Prologue: The Mysidian Legend
The Elegant Prose that Defines our Story
Final Fantasy IV is one of those RPG games where the story was given a heavy level of importance. In fact, given the aural and graphical limitations of the console media of the time, this would have demanded a good storyline to captivate the audience. This is why I like FF4 and a big reason why those who still do feel that the game is so great. While a great deal of back story is laid out in the data books, perhaps one of the most memorable parts of the game is the "Legend of the Paladin" or "The Mysidian Legend". This legend is found on the legendary Mythgraven Sword, the holy sword Cecil receives from the light of the trial on Mt. Ordeals upon becoming a paladin. This legend is shown in the game in Mysidia when Cecil returns as a paladin from Mt. Ordeals and speaks with High Elder Mhinu. As it turns out, this legend is a prophecy for the events that occur in the Final Fantasy IV story.
There are five official English versions of the legend:
The first is from the 1991 SNES version of the Game.
One to be born from a dragon
hoisting the light and the dark
arises high up in the sky
to the still land.
Veiling the moon with the light of eternity,
it brings another promise to Mother Earth
with a bounty and mercy.
The second legend, although English, is likely fairly obscure to English-speakers. In fact this may be the first time you've ever read this version. It is because this version appears on the cover of a Square / DigiCube Final Fantasy IV PSx Game Guide book for the Japanese PS1 release (circa 1997). Thus it is official, but has never appeared in any English localization script.
Born of a dragon's mouth,
he whom soars hight in the heavens,
carrying the darkness and the light,
brings new promises to the sleeping earth.
Sheathed in the neverending light,
the moon bestows blessings and favor,
upon the mother land.
The third is from the 2001 PS1 version of the game found in the Final Fantasy Chronicles game pak.
One born of a dragon
hoisting the darkness and light,
shall rise to the heavens
over the still land.
Bathing the moon in eternal light,
he brings a promise to Mother Earth
with a bounty and grace.
The fourth version is from the 2005 GBA "Final Fantasy IV Advance" version of the game.
One born of a dragon,
bearing darkness and light,
shall rise to the heavens
over the still land.
The moon's light eternal
brings a promise to Earth
with bounty and grace.
The fifth version comes on the 2007 DS Version "Final Fantasy IV Original Soundtrack" packaging and is also featured in the 2008 English localization of Final Fantasy IV for the DS. It is perhaps the most unique translation thus far.
Birthed from the womb of Dragon's maw
and borne unto the stars
By light and darkness cast aloft
are dreamtide oaths resworn
Moon is swathed in ever-light,
ne'er again to know eclipse
Earth, with hallow'd bounty reconciled.
Analysis:
Of the legends, the obscure 1997 English one is most likely the least well known. The guide book that this version appeared on was a companion to the Playstation re-release of the game in Japan in 1997. However I think it gives one of the best literal translation of the intended message...
However the most recent translation on the DS version OST package is perhaps the most poetic. It seems that someone gave a rather eanest attempt to create a very lyrical version in proper English. I rather like it, not just for it's verse but that it is nice to see a really fresh take on it.
*** WARNING: MAJOR STORY SPOILERS AHEAD ***
Once you play the game it becomes obvious that the person in the legend is of course Cecil. Mainly from the line discussing darkness and light, because who in the game hoists or carries both? Cecil, of course, after becoming a paladin. Now I find that the first line from all the versions is a little strange. However after playing the game and reading the guide book version the intent materializes. Cecil was Klu-Ya's son...who was a Lunarian. Klu-Ya came to the Blue Planet on a spacecraft known as "The Legendary Ship of the Moon" (a.k.a. "Lunar Whale", a.k.a. "The Big Whale"). This spacecraft is hidden in the bay near Mysidia. This bay, from looking at the world map, appears to be the mouth on the head of a dragon, or at least the continent looks a little like a dragon. Fly over Mysidia and Mt. Ordeals in an airship in the game, or check the maps in the Gazetteer section of this site to see for yourself. Thus Cecil was born from the mouth of a dragon, or more precisely born from the man who came from the bay shaped like the mouth of a dragon. The final lines I think are translated in the PS1 English version the best. While I like the use of the phrase "neverending light" instead of "eternal light" the meaning is clearest in the PS1 version. Cecil's "holy light" bathes the moon, where Zemus' evil resides. Cecil brings forth a new promise for the Blue Planet, "mother earth". Overall though, I do think that the '97 game guide version is more eloquent.
