Chapter 10: Disk 2.4 - Pinnacle Rocks, Lindblum and Fossil Roo

[The words "Pinnacle Rocks" appear on the screen, as we see Dagger on the ground]

Dagger "Mother..." "Ugh... Uh..." "I..."

Again with Dagger's "Mother" spouts, we've gone far past the point where we should care about that.

[Screen fades it. Dagger and Vivi are standing on the edge of a cliff; a waterfall is nearbye, and the crashed gargant-seats are seen on the right side of the screen]

Dagger "Vivi... We made it?" [Vivi nods] "Where are we...?"

Vivi "We're at Pinnacle Rocks. It's supposed to be near Lindblum Castle..."

Dagger "Pinnacle Rocks...? Lindblum...?" "The gargant took us this far?"

Yeah it does seem pretty weird that you wound up this far, the Gargant didn't seem to have taken that long to reach this point as we saw last chapter when it was running in the tunnel, there is also the fact that Lindblum and Pinnacle Rocks are on a separate mountain top from the mountain ranges in Alexandria and Treno which the tunnel was inside, there was no vertical drop down in the Gargant tunnel and coming up again getting here to Pinnacle Rocks (as would be the case if the tunnel really went through underneath the lowers plains of the Lindblum side of the continent, since there is no connecting mountain line), if the tunnel really was level the whole length, it should really have only taken them as far as South Gate, or even Gizamaluke's Grotto! Would the Ralvuimago even chase them that far or be able to chase them that far?

Dagger "!" "Where's Freya? Steiner? And Beatrix?" "And...Zidane?"

Regarding all the former, did you completely forget that they weren't with you on the Gargant and stayed behind?

Vivi "He went to check out the area."

Zidane "Dagger, you're awake!" [He jumps onto the screen] "Do you feel okay?"

Dagger "Where is everyone, Zidane?"

How should he know? I refer back to the above comment.

Zidane "I don't know... We're really far from Alexandria." "Hey, don't worry. The Tantalus guys are with them, too." "It's almost nightfall. They're probably in Treno by now."

Dagger "Do you think we can borrow an airship in Lindblum? Treno is only steps away if we can reach South Gate."

Zidane "Yeah..."

Sure let's just go back into dangerous territory on the Alexandrian side, AGAIN, because that worked out so well before.

[An old man with a cane and a white beard suddenly materializes out of thin air, floating over the cliff]

Zidane "Are you our enemy?"

What kind of dialogue is this? Even if he was an enemy, why would he just tell you that?

"That is up to you..." "My name is Ramuh."

Dagger "I've heard your name somewhere..." "!" "I've seen your name in a book I read about summoning magic..." "You must be Ramuh, the Thunder God."

All readers remember this because it shows that Dagger is aware of Eidolons and I will be bringing it up again.

Also did reading about summon magic really not trigger her subconscious and break through at least some of her amnesia?

Ramuh "...Do you know that your summon magic destroyed Cleyra?" [Dagger shakes her head] "An eidolon follows its summoner's orders..." "It responded to the orders of a woman filled with greed this time..."

How does Ramuh know about what happened to Cleyra? Can Eidolons sense what other Eidolons are doing? Also Brahne was not a true summoner, she used that Eidolon through artificial means. Also "following it's summoners orders" is a huge design flaw, aren't the Eidolons supposed to be the guardians of the world or nature? Why would they respond to a summoner's orders without question regardless or whether it was good or not, what are the rules darn it?! I am going to be saying some more on this at the end of the Pinnacle Rocks segment.

Dagger "No... Mother...!" "I can't believe it..." "I was confined while Cleyra was destroyed..."

Being confined wasn't the reason for it's destruction though, it was because you ran back home like an idiot and pretty much gave the Eidolons to your insane mother in a gift wrapped package. Speaking of which, the moment I have been dreading and building up to has come…

Zidane "It wasn't your fault, Dagger." "They knew. That's why they stayed behind."

Actually. ACTUALLY, YES. Yes it freaking was her fault, Zidane. If she never ran back home like a moron, Brahne would have never been able to extract and get her hands on Dagger's Eidolons and been able to completely obliterate Cleyra, and do massive devastation to Lindblum (as we will see later), her dumb actions lead to a chain reaction of tons of death and destruction.

Dagger just made things worse, getting even more people killed by her stupidity and ultimately giving the bad guys the weapons they use for the majority of the game to slaughter as many people as possible. And the player has to actually follow her through hours of gameplay of making her return to the darn Alexandria castle and then rescuing her, and before anyone wants to say that "Dagger didn't know that Brahne was after her Eidolons", again, that could have been easily fixed by Cid (who DID know about it, which will be revealed later this chapter, and that I will be ripping apart) telling her that her mother was after the Eidolons from the start (so this is also partially Cid's fault as well), but even if you subtract the whole "knowing about Eidolons" from the equation, she wanted to run away from home rather than actually talk to her mother in the first place (something a girl who had an otherwise perfect relationship with their mother would do FIRST), even saying before that CID was the only one who could talk to and stop her mother (only for her to inconsistently pull a 180 flip on that later), And even if Dagger is right, that "mom isn't crazy, there's just something controlling her to act this way", she's making a HORRIBLE mistake to think the same scenario couldn't happen to her, too. To go back and have her be controlled to use the Eidolons she had the ability to summon. (Which just raises another question, if Kuja really was just doing something to control Brahne, why didn't he just do the same thing to Garnet, before she could do something like running away?) Finally, as I stated in chapter 8, she should have actually wanted ran away from home to find out who the "strange white haired man" (Kuja) was, because she should have figured the obvious that he was the source of the problem.

