Headscratchers / Bravely Second

New entries on the bottom. Beware spoilers.

End of Vampire Castle

• Ringabel makes a Dynamic Entry towards the end of Vampire Castle. A short reunion speech takes place, and then the scene cuts back to the castle. By the reactions of Tiz and the others, it seems as if Ringabel suddenly appeared at this point, and had not been talking to Edea in plain view. How? Has his time with the Planeswardens granted him new powers that allow him to read and enter minds, in the same way that Yoko can?
  • This is probably one of the things that will likely be explained in Bravely Third but that reasoning seems very plausible.

Vega and the Ark

• Who was responsible for misleading Vega about The Ark and subsequently killing her?
  • Was it the scientific authorities who sent Altair to his dead-end job in the first place (bearing in mind that this took place many years before the rocket launch)? Was it Providence, guiding events from afar in preparation for her grand plans involving Vega? Or was it someone else entirely?
  • Wasn't traveling to Luxendarc Altair's greatest discovery? I may be wrong but I seem to remember him telling the party this story at the last dungeon, in the floor with the science lab background. As for why Vega was left behind, I agree that's probably Providence's doing.

Deneb

• What exactly is Deneb's relationship to Vega and Altair?
  • We only know that Deneb is friends with Vega and Altair but that is all that we may only know from Bravely Second. Maybe when Bravely Third is released we will find out...
  • Deneb was the other celestial that came to Luxendarc along with Altair. It should've been a crew of three, but for some reason Vega was left behind. While Altair spent his time inventing stuff in search of a way to bring Vega to this world, Deneb seemed to explore the land, eventually becoming the Adventurer. It's implied by Bestiary entries that she became friends with Yoko and that the fox that accompanies her is a familiar given to her by the Yokai.

Hot springs

• Where is the freshwater and heat coming from in the hot springs after it sets sail? It isn't attached to any geology, so how can there be geothermally-heated water springing up?
  • Magic?
  • It's possible that the villagers only assumed it was geothermal in nature. Given that the "hot springs" turns out to be an utterly enormous ship (on par with Grandship which is big enough to be considered a nation onto itself) it's entirely possible it is actually a product produced by the ship itself as long as it occasionally gets a source of water to treat/refine. Being man made could also explain the waters super-natural healing properties.

Timeline origins

• What timeline does everyone come from? It can't be the first or second loop, given that you kill the majority of them in Bravely Default.
  • Actually, it is the first world. According to certain jobmaster dialogue, a mysterious man in green saved them. It's not outright stated but widely believed that this is meant to be Deneb traveling back in time, as her garb changes from red to green when we see her go back in time in the ending.
  • That can't be 100% right, either. During the first world's incident at Grapp Keep, Ominas clearly recalls being grouped with Yulyana, which only happens in the fifth world's gauntlet; it is through this encounter that Ominas learned of Femto Flare.
  • Maybe it had to do with the Bravely Second hourglasss since it can store memories. With the revelation in the finale that the hourglass we received back in early Bravely Default is actually from Bravely Second's party, it isn't exactly too farfetched to say that some of the memories from the future got shared with the asterisk bearer's.
  • Or maybe Ominas became grouped with Yulyana some time after being saved. Bravely Second takes place two and half years after Bravely Default.
  • The game's subtitle, End Layer, doesn't just have purpose in the Send Player application. Yew mentions in a tent event that their world is the "end layer", the 0 world on Airy's wings and last world in the chain of realities. This explains why Ominas has memories of the 5th world and, less noticeably, why Mephilia is sane (though she might have regained her sanity, it's probable she never was insane in this timeline). The jobmasters are all alive because the encounters with jobmasters are optional in the 5th world. Any that a player might have killed were saved by Deneb.
  • But... How would Yew know about that?
  • Actually, it's Rifa who mentioned about their world being the End Layer, having told of it from Norzen. Maybe the original poster forgot.
  • Then did Rifa really say that their world is the last in the chain of realities? Or was that just speculation of what "End Layer" could mean?
  • Rifa only heard of it from Norzen and it doesn't really confirm that their world would be the last in the chain of realities but it does seem plausible. Though if Yoko mentions about bringing the world to the next layer is any indication, it might be something that Bravely Third may or may not answer.
  • The Japanese Only Pocketbook of R novels run at the same time as the Bravely Second game. Since they're written from Ringabel's perspective, it includes scenes of Geyser Grotto and Florem. In it, he refers to the world of Bravely Second as W5, or the world where Airy's wing pattern was a 5.
  • ...So does it mean Bravely Second takes place in the first loop world in Bravely Default?
  • Well, the pattern on Airy's wing was a 5 in the first loop. So it's safe to say that Bravely Default and Bravely Second are in the same reality.
  • The "End Layer" is the world without time, where the Moon is gone. It's the black and white-ish world the main characters find themselves in after they fail to stop the Kaiser, where Ba'als run rampant. It has nothing to do with it being the last or fifth world.

