COME AT ME WITH ALL THE FF META THREAD.
May. 2nd, 2013 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zen_monkI am inspired by Moogle University!
Disclaimer: I am in general more excited by the FF ladies and I'm picky over which boy is my homeboy, but I am a "CRITICAL THINKING PERSON WITH A PROPENSITY TO PHILOSOPHIZE IN ORDER TO REALIZE MY GOAL IN LIFE."
As a philosophy major *3*
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Date: 2013-05-03 05:26 am (UTC)So, on that note, it is possibly your fault, thanks to all the awesome meta we've been having at each other, that I have something like the start of a "five things" which is "Five Times Kain Highwind Actually Showed His Feelings For Rosa BEFORE the Tower of Zot and the World Was Better For It." Because Kain, honey, speak up, for all she knows you're not interested and for all YOU know Cecil was actually her second choice. (And, for the record: I totally ship a fully three-cornered OT3. Kain's just the one being the balkiest about it, lol.)
And, some non-shippy meta: Mysidia, and Baron, and the Devil's Road. So I have headcanon around the idea that maybe Baron got its mage-culture from Mysidia--- that Mysidia was awesome with magic, and maybe Baron's first mages were... Mysidian emigres? And blah blah something to do with the Devil's Road, but that there is a fair amount of communion between Baron's mage orders and the mages in Mysidia? (There's that old dude hanging out by the Devil's Road who says something about having a pal there, that seems to allow for the possibility, at least.) And... I think Rina and I rambled somewhere about how Mysidia is like this awesome university town, and I'm thinking about Baron's mages, POSSIBLY INCLUDING ROSA, sometimes going to Mysidia by way of the Devil's Road for extra training? And Mysidian culture being less with the medieval-type strictures than Baron is, and therefore so is mage-culture in Baron generally? DISCUSS.
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Date: 2013-05-03 05:42 am (UTC)I kinda gave Lassarina short Kain fanfiction from my UCSC post, where basically Kain found himself in Santa Cruz near Troia and it's a place full of hippies and tree-livers and redwood forests where he can climb up and up.
And marijuana. Nah, it's short and kinda nothing, but I thought man wouldn't it be something if Santa Cruz does exist in FFIV? Bunch of environmentalist hippies and research institutes!
I think the thing with Mysidia is that it ties in more easily with what i imagine Mist and The Feymarch are like. Where the place is headed by a clan leader or a mentor, and less to do with actual leadership structure aside from scholarly or from familial ties. Baron seems to be clueless about how Mist really work on, judging by how Kain is just all "Mist Legends from the Crypt" creepy to Cecil (I imagine him as this trickster troll before he got brainwashed by Zemus who appealed to the lizard neanderthal part of his brain).
Like, what if Rydia's mom was this Shaman leader whose mist dragon is an inherited Eidolon that is so connected to her family that it lives on through each generation in Rydia's bloodline? Or it's a guardian for the village itself and it has closer ties to Bahamut and such.
...an Earthly Bahamut... now that I like.
Now *that* has something Rydia/Kain like for me to sink my teeth into (I have to confess: Rydia/Kain and sometimes Edge OTP or OT3 is my bread and butter a bit more :P) All the trauma feels for them to work out.
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Date: 2013-05-04 01:44 am (UTC)Oh... wow. See I was reading happily along about Kain in Troia!Santa Cruz, going, "Aw, that's cute, Kain and hippies, lol," and then I read this part: and my heart. Just frigging STOPPED. Because that is just so fucking beautiful and so very Kain, and like, I want that for him, just... you know, standing on top of a tree like Bilbo Baggins in the old animated version of The Hobbit, and man, I'm sniffling all over the place here. That is just AWESOME.
Oooh, wow, yeah, I am fascinated by the ideas and questions about the leadership-structure bit. And... so I have nascent headcanon about sages going up Mt. Ordeals to get to be sages (so, yep, it's Tellah's second trip) or maybe the Elder has to, in order to BECOME the Elder (and this would be something that Kluya put in place, maybe...) and Tellah... maybe tried for the job, but failed that trial, lol?