The moment I read Zidane's line, I knew that Dagger was never going to get called out on her extremely stupid and selfish actions, especially by Zidane, who should rightfully be very upset with her for drugging and abandoning him, rendering all his (and us, the players) efforts to get her out of Alexandria completely pointless, not to mention some even more unsympathetic stuff like her saying she "didn't care about him" which Zidane only doesn't know because Marcus couldn't bring it up. It's bad enough that all of this poorly written stuff happened in the first place, but now she isn't even going to be chewed out for it. If I were Zidane, I would have been really mad with her after having a close friend get petrified in the attempt to rescue her, only for her to decide to blow me off and make the whole thing meaningless, and before anyone wants to claim that "Dagger helped de-petrify Blank!", no, she didn't. As I stated back in chapter 7, Tantalus already knew where the Supersoft was and were going to get it anyway, Dagger being there made no difference to the outcome, and regardless, Blank (who was in no real danger) being de-petrified doesn't cancel out all the stuff Dagger put Zidane and the others through or the resulting devastation from Brahne getting her hands on Dagger's Eidolons. (Which actually makes me wonder if the only reason the writers had Blank get petrified in the first place was to serve as a cheap attempt to try and "justify" Dagger running back to Alexandria) Zidane loved Dagger and how did she repay him? By leaving him for her psycho mother that she wanted to escape from in the first place, this ruins the love story a lot and is why it is so poorly done.

What's even more grating is that when Zidane does something similar on Disk 3 (the "You are not alone scene", except at least he didn't drug everyone, unlike Dagger, nor did he wander too far off that he couldn't be caught up to) everyone immediately calls him out, but Dagger never was, but I'll address all of that when we get to that mess eventually.

Also what does Zidane mean by "They knew. That's why they stayed behind."? The Eidolons? I'm pretty sure at least Freya and Steiner didn't know. If Freya knew and was here right now, she certainly wouldn't be happy with Dagger and would be calling her out on what she caused.

Dagger "Everyone..."

Ramuh "True, you were not the one who caused the destruction."

"Not directly anyways, but you were the instigator of it all."

Ramuh "But I must ask you... What will you do now?"

Dagger "If I were more powerful... If I could use summon magic..." "I beg of you, please help me!"

"Power" had nothing to with it. Again, things happened the way they did because of your moronic plan to "just talk to your mother" despite not doing this when you had the chance before running away from home as I have already explained in detail a bunch of times already.

Ramuh "And cause more destruction?"

Dagger "No... I was afraid of my summon magic, but not anymore!"

Just going to point here that this line of dialogue right here seems to confirm that Dagger always knew she had Eidolons and summon magic, I'm saying this here because this completely blows apart the claims of people I have argued with in the past about how Dagger "never knew she had Eidolons in her before".

[Ramuh changes from a hunched-over old man to one with a much-longer beard, a robe, and a bluish staff]

Ramuh "...Many years have passed since I last served a master..." "I must test to see wheter you are truly fit to be my master." "I will hide 5 manifestations of myself in this forest." "Each one will carry a piece of the 'Hero's Story.'" "Collect all 5 pieces and tell me the story." "If you put together the story to my satisfaction, I shall become your eidolon."

This is like how you obtain the summons in the prior FFIII, IV, V and VIII. IX seems to be doing things that way, except that this is the ONLY time you actually ever do something like this to obtain a summon, the previous FF's that were mentioned all had you doing either tests or battles against the summons (Eidolons or Guardian Forces as they were called in different games), and what Ramuh does here is the same, but after this point, you never do anything like this again to obtain an Eidolon, you just get them as gems/items straight up with no challenge or test (okay you do technically battle ARK, but you don't really immediately "obtain" it as a summon after that battle, and it is actually supposed to be one of Terra's Eidolons and we don't get a proper lore and interesting plot on that), sure in Ifrit's, Shiva's, Atomos', Odin's and Bahamut's cases they were already Dagger's and were forcibly extracted and contained within gems and had to be retrieved, but that raises another question, how did Dagger get these Eidolons in the first place?

They can't have been born with her, what you do with Ramuh here suggests that is not how that works, was it through tests or battles? Dagger was only six back then in Madain Sari before fleeing, and Eiko herself is that same exact age and only had one Eidolon, Fenrir/Titan (while Dagger had five including Bahamut who is supposed to be one of the most powerful Gaian Edolons, second only to Alexander), so this is extremely unlikely.

[Ramuh dissapears]

Dagger "I'm sorry. I know we must hurry..."

Zidane "It's okay, Dagger."

No, it's not, Zidane. Seriously, the game wants me to feel sympathy for Dagger when it did nothing to make her sympathetic, I lost all sympathy for her by the time of the Treno segment when she went as far as to place blame on Zidane and say it "was his fault" back in chapter 7. Zidane should be feeling way more hurt.

Vivi "I'll help you, too."

Dagger "Thanks, you two."

[They run off to the next screen. Now, they must find and talk to the 5 manifestations]

Regarding Pinnacle Rocks itself, as I said last chapter, the music for this area is exactly the same as the Evil Forest, referring to what I said before about how we literally just went in a circle and are repeating plot threads.

"Once upon a time, 33 small countries fought together against an empire. One day, a rebel troop visited a man named Joseph, who lived with his daughter. Owing a debt to the troop, he gladly accepted their please for help. They headed for a cavern in the snow field." "That's 'Beginning." You have 4 to go."

33 small countries? Is this a retcon, FFII?

