Headscratchers / Bravely Default

New entries on the bottom. Spoilers, naturally.

How is Edea's identity a surprise?

• Edea "reveals" that she's the grand marshal's daughter to the group after activating the water crystal, but Agnés had already directly heard this news before they even left the starting island. When Edea is pretending that Agnés is her prisoner, the guard she's talking to, when Agnés is there, directly refers to her as "the grand marshal's daughter". So why is this such a shock?
  • The party knew Edea was the grand marshal's daughter already, true, but they didn't know the exact structure of Eternia's government. For all they knew, the grand marshal was just the head general, not the de facto ruler of the country.

Edea and Alternis

• Edea's reaction to The Reveal that Ringabel and Alternis are the same person makes very little sense when you consider they were childhood friends and Alternis was in love with her for a long time, which she was aware of. Not only that, but it's revealed that Braev personally adopted Alternis and raised him as his own son alongside Edea. How did she not know what he looked like?
  • In the third loop, where the characters are given the chance to take the place of their versions in that world, Alternis does seem to imply that he donned the Dark Knight asterisk before meeting Braev, and rarely removed it (in public at least). It's possible that Edea may never have seen him out of armour, but that is a very big stretch of the imagination.
  • Except that both Braev and Mahzer recognize him as the one who brought Edea back so... plot contrivance or A Wizard Did It?
  • During his first loop as Alternis, Ringabel fell into lava and had to be nursed back to health. While not commented on in game, this is an at least plausible reason for a difference in appearance.
  • It's possible that the game simply reused Ringabel's model for Alternis when in reality Alternis may have looked slightly different (or at least ditched the pompadour). It's amazing how a haircut and a change in personality can make a person unrecognisable. Also, Edea may have noticed some similarities but never bothered to point it out, after all Ringabel's and Alternis act nothing like each other early on.
  • It's probably a good thing to remember that, in the Japanese version, Ringabel/Alternis is only sixteen. Personal appearance is hardly stable during one's teen years. Alternis's journal also implies that he wears the armor almost constantly enough that going plainclothes is uncomfortable for him, so it wouldn't be a surprise if Edea hadn't seen him out of it for at least a couple of years.
  • It's also possible she may have just not put the pieces together. Their personalities are totally different and they talk in a different way (Ringabel starts to talk stilted like him a bit when he first regains his memory, then reverts to his smoother way of talking). It's like seeing someone who looks just like someone you know, especially when you believe that there's no chance for it to actually be them. You just think something like 'They look just like X, wow!' and dismiss it. It probably wasn't until seeing them side by side that Edea realised that they didn't just look similar, they were identical.

Tiz in the ending

• At the end, why did Tiz die? It seemed like he died because whatever was giving him life force left...but he never died, if I'm remembering correctly.
  • The reason likely was because Tiz technically died when the Great Chasm swallowed Norende. Airy's sister gave her life to him and thus when Tiz, who technically was suppose to die, gave up that portion of his life, he died because he was living on borrowed time.
  • The Celestial is not Airy's sister. The end fight with Ouroboros has him reveal that he intends to invade the Celestial Realm, which shows behind him in the final battle and ultimately turns on the 3DS camera to show the player's face behind it. The Celestial keeping Tiz alive is YOU, the player
  • Yes, but it was never shown that he was dead, and it wasn't really hinted that there was anything keeping him alive, aside from the Summoner sidequest, and that was kinda vague (again, if I'm remembering correctly.
  • Plus, The Stinger shows him alive, albeit in some sort of life support pod. But Magnolia wasn't worried about the effects of breaking him out.
  • The last journal entry for Tiz mentions say that the others had found him asleep, and the bonus video implies he's been asleep until the events of the sequel unfold.
  • I believe the reason he went into a Big Sleep is because Tiz gave up being the player controlled character, who gave him life. Basically you've won and since theres nothing else to do, Tiz gives up that life and returns to sleep because he's not longer being controlled by YOU.
  • In other words, Tiz dies...BECAUSE OF YOU!
  • Using one of the AR cards shows Tiz dying after climbing out of the Great Chasm, only to absorb a bright light drifting down. Shortly after, you start controlling him and he's perfectly fine. In other words, Tiz lives, saves the world, falls in love, and makes all of these friends and allies across the world... because of you.
  • Somewhat undercut by the fact that Tiz survives in Ringabel's world (level -1?), before the player got involved.
  • Maybe the Tiz we played and seen in the AR is the only Tiz that actually died and saved by the celestial, the player while the other world's somehow had him survive by luck. That, or there are actually celestial's before the player that had done the same with the help of Airy's Sister but failed as Airy killed them. There is one AR with Airy's sister (Anne) saying that she had been sending signals for a long time and sending the signal to the player may just be her last, so it kind of proved that there may have been celestial's before the player and only the player had succeeded.
  • I don't think he died when he gave up the celestial spirit at the end... Or, well, it would've been fatal however he was picked up and put on life support before he actually died from whatever giving it up caused in him. Then you have the Bravely Second AR trailer taking place some time later and he's just waking up on life support.
  • Well, what does the life support cutscene and the rest of the game have in common? The player is, again, seeing the world through Tiz's perspective. He came out of the life support unscathed because the celestial came back for a new story.
  • Put up some spoiler... Bravely Second shows that the celestial that returned with Tiz in the preview AR, as shown in the replay of the AR in Bravely Second, isn't the player, but that's something you'll find out later in game. So the Bravely Second preview AR is from Tiz's point of view instead of the player. I'd like to think that the player's influence of their control on Tiz has small residuals which managed to save Tiz's soul, but not enough to wake him up so he's in Convenient Coma because of that.

