the Convocation wanted to sacrifice that new life brought about by the first two sacrifices to bring back the dead who were made into Zodiark; essentially the new life would have replaced the ancients who were used to form the primal being that is Zodiark. The narrative does a really bad job of illustrating this due to the Answers scene post-elpis being a cinematic dramatization of Hydaelyn's guilt rather than the actual events that took place, leading many to believe it a retcon, but the fact remains that everything we knew about the final days still occurred as we were told in Shadowbringers; our trip to Elpis was pre-ordained and thus did not change history at all as the events we experienced up to this point were already a result of our influence in the past. So no. The Ancients did not destroy their world with magic, as creation magicks had no effect on the world at all and instead utilized the aether within individuals themselves; which was infinite. What really happened is that Dynamis, a weaker yet more destructive force bent by the destructive imagination of the Meteia fueled by an amalgam of universal despair gathered together by said beings to wipe out all life not only upon Etheirys, but the whole of the universe itself.
@@Alcadria If it wasn't Hermes, it would have been something else. The point of the Dead Ends dungeon was that everywhere the Meteia went across the universe, the civilizations that they found all eventually destroyed themselves. The same would have happened to Etheirys eventually.
@@trace9021 It was, but that would have been greatly delayed. We're told that the civilization at the end of Dead Ends is a parallel to what would have eventually happened, but they were faaaaar from that point. It still doesn't change the fact that magic did not destroy their world.
I had assumed that the Ikons themselves were Ultima’s race, and that as Clive shattered the hearts of the Mothercrystals… Ultima’s kin actually died. Ultima himself seems to have possessed their original statue bodies within Origin. Similarly whenever a Dominant loses control over their primed form, either the Ikon or Ultima possesses them, depending on whether the Ikon’s mothercrystal heart had been shattered yet. Ultima’s original Ikon seems to have been the fused (original?) form of Ifrit Risen
This was a wonderful essay. This is probably one of my favorite stories in gameing. It resonates with me so we'll because, as you said, it's empathy that ends the hate, the wars, the senselessness. All the towns you went to, the people became empathetic. Even Charon, the seemingly cold bitch that shits on people just because she can, actually understands, people. Deserve. Better. The wonderful theme of empathy, with the epic presentation, the believable voice acting (not only the best within the Final Fantasy but easily near the top in gaming), the music, and such friendly and likeable characters makes it for a "game of all time" contender. Some people criticized FF16 for not having much character development in the second half, but I think it's perfectly fine. When you gain friends and colleagues, it's always the start that is the most difficult. You are developing a relationship, just because that relationship has matured, it doesn't mean that the characters stop growing and😂 cease being good characters. Even the purely evil, and selfish Annabella recognizes the strength and the humans around her. You can recall in the beginning that she even praised them for their indefatigable dedication to the kingdom. In reality, they were dedicated to the people around them. It was that tireless persistence that enabled Clive and everyone else to overcome Ultima. I hope people can get past the fact that it is not an RPG game, but it is an action game, and play it for what it is. A Final Fantasy masterpiece.
The lore reason the blight spreads is because of how the mother crystals and how the Eikons work. They absorb the aether from living things around them and the Eikons from within themselves. All things in the world in the game have aether within them and that is what gives life to the world. the way magic works is by absorbing aether from the world and channeling that aether to produce magic. Ultima placed the mother crystals strategicly around Valisthea to absorb the aether from the world itself to use that aether to conjure his ultimate spell. Channeling aether to become an eikion or to use magic with regular bearers causes them to use the aether they have stored in there bodies and causes their bodies to become stone this is the human form of the blight. The reason Ultima wanted to use Clive as his vessel is because he can use massive amounts of aether and it doesn't affect him like it does other Eikon bearers. The reason that there were so many aether floods by the mother crystals is because of the aether they were storing and pulling directly from the earth. This lore is all around the game and can be learned through talking to Hippocratese and reading through the lore.
I'm really enjoying these deconstructs. I would love to see one on Anabella and Barnabus. Also some deconstructs on the characters in Bloodborne would be so cool. Great videos. Liked and subbed.
nice vid! i'm puzzled at the reaction to ultima. many of his critics seem to think that a villain can only be good if it's a "relatable martyr" archetype, and that any deviation from that trope = bad villain. I like ultima because of what it stands for and how his presence lets clive's ideology shine even brighter.
6:55 the lore reason is explained by Cid early on: magic (and the crystals) absorb aether to perform the… magic. In FF16, aether is the essence of life so without it is blight. It’s why Ultima’s planned is doomed to fail: he never intends to stop using magic.
Great video. Put into words all the things I had thought about but didnt have the scholarly knowledge to compile into a cohesive thought. Makes me love FF16 all that much more.
I finally had the time to beat this game since buying it on release, and I fn love it!! Fantastic breakdown, man. The final words Clive says to Ultima sound so much like one of my favorite quotes in DC comics. Jor-El says to Kal that they will race behind. They will stumble, and they will fall. But he will be joined in the sun.
Something I found interesting about ultima is how they can’t see how their plan doesn’t actually change anything. Since blight is caused by magic and they are using magic to basically reset the world, that doesn’t actually fix the problem, just makes it into a cycle of constantly having to reset the world. At least that’s what I’ve interpreted it as
They aren’t really looking for a solution - they’re looking to revive their kind and leave. They don’t want to change or improve anything; to them, humanity’s development was just an unwanted obstacle because they wanted cattle to farm.
the lore reason is revealed pretty soon in the game: ether, the source of magic is life, pure and simple. using magic is using the very life force of the planet. overuse leads to death, them giant crystals suck a lot of ether all the time, add to that humanities use of magic and the result is predictable
This is easily one of the best narratives of the FF franchise imo. Standing as my favorite FF entry for everything but the linear hallways that make up the world.
Ultima is a collective of consciousnesses. I’m afraid that his civilization consists of him, and only him. They just have different but identical bodies. One interesting thing. Ultima created humanity after his image, but never make them perfect like him. Could it be…. that he is afraid? Afraid to have another perfect being other than himself?
All the Mother Crystals were made from Ultimas people as well, destroying them frees them. When they all fuse into Ultimalias, he starts saying I instead of We
@@uroskesic6117I see him more like Zanza actually. Remember how he was freaking out when Shulk basically became a god to rival him? It’s very similar behavior here
Could Ultima truly create another 'perfect being'? I mean think about it, his whole journey is the result of avarice (unwillingness to give up magic which resulted in his species' near demise), fear (which motivated him not to stand with mankind after the sin of Dzemekhys), jealousy (of the possibility mankind could outstrip him), weakness (his inability to resist the Blight forcing him to use his creation to save his own hide), lack of foresight (his inability to recognize the folly how his treatment of his creation which he partly fears could backfire on him and his inability to see that magic is better left alone then not since using magic to solve a byproduct of magic may not be the perfect solution), lack of self awareness (inability to recognize how much he mirrors mankind's worst qualities within himself), etc. At the end of the day Ultima is very, very human in the sense of fallen humanity to put a Biblical spin on things. As such he was never perfect to begin with.
My head canon for why magic created the blight is because magic creates something from nothing. They say it uses “aether” and I think aether is life force so every time they used magic the life force of the land would die which is shown in the game with the mother crystals.
What an excellent video. The very first one added to my "Favorites" category on UA-cam in +10 years on this site. I'll definitely check more of your videos.
Logos also means “Order”, the antithesis of Chaos. It’s a reference to every FF game before, as Order vs. Chaos has always been the central conflict of FF games. The final boss of Final Fantasy 1 is named Chaos 😊
@@Kenjaku508 🤣 Strangers was alright til I had to replay the game on its hardest mode (which takes forever) to play the cool DLC! I uninstalled it. There goes $90…
Ultima is just a Super Ghost that's trying to make himself Heaven instead of actually moving on. Fitting how a literal Dead Man cannot comprehend actually living life.
Just finished my first play through. The whole I, we, us confused me. But seeing the copies makes me think Ultima is a gestalt consciousness. Therefore, he would never understand will, empathy or beings not himself. His race never existed apart so there's no one to feel empathy for. The death of him is the death of his species, hence the fear.
Ultima is a villain meant to embody certain themes and concepts rather than be a fully developed individual, much like those written by Tolkien and others I could mention.
5:25 I honestly just thought that Cid's theory on how the crystal leech aether from the world, causing the Blight, also applies to magic itself. Magic needs a source as well and when that resource is spent things crumble and die, just like the Bearers do. And considering that Ultima and his race basically transformed into the mothercrystals sucking up the aether from the world my guess is that the Ultima race just doesn't use their own inner aether to cast magic but the aether from their surroundings. And this is also what killed their home world.
The Blight is explained very well by Cid when he is explaining why the Mother Crystals should be destroyed. "Take this crystal, for example. It takes in Aether from the surroundings. But after that, where does that energy go?" The Crystals and Mother Crystals are literally sucking the very life energy out of the planet. It's kind of like what Sepheroth wanted to do to the lifestream in 7, only much slower, and over a wider area. Another perfect example is Bearers, and when they are succumbing to the Curse. They drained themselves of all of their Aether, and stone is all that remains.
I know I'm massively late to the party when it comes to the deconstruction of this video, yet I cannot help but find a power-adjacent concept that both covers both the thematic and lore based reasons for why the Blight exists; control. The closer to having unfettered control of a thing you desire, be it an idea, or a community, or a person, the more likely you'll choke to death the fundamental elements that make that thing what it is. Oftentimes because the fundamental elements are going to be used at cross purposes; one to continue their own existence, the other for whatever useful purpose those elements may facilitate. So, it's both - 1) thematically, in the stranglehold Ultima attempts to maintain on the world, to maintain a sense of order, and power in a broad-stroke way, and - 2) quite literally, as magic (an expression of the theme of control) leeches those intangible elements that allows the world to continue to live and thrive. Just a thought, though.