In essence the legend tells us of Cecil's destiny to save the people of the Blue Planet and the Lunarian race from the evil of Zemus.
*** WARNING: MAJOR STORY INTERPRETATION AHEAD ***
Really In Depth Analysis, In Fact This Stuff Is Probably Only Good For The Most Hardcore Fan...
All this legend stuff and it's inevitable inference to Cecil as the subject is all somewhat problematic to me. That is that the legend is almost too specific to Cecil. To elucidate about Cecil and this legend we are forced to examine his true Lunarian father Klu-Ya, a man who visited the Blue Planet, left a spaceship (that he purportedly built if Fusu-Ya is to be believed) in the bay near Mysidia and fathered at least two children. So who exactly is Klu-Ya anyway and what do we know about him?
Well we know quite a bit actually. There is nothing in the official cannon that tells us exactly when Klu-Ya first visited the Blue Planet only that he did and must have based on Fusu-Ya's testimony in the game script. We know that he eventually marries a girl from the Blue Planet and she bears him at least two hildren Cecil and "Theodore" (a.k.a Golbez). We know that Cecil is 20 years old when the story begins and there is reliable information making Golbez 32. Given these facts we can make some deductions.
We know Cecil was orphaned at the age of two. This means that 18 years ago both of Cecil and Golbez's parents died or disappeared to have made Cecil an orphan when he was two years old. Therefore Klu-Ya was present on the Blue Planet as recent as 18 years prior to the game's storyline. However we can also assume that he was on the Blue Planet sometime around 32 +9 months from the beginning of the game as well. This is because he would have had to have conceived Golbez. We now know from Final Fantasy IV DS that this was with his wife, a girl of the blue planet named Cecilia. So Klu-Ya was at least on the Blue Planet about 33 years prior to the in-game events. We don't know if he visited any earlier or at any time in the past just that he did fairly recently when he married and conceived children.
Furthermore I'm making a number of assumptions by superimposing human traits upon Lunarians and "Blue-Planetarians" (wow, I wish the FF4 world had a canonical name). This is why I added "+9 Months" to the equation. I'm assuming that Lunarians don't asexually reproduce (probably not since Bahamut's "assistant" says to Cecil "Oh you're a half..." If he's not some half-slagged off Klu-Ya Pod (!!) then he must be half-Lunarian and half Blue-Planetarian). I'm also assuming that the gestation period for women on the Blue Planet (even those inseminated by a Lunarian) is equivalent to a human mother carrying a human child (9 months) and that such a union must create a viable fetus.
Now, since Cecil was orphaned at the age of two, Klu-Ya either died, disappeared, or was killed at most 20 years +9 months and at least 18 years before the beginning of the game's storyline. We now know, by canon of Final Fantasy IV DS, he was killed by villagers who resented his meddling in the affairs of the people of the blue planet using his confounded technology. Thus we know how he died, as S-E would have us believe, but we still don't know when. We do know that Cecilia (Klu-Ya's wife) dies in childbirth of Cecil. So the orphaning of Cecil (and Golbez) are dependent upon Klu-Ya's death. Which based on what we know should be two years after Cecil is born. But it isn't that simple (when is it ever?) because the "new" FF4 DS canon tells us that Cecil's brother Theodore (the future Golbez) takes the two year old Cecil and leaves him in the woods under a tree to die. Theodore does this because he hates Cecil, since Cecil's birth killed their Mother. So it's possible that Klu-Ya's death and Cecil's orphaning aren't dependent upon each other. We have no way of knowing when the angry villagers pitchfork Klu-Ya to death . Therefore we may never know exactly when Klu-Ya dies, besides the fact that it happens before the beginning of the in-game story.