Skipping the rest because, as said above, this whole story test is just a shout out to Final Fantasy II.

Ramuh "...I want to know what you think, in your own words."

Dagger "Me...?" "I am away from my country, but I haven't forgotten about my people..."

What about Zidane? Or all of your friends?

Ramuh "...Your soul is very tense right now." "Maybe you'll begin to relax once I become your eidolon..."

Dagger "Thank you!"

Ramuh "There are many paths. Remember that you alone choose the path on which you walk." [Ramuh vanishes] [Received Peridot!]

Why did Ramuh become a gem? Wasn't he supposed to go into Dagger, like how the other Eidolons were before they were extracted? Aren't those gems supposed to be artificial and a result of the extraction rituals? I refer to what I said above about the Eidolons.

Dagger (Maybe now...) "Let's go to Lindblum!"

Zidane "...Hey, old man! You've gone already?"

Vivi "What's wrong?"

Zidane "I wanted to ask why he made Dagger play such a silly game." "Heroic? Human? Those are just things people say after the fact." "Why try to give meaning to what the main character of the story chose?"

Vivi "...I think the old man would've become her eidolon either way." "That's the impression I got."

Well that whole thing was completely pointless, Vivi and Zidane even point it out. Just a retelling without any relevance to what is happening here.

Seriously, instead of wasting our time with a cheap reference to a past FF game, this segment could have given more attention on Zidane's and Garnet's love story. (Not that it would make up for the earlier abandoning)

[Dagger runs back onscreen]

Dagger "Zidane, Vivi! Let's go!" [She runs off screen again, which slightly fades to black, as Vivi and Zidane look upwards. Ramuh speaks]

"You're exactly right..." "It's not what the people say afterward... What's important is being true to oneself." "She may not have realized it, but when she wished to learn how to use summon magic..." "The summon power returned to her."

How does that work? She didn't even have any Eidolons to summon at that point.

"Summon magic can be used for good or evil."

Again, how does that work? Aren't you Eidolons the guardians of the world? Can't you just refuse bad orders? Isn't this the whole reason you have these tests in the first place is to see if they are worthy?

"She is still young, but there is room for growth... So I chose her as my master." "I'll be watching over her... I hope you two will also protect her."

And yet we will never hear from you, or any other Eidolon (besides Madeen) for that matter, again, in fact, why was Ramuh randomly dwelling here at Pinnacle Rocks anyways? Also, considering that he knew about Cleyra, does he not know any important information that he can tell them, like the Iifa Tree or Terra?

Skipping ahead.

[Screen shows Dagger, Zidane and Vivi walking along a path to Lindblum. It's night time; the sky is dark]

Dagger "Zidane." "I want to use summon magic to protect everyone..."

You should have thought of that before running back home like an idiot and loosing all your Eidolons.

Zidane "I know you can do it, Dagger!"

Vivi "Zidane!" "Look...!"

[Zidane looks up]

Zidane "...Is that the Red Rose?"

[FMV. Boats and airships are attacking Lindblum. Huge explosions occur all over the city and castle. Brahne is on the Red Rose, laughing. Inside Lindblum, a set of doors open, as several Lindblum guards see that behind the doors are the Black Mages! They enter and start attacking everywhere possible. Huge explosions of fire occur, destroying buildings and setting off flames everywhere]

How did the Red Rose and those other airships get past the South Gate? Obviously the South Gate wouldn't let a lunatic like Brahne through, so Brahne must have devastated it like what happened to the North Gate, but it's never shown or explained what happened to the South Gate, and when you revisit the South Gate on Disk 3 in an optional sidequest, everything seems to be fine with the scenery and NPCs not implying otherwise.

[Scene returns to Zidane, Dagger, and Vivi]

Zidane "Those lights must be telepods! They're sending black mages directly inside the castle!" "In Cleyra, they used summon magic afterwards..."

Dagger "No...! Mother..." "Mother!"

Okay Lillie from the Pokemon Gen VII games (whom I've nicknamed "Better Garnet/Dagger"), who also had a crazy mom, didn't say "mother" this much.

[Dagger starts running towards Lindblum]

Zidane "Dagger!"

[Zidane follows her. Vivi chases as well]

[FMV. Dagger is running through grass, and Zidane catches up to her. They stop, and see Atomos, a tremendous thing with a huge mouth, sucking in anything possible. Guards, shards of broken buildings, even black mages, are sucked in. Dagger sees this and breaks down, crying. Brahne looks at it all and smiles. Atomos vanishes. Zidane looks onward, as the Red Rose heads towards Lindblum Castle]

I refer to what I said earlier above about the game wanting us to feel "sympathy" for Dagger. All this destruction could have been completed avoided.

[The scene returns to the entrance of Lindblum, as Vivi, Dagger, and Zidane walk in. The entire city is trashed]

Zidane "It's so quiet..."

Dagger "Mother... I can't believe you attacked Lindblum!"

…Really? Because at this point, it should seem totally believable, you just heard about Cleyra, and did Zidane even tell you that your mother was going to execute you?

Zidane "Careful, they might still be around." "Vivi, you stay here and hide."

Vivi "No way! It's dangerous here!"

Zidane "There are Alexandrian soldiers everywhere. You should stay out of their sight."

What about Dagger, the FREAKING PRINCESS?! Shouldn't she be staying out of sight when she can be easily spotted and recognized, especially when the queen is looking out for her? This never happens by the way, throughout this whole segment of Lindblum, despite there being tons of times where it can happen, especially by Alexandrian grunts from higher areas looking through spyglasses and binoculars, we are never spotted and ambushed by Brahne and her guards.

