I Haven't Seen A Lot Of People Talking About This, At Least Enough For Me To Confirm, But Just To Set

*Calls out, “Hey, king. Are you single?” to the vaguely humanoid creature lurking at the base of the stairs*

Out and About

Slay the Princess also be like

Yan Wushi in book 3:

Hello I have a question everyone is going on about Hua Cheng hating Feng Xin despite being loyal to Xie Lian. What do you think of the reason Hua Cheng hatred towards Feng Xin?

Hey Anon! thank you for your question, I'll do my best to answer it :)

First of all, I think it's important to keep in mind that Hua Cheng has reasons to hate Feng Xin outside of his treatment of Xie Lian. Though out of the two, Mu Qing treated Hong Hong-er the worst - arguing that a visibly starved and abused child was lying about having no one caring for him and then later kicking him out of the army out of jealousy - Feng Xin really wasn't much better:

The young child shook his head, but Mu Qing said, “There must be. If he doesn't go back, his family will surely be worried sick looking for him.”

“No, no way! There's nobody!” that young child cried, sounding like he was afraid to be sent back, and he opened his arms reaching for Xie Lian. He was still covered with mud and blood, and Feng Xin couldn't stand it anymore.

“What're ya doin’, kid? Things were urgent earlier, so whatever, but shouldn't you know better by now? This is the crown prince. His Highness the Crown Prince. Do you understand?”

That young child's arms immediately shrank back, but he was still gazing at Xie Lian.

Vol 2, page 362

We see this treatment of Hua Cheng continue all the way to the reveal in Mount Tonglu's caves: because of what Hua Cheng is - a beggar child, a ghost king - he shouldn't be near Xie Lian - a crown prince, a god - and his adoration for Xie Lian and desire to be near him is openly treated by Feng Xin as inappropriate and disgusting, as something Xie Lian needs to be “protected” from at all cost - if Xie Lian wants to or not.

After walking for a while, Feng Xin spoke up. “No. I still don't think Your Highness should hold a strange child for everyone to see.”

“What's the problem?” Xie Lian asked.

“You're the crown prince!” Feng Xin exclaimed. While he spoke, he saw a worn-down handcart further up the alley and said, “Put the kid in the cart and pull it.”

Mu Qing immediately voiced, “Just so we're clear, I will not pull that thing up the mountain.”

”No one's asking you to,” Feng Xin said. He reached out and yanked the child from Xie Lian's arms, and the child started struggling again.

Vol 2, page 364

Because Xie Lian is nobility, in Feng Xin's eyes he shouldn't be seen carrying a child of the lowest class. Keep in mind that it was Xie Lian's own decision to carry Hong Hong-er himself and that the child had repeatedly made clear it didn't want to be carried by anyone else. But Feng Xin still takes Hong Hong-er away from Xie Lian, the only person that the child feels safe with and is being treated well by. Not to mention that he's yanking a child around that he knows has recently been brutally beaten, with no apparent care for its injuries.

Once Mei Nianqing divines Hong-er's fate, Feng Xin treats him like everyone else does except for Xie Lian - as if he's not a human being but some kind of dangerous monster that Xie Lian shouldn't even touch:

The Deputy State Preceptors blocked Hong Hong-er, and the State Preceptor backed away, yelling, “Make him leave the mountain, hurry! Don't touch him, I mean it! That fortune is too toxic; don't touch him!” The Deputy State Preceptors hurriedly moved aside, and Mu Qing and Feng Xin didn't know whether to act.

Seeing that everyone was avoiding him like he was poisonous vermin, the child was shaken and started thrashing even harder, biting and screaming with all his might. “I'm not! I'm not!! I'M NOT!!!”

Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, encircling his small form. A voice came from above his head. “You're not. I know you're not. Don't cry, now. I know you're not.”

[...] A while later, the State Preceptor said, “I mean it. It's best if you let go.”

Feng Xin finally came to his senses and exclaimed, “Your Highness! Let go! Be careful of…”

Vol 2 page 380+ 382

So what we've established is that Feng Xin treated Hong Hong-er at best like a nuisance that Xie Lian shouldn't be seen caring for because of the class differences, and some kind of dangerous inhuman thing at worst. Now, since that was the way everyone but Xie Lian was treating him back then, I actually don't think it would stand out to Hua Cheng that much - but what would stand out to him was that Feng Xin, just like Mu Qing, repeatedly tried to separate him from Xie Lian, both through words and through actions, and that he went against Xie Lian's wishes in doing so.

