WMG / Final Fantasy

The Four Fiends are the Four Light Warriors from the past.

After committing attrocious acts against mankind they were cursed to become horrible monsters. Chaos, who is God, then made them relive their deaths at the hands of themselves in human form and created the time loop so they would die over and over until the end of all existance as punishment.

• Nope, turns out their manifestations of Garlands' own hatred (don't ask how).

Chaos threw the battle at the end.

Kind of lame, but this place seemed empty. Basically, if everything really was a stable time loop then this game should be exactly like last repetitions with only Chaos being aware of the changes.

After a near infinite repetition of a Ground Hog Day Loop lasting thousands of years, Garland/Chaos just gave up on trying to come out on top. He could win, but he failed over and over in maintaining his sanity long enough to do anything, but be beaten and sent back in time to do it all over again.

• That sounds an awful lot like Shade Impulse, actually.

Due to a Stable Time Loop, Chaos either never actually died or the Light Warrior lost their Powers after beating him.

Killing Chaos means the Four Fiends can't exist in the future. That means there's no reason for Chaos to exist in the pact. That means the Light Warriors aren't needed anymore, therefore in the next iteration they may very well not exist. ALTERNATIVELY, killing Chaos would cause a Grandfather's Paradox since there's no way for the Light Warriors to beat Chaos in the first place if Chaos was already dead. The moment things go back to normal and that "Garland" is fine and dandy, he decides to go kidnap Princess Sarah all over again...and dying, which would somehow start the Cycle. Final Fantasy Dissidia mildly supports this theory. Maybe. I don't know actually.

• It's plausible that, along with the Four Fiends, Chaos sends a copy of himself to the future. After all, if he wins the opening battle, he wins completely. The final battle against Chaos is actually a desperation ploy, since if he loses the second time, he loses for really real. Maybe he wants out of the Time Loop and thinks "this time, the heroes will lose! Damn, they beat me again! Well, time to prepare for their arrival."

Being defeated actually made Chaos a true God.

By killing Chaos and ending the Time Loop, it also caused a massive Time Paradox that would threaten the stability of the Universe. In order to make sense of this, the Universe itself elevated Chaos to Godhood to prevent total time distortion. This may or may not have been his actual Plan, but either way Chaos has become an Actual God in charge of Discord. He then spends the rest of his time playing Checkers with himself in the Past. And occasionally taking a temporary Avatar like in FFXII.

The four fiends are really the Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Gods trying to edge their way into conquering another universe.

I mean, they already did it with Warhammer Fantasy, so how hard could it be? Here's the breakdown of who's who:

• The Lich is Tzeentch, ageless and wielding powerful magics. He also came up with the idea of creating the Stable Time Loop.
• The Kracken is Nurgle, because it's a big and disgusting looking Eldritch Abomination.
• Being the only female fiend, Kary Marilith is Slaanesh (she's rather... seductive too)
  • Not to burst your bubble, but Tiamat's a chick, too.
• Which leaves Khorn to be Tiamat. I mean, come on, Khorn is the god of ruthless bloodshed, and Tiamat is a giant three-headed dragon! How much more ruthless can you get?
• War Mech is Malaal... just because...
  • And as a consolation prize, aspects of Gork and Mork are within every random encounter.
    • Alternatively, they're Astos and the Vampire.
• And they wanted Garland to be the next Horus, turning him into "Chaos" in order to forge a permanent link into the FFI world.
  • Since Garland threw that last fight, the Gods would try again with another universe, leading to Final Fantasy II

8-Bit Theater is what REALLY happened in FFI.

• Or alternatively, Final Fantasy is the story the order of White Mages are perpetuate.

Culex is the fifth Fiend.

He was savvy enough to have known Chaos would lose, stole power from the other four Fiends (the crystals that aid him in SMRPG), and escaped.

• Then why does Culex play Final Fantasy IV music?
• Further, the original release of Final Fantasy had elemental orbs, not crystals. Only the rereleases changed it, and Super Mario RPG came out long before those.
  • Actually, they were always crystals in Japan. They were changed to orbs for the original American release because of space constraints.

• Actually, I think the new bonus boss Chronodia is considered the newest fiend.

Garland is the fifth light warrior.

He has a dark crystal in his palace, probably representing time or darkness or both or something. He turned to serving evil however.

• Technically the dark crystal was created by the Four Fiends (or Chaos, I'm not really clear on that detail).

Chronodia started the time loop.

Chronodia is a bonus boss in the 20th anniversary edition, resembling a sphere that has absorbed the fiends. Its dungeon is connected to the Temple of Chaos. That's pretty significant circumstantial evidence.