Skipping ahead.

[You return to the castle with Minister Artania. The Minister walks into a room, followed by Dagger and Zidane]

There is apparently a deleted scene where you sneak past Alexandrian guards in Lindblum castle to get to Cid, but that raises a question, why aren't there Alexandrian guards watching Cid, or at least spying on him from a distance? I refer to what I just said above.

Minister Artania "Princess Garnet is back!"

Dagger "Uncle Cid!"

Regent Cid "Garnet! I thought Brahne had imprisoned you!"

How did Cid know about that? As far as he knew, Garnet was still missing.

Dagger "Zidane rescued me."

Regent Cid "Thank you, Zidane. Gwok!"

Of course Cid is overlooking that this only happened in the first place because Dagger left Lindblum and ran back home like a complete moron, and Cid, just like Zidane, is never going to call her out on it and be cross with her.

Dagger "But Freya, Steiner, and Beatrix were left behind. I..."

Regent Cid "Ah, the renowned General Beatrix. I don't think you have anything to worry about."

Sure, keep talking up the women who committed war crimes and blindly followed the obviously insane queen's obviously bad orders without hesitation like a complete condescending tool. This is blatant character shilling.

Zidane "I don't think so, either, Dagger." "We wound up in Pinnacle Rocks instead of Treno, but..." "...they'll be fine on their own."

Regent Cid "Gwok-gwok! Pinnacle...? Did you ride the gargant?"

Zidane "How did you know?"

Regent Cid "It's my job to know the land surrounding my country." "However... I sometimes lack foresight." "Brahne was after the gwok eidolons. That much, I knew." "But I underestimated the power of the eidolons." "Maybe I deserve to be cursed with this body."

…And there it is… *sigh* Let me get this straight, Cid, you knew this whole time that Brahne was after the Eidolons… and you DIDN'T MENTION THIS INCREDIBLY CRUCIAL BIT OF INFORMATION TO EVERYONE THE FIRST TIME THEY WERE HERE IN LINDBLUM ON DISK 1, ESPECIALLY TO DAGGER, THE HOLDER OF THOSE EIDOLONS, SO SHE WOULD'T DO ANYTHING STUPID?!

This is what I have been referring for the past several chapters about Cid knowing about what Brahne's plans were and never telling anyone until too late. What is with this game and characters never telling anyone anything when they should?!

All this bullshit and the beginning of the game being rendered pointless could have been avoided had Cid simply told everyone, especially Dagger, all this from the start (though as I said above in my earlier rant about Dagger, even if you remove not knowing about the Eidolons from the picture, it doesn't really justify and excuse Dagger's stupid and extremely selfish behaviour), and the "underestimating the Eidolons" hand waved nonsense isn't a valid reason.

Zidane "I'm glad you surrendered. Cleyra resisted and perished."

Uh, that is that not what happened Zidane, Brahne came into Cleyra to get one of the pieces of the Alexander jewel, and then blew up Cleyra like a moustache twirling cartoon villain. The only reason she didn't do the same to Lindblum was because she wanted it's machinery and resources.

Dagger (What should I say...? What can I do...?)

Here we go again with Dagger's obnoxious internal monologues.

[Off screen, people speak]

"Hey, we got a live one here!"

"Watch out! It might attack!"

"Hey, this one's much smaller than the others."

"Ouch! Let me go! I'm not one of them!"

"Then why are you dressed like a black mage!?"

Zidane & Dagger "!"

Zidane "That must be..."

[The two guards walk up to Cid and company with Vivi]

How did Vivi get all the way up here? Did the guards find him back at the entrance and conveniently brought him all the way here, or did Vivi just secretly follow Zidane and Dagger and got caught?

Soldier "We took an Alexandrian soldier into custody!"

Vivi "I just said-"

Soldier "Should we turn it over to Alexandria?"

Dagger "Uncle Cid..."

Minister Artania "Let him go. Master Vivi is not an Alexandrian soldier." "It's only a disguise to deceive the enemy."

Soldier "I-I see! My apologies."

Vivi "..."

[The guards walk away]

Regent Cid "I've acquired more information about Queen Brahne gwok/" "A weapons dealer named Kuja is behind the recent string of attacks." "Kuja has been supplying Brahne with highly advanced magic weapons."

Dagger "Supplying my mother...with weapons?"

Regent Cid "Yes. The black mage soldiers are among these weapons." "According to eyewitnesses in Treno, Kuja appeared from the northern sky on a silver dragon."

Why didn't Cid also have this important information the first time we were in Lindblum? It's bullshit that he knew about the queen going crazy but didn't know about who was causing that. Again, Kuja isn't exactly inconspicuous, not to mention that he probably rides into Alexandria on a freaking dragon, drawing lots of attention, especially from the guys spying on Alexandria. I'm pretty sure what Dagger said last time in Lindblum about Kuja prowling the castle should have confirmed some suspicions, or rather they should have, had characters told important information when they should have.

Also, what other weapons? From what we are shown, the only weapons Kuja gave Brahne are the Black Mages, we see no other weapons.

Zidane (That's the guy I saw in Burmecia!)

Why is Zidane thinking this instead of saying it out loud?

Minister Artania "That he came from the north suggests that he is from the Outer Continent."

Dagger "The Outer...Continent?"

Zidane "There are many unexplored continents in the world." "The Outer Continent is an unexplored continent located to the north of our Mist Continent."

How does Zidane know this? It would make more sense if Cid or Artania were the ones saying this, not Zidane.