The Angel

• In all loops you visit, Lord DeRosso has the painting of their encounter with the Angel. Does that means more than one of the Angels visited a different alternate world?
  • The reason for the Angels in the portraits is to show the symbolism it had I believe. Only one Angel ever actually appeared, which was confirmed by Yulyana and DeRosso.
  • Most likely, only one Angel appeared, but the reality in which it happened was split into many in the following centuries.
  • Yulyana said that the angel had pleaded to the Celestial Realm for aid. Recall the opening AR movie, with Agnès realizing that she has been deceived and her actions leading to the world's destruction. She is asking for aid from the Celestial Realm aka the real world. She then falls through the ground, likely through the Great Chasm. Her plea is answered by having her appear to multiple Yulyanas and DeRossos simultaneously centuries before the game's events in order to set into motion Ouroboros's defeat. It may be the Celestial beings that allow her to do so (perhaps in a meta way, like attributing it to the developers or the writer).

Ouroboros

• So, Ouroboros talks about how he wants to destroy the Celestial realm because it is a world of perfect peace, harmony, and love where hatred and conflict are unknown, and he wants to remake it to introduce those things. The Celestial Realm is our world. While I must admit we aren't a complete Crapsack World, we've definitely got hatred, conflict, sadness, etc. in spades and at times a distinct lack of peace, harmony, and love - no better and no worse than the world in the game (possibly worse, since we've got several dozen factions in any given conflict and several dozen equal-level conflicts, not just the Crystalist faction and anti-Crystalist faction). Where is Ouroboros getting his information from, then, that he's so far off the mark? Did he just take one look at us, happen to see a kindergarten, decide that must be representative, and then work from that?
  • He's seeing it through you—in other words, he only sees a bunch of people in First-World countries with enough free time to play a video game. From the point of view of someone who's used to monsters roaming the countryside and a world constantly on the brink of destruction if the four pillars of reality become too weak or too strong, you can see how that would seem like an annoyingly perfect paradise.
  • Inferring from the Fridge Horror of Ouroboros "eating the horizon", perhaps our world is the alternate world in which Ouroboros has succeeded in filling with conflict. (More specifically, we are in a world where the Celestial Revo lost the game.)