The lore reason for the blight is simple. Magic uses aether, but drawing aether out of the air kills life, as life in this world needs aether to survive. That's part of why it works so well. There's no being behind the blight, no evil magic, it's just the consequence of using magic
Great video essay. Before watching this I found Ultima to be the weakest part of the story because I wouldve preferred to see the opposing character act in their own interest instead of just being influenced by Ultima but I realize the story has a tendency to one up itself again and again, at first I thought this game to be a revenge story but then Clive joins with Cid and it becomes a whole another thing, itd been a great concept if everyone fought their wars while Clive acted as a third party indirectly influencing the wars by destroying the crystals, although this was part of the story it wasnt all of it, as it yet again turned out to be a whole another thing about defeating the final big bad to save the world in the end, which was disappointing at first but this video made me realize how compelling the parallel between Clive and Ultima really is. I would love to see a video essay like this on Clive, I think he is a very well written complex character whose been through quite a journey.
Incase anyone's curious about the lore he wasn't able to explain: 1. Using magic involves drawing ambient aether from the surrounding area. Since the mothercrystals send aether directly to Ultima instead of releasing it, it creates pockets for the blight to form. 2. All members of Ultima's species canonically share a single hivemind consciousness, which really drives home the idea that he was only out for himself.
Did anyone else take a notice how closely similar Ultima looks somewhat similar to Necron from FF9? As for the magic part, not sure if anyone else covered this but its not just a way of manipulating the æther in the land and air, but it does suck the energy from the land draining its life. It was the reason why they destroyed the mother crystals.
If you start a New Game+ and speak to Harpocrates once you get access to the Hideaway you're given some actual lore answers for many of the mysteries you speculated on during the video.
I think it's mentioned at one point that aether is the planet's lifeblood - and magic is its consumption and manipulation. Thus, consuming aether also consumes the planet's life.
I really like Ultima. A lot of people don't seem to be keen on the character, don't understand him. But I like that Ultima isn't a humanized villain. He has this strange alieness to him, despite being vaguely humanoid in shape. He's not completely emotionless, but he doesn't express himself in a human way. Very much pushing the uncanny valley creepiness. And he is more proof that FF16 is a very Japanese game, despite the accusations the haters throw out. The tropes Ultima evokes are both classically jrpg and Japanese sci-fi. Everyone knows the jrpg cliche of killing evil gods, but I have also seen many sci-fi anime that also feature gnostic demiurge villains just like him. I have observed that FF16 is steeped in Japanese culture and Ultima is just another example.
He and Anabella are the same and that is why they both fell in the end for they cared for nothing but themselves so they died in the end alone and powerless
It was confirmed in the Japanese Ultimania that Typhon and beings similar to it are actually failed Mythos attempts. Looking back it's kinda fucked up 'cause if Clive hadn't been strong enough, and all the Eikons hadn't existed at once at that point in time, he would've been just another of their number.
Haven't played 16 specifically, but I can tell you that a running theme/lore reason using magic in the games has strange consequences is because magic IS life converted into power. The mechanics and details vary from game to game, but typically using magic consumes the equivilent life force in some aspect. In FF8 for example you has to "draw" the spells out of enemies in order to use them..by killing a lot of enemies. Thats probably the most blatant example, but its a common running theme that magic IS life and using it has some very serious consequences
I think it's not only too much power destroys, it is also probably the unstoppable increase of entropy (which is why time moves in only one direction & why there may be the heat death of the universe- there's many UA-cam videos discussing this for our further information) in the magic & crystallization metaphor. The unending cycle of destroying & sapping of many into one/singularity (like, say, black holes or the constant rise of entropy into information uniformity & heat death) is an actual Eldritch part of IRL physics given the human traits/motives of uncaring self-preservation in XVI. In XIV, I believe the annihilation part of that cycle is also partially given the motive of too much empathy, in the polar opposite to XVI. Which I find impressive too haha- XIV is imo an interestingly-written & great FF too :) FFXIV (which has mostly the same lore development team) also uses actual scientific probabilities like that for a main thematic conflict (spoilers: XIV uses the Fermi paradox) for a similar message about life being unavoidable suffering, but with the Ultima counterparts in XIV* finding mankind living in suffering, utter weakness & warmongering as disgusting, unimaginable & Eldritch. So in XIV & XVI, humanity & living is Eldritch in the eyes of Eldritch-looking creator beings who want to minimize suffering forever, unwilling to grasp that entropy & suffering & annihilation is inevitable. We forge ahead into highly probable utter decimation without fear/care/any ability to fight it & it disgusts/pains (XIV)/scares (XVI) them. (*= who also have immense creation magic, live mostly peaceful ill-less lives & Eldritch-looking battle forms- but still have some degree of empathy that is eroded away by their sudden rise in suffering thanks to one being's over-empathy, ironically, towards how all the other life in that universe are always weaker & will never be as prosperous as them & they will inevitably decline as well, and so making the decision to help "minimize suffering" by ending everything faster)
I liked Ultima. In a game where half a dozen villains are thrown at you as quickly as they are killed off, with little to no backstory or motivation besides being evil for evil's sake it was SO refreshing to see Ultima for the first time and be like: "Okay THATS the bad guy. Everyone else might be a puppet but THATS the guy pulling the strings and he's for sure gonna be the last boss."
So I can answer the lore of the blight which you need to play another FF game to understand. The planet itself has its own life-force that's called aether. It's what makes the world thrive and is basically the blood of the world. To use magic or for a dominant to summon their Eikon, they must draw aether from the planet to do so. Aether is not a fast renewing resource so after so long of aether being drawn out of the world, it dies. The draw is also substantially higher for summoning an Eikon which itself causes catastrophic damage to aether as its onpar with a fleet of tanks chugging fuel. Now - The death creates the blight and the world creates the Akashic to try to defend itself. It's also noted in the lore of 16 that Ultima split itself into multiple selves to form mothercrystals and harvest this aether for himself to hit that reset button faster.
Isn't that just FF7 and "using Mako for convenience's sake without giving the planet the chance to restore its Lifestream creates a barren wasteland around Midgar and anywhere with a mako reactor"?
Eikons having a negative effective on their environment due to the high amounts of aether they have to draw from reminds of how the Primals work in FFXIV. Primals draw from a lot of aether from the environment, which makes them too dangerous to let live because their very existence is already a threat. Heck, the way the Primals are summoned is deliberately botched on the Ascians' part, teaching many beast tribes and few individuals this intentionally flawed process for their own ends.
3:30 Very good point. They can't empathy, because they shared same mind and became monochromatic.. No arguement, no betrayl; neither love or progression.
I think the blight and the curse happens because it functions the same way as energy in real life. Everything is like a battery, the more magic and energy the crystals and bearers use, the more it taxes their "batteries". FFXIV, the other game CBU3 works on, uses this same logic with aether in FFXIV, which is why when I heard about the Blight and the Curse in FFXVI I immediately understood that they function similarly. And it fits the themes of the game. Power always comes at a cost, not just in destruction, but in what needs sacrificing to even exert that power. Odin believes Mythos and Ultima can use power without the need of that sacrifice, but even in the end,we learn, like in real life, there's still a cost. You cannot make something out of nothing
Exactly, only a real god could make something out of nothing and going by what we see of Ultima he is anything, but divine to allude to Clive's own assessment of this self-proclaimed deity.
"In this scene, we learn the true purpose of Ultima's schemes, his true motivation, and that purpose is a bit disappointing in how base, selfish, and human it is. The only thing Ultima cares about is self-preservation, he only cares about his own survival. He only cares about living one more day. It must be asked: is staying alive really worth all of this? All this death and strife? What even is life to a creature like Ultima? It's not like he has any friends or hobbies. What is he even going to do for all of eternity in his lonely paradise?"
What made Ultima click for me was realizing that Anabella was a parallel character to him. You could swap the names and pronouns and that argument there would apply just as well to Anabella's betrayal of Rosaria. Hell, Clive basically confronts her with this argument when they meet each other in Twinside. Anabella betrayed her family and her country to preserve the Phoenix's bloodline. What do _they_ matter? Just start over with a new family and found a new country! EZPZ. She and Ultimalias basically have the same kind of meltdown/temper tantrum/"you _inferior being_ think you could _possibly_ understand ME?!" way when Clive exposes them for how heartless they are.
Both of them are selfish parents who feel nothing for their children other than as a means to an end, would sacrifice their children for their own goals, are motivated by self-preservation, and completely miss the value of life. If Anabella had loved Clive despite not being chosen by the Phoenix, she would have had **two** Dominant children to take pride in. If Ultima had cared for humanity as a present God, he would have achieved his paradise. Both of them failed though because of their selfishness.
What's sad is that Ultima probably cared more about Clive than his own mother did. Clive is his precious Mythos in the same way that Joshua is Anabella's precious Phoenix.
Brilliant comment
Excellency 👌
We don't respect pronouns here
In reality, she would *four" Dominant children, technically three and a dog. Because Jill is her adopted daughter and Torgal is Dominant-lite for begin a frost wolf.