Now we can tackle the other part of your question, Hua Cheng hating Feng Xin despite his being loyal to Xie Lian. And I think to answer it fully, we must first ask ourselves - was he loyal?

It's true that Feng Xin stayed with Xie Lian longer than Mu Qing did after the banishment, but his choices during that time tell their own story:

“Actually, it's… Your Highness, do you still have any money on you? Or something that can be pawned?”

Xie Lian was perplexed that he'd ask such a foolish question at a time like this. “Huh? Why do you ask?”

Feng Xin was sweating, but he replied boldly, “It's nothing… Just… If you happen to have some, can you… lend it to me?”

Xie Lian laughed bitterly. “Do you really think I have anything?”

Feng Xin sighed. “I didn't think so.”

After giving it some thought, Xie Lian asked, “Didn't I give you that golden belt?”

“That's not enough,” Feng Xin mumbled. “Far from it…”

Xie Lian was shocked. “Feng Xin? What exactly did you do? How could a golden belt not be enough to cover what you need? Did you beat someone up and need to pay them off? Tell me?”

Feng Xin came back to himself and quickly said, “Oh no! Don't take this to heart. I was only asking!”

Xie Lian pressed him over and over, but Feng Xin still swore everything was fine. Finally, Xie Lian said with worry, “Well, if there's anything, you must tell me. We can think of a solution together.”

“Don't worry about me,” Feng Xin said. “There's no way a solution will just fall from the sky. Your Highness, you just focus on solving your own problems.”

Vol 6, page 219

While superficially this might look like Feng Xin is trying not to burden Xie Lian with his problems, when we look at the actual context we realize that that's not why he is lying about what's going on. This is set during the time where they're barely managing to scrape enough food together not to starve, and are struggling to make enough money to buy medicine for Xie Lian's sick father. And Feng Xin knows this, knows that anything of value should go towards their continued survival - that's why he rejects Xie Lian's repeated offers of help and lies to him about there being no particular reason he's asking for money. Is that loyalty?

Soon after, he heard the Queen sigh. “If this keeps up, how will my son ever get better?”

Xie Lian could feel something amiss with those words, and Feng Xin replied in a quiet voice. “He's only like this because he's exhausted. Too much has happened lately. Will Your Majesties also keep a close eye on him? Please let me know as soon as possible if there's anything not right with His Highness, but don't tell him you did. Also avoid saying anything that might provoke him-”

Vol 6, page 220-221

Feng Xin told Xie Lian he believed him when he said that Bai WuXiang was back and was stalking him, but behind his back, it's a different story. Not only does he doubt Xie Lian’s grip on reality and his own mind, he urges Xie Lian's parents to also keep up the pretense and then report to Feng Xin behind Xie Lian's back. Is that loyalty?

And we need to keep in mind that this isn't a one time deal but a pattern of behavior that keeps repeating. Feng Xin keeps treating Xie Lian as too naive to be trusted to make his own choices, hence his trying to keep Xie Lian from caring for Hong Hong-er, trying to “manage” Xie Lian like an unruly child, and then all the way to conspiring with Mu Qing to kidnap Xie Lian away from Hua Cheng no matter what Xie Lian wants because they think they know better.

Xie Lian knelt by the stream and puked his guts out for over an hour, heaving until blood came up. After descending the mountain, he walked through the city for a long time, aimlessly wandering the main streets without a destination in mind. Suddenly, a hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him into an alley. Xie Lian looked around and saw an incoming fist before he even glimpsed the other's face.

“Where did you run off to for so long?!” Behind the fist was Feng Xin's furious expression, but by the time Xie Lian saw, he'd already been knocked to the ground by the punch. Feng Xin hadn't expected to knock him down so easily. Confused, he looked at his own fist, then at Xie Lian on the ground. Before he could think to help him up, Xie Lian had already crawled back up by himself.

Feng Xin's face changed, but in the end, his temper was still flaring. “You've got such an attitude! Dropping only a word before running away and disappearing for two months! Do you know how worried Their Majesties have been?!”

Vol 6, page 263

This is after Xie Lian ran away when he found out Feng Xin didn't believe him and was then lured to the abandoned temple by Bai WuXiang and severely tortured and violated. He was obviously not alright when he left and just from the fact that he disappeared for that long it should be obvious that something is seriously wrong - yet Feng Xin doesn't care about finding out, he's so angry at the way Xie Lian is “failing” to be the perfect image he's made up in his head that the moment he sees him again, he punches him in the face. Is that loyalty?

“Why are you being like this? When did you become this way?” Feng Xin mumbled. “I… I really don't know… I'm… Why did I follow you all this time - ?”