Eternian Crystal plan

• I know Anticrystalism is all gung-ho for stamping out Crystalism and wanting to kill all the vestals but what are they going to do with the Crystals? The Crystals are necessary for the world's balance and if they left them corrupted then the world is going to still be bad. They didn't do a good job taking care of the Earth Crystal either. Are they just plan to leave the Crystals as they are? The only ones who are known to be able to purify the Crystals are the vestals yet they want to destroy them and the religion they are associated with.
  • Anticrystalism was created by Eternia as a counter to reduce the power Crystalism had. Simply put, Eternia wants to show that they don't need the Crystals' power; after all, Eternia has airships that can fly and don't use Crystals to do do. They simply want people to move away Crystalism and focus on manpower like in Ancheim.
  • Yes I know that but it doesn't fix the problem the fact that the crystals are needed to keep the world balanced. If they leave the crystals as they are they just going to leave the crystals dark and corrupted which in turn affect the world? Isn't the reason why the sea is unsailable and the wind isn't working properly because the crystals were covered in darkness? Yes they don't want people to rely on the power of the crystal but the crystals are needed to keep the world balanced. Also they are technically relying on a crystal (I think the Earth Crystal?) to help with their White Magic hospital.
  • They were studying the crystals, trying to find a way to cleanse them without the vestals. That's why they were doing the whole world conquest thing — they needed control of all four to get the full picture. They didn't seem to have much luck, though, and Lord DeRosso mentioned several times that Crystalism should be reduced to the people, the crystals, and the vestals, removing the church itself. The implication of that statement is that the vestals are needed, even though Eternia had some really bad experiences with theirs.
  • I don't recall it ever saying one of the goals of Anticrystalism is to kill all the vestals. There were individuals that were a part of it that wanted to kill them for their own reasons, but there were others that wanted or preferred them captured alive, one of which was Braev — the leader — himself. Which makes sense considering he formed the movement with DeRosso and Yulyana, and thus was aware of the big picture all along.
  • The vestals awaken the crystals by pulling their power from the next world in the cycle, that's what the prayers do, so the Duchy is trying to find a way to awaken them without putting a new link in the chain, which they are aware of by Yulyanna and DeRosso.
  • He wants the Vestals taken alive, as he's stated many times, but he sends psychopaths to bring them in. The net result was that all of them were killed as a result barring Agnes, since he can't seem to manage his own forces.

Khint's escape

• How is it that Khint is able to run away midway through the battles against the Thief and the Merchant? That asterisk-powered Amazing Technicolor Battlefield is supposed to keep both sides trapped until the fight is over, as I understood it.
  • Yulyana's words in the Chapter 8 rematch with DeRosso are "We're within the Asterisk Barrier. Absolutely impervious. ...In theory at least. Hm hm hm!". If any class could find a way out, surely it'd be the one that can enchant their sword with practically any form of magic.
  • Alternatively, it's possible that, as one of the Jobmasters making the barrier, Khint simply deactivated it.

The Crystals Darkening

• So, I get that as the "Piercer of Boundaries" Airy is able to use the crystals' overclocked energies in a ritual to cause the Holy Pillar/Great Chasm to open up and link the worlds, but why do the crystals in the destination world darken at the exact moment the portal links it? Is it a part of Airy's ritual so that she can trick Agnes into awakening the crystals into overdrive instead of leaving them at a normal energy flow? Is it a defense mechanism by the crystals meant to prevent Airy from linking the worlds and breaking Ouroborus' seal by denying her access to the energy? Or is it just a random omen that happens to strike Luxendarc at that exact point in time?
  • The energy given off by an overcharged crystal doesn't actually spring from nowhere. The crystals darken because the previous set has drained their power - creating and/or strengthening the link which she needs. The accumulated prayers which Airy talks about genuinely can recharge the crystals to normal, but she always forces Agnes to overcharge them - draining the next set. and so on and so forth.
  • In that case, where does the energy of the last four crystals in the final world come from?
  • Probably the giant dragon at the end of the line that is destroying entire worlds for power.

Help in the Final Battle

• How are the alternate Tiz, Agnes, Ringabel, and Edea able to help your party in the final fight? Didn't Airy kill them after linking their worlds to the next one?
  • Airy linked many worlds over many millenia. They could be worlds linked before the time period that the warriors of light exist in, or they could simply be worlds in which the holy pillar appeared yet only Airy passed through without killing anybody. She doesn't necessarily have to have done the same exact thing in every world linked.
  • Or those were the worlds in which the Cryst-fairy was killed by the party, forcing Ouroboros to send another one through to the next world.
  • Or maybe they're the negative worlds and Airy's sister has been doing the reverse as her good counterpart, trying to reach Ouroboros herself and stop him, locked out of world 0 by Airy, who gets there first, and talking to you, celestial on the positive side just in case Airy reaches 0 first.
  • Accepting that there are many worlds that Airy was done with before the heroes of light were born, and even ignoring the question of how Tiz, Agnes, and Edea became friends in all of them without Airy, what's RINGABEL doing in any of them? Out Ringabel isn't from the same world as out Tiz, Agnes, or Edea, but from the previous world, and directly because of Airy's meddling. It could be that in the other worlds Alternis got used to having no armor on and joined the others, but IIRC he is always referred to as Ringabel, which makes no sense. Plus, in one scene from a different world, we see Alternis and Ringabel on Grandship, something that should not be possible without Airy because they're the same guy!
  • It could be that rather than 'our' Ringabel being unique and an anomaly in the worlds the player/Tiz goes through, he is simply an example of yet another case of how the events in the parallel worlds can differ according to circumstances. It would rely on a whole series of events playing out to result in the circumstances recorded at the end of D's Journal. As we see from Alternis's Journal the events may not always differ all that much, yet a single choice - Alternis/Ringabel choosing to go to Eisenberg - can make all the difference.