That is what I love about the true purpose. He is selfishness driven to the extreme. He is the survival instinct driven to the extreme. He is an "All powerful all knowing God." But as you slowly defeat him he breaks down, revealing childish selfish afraid being who panics and screams when his plans dont go his way. "I cannot end! I am the End!" and "You cannot have Logos! You are not a God!" quotes show this perfectly (there is one more about how Clive should just die, because he cannot win). They are Kindergarden rules 101 - "I win because now that I am losing I am changing the rules."
Halfway through the final fight note how Ultima not only expressed his first emotion but he switched from "we" language to "I" language.
Exactly! The whole game it was "we we we" but at the end it was "I AM THE ALTAR IN WHICH YOU WORSHIP"
Is that language change not just from him absorbing all the other Ultimas and becoming one again?
@darkvalkyrienz8393 I went back and watched again. You are right. He switches to singular after he absorbed the others. Isn't that backwards though? He was single by himself and when he had all his kin fused when him, shouldn't then he use "we" language? Idk he's weird but he did start to show real emotion after that point as well so it's all very interesting how he changed after the fusion
@@pikachufan3588it's a fair point to make that we kinds encountered multiple Ultimas, like the one we originally encounter was sealed in Joshua, only to break out after Joshua died, then there was the one we fought at Waloed's MC, and the one who summoned Origin at the Dominion.
So it's easy to say that this is why "we" was used at first instead after the fusion
There are a few times before this where Ultima refers to himself as a single person (Atop Reverie he asks Clive "Tell *me*, how does it feel?"; in the Interdimensional Rift he states "And so, *I* cast forth the seeds of humanity"; among other instances). I see the Ultimas' shared consciousness acting like a choir, with Ultimalius as its lead. And when he refers to himself in the singular, it's his "voice" rising to the top, dominating the others. Before the final boss fight he absorbs them into his own being--so, until such a time as they once more separate, only Ultimalius exists as an individual. I think this is partly why he condemns humanity--he believes self-preservation on an individual scale is a mark of sin, as opposed to how (in his opinion, obviously) his own people most value the *collective* good (in this case, uniting with Ultimalius so he can use their power to cast the "Raise" spell).
You can find some parallels here to the antagonists Lahabrea, Emet-Selch, and Elidibus in FFXIV, and how they view the mass sacrifice of their people to create Zodiark as a noble act which proves their superiority to the self-interested peoples of the Sundered worlds. In some ways, Ultimalius is a total distillation of the Unsundered Ascians' most monstrous traits.
I noticed there’s a big thematic mirror between the way most people treat the bearers and how Ultima treats humanity. Both are exploited, viewed callously as mere resources to serve an end, and then to be discarded. But both forcing bearers to use magic, and wielding the godlike power Ultima has, is killing the world. So both try to escape it and save themselves, whether throwing all bearers under the bus or sacrificing all humanity. And both are astonished and appalled when these things they viewed as lesser can still rise up and stand on their own. In their eyes these things are a resource, how dare they exercise free will. And both are filled with a bitter hypocrisy, unwilling to admit that the fault is their own, and that is ultimately what leads to their undoing.
Your iPad will remember this...
Started to pick up on that when Ultima says, "this master won't tolerate disobedience".
Nicely put!
This is why I defend Ultima as a villain and not just another example of the "kill god with the power of friendship" trope. Dude's the embodiment of the system you've spent the entire game fighting, with all of it's excesses and flaws. Turn every nation in Valisthea into a single person and that person is Ultima. Your fight with him is symbolic of humanity overcoming the system that has oppressed and divided them for the past thousand years, instead putting their faith in a better tomorrow that will be a struggle to reach but is worth striving for.
At least Ultima physically doesn't have the ability to empathize, Humanity has no such excuse.
...well, his species probably _did_ have something like empathy if only so they could have a civilization of their own, but it was probably more physical in nature like a hivemind rather than having a part of your brain that pretends to be someone else so you can guess at it. So it basically all boiled down to a communication error.
Harry Lloyd's cold monotone performance carries an impressive range ironically. It can feel alien and sinister, like when he tells Joshua he will know how it feels to burn without a hint of effort or emotion, but it also feels genuinely sad and pitiful when he is asking Clive about what he hopes to achieve leaving humanity as it is at the end of the game. He isn't being sarcastic, he is genuinely pondering and asking, like a confused child.
his voice sounds computer like, maybe its intentional
@@Kenjaku508 I clearly is.
He also sells it during the final fight when Ultima for the first truly show how afraid he is.
@@nesoukkefka1741 yeah, its a great moment
It's normal. He's a God wielding all the power of magic whilst his opponents hold tiny fragments of his own power.
Notice also the comments in the final fight against Ultima. For example when he launches FLARE he says: "You know nothing of magic".
It's badass and logical.
Ultima simply assumes the world will inevitably die while Clive eats him.
He never even considered that Clive might eliminate magic and actually solve the problem he created.
Ultima's magic is as important to him as his own life.
does the blight stop or reverse in the ending? because the house where the kids are playing are full of plant life
@@Kenjaku508the blight stopped but the damage has already been done. Maybe with time it will recover again.
Which makes sense since the way he sees it Magic is the impetus that drove humanity to strive for more and more after they gained free will. So the idea that a human might choose to destroy magic entirely would seem impossible to him.
@_____2219 Makes sense. Magic no longer exists so now there's no way to drain the world of Aether, so now the world can replenish what was lost since there's no longer a rapid drain.
@@_____2219 It's a sure thing that nature will recover. In the early botanist sidequest, it has been mentioned (and proven at a later time in the new Hideaway) that the Blight just "makes the soil forget who she was". Blighted soil can recover with the correct treatment.
I like how Inhumanely-Human and Humanely-Inhuman Ultima is. Like a gross misinterpretation of humanity deconstructed and concentrated, always fearful and full of doubt.
💯
I just think he would be better in Metal Gear than in Final Fantasy. That's the issue with FFVII existing, specially with Remakes, when SEPIROTH is a thing in your franchise you need to be truly espetacular as a villain just to be respected. Despite how weak FFXV was, we also have Ardyn setting the bar really high for next titles.The truth is that despite the nice reflexions he can inspire on the player, next year nobody will even remember he was a thing.
@@bigbangrafa8435 sephiroth is not a complex villain. he's literally just a guy with mommy issues
@@bigbangrafa8435 The only Sephiroth has going for him is a great chara design and memorable Final Boss Theme, in term of personnality and development he is a really just a basic boring villain.
Sephiroth also has a cool build-up as a godly figure even as a human before he had the god complex. There is that. Otherwise, there is not much but a facade. It does help the idea that Sephiroth is empty, once as a tool of Shinra, and then as a person who may or may not be influenced by JENOVA. That is to say, the literal idea and reality of Sephiroth is cool and deep, but his character is not.
A fun thing I just thought of is that we are very much Ultama’s children.
His sole goal was self preservation, and at no point did he anticipate that his creations would also share that desire . Both creator and created want to live. This is something so fundamental that it’s a part of life.
But while he defines life as simply not dying. His creation has a broader definition of the word
I agree with you. KUPO!
some parents are like this
they give birth to children just so their children can take care of them when they're old
I think his view on life is more complex than your cynical point of view. Don't forget Ultima is not a single individual, it is a collective of minds of a civilization that is older than humanity and was way more advanced.
Their view on life is less naive than Clives. It's like an iq meme, where the low iq take is "life is simply not dying", the midwit take is "life is to strive for something" and the high iq goes full horseshoe "life is simply not dying". In the end, something dead can't life.
@@k4yser not dying isn’t living it’s survival.
Anyone who's lived in hard times knows how provisional the definition of living becomes as it shifts from one inclusive to luxuries to one solely focused on efficiency for survival.
Such an interesting essay!
Ultima is the one character in FFXVI 's main story which I appreciated the least.
However, this narrative analysis made him a little better in my eyes for sure
Dang, didn't expect to see you here! 😅
Totally agree with Alex. This perspective on Ultima really adds dimension to his character.
Hope you’re doing well! Love your music and content
Waiting for your ff16 funk train
Its really a shame that so many saw ultima on a very surface level and quickly went into generic boring villian. Withouth thinking of why? Is super obvious that CBU3 made his on porpouse. Withouth nobody carering to read into it. Ultima is suppose to be creepy, weird, alien like, no behaving human.
There is something i noticed about Clive. After he lost Joshua the first time, the light left his eyes. In anime and games etc if there is no shine to the eyes that means two things: either the person is physically dead or they are dead inside. Clive had barely any emotions at the beginning of the game. Think about it: he loved Torgal so much but when they reunited there was no emotional reunion that one would expect. He had a glimmer of emotion towards Jill but it wasn't anything more than protective. And again no emotional reunion. What sparked that light to come back was Gav calling to Clive for help-just like Joshua had. And it was that love for his brother that stirred his emotions again. The cutscene actually shows the light come back to Clive's eyes before he saves Gav. Clive was very much like Ultima. Sights set on one selfish goal and emotionless to all else. But Clive had just enough love left him to reignite what he lost and face his own reflection and overcome it.
Oh my gosh i looked it up and it's true, such a cool detail!!!!