Also "unexplored" is completely false because Daguerreo is on the Forgotten Continent and it's a library where tons of characters from the Mist Continent are seen, Mognet Central, the HQ of the Mognet postal network, is also located on the Outer Continent, Ipsen's Castle, located on the Forgotten Continent, is named after an explorer from the Mist Continent. This is what I'm talking about when I said that IX's world building sucks, but I will explain more in a few moments.

Regent Cid "I believe Kuja is the only one supplying gwok Brahne with weapons."

Dagger "The man I saw at the castle must have been Kuja. He must be the one who is corrupting my mother!"

No duh Sherlock, you should have figured this out a long time ago, this should have been one of your first realizations before running away from home at the beginning of the game, as I've already explained in detail back in chapter 8.

Speaking of which…

Zidane "If we defeat Kuja...!"

Dagger "If we eliminate Kuja..."

Regent Cid "You both catch on quickly." "Defeat Kuja, and Brahne loses her weapon supply. That will be our cue for a counterattack."

Minister Artania "Challenging Brahne now will only result in more casualties."

Zidane "So we crush the source of the evil!"

Minister Artania "Yes. Kuja will find other clients, even if we defeat Brahne."

Great plan… all except for the fact that THIS IS WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF FROM THE START BACK IN DISK 1 WHEN WE GOT TO LINDBLUM! Remember near the end of chapter 4 when I said I would explain how that part of the game should have gone? Well here it is now:

When Kuja shows up in Alexandria and starts to corrupt the Queen, Doctor Tot is suspicious of him and doesn't trust him, so he warns Garnet to be wary of Kuja and leaves to go to Lindblum to warn Cid about this (as I've explained before in chapter 7) and then Tot goes to Treno to keep an eye on Kuja while staying in contact with Cid, and this is how Cid knew things were up with the Queen and had eyes on her (and about the Eidolons), Tot then says they need to get Garnet out of there, so he and Cid think of the kidnapping, Garnet also wants to run away because she wants to find out who Kuja is and stop him because she has actual common sense and correctly deduces that Kuja is the cause of her mother's behaviour and the source of the problem, when Tot hears the kidnapping was successful, he leaves Treno to take an airship to Lindblum to meet Garnet alongside Cid, they tell her, Zidane and etc. that her mother is after her Eidolons (since Tot should know that Garnet is a summoner) and she doesn't act like an idiot and abandons Zidane, since Cid knows about Pinnacle Rocks and Tot knows a lot about the Eidolons, they talk about rumors of the Thunder Eidolon, Ramuh, being seen in Pinnacle Rocks, so Garnet and Zidane go there to learn about the summoners and the Eidolons, they learn about the Summoner tribe from Ramuh, Garnet gets Ramuh, they go back to Lindblum where Tot and Cid tell everyone about Kuja being the source of the problem and how they should be focusing on him, they talk about Kuja possibly being from the Outer Continent and how to get there. Tot also explains the legends of the Summoner Tribe being on the Outer Continent. When the wounded Burmecian comes in, this point should have been a scenario like the one in FFVI where after fighting Ultros in the river you play through three scenarios (that you get to choose to do in whatever order):

First scenario: Zidane, Garnet and Vivi go to the Outer Continent to find out more about the Eidolons and the Summoner tribe, and to find Kuja and go after the source of the problem.

Second scenario: Freya, Steiner and (eventually) Quina go to Burmecia to aid them, making more sense since they're experienced Knights, it would have also gave more development between Beatrix and Steiner, instead of Steiner being absent from Beatrix's actions during that point (also Beatrix should have be the Queen and Garnet's mother instead of the stupid Brahne)

Third Scenario: The Tantalus crew go to Dali to destroy the Black Mage factory: it never made sense how Tantalus found out about Blank's petrification so quickly, they couldn't have still been in the forest when it happened since they would be petrified too, and they couldn't have been nearby otherwise they would have joined up with Zidane and Garnet in the Ice Cave, instead they don't find out about it until they get back to Lindblum and Zidane and Garnet tell them about Blank, so they find out about the Supersoft and make plans to go to Treno, and Cid asks Baku to destroy the Black Mage factory in Dali on the way, to weaken the Queen's forces (you know, ACTUAL STRATEGIES, instead of just forgetting about that whole factory?!). It also would have continued and resolved the subplot regarding the Dali residents and their thoughts on the factory as we saw in chapter 3. It was also implied that there is a Black Mage factory in Treno and that the nobles or at least the Auction House was in on it, so when Tantalus gets to Treno they have to find that factory and destroy it, and also to infiltrate the Auction House to see if Kuja is there and spy on him.

Also as I said above in scenario two, Beatrix should have been the queen and Garnet's mother instead. They can still have Brahne as a different character. Maybe a flamboyant, eccentric tutor of Garnet's? (it would certainly subvert the "overweight and unattractive people are bad" negative stereotype) The IX fanfic called "The Thief and his Princess" does this very thing, Beatrix is Garnet's mother, it does Zidane's and Garnet's love story much better and it even gives a better story for Amarant, check it out!

Getting back to the point: There, I gave a much better way the game should have gone than what the writers went with.

Dagger "I make no excuses for my mother's behavior, but I shan't forgive Kuja for taking advantage of her!"

Except that you will make excuses again, in a few moments when we get to Fossil Roo and you meet Lani for the first time.

Dagger "But first, we must rescue Steiner and the others..."

Regent Cid "I'm afraid I can't spare any soldiers. They must remain to protect our citizens."

Zidane "Hey, Dagger. I'm telling you, they'll be fine." "The best dragon knight of Burmecia, the female general of Alexandria, and Rusty... How could they lose?" "Besides, you have me to protect you!"