• Alternatively, to answer an issue from the Headscratchers page, Chronodia is the entity that existed in Chaos's place in the timeline before Garland took over. Chronodia continues to exist, but has been shifted out of its role as god of chaos.
• This is actually pretty plausible. Think about it:
  • A recurring mystery regarding FFI is how the time-loop started in the first place. In ''the Dissidia 012 reports, Garland even muses that someone other than him had to have pulled him into the past to start the loop in the first place.
  • Chronodia introduces itself as a Lord of Time and calls itself the "flow of time itself" upon being defeated.
  • Chronodia has clearly absorbed the fiends and possibly Chaos/Garland itself.
  • Chronodia tricks people into its labyrinth, looking for strong warriors to absorb.
• Thus, Chronodia sent Garland into the past, either after the fiends were formed and sent the crystal's power to him or as he was dying, allowing him to create the fiends in the past. Garland took over the loop from there and, given the implication that the loop doesn't play out entirely the same each time, it derives power from the rejected loops. And because the Warriors of Light can only confront it in one version of the game (along with being the flow of time itself), it will almost always get away with it. Of course, all of this is ignoring Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

Garland went along with the Four Fiends because he was angry at the Light Warriors.

This is why he continues the time loop, despite the fact that the Light Warriors will just kill the Four Fiends in the future. He doesn't care about their plans, he just wants to make the Light Warriors suffer.

• Makes sense.

Final Fantasy is our world, after the return of magic accelerated continental drift.

Onrac's continent is so North America, it's not funny.

• Actually Dissidia's discription of Onrac sounds more like Nazi Germany.

Final Fantasy V is a prequel.

Which explains why you see Gilgamesh in the Dawn of Souls remake.

• I think the Gilgamesh who appears in the game is supposed to be a dimension-hoper. So it wouldn't be a prequel per-say.

White Mage is, and always has been, a dude.

Mostly because it'd irritate the fans who insist the heroes used to be drawn much manlier. They've always been effeminate!

• Jossed, if the latest novel based on the game is canon.

Soul of Chaos is the conclusion to the story in Dissidia.

Dissidia ends with the biggest masterminds of the Endless Cycle still at large- Cid Lufaine and Shinryu. Over the course of the games we find out that Shinryu, Cid, Chaos and Cosmos are able to draw beings from other worlds to the ones they inhabit. We also discover, in scenario 000, that Shinryu is able to create dream-worlds to torture his victims.

FF1 sees peace given to Garland, who is also Chaos. Chaos' previous identity as Cid Lufaine's son, however, is not yet destroyed, and serves as the titular foundation of the Soul of Chaos. SoC is a dream-world created by Shinryu to torture Cid, as well as to feed on Chaos' power and hide from Omega and the Light Warriors. This is why SoC contains world maps and dungeons and beings from other worlds in the FF series; as these are places Shinryu and Chaos have been or influenced.

As of 000, Cid Lufaine has again relinquished his moogle form, and is free to roam the multiverse, while Cosmos rebuilds World B. Cid decides to put down Shinryu before he does anything else. So Cid pulls his second "son", the Warrior of Light, and his companions, who have been deposited outside Corneria for the second time, having undone their journey for all but themselves, breaking Chaos' paradox, into the Soul of Chaos to find and destroy Shinryu. It is here that the warriors put an end to Shinryu once and for all, or at the least punish him for his part in the endless Cycle.

• Only problem with that theory is that Garland is not the son of Cid. There are actually two versions of Chaos, the one Cid created and raised as a son and what Garland would later call himself after he'd turned into a giant demon monster.

The Warrior of Light's name is Mid, and he looks just like Cid.

In Dissidia, it is hinted that Cid made the WoL in his likeness, just as the State made Cosmos in the image of Cid's wife. A recurring name for Cid's sons and grandsons in the series is Mid, making it an apt name for this "son" of Cid.

• An official novel says the WoL's name is Zest, make of that what you will.
  • It would make sense since Prishe from Final Fantasy XI gave him his name.
  • The Memory of Heroes novel (where the name "Zest"/"Setro" comes from) portrays Cid as looking totally different from the Warrior. Then again, we don't know if that novel's canon...

The party in FF1 consisted of the Warrior, White Mage, Thief, and Black Mage.

Based entirely off the fact that the former job class was a major character in Dissidia, while the latter three were unlockable characters in Mario Hoops and Mario Sports Mix.

• Dissida retconned the origianl Final Fantasy story to make it a party of one Light Warrior.
  • No it didn't, NT even has the Warrior of Light/Zest/Setro reference the other three in dialogue with Cecil and Noctis. As for the WMG, the official novel indeed has this line up as the party. So I'd argue confirmed.

