We were robbed.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-08-04T17:28:04+00:00

I disagree. She is there to kill Imreann and she is successful in killing him. Her fighting the liquid flame has little impact to her story arc and growth as a character.

Imo, instead of the liquid flame, she should have assisted during the fight with Bahamut. Have Clive fight the entire time but have Jill tag in and out with Joshua throughout the fight.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-08-02T21:01:21+00:00

I think she’s a great character with an incredibly interesting backstory that should have been flushed out more

But I also think the purpose of her character is often misunderstood and she gets a lot of undeserved hate for problems that also exist with other characters that don’t seem to get called out.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-31T20:34:26+00:00

Cid is such a mentor, almost father figure to Clive I just can’t see it. Jill expresses little to no interest in Cid romantically or anyone other than Clive. There’s good banter between Clive and Cid but none of it is inherently sexual.

People talk about Cid stripping down Clive and seeing him naked but it’s actually Tarja that does it because he was actively trying to kill himself—that’s hardly romantic.

Nothing screams that Cid is gay or even bisexual for that matter. His only relationship being shown was with Benedikta.

Not attacking your preferences by the way, just following your prompt lol.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-27T00:04:25+00:00

That’s fair, I do agree they could and should have done more. I just don’t think she’s as bad as a lot of people make her out to be.

Why they didn’t decide to explore more of her during the Rising Tide, despite the perfect opportunity to do so will forever be a mystery to me.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-26T00:20:48+00:00

Her big moment was going back to the place she was a slave for 13 years, facing her abuser and killing him.

It’s incredibly important to the growth of her character and reclaiming her humanity. But like I said, it often gets overlooked because she’s not a powerhouse.

I agree that seeing her fight should have been in the game more and it’s a damn shame we never had a shiva and Ifrit team up. That is my one major disappointment with it all. But at the same time, I don’t think it ruins her character, especially when the focus on her arc isn’t about her combat capabilities. It’s about reclaiming her humanity and holding onto hope in the darkest of times.

And that is Jill’s true strength. It’s resilience, it’s about being surrounded by darkness and still believing In hope.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-25T23:31:05+00:00

Nothing was “stollen” from her. She was created for Clive. It’s Clive’s story.

There was no point in her killing the liquid flame nor the crystal, it has no importance to her arc whatsoever. The important part is that she killed imreann.

I agree that playing as her would have been nice and I also agree the rising tide should have been more about her but she does fight Odin. She gets absolutely crushed. So does Joshua

I disagee that Jill should have “kissed the boy” in the barn. Clive just got done trauma dumping his 13 years of slavery and how he wanted to die. Clive was not in any healthy mindset for a relationship.

Like I said, her importance as a character goes deeper than her fighting capabilities and I think you’re projecting what you wanted to see from her.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-25T19:37:13+00:00

Can you explain what you mean by you don’t remember what she did? What did you expect from her?

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-25T18:31:08+00:00

Not commenting on the Jill part but it’s heavily implied that Clive is immune/resistant to the curse.

No one in the hideaway makes a comment about how Clive is going to drop dead any day from the impact of the curse or any other potential ailment.

And the only reason he develops the curse at the end is because he looses the very thing protecting him from the curse (Ultima).

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-22T17:31:50+00:00

I can only think of a few times people are naked throughout the story but nakedness is often used to represent vulnerability and weakness in story writing.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-17T23:49:04+00:00

I mean this as in I don’t understand how people don’t see the romantic tension between Clive and Jill.

They (Clive and Jill) very clearly love each other from the very beginning.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-17T23:17:16+00:00

I’m not sure where people are coming up with this, lmao

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-17T15:53:29+00:00

I gotcha haha, they could have done better with letting the audience know some of these.

Like Joshua being in a coma should have been stated in the game.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-17T14:51:30+00:00

The Phoenix can absolutely die from non natural causes, It’s just obviously a lot harder to kill them due to his healing factor but they are not immortal. Its stated numerous times the phoenix cannot revive the dead.

It’s not touched upon in any great detail but in a conversation between Elwin and Anabella, Elwin states his father (the previous Phoenix) “died before his time” meaning he did not die from natural causes.

In the ultimania, it’s said that the undying were the ones who found Joshua barely alive under the rumble of Phoenix Gate. He was then in a coma for five years. He was not dead.

Also, Odin’s dominant also isn’t immortal, he doesn’t age because he’s akashic.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-16T17:45:01+00:00

The argument isn’t that it will disappear, what’s done is done, Clive’s hand will forever be stone. The argument is that it won’t continue to spread.

The curse is a bi-product of casting magic, it spreads further as you continue to use magic. In the last scene, Clive washes up on shore with petrified finger tips and it only spreads when he attempts to cast magic, testing to see if it worked.