“Then stop following,” Xie Lian said.

Feng Xin couldn't wrap his head around that. “What?”

“I said, don't follow me anymore,” Xie Lian repeated. Then he slammed the door.

Four hours later, there was finally some rustling outside the room and low voices speaking. It seemed Feng Xin was bidding farewell to Xie Lian's mother and father. Feng Xin's voice was extremely low, the queen's voice was choked with sobs, and the king didn't say much, but there was a lot of coughing. The door opened a moment later, then closed. Feng Xin's voice vanished, and the sound of his footsteps grew more and more distant. Feng Xin had left.

[...] Before Feng Xin had left, Xie Lian had been afraid. Now that Feng Xin was gone, he wasn't scared anymore. But even though he no longer felt fear, he felt a deeper agony. Xie Lian had initially held a one-in-a-million bit of hope at the bottom of his heart. He'd hoped that Feng Xin would still stay even if Xie Lian admitted he had done things he shouldn't have, even if he became the worst version of himself. After all, the two had never left each other's side since he turned fourteen and Feng Xin was selected to be his personal attendant. They were master and servant, but more than that, they were friends. And Feng Xin had no one to care for aside from the crown prince either - or, at most, him, and the king and queen. But Feng Xin had really left.

Vol 6, page 273-274

And finally, as Xie Lian begins to crack under the weight of his trauma, Feng Xin leaves. Is that loyalty? Or, more precisely, we have to ask ourselves - who was it that Feng Xin used to be loyal to? Because from what we've seen, it was less Xie Lian the person and more the perfect image of a crown prince and a god Feng Xin wanted and repeatedly tried to force Xie Lian to be - a crown prince who doesn't behave inappropriately by carrying beggar children, who doesn't go against the orders of his Shifu, a perfect god who never falters and doesn't show mental or physical strain no matter what he goes through.

Xie Lian stopped eating and said gently, “But I can sort of understand… your feelings.” After a pause, he continued, “There was a period in my own life that wasn't easy. Back then, I'd always think about how wonderful it would be if someone could still love me for who I was, even if they saw me rolling in the dirt and couldn't get up. Though I don't know if there's anyone out there like that. And I'm scared of showing that part of myself too. But if it's someone San Lang yearns for… I think that even if they saw you at your worst, they wouldn't say something like, ‘ah, you're not so great after all'”.

His face grew solemn. “To me, the one basking in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is you, not the state of you. [...]”

Vol 4, page 182

This is why ‘what matters is you, not the state of you” is the foundation of Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s love - they love each other for who the other is, not who they could be or should be by any given standard.

Now, someone might say this is all well and good but Hua Cheng wasn't present for the above scenes with Feng Xin and Xie Lian, so those can't be reasons for him to hate Feng Xin. To which I would say, 1. the above examination was about questioning whether Feng Xin really was as loyal to Xie Lian as that discourse seems to insist by looking at what the text actually tells us. And 2., Hua Cheng did encounter Xie Lian several times during his first banishment. And every single time, Xie Lian was alone, in increasingly bad mental and physical states, with no one helping or caring for him.

The first time they meet again, after Mu Qing has just left Xie Lian and Hua Cheng is a ghost fire:

“I won't forget. Your Highness, I am forever your most devoted believer.”

Xie Lian forced down a sob. “...I've already lost all my believers. Believing in me won't do you any good; it might even bring disaster. Did you know? Even my friend has left me.”

The nameless ghost declared as if swearing an oath, “I won't.”

“You will,” Xie Lian said.

The ghost was insistent. “Believe me, Your Highness.”

“I don't,” Xie Lian said. He no longer believed in anyone, especially himself.

Vol 6, page 136-137

After the failed robbery attempt, when Xie Lian gets drunk and falls into a grave:

“God fucking dammit!” He slapped the ground and yelled, “Is anyone there? Is there anyone who can help pull me out?!”

Of course there wasn't anyone. There was only a small ball of haunting ghost fire, blazing unceasingly as it flitted about. After Xie Lian fell into the pit, the ball of ghost fire rushed over, seeming to want to pull him up - but it would never be able to touch him.

Vol 6, page 175

When the group of heavenly officials and Mu Qing drive Xie Lian off the blessed land and Hua Cheng can't help him because he's still a ghost fire:

Xie Lian lay sprawled face-down on the ground in a state of disbelief, his eyes bulging. One of the heavenly officials had shoved him while he was standing there at a loss and made him take that hideous fall in front of so many eyes. It was too humiliating. There were voices all around Xie Lian, high and low, filling the air and invading Xie Lian's ears. He stared with eyes that couldn't be wider at the blackened ground in front of his nose, then he slowly raised his head.

