Hilgigars' Siren Flute

[SeeDRankLou]

Ok, to understand why the Fairy Flute is so difficult to steal, you must first understand how the stealing system works in FFIX.

First, every enemy has four slots from which to steal. They don't necessarily have to have four items to steal though. Each item to steal is placed in one of these four slots. Sometimes, even when there are not four items to steal, an item is placed in the fourth slot. When Zidane goes to steal, there is a chance that Zidane will successfully steal. This is based on several things, but a higher Spirit stat will up the chances of a successful steal. This, however, is only the first step. After the games says Zidane can steal, the game then tries to steal from each slot.

You can always steal from slot 1.
You have a 1/4 chance to steal from slot 2.
You have a 1/16 chance to steal from slot 3.
You have a 1/256 chance to steal from slot 4.

The game starts with the 4th slot and tries to steal from it. If the steal is successful then you get the item. If not then it tries from the 3rd slot, and if it is successful then you get the item....etc etc. If you get to the first slot then you will steal from the first slot no matter what. You can successfully steal from a slot that is empty also, which nets you no item (obviously). The Fairy Flute has been placed in Hilgigars' fourth slot for stealing. This means, that when Zidanes steals, and steals successfully, that there is only a 0.39% chance that you will be able to steal from slot 4.

There are three things to do about this.

1. Up the Spirit stat, this will raise Zidane's chance for a successful steal, so that you have more of a chance to actually steal, but this becomes irrelevant when you.....
2. Equip the Bandit ability. This makes it so that when Zidane steals, he always successfully steals, which means you skip the whole process of seeing if he can steal and go straight to trying to steal from each slot.
3. Equip the Master Thief ability. This is what actually helps. This gives slots 3 and 4 a 1/8 chance for a successful steal, and ignores the empty slots in this process, which makes stealing much more efficient.

Unfortunately, option 3 is not an option at this point in the game. So you are stuck with just having to keep trying. I am unaware if a higher Spirit stat also raises the chance for each slot to be picked, but it might. In my experience, having a high Spirit stat has allowed me to steal the Fairy Flute from Hilgigars in about 35 minutes of trying as opposed to an hour of trying and giving up with a lower Spirit stat. But that could be just the luck of the situation, I'm not sure.

So, long story short, definately equip the Bandit ability, and making Zidane's Spirit as high as possible with equipment doesn't really seem to hurt. Just keep your party in Float status and keep trying. Hope that helps.

Edit: And as far as I know, Detect has no impact on stealing anything.