Snow (Spoilers)

[ShineTheLion]

Okay so, let's talk about Snow in XIII-2.

Spoilers blah blah blah

Snow, my least favorite jerkface in the FF13 main cast, has returned to reclaim his role as lamey pants extraordinare. I thought he'd learned his lesson about running into a fight without thinking, but clearly he has not. I feel so awful for poor Serah because just after he supported her so strongly when no one else did and proposed to her, he runs off to go find Lightning on his own. I don't know about the rest of you, but in my relationship experience, running off on your partner for an undetermined period on your own without telling them where you're going or staying in touch at all is a pretty harsh move and can be a relationship deal-breaker. Add this to the fact that Snow is gone for over a year without any word from him and I think it's about time Serah reconsider her engagement to this "chocobo feather" man. Noel takes better care of Serah than Snow does at this point, and Noel doesn't even seem interested. He's the kind of guy who respect's someone's arrangements, even if those arrangements are with a wet noodle like Snow.

Okay, but all my nasty opinions of Snow aside, here's what I mostly want to talk about in this post (though you are welcome to complain about Snow too, I'd love to hear it, lol).

How does Snow travel through time? And how does he even know to start looking in different time periods for Lightning? No one believed Serah that Lightning had survived the Cocoon incident and Serah herself, even though she believed her sister was still alive, had no idea she was in another time/dimension when Noel first showed up to tell her that. So what's with Snow not only knowing to go looking through time for her, but also having the ability to do so? They made it clear that only those chosen by the goddess Etro can enter and travel through the gates, so how is Snow doing this? Also, why is he a L'cie again? That was never explained. I'm guessing this is all going to be touched on in the Snow episode via DLC that is being planned, but really it's yet another thing that should have been explained during the actual game and not held out of our reaches until we surrender over more dough. Ugg, Sqare-Enix has really blown it for me this time.

What do you guys think about Snow and all this?

[Del Murder]

I agree with you and have the same questions. I thought Snow would show up in more timelines but he was just in the one. (SPOILER)He wasn't even in the ending at all! Was Serah just going to happliy go live in 500AF without him? If you read some of the Fragment logs you do learn more about his journey but it's mostly lame and doesn't really settle anything. The gaps in this story are cavernous and Snow's most of all (actually Sazh is worse (SPOILER)WTF how did you randomly get to 500AF with your boy all of a sudden?). Also, Serah doesn't seem to care as much about him as she does Lightning. I love my brothers and all, but if both them and my fiance were missing my search would be for her first, sorry bros. I never liked the two of them as a couple and the treatment of their relationship in this game was just plain awful.

The only cool thing about Snow was that he joined you as a guest in that world, giving you a 4-man party for the first time in FF in ages.

[Sephex]

Reasons like this is why I stated in my review that I liked the story as a whole in a big picture sort of terms, but the details were a huge problem. They should have made Snow a little more serious a world weary. I mean, his appearance was begging for that type of character.

[Carl the Llama]

I don't know why everyone hates Snow for leaving Serah back in 003 AF, there are so many possibilities the mind positively boggles, let me start off with a few of them: (SPOILER)First off, you call him lamey pants for doing something for his Fiancé in going to look for her sister who is obviously important to her, he said he had a vision himself, maybe he saw what would happen had he not left to go looking for Light and that he was fighting to save the world, now an ordinary guy has no chance of being able to take on all the mobs of the world out there without a little power boost, l'Cie is the only way he knows about, and its not like he has Serah's innate magical ability, if he wants to fight to protect the people he loves he needs to be the best he can be and so he turns himself into a l'Cie (which will no doubt be explained how he did this in future DLC) as to how several people got carted about in history (Sazh and his boy, and hundreds of other people throughout the game) have you guys not been paying attention to the major plot device that is the paradox system? who is to say that Sazh, Snow, Dajh and all the buttloads of other people throughout the game have not been swallowed up in a paradox and taken into the future, maybe in future dlc there will be a way for Noel to travel through time and hand pick people and bring them into the future of his choice... say Academy 500 AF? after all it is called Final Fantasy.

As to the whole, "y u no write me" from Serah's PoV, he got carted into the future... now I know Mog Mail is supposedly awesome, but I doubt they can send letters from the future into the past

[ShineTheLion]

KaiserDragon, I think it's funny that you chide others for not paying attention. If you paid attention during the ending you'd have known that spoiler the reason the gates disappeared is that supposedly "the final paradox was resolved". At least, that's what Mog says. If Sahz and all those other people were a time paradox, they'd have disappeared and gone back to their own time, or the gates would still be in tact.