Mu Qing was standing not too far away from him - standing among those heavenly officials, his head turned away, not looking at Xie Lian. Just like the rest of them, he had no intention of lending Xie Lian a hand to help him up. And thus, Xie Lian understood. No one would lend him a hand to help him up.

Vol 6, page 196

When Xie Lian is brutally tortured and violated by being stabbed over and over:

Unwilling to consider this any further, Xie Lian couldn't help but cry out. “Hel-”

Before the phrase “Help me” could leave his throat, the same icy black belt was thrust into his body once again. Xie Lian's eyes widened in horror. The razor-sharp sword was stabbed in, then pulled out. The next person followed without wasting a second, and the next stab was shoved into practically the same spot. The sound locked in Xie Lian's throat finally broke free, and a long, painful scream tore through his entire body.

Vol 6, page 255

And it doesn't stop there - Feng Xin and Mu Qing both ascend again while Xie Lian is lost in the mortal realm, and Hua Cheng is the only one looking for him. That Feng Xin spent so much time in the mortal realm because he was searching for Xie Lian appears to be entirely fanon, as I cannot recall a single instance where the text actually suggests this. And then when Xie Lian ascends for a third time, Feng Xin and Mu Qing are too cowardly to face him, and only seek him out in disguise. And again, they repeatedly try to separate Hua Cheng from Xie Lian:

After a moment, Feng Xin turned to Xie Lian. “If there's nothing else, you’d better hurry back to the Heavenly Court. Many of the heavenly officials have no idea what happened in that ruckus, and they're still waiting for news above. Jun Wu should have been informed by now. You need to report back and give them a proper account.”

Hua Cheng laughed out loud at his words.

“What're you laughing at?” Feng Xin demanded.

“And here I was marveling at how straightforward you are, but it turns out you like beating around the bush too,” Hua Cheng said. “You just don't want His Highness to associate with the likes of demons and ghosts like me, so why not say so openly? Think it's not your place?”

Xie Lian cleared his throat softly. “San Lang…”

“As long as you're aware that he shouldn't be associating with the likes of demons and ghosts,” Feng Xin said coldly.

Vol 2, page 261-262

So, to sum up, when we look at all this from Hua Cheng's perspective - why wouldn't he hate Feng Xin? He's had zero positive interactions with the man, repeatedly witnessed him going against Xie Lian's wishes, and had Feng Xin try and separate him from Xie Lian over and over again. From Hua Cheng's perspective, Feng Xin abandoned Xie Lian to his suffering and forgot about him, while Hua Cheng never wavered in his faith, and didn't give up on looking for Xie Lian even after hundreds of years.

Throughout the entire novel, Hua Cheng is the only one who consistently respects Xie Lian's autonomy - the only times he ever intervenes is when Xie Lian is about to do something that threatens his own physical and/or mental wellbeing. Many other characters, Feng Xin included, repeatedly ignore or even violate Xie Lian's autonomy and the novel makes quite clear how important and profound the distinction is between how Hua Cheng treats Xie Lian and how everyone else does:

Feng Xin glanced at him and couldn't help but say, “...I'm a little surprised.”

“What?” Hua Cheng replied, not turning or showing a single trace of curiosity.

Feng Xin scratched his head. “Since you're so biased against Mu Qing, I assumed you'd think he wasn't worth saving and wouldn't want His Highness rescuing him. I thought you'd prevent him from going.”

Only then did Hua Cheng spare him a glance. “Half-wrong, half-right.”

“Huh?”

“The first part isn't wrong - I certainly don't think he's worth saving,” Hua Cheng said. “I don't care if he lives or dies.”

“Isn't that a little too blunt?!” Seeing that apathetic expression made Feng Xin start to sweat; when he realized that this man definitely held the same attitude toward him, he sweat even harder!

Hua Cheng snorted, then after a pause, he added, “But only His Highness can decide what he wants to do. I will never oppose his decisions.”

“...” Feng Xin had never heard anyone say something like that before - not a man to a woman, and most definitely not one man to another. But he was quite sure that Xie Lian would only get all worked up and flustered again if he'd been here to hear it. “Ah… I see,” Feng Xin said, not knowing what face to make.

