Thingfish's Riddle

[Free_Spirit]

^Are you able to view the attachment, or is that just a wtf at my extensive list?



Okay! Here's the reasoning I managed to come up with as I read through this thing during the more tedious parts of my most recent playthrough of FFIX:

Paragon of a mute usurper, I.

The conductor traditionaly does not say anything while conducting an orchestra, and instead lets his hands do the talking. Since the conductor assumes the lead role in an orchestra and is the center of attention, he is usurping the spotlight from the rest of the orchestra.

To Occident and Orient adjunct.

The conductor stands directly in the middle of the orchestra, which would be the adjunct to the east and west sides of the band.

Mine avocation, dearth to pacify,
By rubicund umbrage nigh-on defunct.

The conductor's job, to fill the room with music(pacifying a dearth of sound, so to speak), is basically stopped by the Bomb(the rubicant umbrage, or red offense) that Queen Brahne fires on the Prima Vista. For a long while I thought the rubicant umbrage was actually the Red Rose, since rubicant is not just any red, but specifically a rosy red. That line of thought led me to something in Lindblum, which is the only place in the game directly attacked by the Red Rose. Of course, this was incorrect and only fit this one verse, so I moved onto other "red offenses" such as the Invincible's red eye, the red chocobo, and the red light of Terra, and of course the Bomb enemy.

O, keen watchman to mine own, falter not,
To vouchsafe designs most astronomic.
Misplaced pursuit doth leave much truth forgot,
Affinity only one may mimic.[/

The watchman in this case would be the Ticketmaster in Alexandria. And the astronomic designs he's vouchsafing are the validity of the tickets that are presented to him. He recognizes Vivi's ticket as a fake right away, so he indeed falters not in his duties. I initially was convinced this verse must either refer to the Stellazzio coins or the three shops in the game named after stars(Altair, Vega, and Morning Star). More dead ends and more head scratching on my part, unfortunately.

In anterior regard, quite absent,
Yet present, attending interregnum.
Contrary to self, mine heir apparent,
Abide, thou dost, foremost, and in tandem.

The optional text that leads to the full name of the conductor is not immediately viewable when you first talk to the Ticketmaster, yet it is there, waiting for you to ask him about the play in the right order.

Confused, the vulgar see vengeful death's course,
Heaven's flute scourged, even focus slaughtered.
Yet displace determiner from this source,
A riotous assembly remembered.

This is the big anagram part of the riddle. I'm still not sure how to get this all the way to the answer. I do know if you displace the determiners in the verse(take the "yet" in the third line and switch it with the "the" in the first line) you can make out both Lav Layderce and Conductor. I do not know exactly what to do with all the other letters though. I imagine the riotous assembly is the orchestra. I'm very curious to see what exactly is going on here.

Twixt conscience caught and more relative grounds,
All tears and woe be in our presence past.
At helm of craft, portentous death knell sounds.
Recurrent pause, wilt thou begun at last?

The band plays music in the forest to lift the morale of survivors(getting rid of sadness), and the helm of craft probably refers to the conductor being at the head of the band. The recurrent pause is still iffy though. Perhaps the pause before the band starts playing?

Is't a 'What'? Tis that thou thinkest of me?
Is't a 'Who'? Thrice shalt thou deceived be...

If this has something to do with the anagrams, then I imagine you have to solve an anagram within an anagram to get to the name of the answer.

The two anagrams throughout the puzzle, "If only I had a place to call home" and "gysahl greens" I initially thought referred to Bobby Corwen, then later thought referred to something in Dali, or some character who got displaced throughout the game. The last idea I had was it had something to do with Chocobo's Paradise and Choco's search for home. Now...well I'm clueless as to what they have to do with the conductor of Tantalus's band.


Anyways, there's my best reasoning. I'm sure there's much more to it, but that's what I got out of the riddle.

[Thingfish]

Glad to see your thorough reasoning, Free_Spirit. There are a number of things right and wrong in there, but quite a lot where you have merely scratched the surface, so I hope you'll enjoy this full explanation of the riddle :

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Paragon of a mute usurper, I.
To Occident and Orient adjunct.
Mine avocation, dearth to pacify,
By rubicund umbrage nigh-on defunct.

O, keen watchman to mine own, falter not,
To vouchsafe designs most astronomic.
Misplaced pursuit doth leave much truth forgot,
Affinity only one may mimic.