...canNOT stop smiling at this. Oh, Kain. Just... being quietly snarky and bitchy and not ever showing his real feelings (fucking TAY, I've read the let's-play and apparently Kain's dad was a right bastard to him, so it's my headcanon he got fed a lot of "emotions are for sissies" that played into why he never told Rosa what he was feeling for her--- just that he couldn't, he didn't have that framework of, it's okay to express emotions. And it's also growing to be my headcanon that Rosa realized she had feelings for both of them at about the same time, but Cecil was the only one who showed an interest back, because see previous on Kain learning that emotions are for the weak, and so she fixed on Cecil more exclusively. So it is even more sucky that Kain did not speak up, ahahahaha I love torturing the boy.)
Okay, I confess, there is a fic somewhere on AO3 that has me completely shipping Rydia/Ifrit, lol. And... Edge vexes me greatly, so much that I keep him out of anyone's bed but his own because I really don't think he's quite ready for a relationship with anything other than one of his own hands. LOL
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Date: 2013-05-04 02:09 am (UTC)No, man, I cannot just stop telling how much I like the imagery of Kain just hanging out in a redwood forest. It's super awesome, I wish I developed art skills just to emphasize that bit of imagery.
Keep in mind that whatever trappings like social and sexual mores are done, it's more emphasized by the people in power dictating how people should act. People like, say, royalty and nobleman, would care a lot more about who's siring who and who's being married, but that's for the sake of who shares power. Whatever counts as a middle class would care more about money issues relating to them, as well as some sort of "community" stability. These things would get emphasized by "religion" or trying to otherize people so that they can find some scapegoating to blame.
I'm on board in having parallels of examining real world social stuff into the sociology of FFIV, like which culture does what and how it's being emphasized, because that's the greatness of fantasy and sci-fi, doing all the what-ifs in way that can remove real world trappings and discrimination (though it's not like sci-fi and dystopian works try to improve on its misogyny and racism, but that's a different discussion). But... I dunno, I kinda always felt that FF in general doesn't get me to start examining which place thinks what in terms of sexuality. Like, are we talking about how job classes can shape someone's thoughts about sexuality? I think that at some point, job classes are meant to be seen as like Guild memberships (at least, it seems to emphasize that way for FFIX, FFXII and the MMOs), so whoever's included in there is basically raised into the beliefs of the entirety of the people who teach the skills.
There are also towns that are completely cut off from other places, so you gotta start wondering how those fit in, like when they're in islands. Would a place that emphasize on naval trade have seafaring white mages or black mages think differently about things compared to Mysidian ones? Or Troia? It seems to me that Troia mages are usually female so where are the male ones? Also, it looks more like a matriarchy so whatever they think on stuff goes all the way down the macro and micro levels of social interaction and politicking compared to Baron. Or Fabul, where it looks like Yang feels more hung up on having his offspring (a girl, no less), suddenly wanting to be a monk class, too.
Or Damcyen and the apparent lack of white mages, but apparently with the knowledge of "healing pots" that can revive severe injuries. That's why I'm wondering if magic has more ties to the soul, and why Anna dies despite the presence of the pots nearby; that since her soul is really going away to the afterlife that no amount of medicine or white magic can heal her body. But are we excluding physical doctors from the mentalities of white mages? Or the presence of Ninja arts from how black mages would feel socially?
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Date: 2013-05-04 02:58 am (UTC)Oh, man, Kain in a redwood forest, I am now stanning for that, so hard! That is just the most beautiful idea I have heard for him. Just FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.
I've ended up thinking a lot about sexual mores and customs in FFIV... well, I think for a lot of reasons, one of which is simply that I love thinking about that stuff! But also and in this case because there are the medieval trappings right alongside Rosa visiting Cecil's bedroom dressed in tinsel and glitter and a pretty smile, you know? And then the OT3 begs that question a little, like how the three of them would think about it, and since my basic premise with them is "they all love and want each other equally at base" then I get into reasons that they would have had for not exploring that. And also, quite to the point, the first fic I started writing in this fandom involved questions around magical fertility control (in both directions, preventing AND encouraging conception) and once I started thinking about that, well.
