tsundaga: (in crystal)
Lightning Farron ([personal profile] tsundaga) wrote in [personal profile] havenmods 2012-09-22 05:12 am (UTC)

part 2 of 2

[Now, I'll talk about three of the most important people to her in-game, because their relationship with her says a lot about her personality as well.]

First, Serah. Her younger sister. Ever since their mom died, Light did her absolute best to provide for them. She threw herself into her job so she could support the two of them, and she developed most of her 'strong, silent type' behavior in trying to be strong for Serah.

She was raised under the sanctum's thumb, so she was pretty much firmly set in the Guardian Corps mindset. This involved, among other things, believing that Pulse l'Cie were dangerous and the enemy and needed to be destroyed on sight. And her job meant a lot to her--Light had just been approached by her sergeant about two days before she found out about Serah becoming a l'Cie about getting a promotion because she was 'long due'. But when hopping on the purge train meant losing her job, she went against everything she'd ever been taught and everything she'd ever dreamed and quit the Guardian Corps in a heartbeat to go save her l'Cie sister.

She's very protective of her sister, and always has been. She rejected Snow from the get-go because he (in her eyes) wasn't nearly good enough for her Serah. Then, when they find Serah in the fal'Cie area near the start of the game and Snow tries to help her, Lightning practically growls, "Hands off. I'm taking her home."

The strongest emotions Lightning feels and have ever felt have all been in reference to or aimed toward Serah. Her strongest rage was at Snow and at herself just after they lost Serah to her fulfilled focus. She was near hysterical shouting at him. Her softest 'soft spot' is toward Serah, too: As a minor example, right before Serah turned to crystal, Light actually stopped raging at Snow mid-sentence to listen to what Serah had to say. Lightning's strongest loyalty and deepest regrets both belong to Serah, as well as many other emotions I don't have the coherency to name at 4 AM.

One emotion I'm going to highlight, though, is the aforementoned 'regret'. Throughout most of the game, she's trying to fight enemy after enemy just to keep herself from thinking of how much she failed Serah. Failed to show her love, failed to protect her, failed to trust her and help her when she needed it most. It's killing Light inside, to the point where even the mention of her sister can make her explosive and broody. But unlike Snow, she's not fighting to get Serah back. From the very start, Lightning condemned herself to believe that she'd failed Serah forever and that was that. (Another case of her being hard on herself.) She just couldn't accept it when Snow told her it wasn't the end, because of how deep her emotional rut of failure had gotten.

That brings me to the next relationship: Snow.

This is a tough one, because the relationship really does develop a ton over time. I'll do a little bit of how it starts and a little bit more of how it ends, since that's the canon point I'm taking her from.

Lightning has no respect at all for Snow Villiers in the first half of the game. She vehemently rejects him when he tries to call her 'sis'; at that point, she wouldn't even consider them allies, let alone related. The only time she can cooperate with him is where Serah is directly concerned. (The only two instances coming to mind are how they kind of get along trying to reassure Serah right before she turns to crystal, and how when the Pulse Vestige is being shot at and it's acting all earthquake-y, the two of them get right up into each other's personal space in order to shelter crystal!Serah with their own upper bodies.) She's also disgusted by his lifestyle. How he "leads around a bunch of kids. A group called NORA. It's a stupid acronym."

She absolutely, 100% of the time, without a doubt vehemently rejects him every time he even hints that he can protect or save Serah. She roundhouse-punches him square in the face twice in a ten second period for it. Just marches up and bam. She means business, man, no kidding.

However, as the journey progresses and she pulls the stick out of her ass comes to terms with the situation and what they have to do, she becomes less and less hostile toward him. This is just my guess, but I'm pretty sure one of the main reasons Hope went with Lightning originally was because Light hated Snow almost as much as Hope did. They'd both lost someone important to them 'because of Snow'.

Sometime around her Eidolon battle, something changes. (This makes sense; Eidolon battles are in moments of extreme emotion, to 'release you from the stress of being a l'Cie into death's embrace' basically. But if you win the fight against them, that purpose changes to something more like, 'To give you the strength you need to overcome the task at hand.' While a simple Summon can't do that, the symbolism's still there.) Right after that battle is what I'd consider the turning point with Snow. Hope was going on about how Snow let his mother die (as usual) and Light actually corrected him. Told him it was the Sanctum, not Snow. Defended Snow.