What's with all this talk about a stable time loop with DeRosso?

• Where are people getting that DeRosso repeating the words he heard when he became immortal during the final battle is creating a stable time loop? What I got from that was that DeRosso had finally realized that it was Ouroboros who had offered him eternal life, and he was ironically repeating Ouroboros's words back to him to tell him that in doing so he had created the means to his own defeat. Where at all in the scene does it indicate that a stable time loop would even be possible, or in fact where DeRosso's immortality could have come from if that was the case?
  • Because there is nothing to support your theory at all... and time travel already happened with Agnès (The 'Angel') etc.
  • But time travel didn't happen; it never did. The "Angel" was an Agnès from another world, not a different time. There's nothing to indicate that there's a stable time loop in place at all, except DeRosso making an Ironic Echo.
  • I got the idea DeRosso locked Ouroboros' immortality into his past self to keep it out of his reach. He only asked his past self because he knew he'd say yes.
  • So... what exactly makes everyone think that DeRosso created a stable time loop?
  • It flat out says it in D's Journal in DeRosso's entry if you start a NG+, and he theorises that that was the case during chapter 4 when doing his sidequest.

Edea's Insanity?

• Just curious, but how exactly is Edea's Black And White Insanity seen as a bad thing, when pretty much the ENTIRE Eternian army are uncompromisingly evil? Even regarding Braev Lee's original intentions, in the first world they still are just as horrible, if not worse then what they wish to stop.
  • It's fairly clear from early on that while the Eternian Forces actions are terrible, that there is something else going on. Edea's black-and-white view is dangerous because it prevents her from thinking about the bigger picture. On the face of it, this seems to be a shallow justification for war when we see Kamiizumi involved in Eisenberg's civil war, but further investigation reveals that while their methods are indeed abhorrent their goals are good ones. Only when Edea discovers the reality of the situation, and the more reasonable motivations of at least some of the characters (primarily Braev and Kamiizumi) is she able to mitigate the damage done by the whole mess. It doesn't justify the Duchy's actions, but the party do what they can, at least somewhat. Edea ultimately avoids making the same mistakes as her father, whose similar attitude leads him in multiple realities to crush Crystalism without considering the consequences. Not only does this ruthlessly punish innocent people (he seems to have utterly ignored Yulyana and DeRosso), but it's counter-productive in terms of Braev's actual goals; obtaining either ending requires a Vestal with knowledge of the Crystals.

Let's keep trusting Airy!

• How is it possible that after being told, explicitly, that Airy is evil and killed everyone, the whole party is floored when Airy reveals herself to be evil and tries to kill them? As in, even Ringabel is stunned when she starts in with the Evil Gloating about how gullible they all are, and he's the one who told them all this. (This on top of the information they have from de Rosso and Yulyana.) It's facepalm-inducing when Tiz goes around saying that it's nobody's fault and they couldn't possibly have seen this betrayal coming, because they saw it coming from literally worlds away. Is it different if you do the Bad Ending first?
  • Annoyingly, it is not. The characters act terribly surprised, and Tiz's lines about no-one foreseeing Airy's treachery directly contradict both what we learnt several chapters ago (Main Scenario, not sub- ones). I wonder if this was done in case anyone had gone straight to the true ending without triggering the false one. But even then, doing so would have required that they witnessed the events surrounding Ringabel's memories and Yulyana's exposition (if not DeRosso's which was oddly relagated to a sub-scenario). Chronologically, they knew enough to at the very least be suspicious, even if they refrain from accusing Airy outright (indeed, Ringabel seems to be struggling with having to go through the Holy Pillar time and again). The characters' lack of understanding at the ending is rather confusing; the information was there, we had their reactions (many times, if we include the false ending) it's as though the writers decided to ignore all of it when it came to the game's climax.
  • It's possible to destroy the crystal as soon as you hit world two, so they had to make the scene fit in case such a decision was made.

This Apocolyptic Log is an excellent guide!