Magic Tent

• When the party was trapped in Grapp Keep during the Ominas/Artemia sidequest why didn't Yew set up his air conditioned, fully stocked magical tent?
  • There is probably not many space left to set up the tent when the walls collapsed. And it's probably wise since Ominas might take the food that was stocked in the tent for Bahamut.

Yew at the end

• Shouldn't Yew fall into the same coma Tiz did at the end of Bravely Default shortly after you stop playing the game?
  • Yew, at the start of Bravely Second, does not die like Tiz does in Default. Sure, he suffered extreme injuries and spent days out cold, but there is no mention at all that Yew is inhabited by a Celestial Being, unlike the hints in Default. It was previously mentioned that the New Game+ saved Yew's life. The Kaiser also may have attempted to do grievous bodily harm in front of Anne while intentionally making it possible for Yew to survive- this is his darling brother, after all.
  • I agree that the New Game+ probably saved Yew from the beating that would make him sleep for a week, so a celestial was not needed to revive him this time.

City Popped Up Overnight?

• So where the heck did these new and friggen huge cities come from that were never in the first game? Are we supposed to seriously believe they were all just made in the two years between games?
  • Or they are actually around since the first game, but the party never got to visit them during the course of it.
    • And never needed to visit them in the first place, considering that Airy was herding the party around in the first game. Also, those cities have been stated to be around quite a long time.

Edea and Tiz from Scratch?

• Maybe I just haven't reached the point where they explain it or it's in a party chat, but how come Tiz and Edea are right back at starting levels with little to no skills learned?
  • Tiz has been in a coma for the past two years, and his abilities may have atrophied. Edea has no plausible explanation, especially since she's Knights-Captain and all.
  • I think a possibility is that Edea focused on negotiating and doing political work to help the negotiations to succeed so she had lesser time to devote herself to training.

No warning about Janne and Nikolai?

• After entering the second timeline... Why in the seven Hells did the party not immediately warn the crystalguard that Janne and Nikolai were traitors!? Why did they go on with that stupid ceremony without expunging the traitors they knew had infiltrated the crystalguard? Kaiser Oblivion would never have escaped were it not for that gross lapse in judgment!
  • They're probably on the thought that the capture of Kaiser Oblivion would have the army surrender and the party didn't exactly realize that the Grantz empire asterisk bearers remember the previous timeline yet until they jail break the kaiser out of prison.
  • Why the hell would spies perfectly assimilated into enemy ranks "surrender" after their general was captured rather than exploit their position to get him out? Why would they even need memory of the last timeline to break the Kaiser out? What possible thought process could ever have made the heroes think what happened wasn't going to happen?
  • I meant in the lines of their soldiers, not the asterisk bearers. The heroes probably think that the Kaiser is still the Big Bad of the game. Janne and Nikolai might just want to hasten their rescue of the Kaiser than to wait. The latter is my personal opinion however.

Firstborn?

• What in the hell is the Firstborn enemy that can occasionally appear on the Moon? It has no resemblance, style-wise, to any of the other Ba'als, and the battlefield is a baby's room, with nothing in the background relating to Altair and Vega. There's no way it's a Ba'al. It's never even called one in-game.
  • Diamante isn't called a Baal outright but is one too. As for what Firstborn represents, it's supposed to symbolize the child that Altair and Vega never had the chance to have.

Nobody cares that we just killed DeRosa

• If you side with Jackal during the first big sidequest, the game implies that Fiore DeRosa is killed during the ensuing battle. The characters later admit to one of Fiore's students that they are the "reason why he didn't come back from the cave". And yet, no one in Al-Khampis bats an eye when Edea pretty much confesses that they assaulted^note To be fair, Fiore attacked them first, but her phrasing doesn't make it obvious to someone who didn't assist to the scene. and possibly even killed a member of the Academy. And that's not even talking about the two mage girls who assisted DeRosa during the battle and who probably died as well, yet no one even mentions them although they were also probably part of Al-Khampis' Academy as well.
  • You can actcually meet DeRosa later at Yunohana if you sided with the Jackal so it is likely the mage girl survived as well.
  • I seem to remember the mage guy who was working with DeRosa in Al-Khampis saying he disappeared somewhere after we helped the Jackal, not that he was killed or died.

The Ninja/Knight sidequest

• Can anyone explain how the hell did Whitson, a "normal" person knock out either (depending on your choice) a sneaky woman who's an expert on ninja stuff (and therefore would never be able to be knocked out so easily) or a 40 year old man with muscular build wearing an armor? No to mention that they're both asterisks holders, while Whitson seems to be your regular criminal. Which also raises the question: How in the world did Whitson achieve combat experience with said asterisk in under a few minutes, and how is he able to hold his ground against four people who have more fighting experience with asterisks than he does?
  • Who's to say Whitson is a "normal" person? We never get any background on him to know for sure.