This brings us back to the legends and one huge problem. Age. Exactly how old is the Mysidian legend and how could it be tailor made for one of Klu-ya's sons? Unless it's simply some ancient Mysidian mumbo-jumbo legend that some guy (probably one named Minh) just made up about ~300 years ago when Mysidia was founded, we don't really know. Why does it seem to exactly reference Klu-Ya's sons? One theory is that Klu-Ya either created the legend or that that he took it and made it real with some kind of "trial machine" placed on Mt. Ordeals. This begs a question, how long do Lunarians live anyway (without "sleeping" in stasis on their moon)? We have no information on Klu-Ya's age. However it could be irrelevant. This is because it may be possible that Klu-Ya visited the Blue Planet in it's ancient past and slept in stasis on the moon between visits so he essentially time traveled into the future? Or could Lunarians be very long lived? What if they live hundreds of years? Klu-Ya could have been living on the Blue Planet for centuries, giving him a long enough time to create the legend and bear children far in the future afterwards. But even these are very unsafe assumptions because there is no canon that tells us exactly when the Lunarian's planet is destroyed. Perhaps it wasn't that long ago or perhaps it was thousands of years in the past. Nor do we know when the survivors make it to the small moon of the Blue Planet to use as their life-boat. Assuming said moon didn't come from elsewhere. There is a hint, at least in the old Final Fantasy II translation of the game. The library in the Village of Summons has one book that says something about the ancient sky only having one moon. Therefore it is highly likely that the Lunarian's planet was destroyed in the ancient past of the Blue Planet and that they were capable of moving a small moon into the orbit of the Blue Planet.
Back to the legend again, let's look at this specific darkness and light stuff. Even if Klu-Ya created the legend himself, how would he have known that both his children would be holding, hoisting, bearing, or carrying the "darkness"? Golbez could have been anywhere between 12 and 32 when Klu-Ya's dies (if he didn't run away after leaving Cecil for dead), and of course Cecil either wasn't born yet or he was two. Making Cecil far too young to be anything like a Dark Knight. However could he have known that Golbez was a Black Sorcerer before he dies. This is possible? Perhaps Klu-Ya expected that his son Theodore would turn to the light? Maybe, but what if he died when Theodore was in his mid teens before he ever became "Golbez clad in the black". Now granted Theodore could have become the Paladin if he had not become Golbez as controlled by Zemus and the legend would have held up since he was a "Dark" sorcerer. Or was he? What exactly was Theodore before he was Golbez as controlled by Zemus? Was he already a black sorcerer gallivanting around under the alias Golbez? Or did he get his powers from Zemus? Maybe Zemus enhanced them? What if he was just Ted the Chocobo farmer and son of Klu-Ya living a peaceful life? Then Zemus turned him into the black sorcerer Golbez. Who knows? If he was Farmer Teddy then the legend would have failed if Zemus had arbitrarily chosen Cecil. And being Farmer Teddy who's to say he wouldn't have been shoveling Chocobo shit during the great Crystal War and never even taken the trial? I mean what would a farmer do with a sword anyway? And why would he go up a mountain to become a holy knight when he was a farmer anyway.
And then there's another plot hole with regards to Cecil. The dark knights squadron is created by King Baron. But when? Is it a tradition from the kingdom's past or is it recent. The canon is silent. However it does say that the king persuaded Cecil to become a dark knight. But when did Golbez use Caignazzio to overthrow and impersonate the king? Better yet when did Zemus control Theodore/Golbez? Is it possible that Cecil could have never become controlled by Zemus because his brother already had been long before? Did Caignazzio as the impostor King persuade Cecil to become a Dark Knight to thwart the legend but in reality bring it to life? Perhaps Zemus' machinations were to make not only Golbez his right hand but to make Golbez's younger brother a Dark Knight and his left hand to help take over the Blue Planet? (probably this is pretty close to the mark given the whole Star Wars connection found with this game's story. See Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back). Anyway I think all this tends to make the specific wording of the legend a bit TOO specific.