Vol 8, page 44-45

And just to make this clear - this is not me hating on Feng Xin. We also could probably all have lengthy but ultimately futile discussions on what loyalty personally means to each and every one of us, which is why when it comes to discourse like this I think we have to focus on what the text says. And I think through this examination it's become quite clear where the limits of Feng Xin's loyalty lay in relation to how it was tied less to Xie Lian the person and more to who he thought Xie Lian should be, and how even beyond Feng Xin's ultimate lack of loyalty Hua Cheng has many legitimate reasons to hate him in regards to how both he himself and Xie Lian were treated by Feng Xin.

Hope this answered your question!

Can you imagine how terrifying it must have been to be Hope in Chapter 4? He’s following this chick because he rightfully acknowledges that she is a badass and can probably help him get stronger, but this chick also resents his presence the whole way. She almost abandons him completely.  

He was almost abandoned for real. 

In the most dangerous place still in Cocoon. 

He isn’t yet the Hope he is at the end of the game and nowhere close to the Hope of FFXIII-2 that could convince an entire Academy to follow his lead.  

His story almost ended there in the Hanging Edge.

It hurts my feelings that he begs Lightning to take him with her, that he says “I’ll try harder, I’ll get stronger…” Just don’t leave me. is the silent plea at the end. After all, what reason does he have to believe that she wouldn’t when he has already watched her walk away from Snow, who she is connected with through her sister, without even looking back and then left him once already? 

He knows that this time there is no Sazh and Vanille following after them. They parted ways. Hope knows that no one will find him if she does actually leave him behind. The stakes are so much higher.

So, when Lightning decides to allow him to keep following her, Hope’s relief is so potent and painful. “Oh, thank god, she likes me after all,” is the joke I made at seeing it this go-round but, in reality, he was likely thinking of how he could stay useful to her, how he could prove to her that he could toughen up. 

I don’t believe Lightning would have actually left him considering that Odin came because she was growing desperate. Lightning has already been established as a protector with Serah. She entered herself into the Purge and took on a Pulse fal’cie all for the sake of her sister. Odin targeted Hope the moment he appeared. The Datapad says that she moves without thinking to protect him. There are multiple times when Odin attacks Hope and you, as Lightning, have to heal him; in those moments, Odin’s bar goes up faster. (It takes a significant jump when you use magic. Just attacking him as Commando will not impress him.) 

Okay we're adding one to the list!

DarkHorse - Barnabas and Sleipnir (Odin and...his horse egi)

(Also a decent Katy Perry song)

I need to mini-rant tho:

When Sleipnir revealed his name I was laughing like "HE'S THE HORSE HOLY SHIT" and it was so appropriate in so many ways. The greatest thing about Sleipnir is that he never has a third-act breakdown when he gets beat, he's just happy to be defeated, never loses his swagger that guy.

However, considering the fact that Barnabas considered defeating Sleipnir an impressive feat, it's implied that that version of Sleipnir never died before, and when the Sleipnir army comes to fight the gang I don't think any of them speak! I think that means that the original Sleipnir had evolved a personality and individuality from experience living so long, something Barnabas wasn't able replicate in the other egi who were silent and just there to be mass-produced in a fight.

This suggests Barnabas didn't even care for the best version of Sleipnir when he died, a version he could never replace even with all the clones. Meanwhile that original Sleipnir isn't afraid of death for his master's sake and was built to be utterly loyal to Barnabas and he doesn't feel bad about it in the slightest and this is such a fucked up relationship and yet I wouldn't want to change it in any context because it works???

Sleipnir is completely unfazed by anything, both as an overpowered non-human badass but also as an evolved egi, plus I love his voice and his character design (don't put on a helmet! I wanna see your fabulous hair while we beat the crap out of each other!) and sorta falling in love with him. Dion still my favorite but man Bahamut gets his emotions wrecked and here's just Sleipnir living his best life and death with not a care in the world.

Okay everybody listen up! I haven't found most of the official ship names and I'm too lazy to continue scouring Tumblr, so I need to compile a list myself! Reblog with your preferred ship name for any given ship not listed and/or challenge one another to single combat until we come to a consensus on conflicting names for the same ship!

My contribution:

PhoenixFlare - Joshua x Dion (Phoenix x Bahamut)

FlareKnight - Dion x Terence

PhoenixFlareKnight - Joshua x Dion x Terence

FrostFire - Jill x Clive (Shiva x Ifrit)

FireBolt - Clive x Cid (Ifrit x Ramuh)

StoneStorm - Hugo x Benedicta (Titan/Garuda)

I have no other ships off the top of my head but Barnabas/Odin should probably be Dark-something.

I'll honestly also accept Flame for Clive, but is it too close to Flare? Idk. Opinions?