In anterior regard, quite absent,
Yet present, attending interregnum.
Contrary to self, mine heir apparent,
Abide, thou dost, foremost, and in tandem.

Confused, the vulgar see vengeful death's course,
Heaven's flute scourged, even focus slaughtered.
Yet displace determiner from this source,
A riotous assembly remembered.

Twixt conscience caught and more relative grounds,
All tears and woe be in our presence past.
At helm of craft, portentous death knell sounds.
Recurrent pause, wilt thou begun at last?

Is't a 'What'? Tis that thou thinkest of me?
Is't a 'Who'? Thrice shalt thou deceived be...

====================================================

The answer is indeed Lav Layderce!!

It's not surprising a number of people guessing at the riddle would say "Who!?", since his name is only mentioned at one single point in the game, and that being near the very start when Vivi tries to get a ticket to get into the castle to see the play performed by Zidane and the Tantalus troupe!


Ok, here is the full analysis, line by line :


"Paragon of a mute usurper, I."

Lav Layderce, as an actual character, is not explicitly heard or seen in FFIX at all, although it is clear that he is the Conductor of the Prima Vista band, a character who says a couple of lines just before and after the crash into Evil Forest. Since it is not explicit, in this sense the character Lav Layderce is mute.

The mention of him accompanying/composing the music for the performers of Tantalus causes him to usurp the position of the one man who actually did compose the music for it, and all the previous Final Fantasy games, the superb Nobuo Uematsu. In the phrase 'a mute usurper', the first seven letters are an anagram of Uematsu.

Layderce is the only character given the role of creating the accompaniment/composition of the music, thus he is a paragon of Uematsu's role within the game itself.

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"To Occident and Orient adjunct."

He accompanies the performers of Tantalus who, according to the Ticketmaster, are "from Lindblum, the regency to the West", hence 'Occident'. There may be other connections to the East (such as him being in Alexandria on the airship), but, in mythology, Tantalus was a king from the land of Phrygia in Asia Minor, which is in the East, hence 'Orient' here. (see http://www.pantheon.org/articles/t/tantalus.html )

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"Mine avocation, dearth to pacify,"

Layderce's job is to create music that compliments the stage performance of the Tantalus theatre troupe. This line, in a similar way to the second last line of the riddle, relates to its use in complimenting the tragedy of the play 'I Wanna Be Your Canary', the dearth being to do with the lines Blank speaks :

"Bereft of father! Bereft of mother! Marcus! Thou hast lost even thy love!"

but also having to do with the idea of him opposing the dearth of sound created by silence, defying it through the creation of musical noises.

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"By rubicund umbrage nigh-on defunct."

The main piece of music attributed to him (in any of the articles I have found listing his name) is the 'Interlude/Prima Vista band' theme which is the piece being played on the band's balcony when Garnet drops through the roof and nearly knocks over a couple of band members in her efforts to run away from Zidane into the hold of the ship. In doing so, she causes the performance of the piece to be nearly ruined (nigh-on defunct), although the band get back on track

The phrase 'rubicund umbrage' (literally 'red shade/darkness') refers to a translation of the word 'Garnet' meaning 'A dark to very dark red.' (see http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Garnet )

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"O, keen watchman to mine own, falter not,
To vouchsafe designs most astronomic."


These two lines are directed at the Ticketmaster in Alexandria, who is the only character in the game to mention Lav Layderce's name ("mine own"). I suppose it is a slight use of artistic license, but this is more an idea of what the player of the game wishes Vivi to be allowed to do, when he stammers 'Uh... Umm...' and hands over his ticket. He hopes the Ticketmaster will deign to let him in to, literally, 'see the stars' (i.e. vouchsafe Vivi's own astronomic designs) and be allowed in to see the star actors performing.

The Ticketmaster, however, is shrewd (keen) in that he realises almost immediately that Vivi's ticket to the play is a fake.

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"Misplaced pursuit doth leave much truth forgot,"

If you, the game-player, when playing as Vivi and standing at the ticket booth, do not choose the option 'What kind of troupe is Tantalus?', you will never hear the name Lav Layderce in the rest of the game! Much truth (i.e. the answer to this riddle) will indeed be forgotten!!

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"Affinity only one may mimic."

Again relating back to the affinity between Lav Layderce (one, as in 'one person alone' but also as in 'I'/'me') and Nobuo Uematsu in terms of the game's music.