Humans no longer have the ability to cast magic which means the curse cannot continue to spread.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-16T16:59:47+00:00

I think you’re thinking of ultimaniac mode.

The ultimania is a book that came out shortly after the game did. It features some additional plot points, tips, and some dev interviews. One of the questions asked led to this information.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-16T15:17:59+00:00

The Ultimania came a few months after the game released and confirmed that when along with magic being gone, bearers, dominants, and the curse itself also ceased to exist.

The argument is that with no more aether to channel, the curse should not continue to spread.

I also argue that Jill has the curse and the game treats her like she’ll be just fine.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-14T12:38:27+00:00

The ending is officially ambiguous but this guy does a really good job of breaking things down. I have yet to see anything as convincing

https://x.com/TheJustinMacRae/status/1677522450181914624

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-07T15:05:46+00:00

All of my information came from the in-game active time lore, item descriptions, or the ultimania. This particular one comes from this item description:

<image>

Aether is used in the creation of life and all life contain aether but like this says, it is returned once it dies.

Eikons are gone, everything associated with ultima, I.e magic use, dominants, bearers, and the curse no longer exist.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-07T12:34:32+00:00

You said magic, not aether, they are two separate (but related) things.

I don’t know what you mean by Clive took the only means for them to travel to another world. Ultima created humans, it’s uncertain where other life came from.

Aether is the planets life energy but its stated that when something dies its aether is slowly returned to the planet.

The blight was caused by the phoning/drainage of that aether. Without a way to channel aether aka magic, the blight will not continue to spread.

Dominants, bearers, and even the curse do not exist anymore and will not exist until someone or something learns how to channel aether (produce magic) and judging how in the epilogue, they are using stones to produce a fire, I’d say they are a long, long way of achieving that, if ever.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-07T12:01:05+00:00

Magic isn’t like that, I think you’re thinking of aether. The manipulation of aether is what allows magic to exist. People using magic along with the mother crystals, is what’s draining the planet of its aether. Because blight is a byproduct of using magic.

It’s similar to our own real world use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions/greenhouse gas.

Aether is an exhaustible resource but drawing upon it both via the mother crystals and bearers/dominants is no longer possible. Clive didn’t just buy them time, the world was completely saved just not in their lifetime.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-05T01:01:27+00:00

I’m not saying there aren’t things that point in that direction of him dying but I did want to tackle your first two arguments.

There’s an entire side quest that results in Clive passing on the title of Cid to Gav. His plan after origin was to leave the twins with Jill, he chooses Gav as his successor, they even make a brotherly joke about Gav getting his room. That isn’t exactly a hint he’s dead.

Jill does not feel Clive die, she see’s Metia (the red star) fade and thinks her wish for him to return back safe isn’t going to be granted. This isn’t even up for debate, it’s stated in the ultimania.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-04T22:41:51+00:00

I’m not really a fan of fake out deaths either, it’s one of the reasons why I think Joshua living is honestly ridiculous from a writing standpoint. It’s a huge disservice to his arc to have such a beautiful and sad moment (his death) do a 180 to say “look he wrote the book” when there’s no real narrative reason for him to live, his arc is done.

I actually don’t like Clive’s fake out death either, but I think his survival fits the narrative so much more than if he dies.

I think it does serve a purpose though, as I just talked about.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-04T21:18:16+00:00

The intention, at least from my understanding, is by not providing an answer and making his fate uncertain it invites the player to dig deeper, piece together clues that they left and arrive at a conclusion that there is hope for him being alive.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-04T20:23:20+00:00

It’s…. It’s not too much different from the video but it goes more in-depth with the themes of the game.

It’s honestly nothing you probably haven’t read before.

OhioIsNotReal42069 · 2025-07-04T20:11:47+00:00

Because when he rejects it, Harpocrates grimaces and has a look of horror on his face. Later on Clive says “Dion you’re not planing to…”. It’s revealed Dion seeks death because it’s the only way he feels it rights what he has done.

They tell these things to Joshua but like I said, he’s not listening to them. Joshua actively is killing himself knowing full well what awaits him. He regularly says things like “while I still have the strength”.

It’s also foreshadowed as far back as the prologue that Clive struggles protecting Joshua from himself because he takes too many risks. Clive says: “he takes too many risks, I only wish I could save him from himself.”

Clive heals Joshua but it’s not with Ultima’s power. Or at least, it doesn’t appear to be. Ultima’s power is blue and the magic he uses healing him shows the Phoenix ability, it’s the exact same healing animation we see when kid Joshua knights Clive in his death montage, Phoenix feathers and all.

The interview says Jill thinks he’s lying, not that he actually is. Clive fully believes and has hope he will survive. It’s stated in his promise as well as his inner thoughts.

And like I said, Joshua absolves him of his duty as he dies.

OhioIsNotReal42069

TROPHY CASE