Yeah and Dagger prevented that protection by abandoning you the first time in Disk 1.

Dagger "Then I'll look for Kuja."

Vivi "I wanna go, too..." "There's no place for me here..."

Zidane "Alright! Let's go kick Kuja's butt!" "Will you lend us the fastest airship in Lindblum?"

I refer to what I said above, you should have gone after Kuja from the start.

Regent Cid "Airships can only fly where there is Mist, and the Mist only exists on this continent. Gwok." "That means you can't cross the ocean on an airship."

Zidane "What about the new airship that can fly without Mist?"

Well that and the first Hilda Garde airship, which was stolen by Hilda herself, which I go back to my criticism's I said about her doing that in chapter 4 when that was brought up.

Regent Cid "It's not ready yet gwok. Besides, it's under Brahne's control." "Brahne gave us two conditions for our surrender." "One was the surrender of the new airship." "The other was to hand over gwok the Falcon Claw."

About it not being "ready", again, Cid being an ooglop should have no impact on production. Also Brahne seizing the Hilda Garde II doesn't really go anywhere. Speaking of things that go nowhere…

Zidane "That airship, I can understand, but what does she want with a piece of stone?"

Regent Cid "I have no idea..."

Now, it's revealed that the Falcon Claw and the other jewels, Dagger's pendant and the Desert Jewel from Cleyra, are actually the pieces of the gem that Aexander, the most powerful of the Gaia Eidolons, was imbued into. While it is explained why Kuja is after it, it's never really explained why the Queen wants Alexander, it never goes anywhere since she gets cheaply killed off later anyways. Why did she want Alexander? For More power? Not only is that really cliché, it doesn't make sense because she has already pretty much taking over the entire Mist Continent, the other continents are no threat to her and she already has a bunch of Eidolons that she can repeatedly summon, that not even the advanced Lindblum could stand up to, there is no point here.

Zidane "Alright. We'll take a boat."

Regent Cid "That's not an option, either. The harbor was also seized."

Zidane "Ahhhhhh! What do you want us to do!? Swim!?"

Hey Zidane, don't get mad at him just because you don't have the foresight and common sense to deduce that the harbour isn't available due to the current circumstances.

Regent Cid "There is a way." "There's an old excavation site near a swamp located north from the castle." "Monsters not native to our continent are rumored to appear in the excavation site." "The cave, which was found during excavation, is rumored to lead to another continent."

"Old excavation site"? You see some miners in there right now when you go there.

Dagger "Will this cave lead us to the Outer Continent?"

Zidane "Doesn't sound too reliable... Are you sure?"

Regent Cid "Gwok I'm not sure..."

Zidane "I guess we'll find out. Not knowing is half of the fun, huh?"

Great thought process there Zidane, seriously, all you do is say cliché lines and think that "doing everything without thinking" will make things workout for you.

Skipping ahead.

- Brahne's Fleet Arrives

[At the Lindblum harbor, two Lindblum Soldiers are packing supplies onto an Alexandrian boat]

Lindblum Soldier "Why are they loading food instead of valuables onto the ship?" "I wonder if they're gonna take them all back to Alexandria?"

Lindblum Soldier "...Maybe they're going on a very long trip."

Alexandrian Soldier "Stop that chatter and keep loading the ship!"

Lindblum Soldier "Damn them! They think they can walk all over us!"

Lindblum Soldier "We gotta stall more. Let's keep working."

Lindblum Soldier "Alexandria rules this continent now." "Where else can they go and conquer?" "What do they really want?"

None of these questions will be properly answered.

Lindblum Soldier "I don't know... But you know how greedy Brahne is."

That's it? That's the entire motivation we are given? Trust me, I will be ripping this apart when this comes up again at the end of Disk 2 for Brahne's death.

[Scene returns to Lindblum Castle. An Alexandrian Soldier walks to the water fountain and meets up with another one]

Alexandrian Soldier "I wonder where we are going next?" "I don't know of any kingdom that poses a threat to our country..."

There is none, pretty much as I said earlier above.

Alexandrian Soldier "I'm sure Queen Brahne has a plan." "There's no need for us to worry about such matters." "Come now, we need your help." "Some Lindblum soldiers have locked themselves up in the guest room."

What even was the point of this scene? Just to re-affirm Brahne's stupid cartoonish motivations and showing random guards doing things that never come into play again?

[The two soldiers walk offscreen, as Zidane comes onscreen. He and Dagger head for the lift and begin to descend]

Zidane "I wonder what Brahne is going to do..."

Dagger "Zidane..." "Do we really have to go to the Outer Continent...?"

Zidane "Hey, what's up with you? You said you wanted to go."

Dagger "What if..." "What if something happens to you or Vivi...?" "I might not be okay on my own."

Oh now is when you are concerned about Vivi and especially Zidane? You didn't have that back when you abandoned him on Disk 1 and he was in Burmecia, you even went as far as to say you "didn't care about him" and that "it was his fault" and being very unsympathetic.

Also "might"? I think all the stupid things you have done since Disk 1 Lindblum proves this isn't a "might".

Zidane "Are you worried about me?"

Dagger "What? Well, I mean, um..." "A princess needs her elite guards, you know...?" "I'd be stranded without you guys!"

And yet you abandoned your "elite guard" Zidane before, but at least you are being more humble now, unlike how you were before after leaving Lindblum on Disk 1 and being all "muh independence" and "I can do everything myself!" arrogant bullshit. But here we go with the teasing nonsense instead of just saying "I love you", because that won't get old real fast.