Okay everybody listen up! I haven't found most of the official ship names and I'm too lazy to continue scouring Tumblr, so I need to compile a list myself! Reblog with your preferred ship name for any given ship not listed and/or challenge one another to single combat until we come to a consensus on conflicting names for the same ship!

My contribution:

PhoenixFlare - Joshua x Dion (Phoenix x Bahamut)

FlareKnight - Dion x Terence

PhoenixFlareKnight - Joshua x Dion x Terence

FrostFire - Jill x Clive (Shiva x Ifrit)

FireBolt - Clive x Cid (Ifrit x Ramuh)

StoneStorm - Hugo x Benedicta (Titan/Garuda)

I have no other ships off the top of my head but Barnabas/Odin should probably be Dark-something.

I'll honestly also accept Flame for Clive, but is it too close to Flare? Idk. Opinions?

Anyone else losing sleep over how Hua Cheng treats Eming poorly? Eming was made from his own eye, so you'd think they'd be in sync - and they are, when it combat, because Eming was born in a desperate need for a weapon and to overcome enemies.

But Eming was also born from a low point in Hua Cheng's existence and must represent the person he was back when it was created - utterly devoted to Xie Lian, but also too weak to have been of any use to him. He saw himself as a loathsome lost puppy lapping at the heels of a god he couldn't hope to be worthy of serving, crying over everything.

It was also during his time desperately overcoming the trials to become a Supreme, aka what Hua Cheng also considers a shameful part of himself. The moment Xie Lian learns about the divine statues and murals, Hua Cheng jumps to suggest they be destroyed, and had tried as hard as he could to make sure they weren't discovered at all.

He changed himself into a suave, calm, collected, overpowered loyal servant to Xie Lian after 800 years, thinking that his prior exploits as a human and as a Wrath were too erratic and disrespectful and not at all how he wanted to be. He would indeed still do everything that Xie Lian wants of him, but now he's actually confident he could do it - so confident that he would even follow Xie Lian's heart when it doesn't seem like the right thing to do or even endangers him. No more hiding behind a mask as Wuming or lying about being his follower. He looks down upon who he used to be: all the same devotion, but not enough power, experience, or confidence to actually do anything RIGHT.

It's no wonder that Hua Cheng not only says no when Eming first wants a pet, but also repeatedly whacks Eming when the blade gets too needy. He thinks Eming's needy behavior (a reminder of his own personality back in the day) is as shameful as the past he worked desperately to leave behind. When he would have broken out into tears just trying to be noticed, when he was desperate for love and clung to Xie Lian when he first showed him kindness.

Eming is willing to show emotion and cry and become erratic even when Hua Cheng himself is keeping a surface-level calmness or focus. Is it any wonder why Hua Cheng doesn't want Xie Lian to see that he still feels emotions and weakness when he dedicated himself to being strong enough to protect Xie Lian, eliminate all his threats, get him whatever he wanted, so that he never had to suffer again?

Eming's sentience is limited, so the blade never evolves or changes or gets over its emotions by processing them over time. Hua Cheng himself was able to change into the person he wanted to be - or who he thought Xie Lian would need and like better - but Eming could never take the same steps. It remains as utterly devoted to Xie Lian and simple-minded as the moment it was born.

It just also happens to be a super deadly saber on the side nbd

Fang Xin Guoshi 🦋

He's still beautiful

Let's talk about Caius and Yeul, shall we?

First, who in the world thinks it's a bad thing for Caius to be obsessed with protecting Yeul? Seriously. Is it the purple hair? Is it the fact that you fight Caius over a dozen times (counting Paradox Endings and DLCs)? What in the world is wrong with Caius loving Yeul to the point that he wants to destroy time itself?

Not to get too existential (but to get slightly existential), Caius is basically being told that his daughter is destined to die before she can reach 20 years old. He starts out as a Guardian, impressing the Goddess so much that she gifts him her immortal heart so that he can protect Yeul for eternity. His job has now become to eternally protect and care for Yeul, but he's also being told that Yeul will never be allowed to have a long and fulfilling free life. His job is to protect her, but the one thing he can't protect her from is her fate. If she sees a vision where she has to die, Caius is not allowed to stop it. He raised and protected this girl just so that she can die to keep the timeline stable or whatever. His job is to make sure that she dies the "correct" way for the sake of time. Can you blame him for being driven mad after being forced to escort Yeul to her destined death generation after generation?