I'm pretty sure Logos refers to Aristotle's paradoxical assertion that slaves lack rational thought (i.e. Logos), despite living in a world where anyone could be a free man one day and a slave the next - which is why Ultima asks, disbelievingly: "have you become free...?" Like the slave is defined purely in relation to the master, in Ultima's view, humanity did not exist independently from the purpose he had given them as their master, and this is the moment in which he finally realises that he has created something which now exists for its own intrinsic purposes instead (and therefore doesn't need him)
I think it also is something of a Biblical reference. Christ is called “the Logos”, which is translated as “the Word”, by John in his gospel account. It denotes both the notion that God Himself, and the specific person of the Trinity that Jesus was, as being the embodiment of logic, intelligence and reason, while also being a distinct descriptor of Jesus as being a manifestation of God that can be understood by humanity, since John chose to use “logos” to describe Him instead of any other the other words in Greek for “words” and/or “speech”, all of which either definitively describe a form of language that is unintelligible or comprehensible, or are not specific about whether it is speech that is understandable or not. Paul flat out states that “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” in Colossians 1:15, which makes this last point clear: That while God could not be clearly or fully understood in the past, in Christ, we can see the character of God clearly. There’s a lot that happens towards the end of 16’s story that makes it clear that while Ultima was willing to throw his creation aside, Clive has taken up the role of savior in the hearts of many of those who Ultima abandoned. Joshua states that Ultima lacks the connections he’d need to win because he spurned the faith humanity could have put in him, and many of them have instead put their faith in Clive and his vision and desire to create a new, free world. Clive occupies a Christ-like place in the narrative when viewed this way, while Ultima almost seems like an analogue to the demiurge, which is what the gnostics believed “God” in the Old Testament was (which is a heretical interpretation in Christian thought), mixed with Deism (another heretical belief, which holds that God created, but largely neglects and is uninvolved with, the world). Interestingly, the word for “image” in that same verse is “eikon” in the original Greek. And when we consider that Clive is the dominant of Ifrit, which is that Eikonic manifestation of Ultima’s corporeal body, the Christ-likeness is even more clear, since Clive then is the “image” of Ultima in that way.
Granted, the similarities aren’t anything close to a one-for-one to orthodox Christian thinking. The story really does seem almost like it draws upon Gnostic mysticism and theology more than orthodox Christianity, down to how sin is discussed in 16’s story, and is clearest in how Ultima seems to have been inspired by the demiurge, the evil god of the Old Testament who tried to keep humanity subjugated to his will, and constantly tried to wipe out any who stood against him, until Christ came into the picture as the true God and ushered in freedom from tyranny. Even the idea of Clive “becoming Logos” is a very Gnostic idea, since many of the Gnostics believed that Jesus achieved divine enlightenment (Logos) through gnosis (means “knowing”, and specifically referred to spiritual knowledge of the divinity within the self). Sounds familiar, right?
@@micahmartin7759 I haven't figured out why but the Japanese love referencing Gnosticism in JRPG mythology. Xenoblade Chronicles also drips with it.
@@melting.asphalt Probably because of how similar some elements of it are to Buddhism. As an example, the goal of achieving “gnosis” in Gnosticism is very similar to the goal of achieving Nirvana in Buddhism, since both entail attaining some kind of enlightenment, and both religions also feature a heavy emphasis on self-improvement in order to reach that enlightened state. Buddhism is something that’s culturally familiar to many people in Japan, whether or not they practice it, so it makes sense to me that so many would latch onto a more Western system of thought that’s similar to their own when trying to find inspiration outside of their own cultural influences. It’s different, but still fairly familiar.
*"There is something really sinister about a dark, inhuman and strange god who imitates our mothers."*
Sephiroth: "You don't say."
Technically Genova was his mom though. He was injected with Genova cells while in the womb of his actual mother
I thought the same thing.
I wouldn't call Jenova a god by any rate, she's (and I say she loosely) more closely reflects a foreign creature.
@@elishaj2977if you've played Xenogears, you could wonder if Jenova isn't basically Myan who dropped the Eldridge on a primitive planet to rule it.....the story line of Xenogears spans 30000years after all and many eras have occurred before the end game and Deus final destruction.
@@elishaj2977I’d say jenova is closer to the elder god from legacy of kain. A foreign parasite attached to the cycle of life feeding off of the world manipulating its inhabitants for its own means.
The reason magic causes the blight is the same principle as the mothercrystals causing it which Cid explains; the act of casting a spell draws aether from the land and eventually sucks it dry. That said we don't know if Ultima's race suffered the crystal's curse (petrification as a result of using magic) like humanity did
Its kinda like ff14 where everything in nature is made of aether in a way
In this game tho worlds can run out of it
@@espio30Something interesting is that in 14's world the same is true, and has nearlly happened once before. The War of the Magi, the 6th calamity in this world, was fought betweem Black and White mages. *Thousands upon thousands* of them. Something to remember is that Black and White mages when we play XIV are few and far between, due to both forms of magic being outlawed and heavily controlled respectively. Instead the most common forms are the far less dangerous Thaumaturges and Conjurers. The differences being the more basic forms draw only on the Aether of the user, where as Black and White magic both draw on the Aether of the Star.
@@espio30 Well FFXIV the world can def run out or have too much ether (At least in regards to a concentration).
There's a whole dungeon in FFXIV takes place in a area pretty much that is post-Blight (Recovering but had all the aether sucked out of it) called The Burn.
And in FFXIV too much of ether can cause one can transform and morph, although in FFXIV we haven't seen what overexposure to unaspected ether does, but it very much likely would look like going Akashic
@@Alovon I don't think unaspected aether would cause a transformation, Tempering is specificially the imbalance of the aspects within a person, and Sin eaters/Voidsent are the polarity (Umbral/Light and Astral/Dark respectively) getting shifted too far to one side. That said, Bahamut isn't a specific element and he could still Temper, so we have no idea. Going Akashic seems more like a Sin eater, Voidsent, or even Terminus Beast transformation than that of being tempered though.
@@cassandramaccarthy3337 Bahamut could still Temper because any kind of aether, aspected or not, can become Astral/Umbral. That is what his calamity was - such a dense concentration of aether that *everything* became Umbrally charged. Becoming Umbral charged is itself an imbalance. An element would just dictate what it looks like, if there's no elemental bias then it's just a very aether-dense transformation and who knows how that ends up.
I liked Ultima to begin with when he was presented as just a creepy, eldrich entity. But the more I think about him and the final battle against him, the more I am intrigued by his portrayal. I especially like how he started displaying more and more emotion as Prime fused with more of the others.
But I think my favorite defining momemt for him is his Limit Break in the final battle, because its a inverse of when Clive used it. Clive used Limit Break when he accepted the truth, that he and Ifrit were one and the same. Ultima however uses Limit Break to deny the truth he has refused to acknowledge most of 3rd act, that him and his creations are the same, share the same desires, and the same will to live. He thought all of humanity would be like Barnabas and the Circle of Malius, and just bend to his will alone, only to be proven again and again that was wrong, by his own vessel no less.
I honestly didn't think I was going to end up desecting Ultima's character much as I was playing but honestly I'm impressed about the ampunt of layers he has ended up having.
29:40 it's interesting because one of the enemy during the fall of the dominion is called Necrophobe which means being afraid of everything surrounded by death
It’s also an ff5 reference (and technically 9 since Necron is based on Necrophobe). But yes, many of Ultima’s minions reference things that are either undead or have a fear of death. The Lich in particular also plays into this. While Lich do occur in many ff games, when you look at what a Lich is, it plays into that theme. A Lich is a powerful magic user that lives in undeath. One could argue their fear of death is so great, they choose immortality through undeath than accept a peaceful end.
Thanatos is also a death god and is one of the Hunts…. As is Prince of Death, who is an advanced Lich. And all the Undertaker variants also support an angle of Ultima and a fear and association with death.
I was actually confused by that name, but sensed it was significant. This comment was the enlightening spark.
Clive's words to Ultima as he lay dying, goosebumps. Never give up guys. As dark as the abyss can be. Get back up. Heroes who walk the path of the Struggler know this is truly the way.
*Guts theme plays*
Oh he spilled
Yeah!... just never mind those magical slaves in the corner, that's just merchandise😅
Oof if that hit you, wait till you hear the villain resolve statement in FFXIV. (If you havent played that is. The same team that made this game is responsible for the 2.x onward of FFXIV) CBU3 are really good at developing Villains, and then having the WoL have that final conversation with their adversaries.
To answer your question about why the blight is caused by humans, it's because aether is the life force of everything. So when magic is used the crystals draw power from the earth's life-force to make it happen. Bearers are able to draw from their own life force which turns them to stone the more they do so. The mother crystals are giant probes that suck up the earth's life force. Ultima's people are the ones drawing in the life force via the crystal and stored in their bodies and the crystal when they were fully charged. Taking a shard of the crystal is full of aether just like the entire mother crystal, humans can manipulate magic. But the mother crystals and ultima is behind the actually absorption of the life force, killing the planet
To add to this, there is no "circle of life" for aether. Once aether is used in the form of magic, it just disappears, nothing is returned back to the source, and thus the blight happens.
@@aintijustthecutest3863 Yes, probably because the life force is unaspected and magic then turns it into an specific element. That is different for example in FFXIV, where basically everything is made out of the 8 elements of aether, not just life, so moving that aether around with magic doesn't create the issue.
This is incorrect. Ultima originally experienced the blight on their own home planet, hence why they fled. Ultima has the ability to draw aether from the environment via magic, hence the ability to become a mothercrystal.
The blight is caused by magic, not by humans. The mothercrystals cause blight via a different mechanism, which is like charging a battery. If humans learnt to cast magic via the ambient aether, then they too would cause blight.
Kinda akin to Shinra Corp slowly killing the planet by pumping Mako out of it for energy......interesting that the same theory is surviving in FF16 too....I haven't played much of 14 so I dont get all the cross references between the 2 universe vcreated by the same team....
