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Episode XLII: Keep My Smile


Wandering Flame



We once more regain control of Tidus on a new beach. The party is hanging out around here but nobody is feeling particularly chatty. Lulu actually expresses concern since Tidus, by all accounts, really ought to have gotten a face full or ten of Sin’s toxins for real this time. But the game sort of forgets that is a thing at this point anyway so meh.

Tidus heads down the beach a bit and runs into Auron…



"What do you mean?"



"The past ten years have changed you, I see."
”The only thing that has changed from where I am standing is your gut.”



Maester Kinoc waddles off to do whatever portly slimy church officials do in their spare time. He is almost immediately replaced by Maester Seymour.





“?!”



“But you...are a summoner. You are Spira's hope. Until Sin is defeated, you must not relent. Do you understand?"
*nods* "Yes. I understand."
”I just talked about putting on a fake smile in trying times the other day. It got… awkward…”
"Are you afraid?”



“…..?”
“Lady Yuna. Until next we meet, farewell."



And on that somewhat creeper note Seymour departs. We’ve in a bit of a cutscene hunting quagmire in order to progress. The solution to this dilemma is to go gab with Auron.



"Yeah, for a while there, I thought I could feel him. But that doesn't mean I believe you."
”I do keep having flashbacks to my childhood and him being a jerk. But that doesn’t mean anything. I have those all the time!”
"Sin *is* Jecht. He came here for you."
"So he killed all those people just for a chance to see me?!"
"That's what Sin does. He wanted to show that to you. Do you know why?"
"Tch. How am I supposed to know?"



"So you would kill him. As long as he is Sin, Jecht will keep killing. He wants you to stop him."
"You've gotta be kidding. How do you know all of this, anyway?"
”What did he sit down and have you take notes for his memoirs while he was turning into Sin or however that works?! ‘cause that sounds like something he’d do…”
*chuckles and walks away*



*continues walking*"You're the one running."
”…”
“…That doesn’t even make SENSE!”



Welp. That is the most we are getting out of Auron at this point. We can speak with a few surviving Crusaders on the beaches. They do not have much to say beyond shell-shocked variations of “well that SUCKED”.



Shelinda has made her way down to the beaches and is offering free White Magic curing to anyone in need. She’s not even preaching about Yevon. I guess she isn’t all bad.



O’aka, on the other hand, is still loitering about and maintaining his status as utter scumbag. He expresses the slightest bit of guilt about price gouging the shit out of all those people who were just massacred. But not enough to actually lower his prices or anything. As usual, fuck this guy forever.



In any case, that concludes our business on the beaches of Mushroom Rock and Operation Mi’ihen as a whole. There is just one more scene before the pilgrimage resumes properly.

A short while later…



"She's awfully cheerful."
”Did we just see the same corpse filled beach or am I missing something…?”
*sigh* <So thick…>





Holy shit! Kimahri finally got his first lines! Even Tidus is shocked.



"We should help her, then."
"If we worry, she tries harder. Do not frown."
”But… do not fake laugh again either. That – that killed part of Kimahri’s soul to listen to…”



*turns back* "Kimahri try, too."
"Smile! Let me see."
”…Really?”
“C’mon! Who’s a happy Ronso? Can I tickle your belly?”
“Not if you value possessing fingers…”
“Ahh. Well then, let’s see what you can do…”
“This is stupid…”
“You brought it up. C’mon, big guy!”



*grunts*
“…”
“…Sad.”



And with Kimahri’s goofy ass mugging for the camera we are back on the road again. It isn’t a particularly long or eventful hike down Mushroom Rock Road to Djose Temple. But like every other temple of Yevon in our pilgrimage it marks a new aeon being added to Yuna’s collection. I would like to play ahead this weekend and get a backlog of updates but we have that whole naming convention thing standing in the way.

Djose Temple holds the Aeon Ixion. What’s an Ixion?

Wikipedia posted:



In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly, and a son of Ares, or Leonteus, or Antion and Perimele, or the notorious evildoer Phlegyas, whose name connotes "fiery".
Ixion married Dia, a daughter of Deioneus and promised his father-in-law a valuable present. However, he did not pay the bride price, so Deioneus stole some of Ixion's horses in retaliation. Ixion concealed his resentment and invited his father-in-law to a feast at Larissa. When Deioneus arrived, Ixion pushed him into a bed of burning coals and wood. These circumstances are secondary to the fact of Ixion's primordial act of murder; it could be accounted for quite differently: in the Greek Anthology (iii.12), among a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus is an epigrammatic description of Ixion slaying Phorbas and Polymelos, who had slain his mother, Megara, the "great one".

Ixion went mad, defiled by his act; the neighboring princes were so offended by this act of treachery and violation of xenia that they refused to perform the rituals that would cleanse Ixion of his guilt (see catharsis). Thereafter, Ixion lived as an outlaw and shunned. By killing his father-in-law, Ixion was reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology. That alone would warrant him a terrible punishment.

However, Zeus had pity on Ixion and brought him to Olympus and introduced him at the table of the gods. Instead of being grateful, Ixion grew lustful for Hera, Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest-host relations and engaged in some under-the-table caressing until Zeus asked them to stop. (Some texts say that Ixion and Hera were involved in only touching each other with their feet, while some say that Ixion started to perform cunnilingus on Hera until Zeus interrupted them and ordered them to stop). Zeus found out about his intentions and made a cloud in the shape of Hera, which became known as Nephele (nephos "cloud") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it. From the union of Ixion and the false-Hera cloud came Centauros, who mated with the Magnesian mares on Mount Pelion, Pindar told, engendering the race of Centaurs, who are called the Ixionidae from their descent.

Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with a thunderbolt. Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion is bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens, but in later myth transferred to Tartarus. Only when Orpheus played his lyre during his trip to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice did it stop for a while. "The details are very odd, the narrative motivation creaks at every juncture," observes Robert L. Fowler; "the myth smacks of aetiology." He notes that Martin Nilsson suggested an origin in rain-making magic, with which he concurs: "In Ixion's case the necessary warning about the conduct of magic has taken the form of blasphemous and dangerous conduct on the part of the first officiant."


TLDR: Ixion was an asshole that murdered his step-dad and then got frisky with Zeus’ wife right in front of the guy when invited over to dinner. It ended poorly for him. So what is the Final Fantasy incarnation?



It is an electric unicorn… Yeah I don’t know either… I guess someone over at Square just thought the name sounded cool. Anyway, this thing needs a name and I'll let you jerks come up with it. Let's review the boundaries...


We’ll go with whatever you jerks come to a popular consensus upon or whatever I find most amusing.



Well then, get to it!






Episode 42 Highlight Reel





Kimahri Ronso Portrait