Caius loves Yeul. He is not in love with Yeul (you creeps of the internet), but he loves her. He loves every version of Yeul that comes along like his daughter, no matter how different she is, no matter how she is destined to die. He remembers every one of them, he loves every one of them even with how many he meets and raises and loses each generation.

"Although they had the same soul, every one of them was unique! A Yeul who dreamed of travel! A Yeul who loved to sing! A Yeul who collected flowers. They all died. All of them, before my eyes!"

Serah collapses after he says this, even though she's just standing to the side. Why? Because she's horrified. In 400AF, a single Yeul had to die because of Serah and Noel's presence - for the first time, Serah realized that changing time is hurting someone. Serah is responsible for that Yeul dying. Every change in timeline, even if it's to fix it, is forcing an innocent girl to walk into the arms of the nearest monster so she can die and keep things from getting worse.

Serah was horrified that Yeul just walked to her death willingly, like Yeul sacrificed herself just to allow Serah and Noel to continue their journey, but Caius has seen Yeul accept her fate hundreds of times. He paid attention. He remembers every Yeul, their dreams, their preferences, their favorite activities and favorite experiences, and he's had to watch them die just like Serah watched 400AF Yeul die without being able to do anything.

Caius got so tired of being immortal, but the main reason was that his entire existence was to watch a girl grow up and then die - often in his arms because he has to protect her up until that point. It finally ended at 700AF, Yeul's cycle of reincarnation was likely at its end since there were no more humans, and the next Guardian was born who might finally be able to end Caius as well. He hoped the cycle would finally end, but Noel was too weak to kill him. Yeul believed in the future, and that was awful to Caius because it meant that this wasn't the end. Yeul would keep living and dying for others, never living for herself, and Caius would be forced to keep watching it and letting it happen forever.

"Her only purpose is to die over and over! Even though she can see the future, she's not allowed to escape her fate! She is born knowing that she will die before she has truly lived! Countless deaths, without a life to give them meaning."

Let's talk about Noel too, because his relationship amounts to only truly knowing one Yeul but overall valuing her just as much as Caius.

Now, remember that Noel is having memory problems for the entire game. His memories are in flux, sometimes leaving him, perhaps even changing without him knowing it. That's why, when he's killed in the Void Beyond and sent into an endless dream, his dreamworld sends him home. The end of the world is depressing, it's dark and sad and he's only holding into hope for Yeul's sake - to see her smile, to find more people so she won't have to be alone. Noel's dream is to see his Yeul again. Even if he has to go through losing his life again, this is the world that he knows and the world that he was slowly losing as a result of his memories vanishing.

Right after you wake him from his dream world and enter the lighted (real) 700AF (since you can eventually reach it from the Historia Crux, I believe the lightened version is the actual 700AF time period; they escape the Void Beyond by translating Noel's dream into a real time location at the end of the world by slaying the Gogmagog), Noel says that he "can't remember what happened to her", despite just remembering Yeul's fate dying young to her vision - this is the place we learn that visions eat away at a seeress' life and Serah is one too.

This is probably lost in the English translation, but I interpret this as Noel knows in concept that Yeul died because of her visions, but he can't remember details of the event itself. Right after Yeul dies in the dream, Noel pauses to give the narration of how he learned why Yeul died in his arms. How did he learn that Yeul's death was a result of her visions? As far as Noel was concerned, in the cutscene we viewed, Noel walked up to Yeul putting a prophecy in an Oracle Drive, she collapsed in his arms and told him they'd meet again, and then she died. Caius was already gone; no one could have told Noel that Yeul didn't just randomly keel over. Maybe he could have guessed that her vision was related to her death, but he could have very well just assumed she had a particularly terrible vision that killed her, not that each one takes a part of her life.

When confronting Caius in the final battle(s), Caius assumes that Serah doesn't know about visions killing her - he is proven wrong. When Caius declares that Yeul is bound by a curse, Noel asks "What curse?" I interpret this as Noel not thinking that Yeul's visions and rebirth are a curse. It's tragic and scary, certainly, but Serah's situation is what Noel is more worried about. Unlike Yeul, Serah won't be reborn; she gets one life's worth of visions and that's it. Yeul has to die over and over, but Noel only focuses on the fact that she gets to live over and over. Her lives are short, but even when she was at the end of the world with only two people left to accompany her, she kept smiling. Noel concludes that she must have made the most of every life, because even though her lives were short, she lived so many that she had more time than anyone could have lived in a single long lifespan. Noel does not see Yeul's endless death and rebirth as a curse.

