FFX meta: Dissidia Braska 3

So, I’ve seen various glowing reports of the Braska storyline in DFFOO, and I have to say after playing through the whole thing that I don’t really share the same opinion. Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that I’ve never been interested in the plot of the game more generally – for some reason I never care about the plots of mobile games – so the overarching conflict is something I’m neither aware of nor interested in. The main thing that ruins it for me, though, is the inaccuracies and inconsistencies – I mentioned these a bit in the first post in this series, and they just get harder to ignore in the second part of the chapter. Like, I saw someone on some FF discord saying something like “the person who wrote this must really love FFX”, and fair enough, but either that person or the person who did the English translation, or both, don’t seem to actually know that much about FFX.

Anyway, some [notes on/gripes about] the script, I guess … opening up DissidiaDB … right, so the very first exchange illustrates my point about inaccuracies exactly! Namely:

Wakka: You weren’t mistaken … these really are the ruins of Zanarkand.
Auron: We weren’t the only ones to walk this path – you passed this way too. This might be the sum of all of our memories of the place.
Lulu: I remember our conversation here. We spoke of the end of our journey …

Ok, but, Auron, you were literally there when Wakka was! “You passed this way too” makes no sense – it makes it sound like Auron wasn’t on Yuna’s pilgrimage! The way he puts it really makes it sound like these were two totally distinct events with no connection between them, while in fact he was the connection. I’m not saying this goes so far as to completely contradict canon, but there’s certainly a heavy implication that Auron, Braska and Jecht came to the Zanarkand ruins on one occasion, and then everyone else came the second time.

Not much later, there’s a more obvious inaccuracy:

Yuna: I’m sorry, but I saw your sphere …

Yuna is referring to the scenes of the boys in Zanarkand, when Jecht makes the decision to sacrifice himself and become the Final Aeon – i.e., not a sphere, just visions of the past created by pyreflies (which is why we see all three of them in the scene, instead of one taking the role of the cameraman). “Right,” you say, “but Yuna might just have forgotten it wasn’t a sphere – she saw the images of the past like she’d seen in the spheres hidden across Spira, and enough time has passed since then for her to erroneously think these were part of that series.” Ok, but that doesn’t explain this:

Braska: So you saw that sphere …
Auron: Hmph. We didn’t record it if we didn’t want it to be seen.

Firstly, another grammatical mistake here, I’m sure Auron knows how to use conditionals … and secondly, both Braska and Auron also seem to be under the impression that they actually recorded a sphere of this stuff. Honestly, the most charitable interpretation of this has to be “they all forgot what really happened and collectively created some kind of false memory,” but that’s clearly not a plot point and I am certain that what really happened is a case of Did Not Do The Research, which is partially, but not sufficiently redeemed by the immediately ensuing bantz:

Auron: Jecht must’ve looked a wreck, though.
Jecht: H-hey! Shut your trap!

Lads … please.

So we move on (via some mildly interesting Seymour stuff) to Jecht Feeling Guilty. I’ll admit that I fucking love Braska’s line “I’d ask you not to raise your voice in front of the children” – mate, these are Final Fantasy party members, they’re all used to engaging in strenuous battles and experiencing various and sundry traumas on a daily basis, and you’re worried about Jecht and Auron raising their voices in front of them? So precious.

I am on board with the whole Jecht Feeling Guilty thing – I think it makes sense for how his character has developed by this point – but what I don’t quite get is what he’s Feeling Guilty about.