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"In anterior regard, quite absent,"

This can be taken to mean something like Lav Layderce is not seen / not physically present 'at first glance' or 'on initial inspection', but also relates to the phrase 'anterior regard' being another way of saying 'First View' or 'Prima Vista', i.e. Lav Layderce as an explicit character is absent in the Prima Vista (since it is not made certain, by attributing the name to a specific physical character, that he is the 'Conductor' on board the ship).

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"Yet present, attending interregnum."

He may not explicitly be physically present, yet his music is, in the form of the 'Interlude/Prima Vista band' theme.

The phrase 'attending interregnum' has myriad meanings :

a) It can be interpreted as 'being present in a pause/interlude' (i.e. the piece of music)

b) It can be seen as Layderce's presence and accompaniment of the theatre group 'between kings/kingdoms', i.e. either between the regency of Lindblum in the West and the kingdom of Phrygia, Tantalus' home, in the East; or between Lindblum and the kingdom of Alexandria, where the play 'I Wanna Be Your Canary' is held.

c) It can also be seen as Layderce providing accompaniment at the court of Lindblum, which is a regency. The definition of regency states :

"A person or group selected to govern in place of a monarch or other ruler who is absent, disabled, or still in minority." or "The period during which a regent governs."

Thus, since there is no king in Lindblum (or even since Cid is transformed into a small frog/oglop, i.e. in minority), Lindblum itself can be seen to be an 'interregnum'.

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"Contrary to self, mine heir apparent,
Abide, thou dost. Foremost, and in tandem."

Unlike Lav Layderce himself, his musical piece, the 'Interlude/Prima Vista band' theme, is explicitly present on the ship. He created it, so it is heir to his musical talents.

The second line is a rather cunning intricacy when you consider it in the sense 'Abide, thou dost. Foremost, and in tandem. OST stands for 'Original Soundtrack', and if you look on the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack, Disc 1 (foremost) and Track 11 (in tandem), you will find this piece of music!! Ooh, that was evil of me!!

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"Confused, the vulgar see vengeful death's course,
Heaven's flute scourged, even focus slaughtered."

This verse took a long time to create and is rather complicated to explain. It basically can be interpreted in both a superficial and a complex manner:

The 'vulgar' mentioned is directed, in an entirely non-derogatory way, at those reading this riddle who do not manage to go deeper into its hidden meanings and are thus confused. On the surface of this line, they can read into it the numerous deaths of revenge throughout the game, the defeat of the Wind Shrine guardian (Heaven's flute scourged) or Garnet's loss of concentration (focus).

However, those who look deeper into this will notice that 'Confused, the vulgar see', 'vengeful death's course', 'Heaven's flute scourged' and 'even focus slaughtered' are all actually anagrams of each other!! Furthermore, they are all an anagram of the phrase :

"The vale of genus Cedrus."

At this point, even those who did look deeply into this might be confused, but read on!

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"Yet displace determiner from this source,
A riotous assembly remembered."

In English grammar, a 'determiner' is one of a limited class of noun modifiers that determine the referents of noun phrases. In the sentence 'The vale of genus Cedrus', the determiner is the word 'The'. If you remove (displace) this word from the sentence (source), you are left with :

"Vale of genus Cedrus."

Now then. Another word for 'genus Cedrus' is simply 'cedar', the tree. Another word for 'vale' is 'valley'.

If you put them together, you get :

"Cedar valley"

which is an anagram of 'Lav Layderce'!! : )))


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!!


Hehe...

All of this can be seen as 're-membering' (i.e. putting back together) a 'riotous assembly' (jumble of letters).

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"Whew, now that the tough part is out of the way, the final verse should be easy!", I hear you say...

I might urge you to think again : ))))

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"Twixt conscience caught and more relative grounds,
All tears and woe be in our presence past."


I would be hoping by now that, for those amongst you who look deeper into riddles than most, the rhythm and rhyme of this one might have told you something of its structure. It is, in fact, written in iambic pentameter which, apart from a couple of stresses (trochees, spondees) put in more unusual places, means each line in the riddle is split in to 10 syllables, 5 sets of 2.

This is a technique which, although still used occasionally in more modern times, is most prevalent in the era of William Shakespeare, and these first two lines of the final verse are also Shakespearian in that they relate directly to his most famous tragedy, Hamlet.