Zidane "Are you trying to flatter me by calling me your elite guard?"

[She puts her hands on her hips, disgruntled] Zidane "Sorry, I was only kidding."

Dagger is in no position to get huffy with Zidane consider all the bullshit she put him through and never getting called out on it.

Zidane "You'll be fine with me." "What about you, Dagger? We don't know anything about the Outer Continent."

Dagger "I've made up my mind." "I don't want my mother to commit any more atrocities."

Zidane "Alright, then. I'll protect both you and Vivi!"

You already said that the last time in Dali, which you then failed when Dagger decided to blow you off, you are just repeating lines and pointless scene is pointless, it's just more bickering and sums up IX's repetitiveness.

Dagger "Thank you..."

[They get off the lift. Vivi is waiting for them]

Vivi "Zidane! I'm so glad you're here."

Dagger "Vivi, where's Uncle Cid?"

Vivi "U-Um... He said 'Gwok-gwok. Wait here,' and went away somewhere..."

Zidane "Where could he be...?"

[Regent Cid walks up on the tracks]

Vivi "!"

Regent Cid "Gwok! I did it!" [Hops to the group] "I stropped a trolley between here and the Serpent's Gate!" "Gwok-gwok! That'll show them not to fool around in my castle!" "Now, go. Gwok-gwok." "The excavation site is like a maze. Be careful not to get lost." "And... Take this with you!"

Zidane "It's a rag."

Regent Cid "You big dope! It's not just a rag! Gwok!" "That is a national treasure of Lindblum!" "That is an ancient map of the entire world!"

And this is where I will fully address IX's shoddy world building: Apparently the rest of the world is "unexplored" despite a great library called Daguerreo being on a part of the Forgotten Continent where you can find Mist Continent characters, the Mist Continent's postal network HQ, Mognet Central, being on a part of the Outer Continent, Ipsen's Castle on the Forgotten Continent is named after a famous explorer from the Mist Continent, Ipsen, who found it, and there is even a random tourist attraction in Esto Gaza on the Lost Continent (which comes out of nowhere, after never being mentioned before and apparently people from Lindblum take vacations there), making all the "unexplored" statements complete BS.

Also the other continents are mostly empty, with the Lost Continent just having Esto Gaza and the Outer Continent having the dwarf village of Conde Petie (The Black Mage village is a very recent edition) both of which are small, shouldn't a lot of settlements from the Mist Continent have been made on these other continents by now? Cid even has a map of the entire world of Gaia which as he just stated is "ancient" meaning that the geography of the whole world was known for quite a while, and Alexandria and Lindblum have harbours and a ton of ships, shouldn't they have sailed to these other continents by now, explored them and build more villages and towns there? This is all poorly constructed.

Zidane "Wow. Thanks!"

[Received World Map!]

Regent Cid "Now, go, before they find you!" "Zidane, Vivi. Please protect Princess Garnet."

Vivi "Okay."

Dagger "Uncle Cid..."

Okay we already did this whole "protect" thing twice a few moments before.

Regent Cid "Gwok! Don't worry about me. I'm stronger than I look!" "Now, go!" "They'll squeeze all the oglop oil out of my body if we're caught!"

Zidane "Let's go, Dagger."

[They head for the Dragon's Gate]

- Gwok-gwok! How infuriating!

[At the Serpent's Gate, several Alexandrian soldiers are gathered]

Alexandrian Officer "My, my... They have an oglop for a regent and buffoons for soldiers." "Why do they take so long to load supplies?" "Hmm...?" "You two, I did not give you permission to rest." "I understand that things are moving slow, but..." "Keep in mind that the next mission is about to begin."

Alexandrian Soldier "...The machine over there stopped, and the trolley stopped coming." "Right?"

Alexandrian Soldier "Yes, it made this strange 'gwok-gwok' sound..."

Alexandrian Soldier "I wanted to go shopping before we left the harbor!"

Yes, "shopping" in the area that Brahne just devastated and the residents now hate your guts, that will work out fine. Great priorities there.

Alexandrian Officer "Any word from the lookout?"

Alexandrian Soldier "No, ma'am. Nothing..."

Alexandrian Officer "This must be Regent Cid's doing. He's hiding something..." [The officer runs off screen, then onto the trolley tracks, with more soldiers following her] "Come with us, you two." "Find the regent!"

Alexandrian Soldier "Yes, ma'am!" [They jump onto the trolley tracks and follow them]

And this scene never goes anywhere and was just another pointless ATE. Zidane and Dagger are never spotted and ambushed by Brahne and her guards through out this whole Lindblum segment which makes no sense.

[Zidane and company head out onto the World Map and return to Qu's Marsh. Once there, they re-encounter Quina at the first place they met him/her in the marsh]

Zidane "Quina! You're safe!"

Quina "Long time no see, Zidane. Much trouble, coming back from Cleya alone."

Okay but… HOW THE HECK DID YOU SURVIVE CLEYRA'S MASSIVE EXPLOSION?

There was no way Quina could have gotten down the tree that fast before Odin was summoned, we last saw Quina at the top of the tree when he didn't get teleported along with everyone else to the Red Rose Airship and saying he "didn't like heights" (despite climbing up a tall tree and didn't know where the teleportation spell was taking them) and going downwards, which was just seconds before Brahne unleashed Odin.

It's not just Quina either, as I stated before, Fratley and Puck are also completely okay with no explanation, you even see a Cleyran in Dageurreo later, was there a secret escape route the tree had which allowed everyone to escape so quickly? It certainly would have subverted this game overdoing it with the destruction aspect. (which I complained about at the beginning of chapter 9)

Zidane "Do you know a way to the Outer Continent? I heard there was an entrance somewhere around here..."

