Sorceress Adel

[Forsaken Lover]

In many fiction there is at least one or two characters that captured your interest but they never really got enough focus in the story.

Adel is one of those characters for me.

I mean, despite her having almost no dialogue in the game, we get a reasonable amount of information about who she was. She was the ruler of Esthar, she made Lunatic Pandora, she was searching for young girls to take over once she was dead...

Not Earth-shattering character development but hey, it's something. This is FFVIII - you take what you can get.

But what really captured me and made me interested in Adel wasn't so much her personality. It was her presence. FFVIII didn't exactly excel in storytelling but one of the things I think the game did right was impressing upon us the formidability of Adel. For one thing there is the flashbacks of Esthar under her brutal rule. Secondly the current fear of Sorceresses in the FFVIII world was caused by her. Third, the absolute panic at Rinoa releasing her was amazing.

It's usually the all-powerful and unimaginably destructive evil who is captured and later freed to the horror of the helpless onlookers.

Finally,, this line from Odine always stuck out very clearly to me:
Odine: Sorceress Adel is probably in ze process of awakening inside of Lunatic Pandora.
Ultimecia will want to possess Adel, if Adel wakes up. Zat vill be a horrible event. Adel iz a horrible sorceress. If Adel's consciousness wins over Ultimecia, Adel will first destroy this era.

That's a very fascinating idea I thought. Edea and Rinoa, when possessed by Ultimecia, were her powerless pawns. But here is the suggestion, however minor, that Adel could actually prove powerful enough to throw off the control.

oh and then there is this tidbit if you Scan her:

Esthar's ruler before Laguna and company confined her. Released by Ultimecia, and regaining strength.

So when you fought Adel she wasn't even at her strongest. The party only defeated her because she was still feeling the effects of being frozen all this time.

And finally, no matter what anyone says, looks are important.


Yeah, I think the 15 foot tall chick who could probably pick you up and tear you in half is more intimidating than say a chick with hair horn things.

I guess what I'm trying to say is Adel, even with her rather minor presence in this game, impressed me more than Ultimecia ever did.

What do you all think?

[Vyk]

I'm not sure what they expected from Ultimecia. You only ever meet her long enough for her to give some lame speech and then you beat her. She meddles a lot, but she seems to give the impression she's just riding on the coat-tails of others. She may be smart'ish and resourceful, but I never considered her all that intimidating. Adel definitely was intimidating. Ultimecia was a nuisance that got out of hand. Adel was a legitimate threat through and through. So I'm right there with you

[Wolf Kanno]

I agree, I never really felt that Ultimecia was all that impressive in her game (she's been winning me over in Dissidia) and I honestly felt the whole "time traveling witch from the future using mind control to change the past" idea was utterly ridiculous and kind of kills any ability for me to take the story seriously. Which is kind of sad when you put that up against how ridiculous FFIV and V's stories and villains were.

I would have been happier having Adel controlling Edea and make her a carbon copy of Zemus cause at least Adel was more relevant to the plot and had better presence, so she would have been more accepted than Zemus ever was. I also was more curious about her cause the game tells you enough that she is an interesting element in the story. Unlike Ultimecia whose character is pretty generic "mustache twisting" evil and having to rely on silly speculation and double meanings about her dialogue to create some faux backstory that isn't canonically true and mostly dis-proven in another game.

[Forsaken Lover]

Yeah, Adel controlling Edea is a really neat suggestion. On another forum I post on someone suggested the same thing and said Adel was just doing it all to get herself free.

This all works because it makes the Laguna flashbacks more relevant. We see in the past how one group of heroes managed to defeat an evil tyrant while our current group of heroes is being manipulated into freeing that same evil tyrant.

Adel is freed and our two groups of good guys converge to plan how they will finally stop the menace that has threatened them both.

Of course some additions are required. An actual boss fight with Adel in the past for one.

[Vyk]

It'd make for an interesting prequel at least. I don't recall the part about Laguna and company sealing her. But I'd be interested in that story

[Depression Moon]

How do you know that it's a she?

[Vyk]

Good point, but I don't recall them ever making allusions to male sorceresses (sorcerers). I'm pretty sure they're all female, for some reason. She's just maybe a female Yeti rather than a female human :P

[Hollycat]

Whats funny is that adel is a sorcereSS and is called she, but adel is obviously male, or SE wouldnt have gotten away with leaving "her" bare chested. I really thought that it would have been an amazing ending if adel had vanished instead of died, and then when ultimacia dies, she all of the sudden floats upwards and starts growing and glowing and her eyes turn red, and it turned out Adle had taken control of Ultemecias dead body and was now a villian comparable to kefka, being able to move time and having the power of adel and ultimacea and greiver. bwahahahahaha! It would have been the most amazing thing ever, even better than after you beat kuja and a god appears to kill you.

[Forsaken Lover]

She's not bare chested. That is armor she's wearing.

[Foo]

She's not bare chested. That is armor she's wearing.

I really hate to spark this debate, its been done, but no she's not. "She" is mostly shirtless and buffer than Brock Samson.



Either way though, it only adds to the fill-in-the-blank gaps in her story that you're sort of forced to fill in with your own imagination. I like that. I've never taken issue with this element of the story, although you're right: one can see how it would have been nice if this character was developed a little bit more.

However, the unexplained nature of Adel really helps create that looming, formidable presence. "She" is huge; her people feared her so much that they imprisoned her in space!

[Forsaken Lover]

...there was a debate? I'm pretty sure everyone knows Adel is a female.

[Vyk]

I believe he meant the idea of her being shirtless or wearing armor :}

[Foo]

I believe he meant the idea of her being shirtless or wearing armor :}

Yes, although you could certainly make a case for Adel looking like a dude. "She" has almost no feminine features. Everyone reveres Adel as a "she" and nobody asks any questions.

I would expect at least a stupid one-liner from Zell about this.

[Forsaken Lover]

Well I can't see all that good but looking at the picture, that sure doesn't look like any exposed chest I've ever seen. Male or female.

EDIT:
This is a screen from the flashback of when Laguna imprisoned Adel. Presumably she's wearing the same clothes coming out as she was wearing when going in.


As you can see, it's a very skimpy outfit, similar to Yunalesca's kinda. But it covers her nipples. That is the key thing when it comes to rating and censorship. Show as much of the breast as you want, as long as you keep the nipple covered.

[Hollycat]

but during the battle i dont think she does