I think what we are suckers if we think that this game's storyline can be carried on "possibilities" rather than a tight and well-written plot from its creaters. There are so many holes in the plot, that your mind seems to do the writers' jobs for them. Also, I agree with those who say Snow and Serah's relationship was treated horribly in this game. Snow was really supportive to Serah in the first game, but he really blows her off in the sequel. So what if he's trying to do something good by helping to find her sister? Why does he have so little faith in her that she can't be a part of that? Why does he think he's so capable that he couldn't at least come back for help once he established his target/enemy in the future? All the reasons Noel hates him are justified. He is a selfish dude that couldn't care less for Serah's feelings, and I hate that. As meaningful as their engagement was in the first game and his entire journey to save her, I feel awful that she's basically baggage to him in this game. I just agree entirely with Del Murder, that their relationship sort of just fell apart in this game, in a really lame and depressing way.

Now that you mention mog, KaiserDragon, that's one other thing I was ticked about. They didn't resolve his plot either. Never explained why he was there, why he was basically the keeper of time. The datalag (or maybe a fragment log, i dont remember) says his real body is trapped inside the clock that the toy mog carries. I hope something comes of this in DLC, because none of Mog's involvement with this story made sense to me.

Here we go again with all this talk of DLC, when Square should have just given us a completed game to begin with. Ugg, it really boils my potatoes. Lol.

[Carl the Llama]

KaiserDragon, I think it's funny that you chide others for not paying attention. If you paid attention during the ending you'd have known that spoiler the reason the gates disappeared is that supposedly "the final paradox was resolved". At least, that's what Mog says. If Sahz and all those other people were a time paradox, they'd have disappeared and gone back to their own time, or the gates would still be in tact.

First off, I said it was a possibility, and now I know the truth (at least the truth of how Snow can get carted about through history), You remember (SPOILER)he is branded again right? will in a Paradox Ending (name Hope is the Future) Paradox Ending major spoilerAlyssa is revealed to be in league with Caius, and the artefact she gave over was in fact one that Caius gave to her so Serah and Noel would get trapped and he could pick them off one at a time, you see Snow (cheesy grin) run in with a bunch of soldiers telling Serah not to take the artefact as its a boobie trap they arrest Alyssa and Hope demands to know what happened, Snow explains, cut scene to the front of the academy, you see Snow with his Shiva bike and Noel looks to be worshiping the bike (XD) and Snow tells Hope that he is due to be assassinated in 3 days time and tells Noel to keep Hope safe as "Hope is the Future" then he tells Noel that he is going to take Serah with him to stop Caius once and for all and they fly on Snows bike off into the sunset and they speed up traveling through time on Shiva, which is apparently how he can travel through time so yeah, a very cheesy ending but it made me lol... so far its my favourite paradox ending lol

I think what we are suckers if we think that this game's storyline can be carried on "possibilities" rather than a tight and well-written plot from its creaters. There are so many holes in the plot, that your mind seems to do the writers' jobs for them. Also, I agree with those who say Snow and Serah's relationship was treated horribly in this game. Snow was really supportive to Serah in the first game, but he really blows her off in the sequel. So what if he's trying to do something good by helping to find her sister? Why does he have so little faith in her that she can't be a part of that? Why does he think he's so capable that he couldn't at least come back for help once he established his target/enemy in the future? All the reasons Noel hates him are justified. He is a selfish dude that couldn't care less for Serah's feelings, and I hate that. As meaningful as their engagement was in the first game and his entire journey to save her, I feel awful that she's basically baggage to him in this game. I just agree entirely with Del Murder, that their relationship sort of just fell apart in this game, in a really lame and depressing way.

All of this is addressed within the non DLC stuff the game has to offer, see the above spoiler if you don't mind having it spoiled for you.

Now that you mention mog, KaiserDragon, that's one other thing I was ticked about. They didn't resolve his plot either. Never explained why he was there, why he was basically the keeper of time. The datalag (or maybe a fragment log, i dont remember) says his real body is trapped inside the clock that the toy mog carries. I hope something comes of this in DLC, because none of Mog's involvement with this story made sense to me.

Now I don't know if you are talking about the events in Oerba (I'm still in the middle of gathering all the fragments, need 30 more till I have all 160) but there is some back story for mog there, not sure if it tells his entire back story or it just tells you what you just told me... but suffice to say if you have no idea what I am talking about then I might suggest you complete the game then go fill out the rest of the story before you start bashing the game for what it doesn't have, as its clear you haven't seen the Paradox ending that I mentioned above.