@@narusawa74 Instead of mothercrystals draining the aether, primals drain the aether in FF14, so your character goes around killing them, but people summon more cause a god-like being solves a lot of problems.
Can we appreciate the final fight with Ultima, especially the music, has to be one of my favourite final bosses in a long time
When that music ramps up in the last phase i was getting out of my chair to finish him off lol 😂
The soundtrack is one of the best I've heard in years. Incredible stuff!
The best part about “All as One”? It isn’t Ultima’s theme, it’s not even Clive’s theme (though it has the same music as Find the Flame) the lyrics are about Humanity. It’s Clive’s message to humanity.
Be as strong as the Eikons, and overcome the challenges ahead: once more into the breach.
I love how the first combat phase starts with ultima’s theme, then the final phase uses “find the flame” which is the theme that plays when Clive’s fights his evil doppelgänger
So slight correction: after first encountering The Blight, 16 members of Ultima's race survived (corresponding with the 16 lights on the Aterite stones). 8 of them formed the Mothercrystals, harvesting aether from the land
And I think the other eight became their guardians. It's why you still see the hooded man model well after you learn it's Ultima. It was probably meant to be a disguise.
I like to look at it from Ultima’s perspective - It’s like taking a nap and you wake up - a d your kitchen appliances are talking about freedom and justice. I would be like: “make my toast and shut up!”.
Ultima made a bunch of flesh robots for a task and went to sleep. Woke up hundreds of thousands of years later and they’re preaching about freedom and will - Ultima’s like: “Ahh, hell no!”.
Wait you wouldn’t question why your appliances started talking and having free will? You wouldn’t communicate with them? Once you became aware that they were aware you’d just insist they continue their tasks they were designed for, without choice? Are you a sociopath.
@@sassychespins thats basically what describes ultima in this video. The thing made life but never cared for it except for one life to be strong enough to do one job… make the ultimate toast
@@waterking74 oh I know I’m just shocked at the empathy the Op had with ultimas indifference to his creation
@@sassychespins ah man i wooshed myself 🥶
Tbh Ultima's callousness and lack of curiosity is a lil hard to sympathize with lmao. But I *do* find this scenario far more sympathetic as portrayed in Nier Replicant and Nier Automata, so I guess the overall point still stands
There are some interesting parallels between Clive and Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. Zidane was also created by a race of beings from another world to serve as a vessel of sorts (an "angel of death"), who spurned his creator in an act of free will. Crystals and eidolons feature prominently in FFIX's story as well, so I'm sure the similarities aren't coincidental.
FINALLY someone said what I’ve been thinking since the game released. The parallels between FFIX and FFXVI are vast
@@romanw4573 I suspect most people haven't noticed the similarities between the two games because tonally they're so very different. IX is light-hearted and humorous for the most part, whereas XVI is one of the darkest entries in the series. IX is a proof that you can tell a story with serious, mature themes without having to resort to edginess or gratuitous violence, and still have plenty of fun doing it.
Another comparison you could make is the Iifa Tree and the mothercrystals which both have the function of processing a natural substance with souls for the former and aether for the latter. These processes also having negative consequences like the mist and the Blight
Man of culture.
@@starfalz An old man, sadly. Old enough to have played FFIX when it came out. I was 15 then. Can't believe how many years ago that is.
On a surface level I appreciated you calling out his speech patterns and the literal voice acting. The sharp little over enunciations that suggest condescension were so great.
16 members of the tribe, they casted their original form to adquire the "ultima" body, hence why they all look alike and why they are connected.
My question is, back on their original planet before they escaped and still had the physical bodies of Ifrit/Ifrit Risen (I think there were 16 Ifrit corpses hanging around the Nexus), were they still a hivemind or were they individual beings? If they were individuals, did they merge into a composite being after losing their physical forms?
@@partial-derivative Apparently those where the original bodies of Ultima, back when they travel the stars, they took the new apperence when they converted into one being, another posible reasons is simple, those where the attempts they made to make the perfect vessel, but since they only assumed their power only "reach" this point they couldn't make it better and all of them failed.
That final battle with bahamut, phoenix and Ifrit, was like a dream to me, since I was a kid I've imagine how this kind of summons battles would looked like, and it was exactly as I thought it would, just magnificent. 🙏🙏
Omg yes! So true!! As a child, this is what it looked like in my head, and now it’s a reality. A fantasy reality.
Exactly our beloved summon diserved this game
Things like this, give me this secondary hopefulness. Kids are growing up with these stories, and games, like we did. God of War 5 was also a great tale to tell. Alot of them tales about morals and life itself. And that these lessons may imprint atleast on a few young minds. That we may yet, raise little heroes from this current age.
"Kids are growing up with these stories and games"
That sickens me to my core.
The only lesson god of war 5 tells is how to be a beta simp.
@@anakinskywalker4596 Are you okay, Mister Darkside?
So hard to find good Ultima content these days. Thanks for this one.
I agree with your take on empathy.
There’s a section of the Eikon battle song “To Sail Forbidden Seas” where it transitions to a soft strings section that seems out of place with the rest of the song. I feel that this part was included to to emphasize empathy and the tragedy behind all the eikons warring with each other as they’re being manipulated by the events that Ultima put in place. All the Eikons/Dominants are victims and have sad backstories.
That is a great take on that piece, but it's common practice in music composition to contrast when going from one section to the next. If one section of the music is bombastic and heart-throbbing the next section could be contemplative, somber, etc. Depending on where the music wants to go or what it wants to tell. Don't forget that music can be a story-telling device too.
"Ultima being a composite being". This is what I thought they were going for, since there were very specific situations where Ultima uses "I" and "We" in the same sentence.
I agree, I think they were also going for this to mirror the Biblical God in some ways provided one believes the Trinitarian position.
Dion destroying the city of Twinside also mirror's Danny's rampage on Kings Landing. But his was done well for 1 reason:
He succumbed to the power of the Eikon losing control, like we saw happen before with Garuda, so it didn't come out of no where.
add that a forced priming due to emotional trauma is a thing thats to joshua at phoenix gate...yeh dion's rampage isnt out of place.
I thought Ultima possessed Dion at the point. I think Dion says something in the final battle about payback for what he made me do in Twinside 🤔
@@brijor6ff7 No, what happened to him is what happened to Joshua at Phoenix gate, no possesion, just a forced priming caused by trauma and shock, which ultima did egg on after unveiling itself as olivier to dion...naturally after sylvestere got skewered unintentionally.
@jonathandear4914 interesting. This game will be fun on a second playthrough. I missed so much the first time lol
Dions rampage is also very similar to that of Achilles in the Trojan cycle, but obviously with the change of him being a giant dragon-
It's still narratively similar in that a bold and heroic warrior loses his mind and wreaks mass havoc in response to loss of a loved one.
Edit: Just finished, very interesting analysis and I think your conclusion is spot-on, because the same concept/idea of embracing imperfection while abandoning "fantasy" is used during FFXIV. I actually liked Ultima as a villain, despite his dialogue feeling a bit repetitive.
Regarding some other points:
---------
Magic is created by using aether, which is kinda the energy of all life.
The Mothercrystals are sucking the aether from the land, so that Ultima can use the concentrated energy to cast a powerful spell and revive his race.
So the Blight is basically the absence of aether in nature.
---------
Ultima brought with him 16 survivors, a part of them became the hearts of crystal that were used to drain the aether. This number is also alluded on the symbol displayed during the final boss fight, where the 16 merge to become Ultimalius. The Arete Stone also has the same symbol engraved.
If you check Harpocrate's lore when he is around level 7, it mentions the large basin near Boklad, Dzemekys Falls, was the site of a Mothercrystal which had been destroyed in the past.
The entry is as follows: "A vast, circular cavity carved from the Dhalmekian coast, it is here the Mothercrystal known as Dzemekys once stood. In the age of the Fallen, man, hoping to claim the power of the gods, laid siege to the crystal in an attempt to gain entry to its aether-rich heart. Rather than attempt to fend off the assault, he instead responded by destroying the Mothercrystal and its heart--the great crator left behind standing as a reminder of man's hubris."
Where it refers to "he", I believe it is talking about Ultima. As the Fallen structures are perfectly cleaved, I believed that this was done at the time that Ultima placed the Mothercrystal there -- which would indicate that the Fallen, predates the arrival of Ultima to the realm of Valesthia.
The japanese lore for this confirms your theory
Right. Creation existed before the arrival of Ultima. It's a lie he tells that he creates humanity, rather he manipulates humanity to create a vessel for himself. Magic and blight is an allegory for sin and corruption. FF has played around with this concept in FFX.
Not necessarily, there could have been an age where the fallen existed for some time after Ultima created them where mankind flourished hence, Barnabas's rhetoric that mankind was given magic and flourished, but gradually pursued sword and flame and abandoned their creator due to desire. Beyond that the entire game goes out of its way to point towards Ultima's status as creator so a small thing like this which could suggest the possibility he isn't, but doesn't necessarily/logically require that he isn't creator cannot be taken to automatically disqualify his status as creator.
The fact that Ultima refers to themself in the plural (“we” and “our”) definitely supports the theory that their race was merged into a single being after sloughing their physical bodies and boarding their souls onto a cosmic ark to cross the universe
I think it’s the royal we
Bro do you know what language did Ultima speak after Cid’s death??? Was that latin?
He is not from another planet, he is from this one. This is confirmed in Ultimania.
A fun detail in the final fight is that halfway through he switches from “we” to “I” as he started losing. “What is mine is mine to destroy” and “mine are the eyes that look down upon you all.” I think this happens because as he starts losing and getting more desperate, he reveals that his godhood is just a facade.