The icing on the cake of specificity is that for the legend to work, the person it refers to would have to be born from a dragon's mouth. Now I suppose that could be taken as simple theatrical fancy talk in context of being cryptic for the sake of being cryptic. I mean what would a legend about the advent of the savior of the world be if it weren't open to interpretation and full of allegory? However it is specific. As I mentioned previously, if you look at the Final Fantasy IV map, the continent containing Mysidia and Mt. Ordeals looks like a giant dragon. The bay south of Mysidia looks like the mouth of the dragon's head. Since Klu-Ya came to the Blue Planet on a spaceship he hid in this bay then his children can be seen as being "born from the mouth of a dragon", literally. Now who would write a legend that specific besides Klu-Ya himself? Well...ok I guess a patriotic Mysidian who expected that the paladin would manifest from the population of Mysidia. I suppose if you were born in Mysidia then it's possible to say you were born from the mouth of the dragon. Maybe that Minh guy made it up after all, or maybe he or someone else was psychic? It does sort of fit. The Mysidians are quite sure that Dark Knight Cecil is incapable of becoming a paladin. They're rather flabbergasted when he actually does it. Maybe because he was a dark knight...or maybe because they're prejudiced against non-Mysidians being capable of actually enduring the trial? Someone better call the ACLU...or actually don't...really...
This brings us to the Mt. Ordeals trial itself. What about the actual mechanics of becoming a Paladin? I suppose that the "trial machine" on Mt. Ordeals (or whatever that was supposed to be up there) which would imbue somebody with "holy light" and saying "my son" to whomever that was, and assuming that person was someone with a dark past or connotation is a little much to accept. I assume anyone who hadn't undergone the trial may have a bit of impurity to overcome, but I digress. Even if Klu-Ya placed the "mechanism" there himself, unless he was actually the amazing Kres-kin and saw his future how would he know it was one of his son's that would become the Paladin? Even more importantly how do we (or Klu-Ya himself) know that some random idiot wouldn't go up Mt. Ordeals and become a Paladin? Can there be more than one Paladin? Is the "trial mechanism" smart? Does it scan a person for Lunarian blood before they're allowed to enter? I guess not because Palom, Porom, and Tellah get to enter the trial chamber too don't they? Heck, Tellah even regains his wisdom and knowledge of advanced magic from the trial mechanism and even Meteo is unsealed by it! And then, why the hell isn't he or Palom or Porm tested!? In any case why couldn't Cletus the pig from Silveria become a Paladin? Or as I mentioned could there be multiple Paladi? Or did Klu-Ya count on every being on the Blue Planet to be too stupid to not fight themselves and die in the "trial"? Alright let's stretch it and say that somehow Klu-Ya imprinted his "being" or "soul" as it were into the "trial mechanism", then the thing would know if the testee was Klu-Ya's son or not. So if you went to take the trial and you weren't a son of Klu-Ya did the machine just kill you? Is that why there are so many undead spirits and skeletons on Mt. Ordeals? Are they the pissed off people that the trial mechanism just slaughtered? I'd be pissed off. To top it off IF Klu-Ya built whatever it was on Mt. Ordeals that imbues the light to a Paladin, when the hell did he build it? How long ago? How would he know what generation Zemus would manifest his evil tomfoolery? That begs another question...if he built it long ago and somehow one of his children were to become the Paladin of legend has he been knocking up Blue Planet women over the centuries to ensure there would be a Son of Klu-Ya present to fulfill the legend he pulled out of his ear? Is this why in Final Fantasy IV Advance FuSoYa's lines mention that Cecil is one of Klu-Ya's children as though there were more somewhere?
And then there's the problem of the Tower of Bab-il. Where did it come from and why does it have an apocalyptic giant in it, just waiting to destroy the world? How does Zemus know about it? And if we're given to believe that Klu-Ya was the architect of the whole Paladin thing...why didn't he just disable the Bab-il giant and then go with Fusu-Ya to just kill Zemus in the first place? I mean why wait around for such a complex scenario to play out? Oh...yeah because that complex scenario was the game itself and we had to have something to play...right?!
The only descent possibility I can come up with is that Klu-Ya and Fusu-Ya were unable to destroy Zemus or disable the Bab-il giant and knew somehow that Zemus must be stopped. Therefore Klu-Ya went down, created the legend and the machine to turn one of his sons into a Paladin, and bore some children. Zemus controlling one of the children simply put things in motion. Maybe... There are still tons of loose ends with the time line and such....
Anyway it is not I who am crazy, it is I who am MAD! But seriously, I just made you think didn't I? In fact if you read all that and you are a fan-fic writer I bet I just filled your head with all kinds of creative ideas. I know I've been trying to come up with a decent story concept for this stuff for a very long time. Maybe you'll come up with something good? Well..go have fun now!