• Why do they think that following D's Journal is a good idea? Even if Ringabel isn't letting the others read ahead, it seems like he's read the whole thing... and it's extremely creepy. As early as Ancheim it's painting Agnes as some kind of evil messiah inflaming a "glassy-eyed mob" (even if the actual context of the event isn't so bad, the original Dim sure paints it that way) and ends with doom, destruction, a horrible monster and ends with an ominous splatter. You'd think he would be relieved when events start deviating from its "predictions".
  • The story seems to try to get around this by using the journal as a 'travel diary' (early on, Edea even suggests that's what it is) informing them of destinations and a route to take. This is tenuous to begin with given Alternis's attitude in the journal, but does fall apart entirely later on.
  • On the subject of the first journal, how was Alternis able to make those final entries? His Trauma-Induced Amnesia came about because he found Edea dead, but after that he presumably wouldn't have remembered what caused her death in order to...draw a picture of it.]]

Erasing Memories

• In Chapter 6, if you do the Yulyana optional bosses, you learn that the main character from that world died and you meet all the people affected by it (i.e. Alternis, Braev, Til, Olivia, etc.). Yulyana gives the characters the option to stay in that world and live peaceful lives with their loved ones, which they refuse in order to continue their journey. Then Yulyana asks them if they want him to erase the memories of those they encountered, but Tiz says no because it will give them "a spark to keep them going." Or it could leave them in even worse shape then before, spending the rest of their lives searching for lost loved ones or wondering why they were abandoned in their time of need.
  • Agreed. Tiz may have good intentions, but he also has no way of judging how they would react. In all of the cases it can be seen as unintentional cruelty from the party, leaving (versions of their) loved ones longing for their return because they 'know' they are alive and well. Particularly in the case of Alternis we know from previous worlds that his Sanity Slippage tends to end in tragedy (even cases where the world-hopping results in Ringabel, it is only because he suffered Trauma-Induced Amnesia). When the party encounters Alternis during this subquest he is clearly suicidal, and the ease with which he treats Ringabel as a 'replacement' and suggests his counterpart be the one to kill him is quite chilling. Worse, he seems to be Driven to Suicide regardless of whether the party intervenes - seeing Ringabel only makes Alternis sure he can leave Braev's service, not that he has somehow regained hope after crossing the Despair Event Horizon.

DeRosso's and Yulyana's Immortality

• We're told in the post-game journal entries that during the final battle with Ouroboros, Lord DeRosso's voice reached across space and time to his younger self and gave him immortality. How did he do that? How did he even have the power to do that? And also, how did Sage Yulyana gain immortality?
  • The Vampire sidequest literally tells you how Yulyana gained immortality - he was already extremely old but made a potion using old Orthodoxy document that would give himself immortality (or at least keep him from aging, I believe the game implies he can be killed with force). As far as DeRosso himself, the implication is that he used Ouroboros' power to reach his younger self and to give himself immortality.
  • He absorbed a genome ability from Ouroboros, he activated it to create a stable time loop, you can't do this because you're not fully trained in any of the asterisk systems.

Jackal being thirsty

• So... why was Jackal talking about how thirsty he was when the party first meets him? At that time, he's staking out the oasis. He's hanging around the oasis trying to keep people away from it. Did it not once occur to him to drink his fill? Is it implied somewhere I didn't see that it's a metaphorical thirst?
  • I'm pretty sure his thirst is connected to his frustration. When the party first showed up at his hideout he was annoyed and when they started throwing accusations and platitudes at him, he became livid, all the while yelling about his growing thirst.

Poor Communication Kills

• Instead of yelling about how when two people have differing ideals they must battle to the death, wouldn't make more sense for Braev to explain to the party that awakening the crystals and summoning the Pillar of Light will bring about the Harrowing and that all the violent actions seen committed by the Duchy was his underlings acting without his consent?
  • The best explanation for Braev's overall attitude is basically exactly like Edea. When they get it in their heads about what's the right thing to do, they go for it without a single hint of compromise or hesitation. Like father, like daughter.
  • Also, if he tells them before they're strong enough, Airy will kill them, and just continue the plan some other way. You'll note the few times characters discuss these things directly, they left Airy behind.

Go Forth My Monsters!

• Why does Braev seemingly not know, or even not care about how almost all of his greatest soldiers, even two of his own council, are varying shades of corrupt, crazy or just downright sadistic? It's one thing to be utilizing harsh methods to save the world, but why allow such horrible people free reign to do as they please?
  • It's implied that he does know, and that his plan was for Edea to be a Morality Pet to them to keep them in line, but it backfired with her turning traitor due to their atrocities.
    • And when she tried that in the second cycle, it got her killed. His mistake was that he saw a goal and put everything into attaining it, not giving a damn for how it was accomplished, placed them into positions of power, despite knowing all of their despicable acts, and left them free reign instead of replacing them as long as they got results. That makes him just as bad as them, since if you knowingly hire psychopaths and put them into a position to abuse their power, then you hold just as much blame.
    • This is why all the Well-Intentioned Extremist ideals falls flat in the first world, because his men really would end up destroying the world in the long run. It just doesn't seem as bad in later cycles because the characters end up more negotiable, kinder or just downright goofy.