@@gandalfpotter2149
Yo gandalf, is there any chance you know what was the language of first ultima encounter? Was he speaking latin or greek?
You have the best videos on the story of this game by a mile, thanks so much
Ultima is a part of godlike alien race that has a hive mind consciousness that is why they all look, talk and act the same.
He never expected Clive’s individual consciousness, will and empathy because those concepts didn’t exist for his species which all existed as one and for the same purpose.
Obsessed with your Deconstructed villainy series. Very interesting analytics.
Despite being condescended by Ultima repeatedly, in the last conversation, Clive didn't belittle him when describing what he has truly created.
Of course. He only belittled him for the rest of the fight.
Ultima left his Sims file running while he slept and when he woke up they’d become sentient and he was mad about it? 😂
The world is far larger than just Valesthia; Ultima came to Valesthia from across the sea. Where the game takes is a small part of the greater world.
A part of the world which is already dead to the Blight. Had Mid taken the ship as a Noah's Ark deal, they would've found nothing but deadlands. That's assuming the ship even makes it to see these lands because Blightwater eats away at everything at an accelerated rate. Sure, the ship would surely have supplies to fix itself up but without prior knowledge, the ship is on a one way ticket to death if they haven't realized just how far away they have sailed into Blightwaters and it may have been too late to turn back without exhausting repair supplies.
@@Lightna Yes! The Blighted Waters was the reason they needed to create 'Origin', the ship they arrived in when they reached Valesthia. They gave up their physical forms because they had no idea how long it would take to get there, and given their experience with the Blight, they had no idea if their physical forms would survive. At least, this is what I've theorized.
@@Lightna But we know there's another continent across the sea that supports life and has some amount of interaction with Valisthea. Barnabas and Cid's lore entries both say that they originated from there and that they eventually made their way to the Twins.
It's pretty clear they came from another world.
Ultima came from another planet. You're thinking of Odin, he came from across the sea and became king through combat
I still love this exchange about Mr. Four-Armed-And-Dangerous.
Joshua: "He would condemn us for this? (wanting to survive) Surely he can't be so blind to his own hypocrisy."
Clive: "No, not blind. Just... unwilling to accept the truth. That we are one and the same."
Ultima is complicated because he is not human but an alien who was born into a culture of logic and perfectionism. Also, Ultima never cared about humanity and just made them create the perfect vessel he could use to make a new perfect world full of magic and untouched by the Blight. The tragic part about him is that he is heavily traumatized by the loss of his world because of the Blight and it left him emotionless and unfeeling. He worked hard to create a new world for himself and his kind. Because of his suffering, he became envious of humanity's strength in having hope and faith, something Ultima himself lacked or lost. For this, Ultima tortures humanity with years of suffering but fails to break them. In addition, Ultima’s last words were to Clive that humanity is doomed in the long run as it is a species that cannot coexist with each other.
The way you described all of this makes this game's lore seemed like the deepest and intriguing and most profound lore of any Final fantasy game there is ever been. I love it
Hardest line ever to be delivered and its by ultima
“Given this opportunity and yet you still choose to go against THE LORD!!!” changes entire reality
I enjoy entertaining the idea that Typhon, much like his name sake who challenged Zeus in myth, was likely a prototype Clive who may have commanded some unknown kingdom or even the civilization that revolted at Dzemekys. I'm no greek expert but I believe his wiki states he was defeated by Zeus and imprisoned or "cast down". Ultima playing the part of Zeus in my mind.
Typhon does have some very peculiar bits of clothing too and he is used as a test drive for Clive by Ultima who I imagine is puppetering around whatever is left of said Dominant he likely mentally "emptied" with his psychology shenanigans.
Also maybe I am imagining this but Ultima did use the word transgressor to express Clive's disobedience at one point. And Typhon's second phase where separate clones of him form together (much like Ultima does later) culminated in a final form referred to as Typhon The Transgressor.
No, Typhon is a monster dragon embodying chaos and destruction, while Zeus embodies order, this is actually a recurring theme in several stories under the name of “Chaoskampf”.
@@MennydorgesERArchive I was not implying it's a 1 for 1 exact representation of the self same myth so my apologies for not clarifying. Just that the developers took liberties to put their own spin on the tale.
Thematically, in this particular narrative, I see "Chaos" (Nature, the elements, humanity, ie. Eikonic power) as a good thing to usurp corrupt "Order" (that which seeks to manipulate or control the elements, nature, humanity, Eikons, ie. Ultima) for their own heartless machinations.
The FF series has always had a history of dethroning what are essentially false gods or those who lay claim to be one. Basically to the point Clive's primary Eikon ifrit basically looks like a Demon and Ultima's final form in the very final battle looks like a divine being with angelic wings.
Great analysis, man. I appreciate the effort that went into your video.
What I Notice about the Typhon Boss. Is that he has Foreshadowed Ultima’s Final Form with his First Appearance before foreshadowing Ultima himself with his Second Form (the one with 4 arms).
It’s know for a fact that Ultima had planned for Typhon to Test the Vessel, as this is clearly intended upon Typhon’s final statement. But at the same time it shows his staggering level of scrutiny toward humanity.
I absolutely adore this game. Halfway through my NG+ Final Fantasy playthrough. I’m still enjoying enjoying every minute of it.
This is my first final fantasy game since PS1…. And I don’t remember anything about it.
FF16 absolutely got me hooked on the Final Fantasy universe(s). I plan on going back and playing the more modern titles. I’m super bummed that the series doesn’t continue games because I would love to play a direct sequel that takes place in Valastea.
Yoshi-P stated that if they felt like it they COULD make a direct sequel, given the amount of lore Valisthea has. I doubt it’ll happen, but we do know they’re gonna get to work on DLC
There has been games in the same world. Fianl fantasy 4 than FF4 The After Years FF13 13-2 FF13 Lighting Returns are Nova Crystalis World same with FF 15 an FF Type 0.Also Final Fantasy X an X 2 They actually have a Bunch For Ivalice too FF 12 FF tactics FF War of the Lions So on so yeah there a lot of Games that have continued Story's but Most where so Long you really didn't need a Sequel. Final Fantasy 6, 4, and 9 are my favorites.
@@eltigreduarte8977they gotta do a dlc with leviathan.probly will take place before the final battle with ultimate so not to undo the ending
@@shadowdouglas450dont forget that FFX and FFVII are connected, because Shinra of FFX 2 is the founder of Shinra Corp of FFVII.
@@nerostark4320 I do not think that's the same Shinra they re use Cid a lot but not the same Cid same with Biggs and Wedge are in almost every game but not the same Biggs an Wedge.
Great video I really like the arguments laid out and observations made. Also I would like to see you do a video about Cid.
After diving deeper into understanding this character and watching move cutscenes, Ultima is a great villain imo.
Being so grotesquely indifferent, he doesn't despise or hate humanity like most villains who have such genocidal motives, completely lacking in any emotion.
This is the best lore essay, and I craved this topic so much. Thank you so much!!!
This was a great video essay! Thanks for putting in the work. Has helped piece everything together better
6:00 there is a lore reason for the blight, as explained by cid, the mother crystals, like the smaller crystals, draw in aether from the air. the mother crystals are just on a massive scale
I just love how you explain, analyze and deconstruct these stories.
Also, you just inspired me with your comment of how uncommon it is to see a story of a god losing faith in their creation.
Very good analysis. I love stories where humans are in the thrall of some much greater entity and end up surpassing it. Final Fantasy has done this several times now, but i think it may have been executed most strongly here. Elden Ring does it as well. Its a relatively new sort of story i think, but Im always looking for more
Since you said you don't understand it, the lore reason for magic causing the Blight & Crystal's Curse is very simple. Everything is made out of Aether and magic takes that Aether from either your body or surroundings/planet, thus using that life force for something other than life, draining the life force & causing decay/Blight/Crystal's curse. BTW. I want you to play FF14 so bad. It's made by the same team that did 16 and it's easily got some of tje best villains in all of media. Specifically Shadowbringers & Endwalker expansions.
No different than the Lifestream of FF7.
The conclusion with Clive's monologue at the end can be compared to Hydaelyn's conclusion on why she let her world shatter.
Hell, you can say Ultima's story is the same as the Ascians. They destroyed their world with their magic, and the last remaining are just attempting to bring it back by destroying our world.
Pretty much
except I actually sympathized with the ascians because we got to see what it cost them to try to remake the world and what it would mean if they didn't. We got none of that with Ultima, no human connection at all. I think they pivoted too hard in the opposite direction of Ardyn from XV in an attempt to not seem like they were copying (when ironically their ending is almost exactly the same as XV)
I wouldn't say the Ancients destroyed their world with magic, that's a bit of a stretch.
Hermes led them down a path of destruction sure, but had that one act of creation not taken place (Meteion and her sisters), Etheirys likely would have never experienced the Final Days nor been sundered. The difference between Valisthea and Etheirys is that the latter has nigh unending aether while aether is a foreign, dangerous substance in the former. In XIV Etheirys is the planet most plentiful with aether, which is all matter, all forces active and benign. Its former residents were literal bottomless wells of incorporeal aether which comprise their souls, the world itself and all life within it is also corporeal aether.
XIV's world wasn't destroyed by magic, but by the hubris and curiosity of one man who couldn't simply accept that he did, in fact, live in a paradise. Said Hubris led to the discovery of another force/substance farm more plentiful than aether, dynamis, which in large enough quantities has the capacity to unmake aetherial matter, corporeal and incorporeal.
