Part 41: HAW 99

Well it shows the writers understood the concept of "a faction can be bad, but people serving under it aren't necessarily forced into that role." And then less than a year later, America was essentially at war--at least in propaganda form--the first step of which is to dehumanize the members of the perceived enemy faction.

Of the Archadian soldiers I spoke to in FF12, 100% of them were "DO NOT SPEAK TO ME, STREET TRASH," and this goes along with that sort of propaganda thinking that The Enemy Faction Is Made Up Of Evil Oppressive Assholes. While FF9 certainly has a definitively evil faction, its members do not necessarily eat, sleep, and breathe warmongering, though it definitely depicts soldiers who do.

It's drilled into your head that Archades is made up of almost mechanically-evil killing machine-knights, and every scene involving it re-establishes this concept. Admittedly a lot of that is Vaan, but just because he's "not really supposed to be there" doesn't excuse it. FF9 makes it a point to specify that it's Brahne who is batshit insane, but that Alexandrians are still people.

Man that is such a shame. Lost Odyssey is super melodramatic, but that's what makes it super fun. In this sort of interactive medium, it almost requires an over-the-top approach if you want to make particularly memorable or hateable characters. But LO does this in such a way that the melodrama isn't super anime, which I haven't seen happen since the first heavily-cinematic games. It also has great voice actors (except for the German ones, and background NPCs in English). And I almost never say that a game has even listenable VAs.

CHAPTER PREVIEW:


•••


"Why don't you go talk to one of the Qu guys?
All they do is eat, but they might know something."




"Do you know a way to the Outer Continent? I heard there was an entrance somewhere around here..."
"Outer Continent... Maybe I find more delicious frogs."








Oh, before I forget,

while I didn't steal the Demon's Mail off of Tantarian (a 1/256 chance to steal a crappy armor for characters I won't even see again almost until I can buy it, won't teach them new abilities, and only marginally boosts Huihui's Darkside tech, and a Sword Magic I won't have until the very end of the game? Forget it), I did get the Silver Fork. Not that spectacular, but it's an upgrade I wouldn't normally see for quite some time.














You know, this is the first time I've ever considered that this is an excavation site and not a mine of some sort, because that's exactly what it looks like inside. I almost wondered what the hell this ornate architecture was doing on a mineshaft, but then, people were probably excavating these ruins or something. It's a more intellectual way to put it, I guess.




using my excellent cryptolinguistic learnings we can glean that a "roo" is, in ff9 language, a geographic term for a gargant tunnel

actually either that or a pre-history construction, you must remember that this is an excavation site, and that the roo under treno, according to doctor tot, was also there long before treno was built

This is actually a lot like FF12's naming system where they pulled shit out of their ass, and "roo" is just as retarded. FF12 had Necrohol but the secondary problem there is that Nabudis is really the only one that comes to mind, so rather than a common name, it sounds like some prick was just trying to sound pretentious when he wrote it on the map. This was remedied in WotL, though. Plus honestly it sounds like some rancid brand of 190-proof liquor and nowhere near as intimidating as something as simple as "dead city."




Oh yeah this isn't ominous at all.






So Armodullahan is a not-boss.


He chases you through these pendulums, which will knock you back, and if he catches you, you have to fight him. He uses death magic, including Level 5 Death (which, as a Blue Magic, can't be reflected), and you can't steal anything useful from him.


Basically you just keep running until you get across the pit.












Oh, Kilika. When will you ever learn.


"The pendant. Does that sound familiar?"








Lani actually looks... kind of generically Hawaiian. At least, she does when they don't eat a dozen pounds of food in a day and end up weighing 300+ lbs. Which never happens.


She has a number of spells and abilities, but her primary target seems to be Holly.


So I promised you a language lesson.


Lani's appearance makes sense paired with her name because it is both an actual Hawaiian word, and, considering her opinion of herself, it is pretty appropriate.


"Lani" is an adjective meaning "heavenly" (generally). When used as a name, it can act as a standalone.


However, even in names, it tends to be used adjectivally.


Hawaiian is a N-Adj-form language, so for example you have a word like my Starcraft 2 handle, Hokulani, "Heavenly Star."

Oh shush, all my friends used Hawaiian names and I needed to get on the bandwagon. I get shit for it all the time but it only goes to show folks' cultural ignorance, because Hawaiian names are only gendered because of modern American English perceptions of gender roles and phonemes; traditionally, they are gender-ambiguous.


Of course, like I said, it doesn't automatically mean "heavenly"; it can also be a general higher-class marker in some cases.


For example, A mo'olani is a dragon. Sort of. It does not denote a heavenly mo'o (lizard), but a sort of grand form of one.


If you go back afterwards and check out Armodullahan's cage, you'll find an Elixir hiding in the alcove.


Incidentally, there are two variations on the word "dragon" in Hawaiian.


There is "kelekona," which is a phoneticization of the English "dragon" using the Hawaiian consonant base,


but a mo'olani is somewhat more arcane. A lot like the concept of the "eater of air" in early modern English--the 1600s or thereabout--lizards and their ilk were seen as very mysterious, almost malevolent but at the same time not malicious, and the word "mo'o" carries this sort of weight separate from the phonetic kelekona.


A lot of legends actually describe "really huge fuckoff lizards" as a plain old mo'o as much as they'd classify a house lizard as one. It can also refer to a sort of familial guardian spirit--an "'aumakua"--among a number of other more-mysterious creatures, like sharks and spiders what have you. It's why I put all the lizards stuck in the house that I can catch back outside: it's healthier for 'em out there, and one has got to respect the 'aumakua.


So a mo'olani is not necessarily a huge fuckoff lizard that will eat you.


It is conceptually something else entirely. It's definitely different from a western or an eastern dragon, but it's a little too esoteric for me to put into words.




And y'know this isn't because you guys are dumb or anything, it's just that in Hawaii terms, this is totally sub-100-level-course language education. Unless they're the children of immigrants, or grew up in gated communities (white immigrants), kids will have learned this stuff from playground Hawaiian Creole English or from their own families by the time they're, like, six.

NEXT TIME