What Made The Cycles Change?

• Airy makes it clear that there's been countless cycles of the party activating the crystals and bringing about the Pillar, so what made the cycle the game starts with stand out? How did things start going differently? The only 2 differences I can see is that it's apparently the first cycle where Ringabel joined the group but he didn't really do or say anything to alter their course. Not to mention that Alternis Dim following the party is just what happened every time, so how did he happened to end up in the next cycle this time? The second thing is that this is apparently when the Celestial Being started being involved in "guiding" the party. But why so late in the plan where there's literally JUST a few more cycles to go? Why not get involved much sooner?
  • The fairy in the opening movie (the very first one, just after you click the "new game" button and choose your settings) is Anne, not Airy. We can presume that it's largely her intervention that caused the differences. Ringabel's involvement might also be something of a Butterfly Effect on the timeline. Alternis Dim falling into the next world caused the first anomaly, and they merely stacked up afterwords, similar to how one car crash can cause other collisions, or one corrupted file can destroy an entire hard drive.
  • Specifically, the timelines would have diverged completely when Alternis Dim steals your airship near Ancheim and encounters Ringabel in the process - after that he starts to understand what's really going on, which leads directly to the confrontation at the end of that cycle where Airy's plans start to fall apart. The fact that you have Alternis / Ringabel's diary would have also caused substantial divergence as well.

Nothing But Dishonor

• How can Kamiizumi claim to be honorable considering the actions of his men as well as basically being in charge of child slavery in the mines? It makes his speech to Edea before their fight come off incredibly hypocritical and self-righteous.
• Honor is an unfortunately malleable concept. Honor driven individuals and cultures have both been involved in some horrifically dishonorable acts in human history, all the while believing their actions to be consistent.

Edea doesn't know anything about Duchy of Eternia

• Edea was seemingly unaware of the corruption of the Crystal Orthodoxy, her father's relationship to the Orthodoxy, the events and people related to the Duchy's uprising and the reasons why the Duchy wanted control of the Crystals. Why doesn't she know what should be basic history and well known information in Eternia, especially when her father is the revolutionary leader of the country and her mother is being treated by with energies of the Earth Crystal?
  • I'm pretty sure Braev might just keep the truth of the duchy out from Edea's ears. It's not uncommon for parents to hide sad things for the sake of their children's happiness.
  • That conflicts with the fact that not only did he let her join the Sky Knights, whose history you claim he wanted to hide from her, but her first assignment was to help Ominas Crowe with arson and kidnapping. So he didn't want to tell Edea the history of their country out of fear it would dishearten her but he had no problem sending her out to experience the fighting firsthand.
  • What I meant was the history of the duchy of Eternia than the asterisk bearer's working under him. And maybe, while Edea knows of the asterisk bearer's, asides the Venus sister's, Alternis and Kamiizumi whom she is close to, she doesn't know the others in a personal level.

Ringabel's stat distribution

• Edea is a physical Mighty Glacier because she actually has formal combat training, unlike the rest of the party. Agnes is a Squishy Wizard because she's the most devoted to the Crystals and is a Vestal. Tiz is a Jack of All Stats because he's a farmer, so he'd need to be well-rounded in all sorts of things. What about Ringabel? Do his slightly magic-based Fragile Speedster stats have a similar justification?
  • If I had to BS a justification, I’d say that his life as a disenfranchised abandoned/orphaned child living in the slums of Florem meant his early life was pretty demanding, and it’s not a surprise that being in that situation taught him very quickly to be quick and clever, since he couldn’t be big or strong.
  • Ringabel is Alternis the Dark Knight so he has the stats of an ideal Dark Knight
    • I mean, does he? Dark Knights are a Strength-based class, but Ringabel focuses more on Intelligence.

Thief Asterisk. Why. Why is it a thing?

• Yulyana created the Asterisks to supplant the church's control over the job system, and had to trick the church into accepting them at first. Therefore, the asterisks represent the jobs that the church would have wanted to distribute widely among the populace. That being the case, why is there a Thief Asterisk?