Zodiark and Hydaelyn, conversely, where not destructive beings, but rather deities focused on Etheirys' preservation-ironically, Hydaelyn was actually the more destructive of the two, in the end. We simply are taught to agree with her more because we live through and experience the world she wrought in game. Zodiark, however, had restored the planet and all life within it. So much time had passed since its creation that life flourished anew and the only reason Hydaelyn came into the picture was that the Convocation wanted to sacrifice that new life brought about by the first two sacrifices to bring back the dead who were made into Zodiark; essentially the new life would have replaced the ancients who were used to form the primal being that is Zodiark.
The narrative does a really bad job of illustrating this due to the Answers scene post-elpis being a cinematic dramatization of Hydaelyn's guilt rather than the actual events that took place, leading many to believe it a retcon, but the fact remains that everything we knew about the final days still occurred as we were told in Shadowbringers; our trip to Elpis was pre-ordained and thus did not change history at all as the events we experienced up to this point were already a result of our influence in the past.
So no. The Ancients did not destroy their world with magic, as creation magicks had no effect on the world at all and instead utilized the aether within individuals themselves; which was infinite. What really happened is that Dynamis, a weaker yet more destructive force bent by the destructive imagination of the Meteia fueled by an amalgam of universal despair gathered together by said beings to wipe out all life not only upon Etheirys, but the whole of the universe itself.
@@Alcadria If it wasn't Hermes, it would have been something else. The point of the Dead Ends dungeon was that everywhere the Meteia went across the universe, the civilizations that they found all eventually destroyed themselves. The same would have happened to Etheirys eventually.
@@trace9021 It was, but that would have been greatly delayed. We're told that the civilization at the end of Dead Ends is a parallel to what would have eventually happened, but they were faaaaar from that point. It still doesn't change the fact that magic did not destroy their world.
I had assumed that the Ikons themselves were Ultima’s race, and that as Clive shattered the hearts of the Mothercrystals… Ultima’s kin actually died. Ultima himself seems to have possessed their original statue bodies within Origin. Similarly whenever a Dominant loses control over their primed form, either the Ikon or Ultima possesses them, depending on whether the Ikon’s mothercrystal heart had been shattered yet. Ultima’s original Ikon seems to have been the fused (original?) form of Ifrit Risen
This was a wonderful essay. This is probably one of my favorite stories in gameing. It resonates with me so we'll because, as you said, it's empathy that ends the hate, the wars, the senselessness. All the towns you went to, the people became empathetic. Even Charon, the seemingly cold bitch that shits on people just because she can, actually understands, people. Deserve. Better.
The wonderful theme of empathy, with the epic presentation, the believable voice acting (not only the best within the Final Fantasy but easily near the top in gaming), the music, and such friendly and likeable characters makes it for a "game of all time" contender.
Some people criticized FF16 for not having much character development in the second half, but I think it's perfectly fine. When you gain friends and colleagues, it's always the start that is the most difficult. You are developing a relationship, just because that relationship has matured, it doesn't mean that the characters stop growing and😂 cease being good characters. Even the purely evil, and selfish Annabella recognizes the strength and the humans around her. You can recall in the beginning that she even praised them for their indefatigable dedication to the kingdom. In reality, they were dedicated to the people around them. It was that tireless persistence that enabled Clive and everyone else to overcome Ultima.
I hope people can get past the fact that it is not an RPG game, but it is an action game, and play it for what it is. A Final Fantasy masterpiece.
The lore reason the blight spreads is because of how the mother crystals and how the Eikons work. They absorb the aether from living things around them and the Eikons from within themselves. All things in the world in the game have aether within them and that is what gives life to the world. the way magic works is by absorbing aether from the world and channeling that aether to produce magic. Ultima placed the mother crystals strategicly around Valisthea to absorb the aether from the world itself to use that aether to conjure his ultimate spell.
Channeling aether to become an eikion or to use magic with regular bearers causes them to use the aether they have stored in there bodies and causes their bodies to become stone this is the human form of the blight. The reason Ultima wanted to use Clive as his vessel is because he can use massive amounts of aether and it doesn't affect him like it does other Eikon bearers. The reason that there were so many aether floods by the mother crystals is because of the aether they were storing and pulling directly from the earth. This lore is all around the game and can be learned through talking to Hippocratese and reading through the lore.
I'm really enjoying these deconstructs. I would love to see one on Anabella and Barnabus. Also some deconstructs on the characters in Bloodborne would be so cool. Great videos. Liked and subbed.
nice vid! i'm puzzled at the reaction to ultima. many of his critics seem to think that a villain can only be good if it's a "relatable martyr" archetype, and that any deviation from that trope = bad villain. I like ultima because of what it stands for and how his presence lets clive's ideology shine even brighter.
I hate Ultima precisely *because* he's a strawman antagonist who only exists to prop up Clive's barebones "ideology".
This is a really great analysis of the game and the main villain! Thank you!
6:55 the lore reason is explained by Cid early on: magic (and the crystals) absorb aether to perform the… magic. In FF16, aether is the essence of life so without it is blight. It’s why Ultima’s planned is doomed to fail: he never intends to stop using magic.
Great video. Put into words all the things I had thought about but didnt have the scholarly knowledge to compile into a cohesive thought. Makes me love FF16 all that much more.
I finally had the time to beat this game since buying it on release, and I fn love it!!
Fantastic breakdown, man.
The final words Clive says to Ultima sound so much like one of my favorite quotes in DC comics.
Jor-El says to Kal that they will race behind. They will stumble, and they will fall. But he will be joined in the sun.
The more I let it marinate, the more I realize how good of a story FF16 has. It's so damn good!
Something I found interesting about ultima is how they can’t see how their plan doesn’t actually change anything. Since blight is caused by magic and they are using magic to basically reset the world, that doesn’t actually fix the problem, just makes it into a cycle of constantly having to reset the world. At least that’s what I’ve interpreted it as
Addiction 🤔
They aren’t really looking for a solution - they’re looking to revive their kind and leave. They don’t want to change or improve anything; to them, humanity’s development was just an unwanted obstacle because they wanted cattle to farm.
the lore reason is revealed pretty soon in the game: ether, the source of magic is life, pure and simple. using magic is using the very life force of the planet. overuse leads to death, them giant crystals suck a lot of ether all the time, add to that humanities use of magic and the result is predictable
I WAS HOPING SOMEON WOULD COVER THIS!! OMG THANK YOUUU
This is easily one of the best narratives of the FF franchise imo. Standing as my favorite FF entry for everything but the linear hallways that make up the world.
Ultima is a collective of consciousnesses. I’m afraid that his civilization consists of him, and only him. They just have different but identical bodies.
One interesting thing. Ultima created humanity after his image, but never make them perfect like him. Could it be…. that he is afraid? Afraid to have another perfect being other than himself?
Soo he s like Z from xenoblade 3 he s even voiced by the same guy
All the Mother Crystals were made from Ultimas people as well, destroying them frees them. When they all fuse into Ultimalias, he starts saying I instead of We
@@uroskesic6117I see him more like Zanza actually. Remember how he was freaking out when Shulk basically became a god to rival him? It’s very similar behavior here
Could Ultima truly create another 'perfect being'? I mean think about it, his whole journey is the result of avarice (unwillingness to give up magic which resulted in his species' near demise), fear (which motivated him not to stand with mankind after the sin of Dzemekhys), jealousy (of the possibility mankind could outstrip him), weakness (his inability to resist the Blight forcing him to use his creation to save his own hide), lack of foresight (his inability to recognize the folly how his treatment of his creation which he partly fears could backfire on him and his inability to see that magic is better left alone then not since using magic to solve a byproduct of magic may not be the perfect solution), lack of self awareness (inability to recognize how much he mirrors mankind's worst qualities within himself), etc. At the end of the day Ultima is very, very human in the sense of fallen humanity to put a Biblical spin on things. As such he was never perfect to begin with.
My head canon for why magic created the blight is because magic creates something from nothing. They say it uses “aether” and I think aether is life force so every time they used magic the life force of the land would die which is shown in the game with the mother crystals.
Excellent. What a brilliant breakdown of the character!
What an excellent video. The very first one added to my "Favorites" category on UA-cam in +10 years on this site. I'll definitely check more of your videos.
Logos also means “Order”, the antithesis of Chaos. It’s a reference to every FF game before, as Order vs. Chaos has always been the central conflict of FF games. The final boss of Final Fantasy 1 is named Chaos 😊
Jack: someone says Chaos?
@@Kenjaku508 🤣
Strangers was alright til I had to replay the game on its hardest mode (which takes forever) to play the cool DLC! I uninstalled it. There goes $90…
This is the best XVI essay I've seen since the launch. Thanks a ton.
Ultima is just a Super Ghost that's trying to make himself Heaven instead of actually moving on. Fitting how a literal Dead Man cannot comprehend actually living life.
@FEEDBACK_ONTELE_GRAM_FAT-Brett I'm new to this, how? didn't hear anything in video about this.
Just finished my first play through. The whole I, we, us confused me. But seeing the copies makes me think Ultima is a gestalt consciousness. Therefore, he would never understand will, empathy or beings not himself. His race never existed apart so there's no one to feel empathy for. The death of him is the death of his species, hence the fear.
Ultima is a villain meant to embody certain themes and concepts rather than be a fully developed individual, much like those written by Tolkien and others I could mention.