Braska: Hate you? Why would I hate you?
Jecht: You know why! I stole Yuna from you! And what’s worse, I became Sin on top of all that! Everything happened all over again, because I was weak! If I’d have set my foot down and said I wasn’t gonna become Sin after the Final Summoning, it would’ve saved everyone so much trouble …

I was expecting the Feeling Guilty to be about becoming the Final Aeon in the first place, not about … the specific act of becoming Sin? I mean, I don’t think anyone ever believed it was a possibility that Jecht would become the Final Aeon and then just be like “nope, I’m not going to become Sin, guess it’s Eternal Calm time”, and then Yu Yevon would just shrug and say fair enough. Sure, there’s his line in the game, “I’ll think of something,” but it’s pretty clear from Auron’s reaction that this is understood to be a tall order, and throughout the whole pilgrimage Jecht has most probably been talking out of his arse approximately 50% of the time. So, not so much an inaccuracy as a mild confusion, I guess.

Anyway, the boys all make up, Jecht’s hobbies and interests are summed up in the slightly weird but undeniably accurate line “Help out people when they need it, mess around, you know.”, more banter ensues. Tidus and Yuna get hilariously uncomfortable:

Jecht: … See, if I don’t stick by your side, then what kind of friend would I be?
Braska: Haha, well, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but remember: you’re not a young man anymore. Don’t pull a muscle.
Tidus: This is … uh …
Yuna: I know …
Auron: Hmph. Not the father you remember, huh?
Tidus: Where’s all his bluster? He’s acting … weird …

(Tbf, I think I’m also salty about how this storyline is very heavily implying that Braska and Jecht were the great mates on their pilgrimage and Auron was the third wheel; come on, Auron and Braska were clearly in a state of weird unhealthy codependency and I’ve thought so much about this that it’s an unshakeable headcanon now.)

Braska suggests that Yuna was “quite the tomboy” when he began his pilgrimage, which is fun to think about; then he uses the phrase “rough around the edges” yet again; then he does a wee apostrophe to his wife, which is *chef’s kiss* because, yep, he’s still obsessed with her. I’m a bit “do better, lads” about this particular line:

Braska: Jecht wanted to leave messages for Tidus as well, but … sometimes he would get excited and capture lightning striking the ground.

Just sounds a bit off, as well as not quite true, tbh.

Braska has a nice conversation with some of the other lads, including this brief exchange which is very 👀 to me for some reason:

Galuf: I’m sure that when Auron and Jecht looked at you, they saw hope!
Braska: You’re too kind. In truth, I rather think I dragged them along into my ordeal.

Then Seymour turns up, does some simping for Braska, calls Auron “such a tactless boor” (rude … but true … but rude), and somehow imprisons Jecht in some unspecified way and uses (checks notes) a fragment of silt to somehow transform him back into the Final Aeon. Again, having not followed the plot of the game previously, I have no idea whether this fragment of silt is something that has come up before, but all I can think about is Seymour holding a little pile of soil in his enormous Guado hand. Sazh and Barret randomly turn up – that’s this game’s way of bashing its players around the head going Dad Stuff Dad Stuff It’s Time For Dad Stuff – and then it’s time to fight aeon!Jecht again, just like it was back in 3.4, i.e. really not all that long ago. And then Braska convinces Jecht to, idk, break free of the vague shackles that have been imposed on him for reasons unknown, and remember who he really is and all that stuff.

So, in conclusion … I guess I’m just very meh about this whole storyline, which seems fairly banal and is also marred by a number of inaccuracies or maybe just poor ways of phrasing stuff that makes it seem like there are inaccuracies even if there aren’t really. Obviously there’s no scope for DFFOO to introduce meaningful additional stuff into the lore of the various games, so I suppose all the stories have to be like this, but idk. I’m probably unduly influenced by the personal headcanons I’ve had about this game for the past year and a half and have thought about so much that they’ve become as strongly rooted for me as canon itself has, with the result that anything that appears to contradict those headcanons rubs me up the wrong way, so there’s that too. On the bright side, at least we get the aforementioned bants, and now that I have all three of the boys maxed, it’s pretty cool to take them into battle and watch them doing obscene amounts of damage and getting the force time multiplier up to four hundred percent. I’d honestly take any plot to see my boys fighting together. Just love them ❤ (in a quite distinct order of preference, sorry Jecht).