Door of Souls FAQ #1
1. In an effort to make up for the lack of a timely update for Door of Souls, I will be posting the answers to two frequently asked questions about the fic a day. If you're visiting and have interest, please feel free to drop me a line and ask for specifics :)
1. How Do You View “Summoning” in Dissidia?
Canon Dissidia is deliberately unclear as to whether or not the Warriors are simply manikins or are actually pulled/summoned from their homeworlds. This is significant to the plot of Door of Souls, and I have elected to interpret it as a “true” summoning, where the each of the Warriors was actually taken and there are real stakes to losing the “War of the Gods”.
2. 2. When Were the Characters summoned from their home games into Dissidia/Door of Souls?
As I’ve mentioned to some in private messages, this fic is not really character work per se. It’s an adventure story that follows a pretty traditional odyssey structure. That said, I have tried to pull each of the characters from a place in their development where there would be natural tensions to exploit. In general, if there is a main game and a sequel, I pulled from the intergame period.
I will post my thoughts on the pull timing two characters at a time. Today we have Laguna and Lightning.
Lightning - Immediately after the fall of Cocoon, as Vanille and Fang were turning into Ragnarok and the rest of the final party were crystalized. Please note I take seriously that she spent the entire first half of XIII on a violent, ill thought-out anti-government rampage and view her as a deeply morally ambiguous character, despite the whitewashing she gets in XIII-2. XIII-2 characterization is accounted for, but does not feature too prominently in my view of her. I have turned up the volume on her use of profanity because I view the GC as being basically domestically stationed marine corps, and those guys swear.
Laguna - Immediately post-VIII, but with the memories of Raine and Ellone and his implied recognition of parenthood completely decimated by the Summoning. He has all the knowledge of someone who has been President of Esthar for some time, and is thus able to make and move past very difficult decisions very quickly. This makes him simultaneously a very good politician, a very good soldier, and a very bad parent, all issues that I am treating with some urgency in Door of Souls. It is important to note that Laguna is not unintelligent in any way, and his sometimes adorkability comes from the fact he is basically a romantic dreamer who wanted to be a writer, aspirations he suppressed because he grew up in a world that was perpetually at war.