The first line is derived from the quote :

"...I'll have grounds more relative than this : the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." (Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act III, Scene I, Lines 607/608/609)

It is designed to make you concentrate on the the item between (twixt) 'conscience caught and more relative grounds', i.e. 'the play.' itself. It is, after all, in the plays performed by Tantalus that Lav Layderce provides his musical accompaniment.



The second line's meanings are as follows :

a) On the surface, it can simply mean 'In the presence of Lav Layderce and his music, all unhappiness can be forgotten/spirited away by the beauty of the music'.

b) However, in a more complex fashion, this line reiterates the connection of this idea to Tantalus and its members.

The beginning of the line is a further reference to Hamlet :

"Like Niobe, all tears" (Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act I, Scene II, Line 149)

and can be explained thus :

"In Greek Mythology, Niobe, after boasting that she had more children than Leto, suffered the killing of her own children by Artemis and Apollo. In her excessive grief, she desired Zeus to turn her into stone. The god complied with her request, and metamorphosed her into stone, which still shed tears in sorrow for the slain children."

Niobe, whose name can also be seen in the riddle as an anagram in the line :

"All tears and woe be in our presence past"

was, in fact, the daughter of the real-life Phrygian King, Tantalus, and was, as explained above, turned to stone.

Blank, metaphorically a 'son of Tantalus', was also turned to stone in the petrification of the Evil Forest.


It seems to me that the makers of Final Fantasy IX had been thinking VERY deeply about the history that surrounds every small part of it!!


Moreover, both the first two lines of this verse can be related to the section immediately after the escape from the Evil Forest when the party are sitting around their campfire. They are sitting on grounds still near to the Forest (relative in terms of location). Between (twixt) the time Zidane had caught the World Map thrown by Blank (conscience as in knowledge of the surrounding area) and the party arriving at the campfire spot, all their tears for Blank have been cried out (and are thus now in the past).

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"At helm of craft, portentous death knell sounds."


'At helm of craft' can by explained thus :

a) The directing/conducting of Lav Layderce's craft (music),
b) Being at the height of his craft (i.e. accompanying the 'star performers' of Tantalus)
c) Performing in the two places in Gaia which are the height of the craft of construction, Lindblum and Alexandria.
d) In a position of importance on the craft, the Prima Vista.

'At helm' is an anagram of 'Hamlet' from which references in the previous two lines are taken.

'Portentous death knell sounds' is to do with the tragic music by Layderce performed during the play 'I Wanna Be Your Canary' precursing the accidental death of Cornelia on Marcus' sword and then Marcus' own death. It may also be seen as being portentous for Blank's petrification.

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"Recurrent pause, wilt thou begun at last?"


The final line is interpreted as follows :

a) Blank (pause) recurs (returns/comes back, in this case from petrification after Baku and the others use the SuperSoft on him). The rest of the question is more indirectly "Will he be revived by the end of the game?"

b) Another term for a pause is an Interlude, which, again, is the name of the piece of music recurrently attributed to Lav Layderce. The question can be more like "Will the Interlude (or indeed any other Layderce piece) be played again at the end of the game?" Since the Play is performed again at the end, Layderce's accompaniment is therefore also repeated.

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"Is't a 'What'? Tis that thou thinkest of me?
Is't a 'Who'? Thrice shalt thou deceived be..."


Both lines are simple red herrings. I can't really think of much regarding the answer that they refer to : )) I suppose 'Thrice' could emphasise the amount of syllables in the name of the answer, thus relating to the syllable section earlier in the riddle, but apart from that, this is just an exercise in diversion. It worked, by the way

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Extras :


In bold letters is the quote "If only I had a place to call home."

This is from the Observatory section with Zidane talking to Garland. He then realises : "My brothers in Tantalus [...] My home is with them in Gaia!"

This quote is added merely to give emphasis on Lav Layderce's place being with (accompanying) his Tantalus brothers.

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In italics, the following letters can be found :

a r e n e s g s y g l h

This is an anagram of 'Gysahl Greens'. This was put in mainly as a red herring but also to reinforce the alliterative nature of the answer (Lav Layderce) and that the answer is someone that accompanies members of Tantalus, just as Choco, who is called by using the Greens, does.

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There you have it! I hope you enjoyed it, not only the riddle but my descriptions of all the meanings held within it. And I hope it can inspire others to have a go at creating very intricate riddles which can hopefully teach people something at the same time as furthering their enjoyment of the game!

