You could say there's a tendency in FFVIII for things to repeat themselves, yes.Celes Laguna demonstrated the will to see his little elleone, but fate played the cards against him so many times. It seems that every time that Laguna managed to track down elle, he was marginally late. By the time Squall meets Laguna many years have past and we see a bit of a mixed reaction. Elle is happy to see Laguna, while Squall can only see the man as the father he never had. Squall and Laguna do not connect on the personal level, but in nature they connect absolutely. The Mooba blood scene, the shumis, ragnarok, the sorceress wars and the repeated love.. i.e. Squall and Rinoa complete the chain of Laguna and Julia.. demonstrate the cyclical nature of events.
Gah... must we compare this with other FF's again?Although pheonix somehow manages to maintain that these events are all due to a poorly written plot, one can see that these works would have been impossible on a conscious level. The relationship between Tidus and Jecht was overt, forced and obvious...
Mind you that I would CERTAINLY understand Squall if he would reject Laguna as his father consciously. As I said, both Squall and Laguna hurt others and themselves. Laguna by bonding to easy with others (forgetting his old bonds) while Squall hardly makes any bonds with others at all, holding on to being a SeeD.FF8 capture the fallen son theme perfectly, and in an ironical twist it is the son who unwittingly rejects his father not by ignoring him, but by forsaking him on account of his personality. Laguna represents the traits that Squall despises and if Squall has a conscious knowledge of who his father actually is (it is debatable) Squall chooses on his own instincts, not to embrace Laguna.
I really doubt the makers of FF have let themselves be inspired by Plato. Genesis, yes. After all, with names as Garden, Eden, and such, it's clear they're going for a theme. but Plato... nah...One could say that this is a condition of teenage attitude (rejecting ones parents....yes that fits nicely) OR one could say that it is an extension of the Platonic forms... The more equal things become the less equal they actually are, and it seems that Laguna and Squall are very equal in many ways, yet they seem so very distant.
I would say Rinoa calls herself like that because of a bad relation with her father. And I think it's been shown that Laguna cannot be Rinoa's father.By the way.... Have you ever wondered why its Rinoa Heartly and not Caraway? Perhaps Julia used her sir name on the birth certificate for Rinoa...since she did not know Lagunas sir name.
[quote] In a way though, you could say that Rinoa acts a lot like Laguna, while Squall seems to be much more akin to Caraway then Laguna. Oidipous and Elektra anyone? (no, no, not saying the makers read Sophokles or something, just a general thing that often seems to come back in lots of cultures. And Squall should fall for someone like RAINE for a proper Oidipous thingie. And I'm rambling and putting way too much stuff between parentheses)
*burns a few candles in front of the altar of the God of Not Getting Into FFVII VS FFVIII debates*At least in ff8 we can debate mad things like this, all I see in the other FF forums is descriptions and argument.
(except for cases like Sephiroth the king could beat shinobi in an arm-wrestle)
I'm agnostic, but.... just for this case I'll make an exception.