And, oh, yeah, if you scratch social ideas of right and wrong, what you find underneath is "what benefits certain groups that enjoy certain powers as a result". Since the first thing I started thinking about with that was magical fertility control, that goes right to your point about how power and wealth are transferred. My reasoning went something like, "Hmm, fertility control is kind of medical/body-centered, it's going to be white magic--- oh, yeah, that means that mages, and white mages in particular, don't HAVE to worry about unauthorized progeny/not enough authorized progeny, and probably ditto risks of disease, so they are going to be chill about the whole business. But they are also healers, so hurting others is right out if only because it makes more work for the white mages!" (Something else that also showed up in the same fic was a magical equivalent of "bloodline testing"--- not just paternity, but any relationship--- where a white mage can tell that people are related to each other if s/he has to cast healing magic on them, because healing magic gets into the body, and the stronger the magic the easier it is to tell. So an Arise on two people is a near-foolproof way to tell if they're related.)
Something else about Mysidia vs. Baron that shifts the nature of the power structure is that... I have Mysidia in my head as... maybe not all the way to a straight-up meritocracy, but there's not direct inheritance of land/titles/etc. There IS a certain extent to which magical abilities are inherited, but since there's white magic to control fertility (works on both dudes and ladies, the boys can have their "little swimmers" stopped or encourage spermatogenesis, just as much as ladies can either induce or prevent ovulation) the social customs surrounding it don't involve as much control over non-procreative sex.
Okay, now I'm totally into the land of "
And part of the problem there was Kluya DID bring magic, and maybe Mysidia didn't have much in the way of an hereditary nobility, like what Mysidia is, how it started out, was maybe, like, loosely connected groups of... whatever, people just living out there, or Kluya started teaching magic to a few select people and then more and more came to learn from him and the town grew up around him? So there wasn't that power structure of the nobility in place to begin with, so their actual culture grew up on different premises: there's magical power, which is purely merit-based and not something you can really fuck with (spells seem to happen naturally as one gains experience, and Cecil doesn't appear to have studied white magic before he became a paladin, ditto Kain in TAY, so I'm thinking that while study can help you gain a better grasp of magic, it's a very big risk to assume that you can prevent someone's magical development by denying them knowledge, and at least if you let them learn spells, you'll have a better idea of what it is they know. But also that the "canonical" or standard magic DOES make it somewhat easier to learn.). And then there's social power... and, man, I'm almost wanting to think of Kluya as being, like, the Carl Rogers of FFIV, just this warmhearted person who is all about positive regard and empathy, and Mysidia got infused with that in their approach to social power, that the Elder may not be the most powerful magically, but is the person who can most empathetically and positively guide the town (in Kluya's name
amen).And then, across the "big pond", you have Baron. And Baron is a traditional monarchy, with nobles and bloodlines to protect for the sake of transfer of wealth and power. And then in comes Kluya with his big heart and his magic and OH SHIT. Which may have to do with the King throwing Cecilia out because of taking up with Kluya, if he was... well, kind of doing the Jesus thing and preaching a form of lovingkindness that was threatening to those power structures and the ones who benefitted from them, especially what with the bringing magic along to boot, and magical power doesn't necessarily flow in the same bloodlines as nobility, so suddenly you've got commoners who can cast a fucking Flare on a nobleman. And then (oh, man, I'm eating up the Jesus analogy) so Kluya gets sent on his merry way with Cecilia (possibly to toddle off to Mist) and Baron absorbs the mages into the power structure (like the Holy Roman Empire, that alliance between Christianity and the crown that... you know... didn't really stay with the "lovingkindness" part of Jesus' teachings too well.)
And those towns that are cut off--- I wonder if they have magic at all, some of them? Or maybe the potential is there and some people, like Palom and Porom with their twincast, and Rosa's little "wild talent" of Pray, can do some magic, but not in the same formalized structure? And then you have Fabul and Eblan and maybe they have a higher percentage of people to begin with who have some magical ability, and then, of course, it's an advantage, those who have it become desirable mates, and it gets "bred for". And I would think that ninja are different socially from black mages if only because of the isolation between Eblan and like everyone else. They have that warrior culture alongside the magic, and the magic isn't as powerful. (I am being lazy and shorthanding like ALL MY META ABOUT FABUL AND EBLAN from this post.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF Anna. Anna fucking dying, your explanation makes a hella lot of sense, because fffffffffffffff that nonsense. (I think I rambled somewhere else about my explanation being that Golbez had developed some sort of no-recourse killing weapon, that ended up being non-replicable, and was meant for Edward and his family, but Anna took Edward's share of it.)