After that, she wasn't necessarily friendly at first, but there was a definite change. (For example, in Palumpolum: Snow was pretty much unconscious from falling off a building then hauling Hope around then getting walled by a beastie. After the part of this scene with Hope, Fang's like, "Don’t forget about this one," and crouches beside Snow. And Light kinda dryly says "That one'll be alright." But then she goes and puts Snow's arm over her shoulders to help him walk. "He’s too stubborn to die." And she helps him walk off. Voluntarily. With physical contact and everything.) And when Snow wakes up from that example scene, Light's pretty gentle with him then, too. Tells him to lie back down, then comes and sits by his bed. She then proceeds to open up to him, tell him all about how badly she still hurts/feels regret over that whole mess with Serah. She even apologizes to him in that scene, for how she'd treated him at times. Definite progress.

And near the end, they have a discussion about his plans for him and Serah when they get Serah back. She's satisfied with the answer, so she goes to walk off, but he makes a comment about 'if he ever gets to see her again'. She (standing behind him) roughly puts a fist against his back and says, "Don't go there. There's no room for doubt." He agrees, and she goes on to say how they'll see her again, and soon. She's going out of her way to help him, to comfort him. Aside from Serah, she only does that for two people in the whole game: First Hope, then Snow. (And another note about that scene: By then she clearly feels some sort of bond with him, because as it fades to black, it shows her stepping forward and resting her forehead on his shoulder from behind.)

I could give a million more examples, but I'll summarize from there.

At the canon-point from which I'm taking her, Light genuinely does see Snow as her brother, though you could probably stab her a few times before she'd admit it (his head's big enough already). She's still very touchy about him and Serah, but as long as he seems able to discuss it maturely, she trusts him with her a lot more than she used to. Now it's not, 'you stay away from her', and more, 'you'd better marry her and treat her nice 'cause if you don't I'mma kill you'.

Last of all: Hope.

Though it wasn't as difficult to accept Hope as it was to accept Snow, it was definitely a challenge at first. Hope was... let's face it, a whiny little punk. He moped around and couldn't fight for shit, and he knew it and Lightning knew it. So what made her give him a chance?

From the very start of his time following Light, he was determined to be better. Stronger, and more observant, just so he could be something more than 'that worthless kid' to Light. Of everyone, she was the one he immediately latched onto to look up to, and someone to become more like... And he did. In a few scenes, his lines could've just as easily come from Lightning, and he definitely starts to hold his own in battle. He complains less, and tries to be more helpful.

In return, Light gained a respect for him pretty early off. In one cutscene, she asked him (in reference to battle) if he's 'got her back'... And it's very unlike Light to trust anyone but herself to have her back. He's also the first person she lets call her 'Light' rather than Lightning. And from then on out, most of the time at least, she talks to him like a fellow adult--a benefit she doesn't even offer Vanille a lot of the time.

When he acted weak, though, especially at first... Hope got the same cold shoulder Lightning gave everyone else. At one point he falls off this huge robot, and tells her he needs a minute. She'd thought the whole robot endeavor was stupid anyway, so she just says, "You're too soft," and walks away. This treatment came to a close in the scene where she has to fight Odin, her Eidolon. (Hope trips, and Light snaps. "This isn't working. … I mean, you're a liability. You'll just slow me down. … I'm sorry, but I can't protect you when-" Then her mark starts glowing (aka impending odin battle) I guess Hope doesn’t notice, 'cause he keeps complaining, then she shouts (through apparent pain): "Enough! The whole world is against us… I can barely keep myself-… Ugh, let alone some helpless KID! I don’t have time to baby you. You want to get tough? Do it on your own!" Then she has to fight Odin. He asks after the fight if she meant all that, and she doesn't answer directly, but basically implies that she didn't and that he's free to keep following her.)

Of everyone but Serah, Hope's the first one to really bring out her compassionate side. At first, this only shows in her putting out the effort to say 'save yourself,' basically, where with anyone else she would have just let them follow for all she cared. Then it evolved to warning/scolding for his safety. 'Don't touch that, you'll hurt yourself!' sort of deal. Then she actually outright asks what's bugging him. This is the first time she's genuinely seemed concerned about anyone's emotions but Serah's. ("What's eating you? … I can tell you're hung up on something. Is it the l'Cie thing? … It's Snow, isn't it? … What happened with him?" Hope says she wouldn't understand. She steps over and crouches right in front of him. "You and I are partners, Hope." Hope admits that Snow is responsible for his mom's death and says Snow needs to pay for it. Lightning doesn’t know what to say.)