Here we go again with all this talk of DLC, when Square should have just given us a completed game to begin with. Ugg, it really boils my potatoes. Lol.

As much as I would love for every company not to charge and just give us everything the game has and ever will have to offer without DLC, it doesn't make it happen, they want to make money and I (and apparently thousands of other people out there) are more then willing (I personally love the DLC) to pay extra for it, sure its awesome having Light in my party but it has no baring on the story to have her here, and costumes are bound to be purely adornment items also having nor effect on the game either.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I want to know is which fal'Cie (SPOILER)branded him. Also, why is that none of the Pulse fal'Cie made an appearance in FFXIII-2? I know that humans are moving away from relying on fal'Cie but you'd think they'd run into some of the Pulsian ones at some point, even if it was just one maintaining some aspect of the planet as they are wont to do.

Seems like Snow's story will most likely be resolved in those "secret stories" that have been hinted at for DLC. :/

[ShineTheLion]

KaiserDragon, I did see the Paradox Ending involving Snow, but I don't remember it explaining why or how he time traveled. Maybe the details were in there somewhere, but I found it far too cheesy to really care. In fact, more and more I'm beginning to not care about any of the plot holes in this game because I realize they are never going to patch them all up, the game is a failed and incomplete attempt at a story, and I should just move on and wait for the next FF. I really enjoyed playing 13-2, but I can't say the story was anything short of cliche. In fact, they didn't even handle time travel in a very coherent way. As much as I've been cranky over all the things they seemed to just fumble through in the writing, I'm realizing more each day that this game is designed to suck more money for a low budget. With that, we get a low budget story that doesn't really rival any previous FF game. Oh well. It has it's brilliant moments, but all in all does not end with a satisfying closure, and nearly half the important parts of the story don't hold up without an explanation (which in most cases, isn't given). The Paradox Endings are a joke, like literally... some of them are meant to be silly, and the others are just too thrown together and godawful to even take seriously. I think it's unfair for them to even call them "endings", as every single one of them is inconclusive. I'm just going to take this game as a fun playing experience with some cool concepts and character development, and leave it alone. If they release a legit DLC with a better ending, that's the only thing that's going to catch my attention, but at this rate I'm more interested in the plot of the new Resident Evil game I picked up than 13-2, and that's pretty a pretty harsh truth to me.

[Carl the Llama]

Meh, there is no point trying to convince you otherwise, many people love this game, (just see the reviews for that) and I find myself one of them, I don't really care about every single plot hole, I like playing games to have fun not sit there and poke holes through it, and while you may find the paradox endings a joke I think they are great (well maybe not all of them but for entertainment value they were worth hunting them down imo) as I see from your comment to BoB about watching them on youtube I can obviously see you don't agree, so I won't bother to try and convince you otherwise, lets just leave it at the fact that you don't like Snow and I do, sure he can be a jerk sometimes but a likeable jerk none the less lol.

If they never released the information with a DLC but rather through Ultimania no one would be complaining, so I find myself more then happy to play the game with added DLC, at least this way I get to experience it first hand rather then hearing about it on some obscure channel of the internet.

Those of you who do not want to pay for the DLC can always go watch it on YouTube

[Loony BoB]

I notice a lot of people are putting a pretty heavy debate over certain things in this thread that are to do with paradoxes and time travel. Fun fact for everyone: Time travel is one big plot hole. Time travel - particularly involving going backwards in time (as Noel did, and then Serah did later after she had travelled to the future) - is a paradox. I'm not using 'paradox' as in the various occurances in FFXIII-2, I'm using the word paradox as it is in the dictionary. A paradox, last I checked, is an impossibility. It simply will never make sense - it can't make sense. So if you guys are trying to make sense of FFXIII-2's time traveling people, particularly those that go back in time, then I would say that you are destined to find flaws over and over and you should not be criticising the game for having them. If you play a game involving people going back in time, then this is what you get. Plot holes, everywhere. It's just the way of things.

Why didn't he write? He was in the future. Why did he travel there? To save the ones he loved. Why did he leave Serah? He promised he'd get Lightning back. These are simple questions with simple answers. How did he travel there? He used the gates. It was clearly stated in the game that some gates will not accept just anyone going into them, but it was also clear by Snow's intentions that he had a fair idea of what the gates were for, and had used them before, too. Lightning must have told him how to do it and that was that. People can speak in dreams in this world. It is a game with the word 'Fantasy' in the title. I wouldn't pick it apart too much because in fantasy worlds, you tend to need to take things at face value. Especially involving time travel!