Troia and the doctors. I am not sure what is up with that since the Epopts can all do white magic. Cultural difference in attitude toward magic? And I need to wander off and think about how Kluya as purveyor of magic fits into that. Or maybe they, kind of like Fabul and Eblan, evolved their own form of magic, which like Fabul's is primarily white, and theirs is close enough to Kluya's form of white magic? Or maybe Kluya came down in the Lunar Whale and started in Troia, with the "royalty" perhaps, and then he saw which way the wind was blowing, how the Epopts kept power for themselves--- and there's that whole thing about "women being kinder and gentler" so maybe men aren't even allowed to learn magic there? And they wouldn't allow black magic at all? (Maybe Kluya taught magic, the women used their newfound power to sort out a problem of abusive husbands/fathers, and then they turned around and went too far with it?) So Kluya said "FFFF, can't do this in a place with an established power structure, they'll just hoard it," and wandered off to what eventually became Mysidia. And maybe he wanted a second try at that when he came to Baron, or maybe Cecilia convinced him to try when he came through? (And, okay, I want to fit that with my four-fiends meta and how the first Epopts were Rubicante's daughters.)
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Date: 2013-05-04 04:00 am (UTC)The thing is about white magic is that they're meant to heal and progress the body. Black magic is what is done to the body. That's why they have petrify and poison. I guess if slow is cast, it might do something internally, but I doubt it; Slow is meant to restrict movements, so it's more like holding somebody back, not the more invasive process that black magic does. If anything, I'm more willing to believe that white magic rejuvenates fertility or to make it a little bit easier, but I don't think it would speed up or slow down eggs or sperm. That to me speaks more of black magic, or maybe even another discipline. This game happened before there were classes like red mages and blue mages around, like in FFV and I guess also in the old FFIII? I think it's telling that there isn't blue magic or red magic or that there hasn't been geomancers. To me, even if some of their abilities can pushed onto the white and black magic spectrum isn't sufficient for me to think that both of those classes pull double duty, and that the lack of the other disciplines that are also a staple in other FF's means that other people make up for those classes in other ways, some of which may not be magic-related.
I feel ya on the Fabul and Eblan headcanoning, but a lot of the explanations for those two countries can be easily accepted if you just think of those two as Asian countries. The monks in Fabul are basically shaolin monks and if you one has any understanding of how natural and physical energies are interpreted in Chinese mythology, then what the monks in Fabul do don't need to have more association to black or white magic. For example: should we think of Ursula's Chakra as another form of "cure" or is it just another way of healing? Same thing for Eblan. They are even classified as "ninja" and knowing what kind of mythos ninjas have in Japan would be a handy resource for how we understand Eblan. And to me, what Fabul and Eblan did shouldn't be classified as magic; it means they both found a way to have an outlet for channeling their own spiritual powers that is different from black and white magic. Summoner magic is also something that I think is a field of its own and would have a different understanding compared to B&W magic. These aren't something you get "bred" for; they are a part of the overall culture if one is willing to learn. Especially when magic is defined by one's spirit stats. How the hell you get "spirit" as a biological attribute? That's like saying one is born with a greater soul. One is just more adept as they live their lives.
Though, I might as well just say that trying to compare Asian-oriented abilities to the European based B&W magic is an actual racial issue to me, so I hope to not have to justify what I just wrote.
I thought that the whole Kluya mythos was that he lived a very long time on the Blue planet, at some point in his longevity he got people to not like him anymore, and so anyone who's associated with him is politically anathema, and that in that point of longevity on the blue planet and just plopping magic there for however long ago that was (I headcanon that as centuries), he hitched up with Cecilia and then had children. And at that point, he was at that Lunarian age where his longevity is at an end, but good thing he actually procreated at that time.
Because if the world is shaped around a magic culture, it doesn't make sense for it to have happened super recently like just before Cecil was born. I also don't think that what's in Mysidia is like a church; it's a prayer temple. It's at the top of a thing that looks like an Aztec or some sort of pyramid, and since people apparently see mystical power in the stars and the moon (especially the moon), it reads more to me like pagan religions or traditions without the whole organized institution thing. I don't see institutionalized religion in other kingdoms so it stands more reason to me that observance of higher authority isn't a factor in FFIV world.