[Sir Bahamut]

Well...

I'm not going to say I'm not dissapointed that the answer was finally revealed due to method of elimination. However, I am quite pleasantly surprised that you(Free_Spirit) were too, and so decided to try and reason it out anyway. I commend you for that, at least. I really didn't expect that, so in my dissapointment I just read through the breakdown, not expecting you to react like that.

Based on that, I can say a few things. Firstly, your reasoning now did cover some aspects of the analysis, although as you suspected, a lot of the most complext stuff was left. I could have contributed more (for instance, I already deduced earlier that the "Twixt conscience caught and more relative grounds" hinted towards the Tantalus play being significant, something you missed), but I have to agree with Thingfish; most of it is far too complex to ever be realistically deduced by logic. I certainly would not have the time for it, due to school and all.

Then I must say to Thingfish, that you clearly weren't joking when you said it was extremely complex. It was as much, if not more, complex than I had imagined, and I had pretty wild thoughts! You are certainly the best at extremely obscure, complex riddles. I don't think any later riddle can be more complex than this (if it were, there'd be no pointtrying to work it out, it'd merely be a study in complexity!).

Again, I commend you again, Free_Spirit, for being so noble as to not want to see the breakdown. I very much respect that.

[Thingfish]

Thanks, Sir.B. Glad you enjoyed the complexity. I suppose it was better for the riddle answer to have been given than for me to have revealed it. The fact the complexity was not worked out is still quite satisfying for all

Feel free to discuss the notions behind each section and your thoughts on them!

[Sir Bahamut]

I'll comment more later, but for now, I think you must agree that some of those anagrams were just a tad too obscure (ie. the uematsu being found in the first 7 letters of "a mute usurper". Some of those weird historical connections might have been deduced through Google, but not stuff like that =P

[Shauna]

Wow. Congrats Free_Spirit. *claps* I haven't really been trying to solve this riddle, Riddles aren't my thing, but I've been following the thread... That really was a complex riddle Thingfish... I congratulate you too, for making such a riddle!

[Sain Cai]

^Are you able to view the attachment, or is that just a wtf at my extensive list?

Actaully more of the obscurity of the answer, but I guess I can give ya a WTF

[nik0tine]

Holy [img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img]. It's finally done? Thingfish deserves an award or something for making this riddle.

[Thingfish]

I'll comment more later, but for now, I think you must agree that some of those anagrams were just a tad too obscure (ie. the uematsu being found in the first 7 letters of "a mute usurper". Some of those weird historical connections might have been deduced through Google, but not stuff like that =P

I don't think the 'Uematsu' anagram was at all obscure compared to the one that actually gave the answer It was more background detail and not something I actually thought might be able to help solve the riddle

Holy [img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img]. It's finally done? Thingfish deserves an award or something for making this riddle.

Thanks, nik! I gladly accept the Golden Chocobo for this riddle!

[Jiro]

.... damn! oh well. congrats. that was a hell of a riddle. luckily Free was good enough to guess before we all died. Still, i'm going to have to change the fact that i'm 95% of gamers. But it's not my fault. No disk 1! i knew it was there. i knew it. i'll stop rambling now

[Llanowar]

HOLY [img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img][img]/xxx.gif[/img]. I really Can't believe that I overlooked him ALL THIS TIME. I'm back Thingfish. Classes took up SO much time this semester I havent had much time, but Its time to get back to some enjoyable things for a few weeks be4 its back to the old grind LMFAO. As for those of you who still Remember poor old me HELLO. And Sir B. NICE TO SEE YOU MAN!!!

[Thingfish]

Everyone overlooked him, Llanny It's just unfortunately impossible to have a complete list of all FFIX characters without his name

It seems the divertionary tactics used in the riddle kept everyone on the wrong track for ages, though. Worked quite well!

[Llanowar]

I'm in the midst of writing a riddle Thingfish Your turn to try and solve MINE.

Check the OTHER riddle thread for it sometime later today.

[Lenna]

Thanks for emailing me Gav, things have been really hectic lately as you already know. Well done to Free_Spirit, nice to see someone managed to get it. Such a shame though :P now I have nothing to do when I finish organising all my files onto my brand new laptop ;D

Could have been so useful too ;_;.

Anyway, well done again but I must dash, too many things to do.

Keep in touch Gav! you know where to find me

[Old Manus]

For the record, it was I who told Free Spirit the answer and therefore I win