Quina "Outer Continent... Maybe I find more delicious frogs." "Sound interesting. I help you, and I eat more frogs. I come with you."

And that's Quina's entire plot in a nutshell, we don't even get another scene with Quale here and have more build up with his connections to Vivi's grandfather Quan.

[The characters go into the brush. Quina runs from Zidane]

Zidane "Quina! Where are you going!?"

Quina "I smell! I smell frogs!"

Zidane "No, we have to look for the entrance to the Outer Continent!"

Quina "I smell frog this way!"

Zidane "Hey, Quina! Hold on!" "Darn it..."

[Zidane chases Quina. They are at the entrance to the excavation site]

Quina "A-HA! Frogs!" "Hold!" "They run away again..."

Zidane "Wait a minute, Quina. Check it out." "This entrance... This must be the entrance to the excavation site!"

Quina "First time I see this." "Zidane, we going inside?"

First time? How many decades have you lived here and you've never seen it?

And this entrance is not secret - all the miners work there all the time.

Zidane "Of course we will." "It might lead to the Outer Continent. Let's go!"

This cave system connects to a whole other continent and the writers are still going with the idea that the Outer Continent is "unexplored".

[Zidane enters the excavation site. The words "Fossil Roo" appear on the screen. He runs forward for a bit, before everything starts to shake]

Zidane "Wh-What the-"

[Behind him, a gate is opened and some sort of deranged creature exits]

Zidane "You've gotta be kidding!"

[It chases after Zidane and company. They have to outrun it through a series of swinging axes, and eventually, run into a room, free from the monster, which fell down a hole]

Vivi "Yikes!" [Falls down]

Dagger "Aah!" [Falls down] "Sorry, Vivi. Are you okay?"

Vivi "Yeah..." "Look out!"

[Quina runs in. Zidane hits him down]

Zidane "Outta my way!"

Quina "Aiya!"

Zidane "That was a close call."

Lani "Geez... That didn't do much good."

So Lani was the one responsible for the Armodullahan chasing you? Where did she get that creature and those swinging axes that tried to slow you down? Heck, how did Lani even find us and know we be coming here to Fossil Roo? This is never explained.

Zidane "Who's there?"

[Lani walks into the room]

Lani "I've been looking for you, Princess Garnet."

Zidane "H-Have we met?"

Dagger "(Quit flirting with her!)"

Zidane "Yes, ma'am..."

Hah hah hah… how totally not unfunny. /s

Lani "I'm Lani. I'm under order by the queen to find you, Princess."

Dagger "My mother?" "What does my mother want with me?" "I am not returning to Alexandria."

We are literally just repeating the Black Waltzes plot, as I stated last chapter, and Dagger's statement is pointless since she already returned to Alexandria before and the damage was done.

Lani "I've got bad news for you, Princess. It's not you I'm after."

Dagger "What do you mean?"

Lani "The pendant. Does that sound familiar?"

Dagger "!"

Lani "Let's have it back. It belongs to Queen Brahne."

Dagger "..."

Lani "Listen, carefully, Princess." "You escaped unscathed from the monster, but you're not gonna be lucky with me." "Hand over the pendant right this minute."

Zidane "Are you the one who set that monster loose?"

Lani "Retrieving the pendant far outweighs the safety of the princess."

Zidane "...What do you mean by that?"

Lani "I meant exactly what I said." "My orders don't include Princess Garnet's safe return."

That and the "assassination of Vivi" which Brahne apparently put on the same level as the retrieval of the pendant for no real reason, but Lani never brings that up, in fact, she doesn't even show any interested in Vivi here and is only concerned with getting the pendant, making that whole assassination order even more pointless.

Dagger "What...? My mother would never order that."

…Are you freaking serious? How dense are you?

She was going to cut off your head earlier in plain text. Or did Zidane stupidly never tell you that? Or are you still in your dumb, implausibly naïve denial? Dagger just keeps getting more and more flanderized. (This was the "excuse" I was talking about earlier when commenting on Dagger's "I make no excuses for my mother's behaviour" line, BTW)

Lani "That's enough!" [Slams her axe into the ground] "Give me the pendant! You're trying my patience!"

Zidane "Hmph. What if we refuse?"

Lani "Stubborn fools! Have it your way!"

[Boss Battle vs. Lani. At the end of the battle, she says "You're pretty good".]

Lani "What a drag." "I'll let you guys go for now!"

What about getting back up from Amarant? Who was strangely not here, which makes no sense because he and Lani are supposed to be working together. The game designers probably just didn't want him to join so early because of the party limit, even though that they could have just have the switch playable party members option on the menu, the designers were just too lazy to do what FFVII and VIII did (which had you being able to manually switch party members much earlier than with IX) and X after.

[Zidane heads for the next screen, where he hears a gargant noise, then sees one passing overhead]

Zidane "An untamed gargant, huh? Maybe I can ride it."

[Zidane, opening valves and feeding the gargant to get rides, gradually makes his way through the maze-like Fossil Roo. Eventually, he arrives at the exit, where there's a bright light]

How do Garnet and Vivi ride?

Zidane "This light... There's no Mist here."

[He runs onto the World Map. The words "Outer Continent" appear on the screen. Zidane and company eventually make their way to a town]

End of Chapter 10.

Managed to get this one out quicker than the last chapter, that's good.

I've also heard about the upcoming first look at the IX animation and a possible announcement of a IX Remake, which i will most definitely be commenting on in the next chapter.