Hmm, before this I never really thought about contraception in FF world, other than the obvious. If anything, white magic can get rid of venereal disease but not pregnancy. What if white magic interprets that as "life" and would just keep things flowing along because white magic rejuvenates all life within you, including your cells. I think midwifery is just its own thing, like having surgeons resetting your bones by breaking them. I doubt white magic means suddenly casting upon broken bones means you're fully healed of them. You'd be all lumpy.
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Date: 2013-05-04 06:21 am (UTC)Writing-wise, I had gone with the idea that, just as with your point that there ought to be whole parts of those towns we don't see, there are also spells that don't present themselves in-game (because Squeenix surely wouldn't have gotten contraception spells past Nintendo's censorship, for one thing, though they did pull off Cecil's dwarf porn, and there wouldn't be any call for anyone to be using fertility treatments while trying to save the world). But now that I think about it, some kind of narrow-focused Hold on the testes or the ovaries WOULD actually make kind of awesome birth control. And then a Haste, again targeted, to speed up ovulation cycles or spermatogenesis.... I'm actually liking this.
...hmm, I think we're actually both trying to do the same thing from opposite directions with our approaches to the cultural differences in magic systems? Also I feel like I am getting close to... IDK, talking smack about something that's central to your identity or personal beliefs for the sake of a discussion about video games? And if I am doing that, please tell me and I'll stop that shit.
Okay. Going ahead, because the thing is that the way I'm thinking about the magic systems across groups has a lot to do with me trying not to show my ass in how I think about them. Because for me, if I personally were to say that Fabul and Eblan have these entirely different magical systems... it would be really close to othering them, like, "Oooh, they have ~mystical Asian powers~ that the roundeyes can't know of that are something inherently ~other~." (Which is not my saying that anyone else who does that is doing so, but that's what that approach would lend itself to for me, especially in terms of trying to write those characters.) Rather than looking at how Edge's Ninjutsu also uses MP and has spells that are similar but not identical to the black ones, and then looking at how, IIRC, Yang doesn't have MP but has amazing strength, and going, "The broad general power or capacity is common to all humans in this world (but different individuals have different levels of native talent) and their cultures change how they express and develop those powers." So I think we're both trying to avoid something ugly with the cross-cultural piece and we think about it differently?
As far as the stats and biology go... okay, point one, I could probably go on a complete rant about the stat names and/or translations. Because, FUCK, intelligence IS NOT JUST GOOD FOR BLACK MAGIC. I mean, actual intelligence as a construct, this is something that Kain and Cecil would be using to figure out troop deployments and court politics and tactics and strategy, it's something that would be a part of learning black OR white spells and how to use them, and, heck, probably some of Edward's musical ability though not all by any means, it... just FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. JUST NO. For me, that is a much worse translation issue than, like, "spoony bard" or something. So there is some fail for me to begin with in that whole concept. Which, okay, does not answer the piece about Spirit, but for that one... I think about how there are people like, say, Albert Schweitzer who at the age of six refused to wear nicer clothing than his poorer classmates, despite his parents wanting him to? When most kids that age won't even share their toys? (There are also Eastern traditions with very young high-level spiritual leaders, but I tread more lightly on that ground since I don't know it as well.) So as far as we're able to track a "spirit" stat IRL, there's some indication of innate individual differences in initial capacity that are not the result of maturation. And the game echoes this because Palom AND Porom are prodigies, so she obviously was born with some kind of talent for white magic.
On your Kluya meta? TOTAL AGREEMENT. Goes perfectly with how I think of him, nothing to add there!
That prayer temple thing... yeah. And Rosa's ability is called "Pray" (which I think is another thing there, Rosa has Pray and Ursula has Chakra, it's the way that their cultural lived experience informs and shapes an ability that can show up in humans of the Blue Planet generally.) And Kluya can talk to Cecil through the Chamber of Ordeals, and they use the prayer tower to access the Lunar Whale... so I am now thinking that the concept of "prayer" is more of the focusing of one's energies on a deliberate end? And... possibly something to do with the Lunarian connection, because: Kluya in the Chamber of Ordeals and prayer being used to raise the Lunar Whale.
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Date: 2013-05-04 07:01 am (UTC)Especially when Ninjitsu abilities are named after occurrences that happen in the world, and not like "Fire -> Fira -> Firaga" and Edge has something like "Blaze."