The Lufenians built multiple WarMECHs to defend the Flying Fortress.

It makes sense: if you could encounter two WarMECHs after taking down one (or running from it), wouldn't that mean there are actually multiple machines of death guarding the Flying Fortress?

• Could be they built the WarMECH to fight Tiamat.

Matoya is an incarnation of Ravel Puzzlewell.

Both of them are insane, blind, elderly witches who you encounter inside of their hideout, and all of these basic characteristics are found among the other incarnations of Ravel that we see in Planescape: Torment. As stated by Word of God, Ravel's existence spreads through the planes like branches of a tree. Since all universes are intertwined and exist as planes within the Planescape setting, the world of Final Fantasy would be just as likely as any other plane to host one of her incarnations.

Astos was planning on using Scry And Die tactics to get through the Castle of Ordeals.

He seemed to think that the Crown and Crystal Eye would make him powerful, and we later see that the Crown was really the key to the Castle of Ordeals. Assuming he knew what he was doing, this means that he actually wanted Bahamut's blessing. So then what was the Crystal Eye for...? The only thing that springs to mind is that it can be used for more than mere sight.

Astos and/or the Lufenian Empire are still around to cause trouble in the altered timeline.

Tiamat wasn't around to destroy the Lufenian civilization, and Dissidia Duodecim shows that they could be very nasty themselves... Astos may or might not have been found out and killed early by someone else in a healthier world, but it wouldn't have been the Light Warriors.

• The Lufenian civilization wasn't an evil empire, that was the Onracian civilization. Cid of the Lufaine was hired by the state of Onrac to build them weapons in there wars against other countries. Though Astos may still be around.

There are more than four Light Warriors.

There are six classes. It is hinted that Garland became a good guy in the time-line where Chaos didn't exist (also read the above example). Finally, there is a dragoon. This would make eight heroes in the time-line where Chaos never existed thus having two parties worth (just like in many of the future games of the series).

What happened after the time-loop was broken.

With Chaos and the Four Fiends written out of the timeline, the world of Final Fantasy no doubt changed drastically.

• 1.) Garland remained a loyal knight of Cornelia.
  • This has been confirmed by cannon.
• 2.) The Elf Prince was never attacked because Astos and the Dark Elves never acquired the power needed to attack Elfheim.
• 3.) Villains like Astos and the Vampire are still alive but are powerless.
• 4.) The Lufenian civilization is intact and thriving safely in their floating city.
• 5.) The mermaid's, without Kraken's invasion would prosper.

The mysterious hooded figure who leads the Warriors of Light to the Labyrinth of Time is Cid of the Lufaine

Who returned to his homeworld after Dissidia 012 to find it under threat from Chronodia and led the only people capable of stopping it to it's lair.

The dungeons in Dawn of Souls (and the Labyrinth of Time) exist within the The Rift, which is why they don't follow the natural laws of physics

Explaining why an underground cave would be an Eldritch Location. Furthermore, it would explain the appearances of other Final Fantasy characters (such as Gilgamesh).

The reason for why the game's time loop ends is because it inadvertently allowed our heroes to grind more

Chaos's loop failed because he created stronger versions of his four Fiends, making the Light Warrior's journey harder, meaning he had to make himself and his four fiends stronger for the next cycle to compensate. What he didn't expect was that the light warriors became stronger much more exponentially than he could- being so easily bested by them at their weakest, he only stood a chance with 2000 years of training, and his time loop forced them to fight increasingly tougher iterations of the Fiends. The XP they gained from a gauntlet of stronger opponents let them bridge that 2000 year gap with ease, or forced them to focus on more prepwork than the earlier times he killed them unprepared. It's a bit like a programming loop- While ( Light Warriors < Chaos) - them becoming stronger than him ends his loop.

In future remakes, the Elfheim tombstone will be changed to read "Here lies Narukami."

The Dawn of Souls dungeons aren't actually part of the world geography...

They're actually networks of warps to other worlds, which would explain why you come across towns, overworld maps, and other places that logically shouldn't be well underground, and also why the floors are ordered differently every time you enter each of these dungeons.

Chronodia is an embodiment of the cycle

While Garland and the Fiends claim it has given them ultimate power, it's still constrained their very existence to a specific 2,000 year period. As they warped time itself to their liking, the power they gained manifests as a creature all its own, a creature beyond time itself. Determined to keep them locked in the loop to feed herself, she lures in anyone who could interrupt the cycle by killing the fiends or making them aware of their reality; That they are prisoners, and she is their prison.

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