Square enix did a great job of balancing an eldritch horror villain and a villain you want to punch in the face
5:25 I honestly just thought that Cid's theory on how the crystal leech aether from the world, causing the Blight, also applies to magic itself. Magic needs a source as well and when that resource is spent things crumble and die, just like the Bearers do. And considering that Ultima and his race basically transformed into the mothercrystals sucking up the aether from the world my guess is that the Ultima race just doesn't use their own inner aether to cast magic but the aether from their surroundings. And this is also what killed their home world.
The Blight is explained very well by Cid when he is explaining why the Mother Crystals should be destroyed.
"Take this crystal, for example. It takes in Aether from the surroundings. But after that, where does that energy go?"
The Crystals and Mother Crystals are literally sucking the very life energy out of the planet. It's kind of like what Sepheroth wanted to do to the lifestream in 7, only much slower, and over a wider area. Another perfect example is Bearers, and when they are succumbing to the Curse. They drained themselves of all of their Aether, and stone is all that remains.
I know I'm massively late to the party when it comes to the deconstruction of this video, yet I cannot help but find a power-adjacent concept that both covers both the thematic and lore based reasons for why the Blight exists; control. The closer to having unfettered control of a thing you desire, be it an idea, or a community, or a person, the more likely you'll choke to death the fundamental elements that make that thing what it is. Oftentimes because the fundamental elements are going to be used at cross purposes; one to continue their own existence, the other for whatever useful purpose those elements may facilitate.
So, it's both - 1) thematically, in the stranglehold Ultima attempts to maintain on the world, to maintain a sense of order, and power in a broad-stroke way, and - 2) quite literally, as magic (an expression of the theme of control) leeches those intangible elements that allows the world to continue to live and thrive.
Just a thought, though.
Very interesting and well thought out video-analysis. In simple words Ultima is an alien narcissistic psychopath. Thank you for sharing!
The lore reason for the blight is simple. Magic uses aether, but drawing aether out of the air kills life, as life in this world needs aether to survive. That's part of why it works so well. There's no being behind the blight, no evil magic, it's just the consequence of using magic
Great video essay. Before watching this I found Ultima to be the weakest part of the story because I wouldve preferred to see the opposing character act in their own interest instead of just being influenced by Ultima but I realize the story has a tendency to one up itself again and again, at first I thought this game to be a revenge story but then Clive joins with Cid and it becomes a whole another thing, itd been a great concept if everyone fought their wars while Clive acted as a third party indirectly influencing the wars by destroying the crystals, although this was part of the story it wasnt all of it, as it yet again turned out to be a whole another thing about defeating the final big bad to save the world in the end, which was disappointing at first but this video made me realize how compelling the parallel between Clive and Ultima really is. I would love to see a video essay like this on Clive, I think he is a very well written complex character whose been through quite a journey.
Incase anyone's curious about the lore he wasn't able to explain:
1. Using magic involves drawing ambient aether from the surrounding area. Since the mothercrystals send aether directly to Ultima instead of releasing it, it creates pockets for the blight to form.
2. All members of Ultima's species canonically share a single hivemind consciousness, which really drives home the idea that he was only out for himself.
Did anyone else take a notice how closely similar Ultima looks somewhat similar to Necron from FF9? As for the magic part, not sure if anyone else covered this but its not just a way of manipulating the æther in the land and air, but it does suck the energy from the land draining its life. It was the reason why they destroyed the mother crystals.
fun fact: the medal of valor you get from the first Ultima fight in arcade mode is attributed to Necron.
If you start a New Game+ and speak to Harpocrates once you get access to the Hideaway you're given some actual lore answers for many of the mysteries you speculated on during the video.
I think it's mentioned at one point that aether is the planet's lifeblood - and magic is its consumption and manipulation. Thus, consuming aether also consumes the planet's life.
Hilariously, Ultima's goal is the same as humanity: survive. Instead of just being proud of that, he decides to be petty about it.
I really like Ultima. A lot of people don't seem to be keen on the character, don't understand him. But I like that Ultima isn't a humanized villain. He has this strange alieness to him, despite being vaguely humanoid in shape. He's not completely emotionless, but he doesn't express himself in a human way. Very much pushing the uncanny valley creepiness.
And he is more proof that FF16 is a very Japanese game, despite the accusations the haters throw out. The tropes Ultima evokes are both classically jrpg and Japanese sci-fi. Everyone knows the jrpg cliche of killing evil gods, but I have also seen many sci-fi anime that also feature gnostic demiurge villains just like him. I have observed that FF16 is steeped in Japanese culture and Ultima is just another example.
6:20 it always makes me stop and think, "Wait, that wasn't right" for a brief moment every time a UA-camr pronounces Ifrit correctly.
He and Anabella are the same and that is why they both fell in the end for they cared for nothing but themselves so they died in the end alone and powerless
Mythos and Ultima as in Final Fantasy, nice!
I always thought Ultima was alluding to him believing to be the Ultimate being of perfection.
It was confirmed in the Japanese Ultimania that Typhon and beings similar to it are actually failed Mythos attempts. Looking back it's kinda fucked up 'cause if Clive hadn't been strong enough, and all the Eikons hadn't existed at once at that point in time, he would've been just another of their number.
Haven't played 16 specifically, but I can tell you that a running theme/lore reason using magic in the games has strange consequences is because magic IS life converted into power. The mechanics and details vary from game to game, but typically using magic consumes the equivilent life force in some aspect. In FF8 for example you has to "draw" the spells out of enemies in order to use them..by killing a lot of enemies. Thats probably the most blatant example, but its a common running theme that magic IS life and using it has some very serious consequences
I think it's not only too much power destroys, it is also probably the unstoppable increase of entropy (which is why time moves in only one direction & why there may be the heat death of the universe- there's many UA-cam videos discussing this for our further information) in the magic & crystallization metaphor.
The unending cycle of destroying & sapping of many into one/singularity (like, say, black holes or the constant rise of entropy into information uniformity & heat death) is an actual Eldritch part of IRL physics given the human traits/motives of uncaring self-preservation in XVI.
In XIV, I believe the annihilation part of that cycle is also partially given the motive of too much empathy, in the polar opposite to XVI. Which I find impressive too haha- XIV is imo an interestingly-written & great FF too :)
FFXIV (which has mostly the same lore development team) also uses actual scientific probabilities like that for a main thematic conflict (spoilers: XIV uses the Fermi paradox) for a similar message about life being unavoidable suffering, but with the Ultima counterparts in XIV* finding mankind living in suffering, utter weakness & warmongering as disgusting, unimaginable & Eldritch.
So in XIV & XVI, humanity & living is Eldritch in the eyes of Eldritch-looking creator beings who want to minimize suffering forever, unwilling to grasp that entropy & suffering & annihilation is inevitable. We forge ahead into highly probable utter decimation without fear/care/any ability to fight it & it disgusts/pains (XIV)/scares (XVI) them.
(*= who also have immense creation magic, live mostly peaceful ill-less lives & Eldritch-looking battle forms- but still have some degree of empathy that is eroded away by their sudden rise in suffering thanks to one being's over-empathy, ironically, towards how all the other life in that universe are always weaker & will never be as prosperous as them & they will inevitably decline as well, and so making the decision to help "minimize suffering" by ending everything faster)
I liked Ultima. In a game where half a dozen villains are thrown at you as quickly as they are killed off, with little to no backstory or motivation besides being evil for evil's sake it was SO refreshing to see Ultima for the first time and be like:
"Okay THATS the bad guy. Everyone else might be a puppet but THATS the guy pulling the strings and he's for sure gonna be the last boss."
So I can answer the lore of the blight which you need to play another FF game to understand. The planet itself has its own life-force that's called aether. It's what makes the world thrive and is basically the blood of the world.
To use magic or for a dominant to summon their Eikon, they must draw aether from the planet to do so. Aether is not a fast renewing resource so after so long of aether being drawn out of the world, it dies. The draw is also substantially higher for summoning an Eikon which itself causes catastrophic damage to aether as its onpar with a fleet of tanks chugging fuel. Now - The death creates the blight and the world creates the Akashic to try to defend itself.
It's also noted in the lore of 16 that Ultima split itself into multiple selves to form mothercrystals and harvest this aether for himself to hit that reset button faster.
Isn't that just FF7 and "using Mako for convenience's sake without giving the planet the chance to restore its Lifestream creates a barren wasteland around Midgar and anywhere with a mako reactor"?
Eikons having a negative effective on their environment due to the high amounts of aether they have to draw from reminds of how the Primals work in FFXIV. Primals draw from a lot of aether from the environment, which makes them too dangerous to let live because their very existence is already a threat. Heck, the way the Primals are summoned is deliberately botched on the Ascians' part, teaching many beast tribes and few individuals this intentionally flawed process for their own ends.
3:30 Very good point. They can't empathy, because they shared same mind and became monochromatic.. No arguement, no betrayl; neither love or progression.
I think the blight and the curse happens because it functions the same way as energy in real life. Everything is like a battery, the more magic and energy the crystals and bearers use, the more it taxes their "batteries". FFXIV, the other game CBU3 works on, uses this same logic with aether in FFXIV, which is why when I heard about the Blight and the Curse in FFXVI I immediately understood that they function similarly. And it fits the themes of the game. Power always comes at a cost, not just in destruction, but in what needs sacrificing to even exert that power. Odin believes Mythos and Ultima can use power without the need of that sacrifice, but even in the end,we learn, like in real life, there's still a cost. You cannot make something out of nothing
Exactly, only a real god could make something out of nothing and going by what we see of Ultima he is anything, but divine to allude to Clive's own assessment of this self-proclaimed deity.
My favorite part is at the end when Ultima congratulates Clive like he lost at ping pong or something lol.