Me pointing out that Eblan and Fabul are culturally distinct from the rest of the nations because they are actual allusions to real world cultures is not me "othering" them. Not recognizing them as such is ERASURE and that is a RACIST action. Especially when you call them the "Mystical Asian Powers" when they are in fact actual cultural practices and beliefs. And especially when Square Enix is a Japanese company, and if they want to include Ninja magic, they could, because Kung Fu powers and Ninja Magic is part of their cultural understanding and one which they have more right to include than some other companies that wants to use racist stereotypes.
If you really don't know what I'm talking about with Eblan and Fabul, then by all means I'll point it out to you, because certainly the DS version of the game is putting a bit more emphasis that Fabul is meant as an allusion to Chinese culture and Eblan is basically wanting something identifiably Japanese for their home audience.
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Date: 2013-05-04 08:02 am (UTC)I do totally see that Eblan and Fabul are callbacks to Japanese culture and Chinese culture! But if I, me personally with how I see magic in that world as being a biological capacity shared by human beings in individually different amounts and expressed differently across cultures (like pretty much all traits and abilities), were to say that Eblanese magic and Fabulian abilities were something inherently specific to Eblanese and Fabulians, that somebody from another race couldn't learn--- that Cecil, if he'd been found by Edge's parents and raised Eblanese, wouldn't be able to learn ninjitsu, for example, because he's not Eblanese by birth--- I would be othering them, saying that they have these profound biological differences in their abilities, which is what I meant by the self-mocking reference to "mystical Asian powers" and "roundeyes"--- that I would be saying that these are powers inherent to Fabulians (Chinese) or Eblanese (Japanese) at some biological level that makes them different from the Baronians, Mysidians, and Troians, like they're a separate species. Again, that's me, with how I see magic as an integrated biological ability, like the ability to fight; as I see it, if Yang had been raised in Baron, he'd use a sword, because that's how he would have trained his talents. And he'd probably be a damn good swordsman, because he has certain raw talents for combat. And Cecil would probably have made a damn fine monk if he'd been trained as that. If I treated Fabulian and Eblanese powers as different, I would be saying that that's not the case, that Cecil couldn't learn to be a monk nor Yang a swordsman/paladin.
And I am NOT saying that, I am not treating them as another species with abilities that don't intersect with other humans. What I'm saying instead is that the differences in the magic systems (and likewise in the real-world traditions on which they're based) are cultural and environmental, not biological or inherent; that the cultural differences affect how a set of abilities that all humans potentially have is expressed and understood and learned and developed.
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Date: 2013-05-04 08:25 am (UTC)Also, I don't believe in my post that somehow Ninja magic and whatever counts as magic in Fabul is somehow so inherently different from white and black magic that they're unteachable. These are not racialized notions- I'm saying that they are differently channeled. I also want to say that they might not be the same as magic, as Chakra isn't magic but would probably have similar principles to white magic. Chakra is from an actual religion (Hindu/Buddhist), and whatever Ninjitsu is, is I believe from a different way of channeling black-magic type abilities, but are obviously seen as something different due to the name of the attacks. But right now I'm starting to think that things like "Chakra" and "Ninjitsu" didn't originate from Kluya deciding to bring magic into the world, and that it was something that was developed within their nations but Kluya found a more direct methodology.
If someone like Cecil were to learn abilities in Fabul or whatever, he'd have to actually train and be encultured in their practices and rituals.
I also don't think that magic is so inherently biological that it means you have to be born with knowing magic. Unless you mean, that one has the capabilities just like having a brain means you're capable of thinking. Because Kluya "taught" magic. He didn't somehow bless them with magic, as though he gave it to them. He taught magic, as in it's empirically measured and that there's methods to go through. Whether someone is able to learn them goes into where they are learning it and whether they have the drive to.
Cecil gets a pass because he's more in tune with learning magic since he's Lunarian- that seems the closest to being biologically capable with magic. But people like Tellah aspired to learn both white and black magic, and it suggest that it's a hard thing to master because you're juggling disciplines, and not because he's somehow more biologically capable of learning both as opposed to all other mage types.
