Originally Posted by Skyblade
Here here! I was wondering when someone would get to this arguement. You may be quite right. I may be looking too much into the game. But I like my games to make sense, and this theory was the one that fit all the facts to me.
As to it just being a joke from the creators, I would think that, if it were not for the fact that Ritz mentions them. In the Mortal Snow mission, when Ritz joins your clan, she talks about them, and about how they were throwing snowballs at passing people. She says "This snowball fight is over!" (a quote from Mr. Leslaie, in fact) and later "I'm not saying that those were Lyle, Colin, and Guinness, but..." or something to that effect. My theory is that those three monsters were based off of Lyle, Colin, and Guinness, but were not actually the three bullies from St. Ivalice. Since that fits my theory, I'm going with that over the idea that it is a joke by the creators (although I actually think it's both). If those three monsters were Lyle, Colin, and Guinness, then I think they should have remembered St. Ivalice. After all, they would have been part of Mewt's wish. Otherwise, they wouldn't have kept the same names. Montblanc, Ezel, Babus, Shara... All of them could be people from the real world with no memories, they were brought through just because the world changed, and they needed to go somewhere, but Ritz, Doned, Cid, Mewt, and Marche were all brought through with their memories intact. Lyle, Colin, and Guinness should have been brought that way too. You can't argue that they don't remember because they were changed, because everyone changed, as I already pointed out. Ritz's hair became red, Doned's illness got better... So the bullies became monsters. I don't believe that would change the fact that they would remember St. Ivalice. If those three were not just a joke by the creators, then they could become the crux of the entire arguement, as they are the only people besides the main five who are brought through directly. No one else kept the same name when they went from St. Ivalice to Ivalice. Since the bullies did, that means that they were brought through "directly" as well, so they should have retained their memories. If my theory is correct, they played a big enough role in Mewt's mind that they manifested as monsters in Ivalice, but they are still seperate from the bullies in St. Ivalice. They kept their names because Mewt was afraid of them. Three random bullies would have been nothing to Mewt, especially when he was Prince Mewt, but Lyle, Colin, and Guinness would still invoke fear in his heart, because of all that he had suffered at their hands. By keeping their names, they keep the significance Mewt placed on them. Without the names, they would have been meaningless, just random zombies attacking travellers. Ritz recognized the zombies as Lyle, Colin, and Guinness, and I think she suspected why they were there. She was the one who protected Mewt from them in the real world, and she stood up to them again in Ivalice.
Oh, and one more thing: "Mortal Snow", the mission where you get Ritz, is not the only mission in which you face the three bullies as undead. I do not remember the name of the other mission now, but next time I play through the game I will be sure to report it. Anyway, in the other mission (one that occurs before Mewt leaves Ivalice, and Ritz does not participate in it), you defeat Lyle, Colin, and Guinness in their undead forms. But when Mewt left, they returned. Why? I think that it is probably a result of Mewt's actions. A ghost of Remedi returned when Mewt left as well. Mewt's leaving (without destroying the world, as per my theory) had a similar effect as Mewt's arrival (Lutia Pass isn't usually that snow filled [75% of the missions you fight there have no snow], but more "Snow in Lutia" type missions came up when Mewt left, because his departure was similar to his arrival). Things that were important to him came back to the world, even though they were already destroyed. So the three that you fight in "Mortal Snow" were actually not based off of Lyle, Colin, and Guinness, but rather off of the three monsters with those names that you faced earlier, and that those three were the ones that were actually based off of the bullies from the real world. Similarly, the ghost of Remedi was based off of Queen Remedi, who in turn was based off of Remedi from the real world. This is why Babus was able to recognize that the ghost of Remedi was not the real Queen. Just like Mewt and Cid were eventually able to tell that Queen Remedi was not really Mewt's mom. This is probably also why Ritz was unsure that the three zombies were Lyle, Colin, and Guinness. They were similar, but they were not the same. The real Lyle, Colin, and Guinness never left St. Ivalice. When Mewt went to Ivalice, undead were formed from a combination of Mewt's feelings and the three bullies' personalities. Queen Remedi, on the other hand, was not formed by mixing the real Remedi (Mewt's mom. We never actually get told that Remedi is her name, but I think that it's a safe assumption) with how Mewt remembered her, or how he wished her to be. The real Remedi was dead. Queen Remedi in Ivalice was based purely on Mewt's thoughts about his mother. The Lyle, Colin, and Guinness that you fight in "Mortal Snow" are more dangerous and powerful than the original three undead, because they were formed by mixing the original three undead with Mewt's feelings about Lyle, Colin, and Guinness. So three quarters of those monsters were Mewt's thoughts, and the other quarter was based off of the original people. The ghost of Remedi was half Queen Remedi, and half Mewt's thoughts on Remedi (and Mewt's thoughts about Queen Remedi changed a lot when he left). I think this is how the people in Ivalice who are based on people in St. Ivalice came to be, by combining the person's actual personality with what Mewt thought about them, and changing them to fit the world. That is why none of them remember St. Ivalice, because they were never in St. Ivalice. They came into existance at the same time Ivalice did, and they vanished with it.
...I think I should stop typing before my fingers fall off...
Your turn. :D