The next step? Promises. (Light had just had a revelation and called off their former 'mission'. Hope was saying she can’t build something up (operation nora, his codename for the mission she called off) and abandon it like that. She comes over and takes him by the shoulders and says, "I won’t abandon you.") After that, step by step, she started treating him... well, like her little brother. (Hope had been left with Snow in Palumpolum, and he nearly got killed by this beastie thing. After the fight [in which Light and Fang saved his butt], he offered back Light's knife, saying how operation nora didn't work out. Light pretty much instantly steps over and wraps him in a hug. Softly, she says, "You'll be okay. I'll keep you safe." When he says he'll try to watch out for her too, she draws back and kinda flicks him on the forehead, gently teasing.) That's 1) a hug. From Lightning. Hope's the only one besides Serah that she hugs in the entire game. And 2) Affectionate teasing. Snow got a little of it too later on, but Hope was clearly her favorite even as early as 1/3 of the way through the game.

Lightning teaches Hope strength, but in return, Hope teaches Light how to truly care about someone you aren't related to by blood. I doubt that Hope cares for Lightning quite as much as she cares for him (though that's just my theory), not to say that he doesn't care. Hope's 'her first' for a number of things (mind out of the gutter, folks, I'm discussing a beautiful relationship here. >_>). He was the first person she let call her 'Light'. (All of these are 'aside from Serah':) He was the first she trusted to have her back. He was her first non-aggressive physical contact. He was the first person she cared enough about to reach out and comfort. He got her first apology, and her first self-disclosure rambling (where she opened up about her pain and Serah).

In summary, Hope was the little brother she never had.




Abilities/Powers:

⌥ Excellent fighter, in both hand-to-hand combat and weaponry. (Primarily with the gunblade, though it's shown that she's alarmingly good with any sort of firearm. She steals some random dude's rocket launcher and aims almost perfectly without hesitation.) - Note: Logically, like a policeman of today's world, her specialty in hand-to-hand combat would be self-defense and disarming the enemy, though at her rank she's pretty proficient in both defensive and offensive.
⌥ She's very acrobatic. (She backflips the hell out of things in pretty much the whole game.)
⌥ She's very good at strategizing. (That's her way: She always observes the enemy for a little bit first, no more than a few seconds, to put together some sort of a battle-plan before she races in to fight.)
⌥ She's pretty good at stealth-style missions. (She 'prefers to take point', she says.)
⌥ She can summon an Eidolon, an electric horse-style dude named Odin. (Technically, the horse is named Sleiphnir, but that's getting technical.)
⌥ She's got your typical l'Cie powers. (Since I'm taking her before endgame, I'm gonna say she's got a level-five Ravager, level four Commando and Medic, and level zero everything else. It's not fair to bring her in fully-loaded from a non-endgame canon point, plus it'll give her something to work on while she's here.*)
⌥ L'Cie strength, speed, and stamina. (It's enhanced a good deal past that of normal humans.)
⌥ Her 'AMP' Grav-Con unit. (It messes with gravity just for her. Most commonly used to jump from very high places with no adverse effects--she lands and the momentum dissipates in a sort of shockwave of blue--but in the cutscene I linked in references you'll see her using it to attack by having it throw her at enemies.)
⌥ She has a bellybutton ring. (Yes, that's an ability. Don't question me. B|)

NOTE FOR DEFINITIONS: The six possibilities for l'Cie powers are commando, medic, ravager, synergist, sentinel, saboteur. Level five is maxed out.
Commando - physical moves, strength and speed, for melee combat. If you're on your own, Commando is the way to go. (...ffff, going commando. /makes note to use this joke later)
Medic - self-explanatory
Ravager - offensive elemental-style magic
Sentinel - tank, basically. specialty is... standing there and taking all of the damage. Snow, a sentinel specialist, could probably get hit by a truck and it would stop the truck instead of move him, if he's ready for it.
Synergist - defensive magic, like shields and protections and speed-enhancing... in Pokemon terms (because I'm cool that way), moves like Defense Curl and Agility.
Saboteur - offensive indirect magic, like taking down enemy shields, sapping their life, etc. (In Pokemon terms, Leer, Growl, Hypnosis, Poison Powder)



Sample Entry: Test drive meme thread.

Alternatively?

Lightning responds to trouble.

Sample Entry Two: A log from Exitvoid, during an INTENSE FEELINGS sort of event. Alternatively, zombies.

If those samples don't count, I'd gladly provide more.

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