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Date: 2013-05-04 09:15 am (UTC)I definitely think that Ninjitsu and Fabulian abilities had absolutely nothing to do with Kluya. And... I think we are both saying that "magic" (black/white, mostly if not entirely taught by Kluya), Fabulian abilities, and ninjitsu are different ways to channel the same or a similar power/ability? It differs based on cultural understanding of that power and how that power interacts with other human capacities/abilities. So you have the Eblanese who integrate these elemental effects with training in the use of blades and thrown weapons, then you have the Fabulians who mostly focus the power on the physical (except with some wild talents like Ursula's Chakra), and then you have Baronian/Mysidian/Troian casting of spells.
I also think individuals are born with differing levels of aptitude for magic (and for pretty much any other abilities I can think of, physical or mental). Some people put in the time and effort to develop their abilities, and someone with less natural talent can sometimes get a better result than someone with more talent who hasn't developed it. On the other hand, someone with the talent can get results with less effort, as witness Palom--- and he and his sister both show an inherent aptitude for magic; they need teaching, but they're able to do things that older mages can't. And not every six-year-old could do what they do, even with training. And then there's the question of interest/inclination: Palom and Leonora's arc in TAY and the discussions there are a good example, because there's natural magical potential and then there's your personality and how you're inspired to develop that potential as well, whether you're interested enough to put in that effort, and what you're interested in.
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Date: 2013-05-04 11:16 pm (UTC)So now that we're all in the nice and comfy plateau of clear and distinct perception...
Keeping in mind with the nature of magic and its connection to the stats "Intellect" and "Spirit" for effectiveness and defensive capabilities, the reason why I think magic is more like a taught method to go along with how much one person is able to have the mental capacity for magic, as well as the spiritual endurance to withstand against it. These are things to develop on during a real life progress, and it could be that one becomes more adept with magic with age but could be completely useless when they're younger, or that they'd have good magical abilities when they're younger because they probably catch on things quicker, but as they age the growth plateaus a bit.
I mean, look at Tellah. Him having the "recall" ability means that he did know his spells from before, but you know, he got old and probably had some mental handicap developed until revenge/Kluya's light made him remember things more clearly. The Tellah we know from in-game probably isn't the same Tellah in terms of ability if he were younger, who might be a lot stronger and probably didn't have an MP cap.
Or for that matter, decreasing stats.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-05 01:32 am (UTC)So. Interaction effects of learning/environment vs innate/biological capacity in magic talent development. We've got the twins, who are literal prodigies (IIRC, there's a psychometic/psychological definition of "prodigy" IRL which is "person performing at the level of an adult expert in a given domain before the age of ten" although I am not at present unearthing a citation for it, but that seems to fit the twins). We've got Rydia, who can do both white and black magic as a child as well as do some summoning, and Tellah takes one look at her and goes, "Oh, she's got a lot of potential". And there is something about summoners--- I got the impression from the game that unlike Kluya-trained-magic/ninjitsu/Fabulian-abilities, there is maybe something more overtly/purely inherited about the specific ability to learn to call an Eidolon from the Feymarch, regardless of your strength in magical-and-related-powers? That even if you're raised to it, you also have to be descended from a summoner/inherit that ability in order to call Eidolons. There's no mention of Rydia being able to train others to summon and IIRC there's an implication that she's the last summoner left, and that by killing off the existing summoners that would remove that capacity from the world? (The king of Baron/Cagnazzo doesn't try it with Mysidia, for example, he just has Cecil gank their crystal and run.) And summoners/Mist as such don't seem to be a clear callback to a real-world culture, either.
My perception of Tellah pretty much matches what you're saying, I think. There's a physical, biological decline for most people with advanced age, although the specific curves of which abilities decline in what ways in a person are partly biological (including genetic) and partly the result of environment and how they respond to their environment/what they do with it. And Recall is... like a game mechanic for, dude got older, he doesn't have the mental faculties he did, but he still has moments of his youthful acuity. And with Mt. Ordeals bringing him back his full repertoire of spells--- Mount Ordeals is an interesting thing in itself, just in terms of the overall mechanics of what can happen there: Cecil gains magic he didn't have before as well as a whole separate skillset/framework for using his abilities. And he just GAINS that, no enculturation or training or immersion in a new way of thinking, he just loses his old abilities and shifts into this new way of being like BLAM. The closest real-world example to that I can think of is the massive personality shifts that can sometimes happen with traumatic brain injury, (Phineas Gage is a pretty well-known example) but that is REALLY a stretch as a comparison, i.e. probably not that valid or useful.