When Serah is brought to her knees at Caius's words about Yeul's deaths, she is able to rise again because Noel declares that Yeul's deaths weren't a curse. "She knew we'd meet again. Think, Caius. Think. Was it really a curse? Was it forced on her by Etro? Do you really think that Yeul wanted to die, and not come back? Of course not. Yeul wanted to come back. Every time she died in your arms, she wanted to come back. She knew her next life would be short. She knew! Because she wanted to see you! Again and again, without end!"

The Eyes of Etro are a curse that take away a seeress' life with every vision, there's no denying that. When the timeline changes or is put at risk, someone has to bear the weight of the consequences. If Yeul hadn't been reborn, it's likely that a random candidate would have been chosen each time a seeress died, similar to how Serah gained her Eyes when her personal timeline was altered and her subsequent journey was the catalyst to the entire timeline being put in flux.

But Yeul choosing to live again and again must have been her own choice. She wanted to keep others from suffering, but she could also live what amounted to a long life, living in every era, seeing Caius again, having new experiences and new interests and new adventures as the world changed with each life she lived. She didn't need immortality; she wanted reality, no matter how cold and harsh it could be. The sad moments were worth the happy visions and happy futures.

Caius was the one consistent thing about each of Yeul's lives, the one thing that didn't change. She lived life after life in every time zone, probably missing large chunks of time and being disconnected from her reality because a seeress needs to be careful who she interacts with (see the fall of Paddra for an example of how her presence is dangerous). Of course she grew attached to Caius as an anchor, the one consistent thing about all the times she's lived.

Notice how there are scenes depicting both Noel and Caius alike crying over a Yeul who is smiling when she dies. Noel was the first Guardian who gave Caius hope that Noel could kill him; Noel was the first person that a Yeul valued besides Caius because she had a vision that she was going to see him again. Yeul likely lost everyone else in each of her lives; by the time she's reborn, all the people she might have become friends with are gone and she's isolated from everyone except for the Paddraen tribe and the Guardians. Caius and his immortality is the only one that she always knew she'd see again - until Noel happened. Yeul died in Noel's arms just like she had so many times in Caius's arms, but Noel chose to value the idea that he'd see her again, not dread it.

As revealed in Lightning Returns, the Unseen Chaos (a different type of Chaos from the regular one that makes up all souls; a more volatile version that destroys) is made up of Yeul's souls specifically. The Unseen Chaos protects, empowers, and even revives Caius because it is Yeul looking after her Guardian just as Caius was looking after her. Yeul is the Chaos that floods Caius after Noel's speech where he has to strike back as Caius doesn't believe his words, the Chaos that transforms Caius into the Jet Bahamut for the final boss of XIII-2. She was desperate to keep the one consistent thing about all of her lives with her. No matter what Caius did, how "I don't want to please her, I want to save her", and how he destroyed the world even when she just wanted to see visions of people living happily, she can't let him go.

Ever had to make a decision and kept going around in circles about the pros and cons, what you gain but what you have to sacrifice for one decision then the next? Imagine every thought you had existing as a separate entity - still fundamentally you, because you came to that conclusion at one point or another, but conflicting and arguing over which opinion mattered most. That's what Yeul is, hundreds of people all with different thoughts and opinions but who fundamentally start out as the same base person.

She hates Caius for some things, but that doesn't mean she doesn't also care about him and need him. For all he does, Caius cares about Yeul, telling Lightning that Yeul cannot go to the New World without destroying it with her Unseen Chaos, so he's fine accompanying her to make sure she isn't doomed to be alone forever.

Caius is very evil at times, driven to his goal with absolute focus. But his greatest flaw is being completely dedicated to Yeul. In Oerba 200AF, that Caius is not hell-bent on destroying the timeline yet. That Caius is the first one, living through all of the lives of Yeul, before 700AF happens and he declares he's going to slay the goddess. That Caius is dedicated to eliminating time-travelers because "To change history is a sin." He bows to Yeul and accepts her judgment when she declares that they can remold history as they desire. The only reason they go to Augusta Tower is likely because it is the sight of a massive Paradox; that 200 AF Caius is dedicated to stopping all Paradoxes to hopefully extend Yeul's time.

However, Yeul gives Serah and Noel the artifact that allows them to resolve the Paradox, killing Yeul with the vision in the process. Notice that Caius doesn't see Yeul happy at her vision where everyone's smiling. He just sees her dead. This is how Caius came to want the timeline destroyed; he tries to keep history in line to keep Yeul from having visions, but she's completely fine with dying if it means a happier future. Nothing he does can save her. Nothing except destroying time and fate itself.

In the end, he died in Valhalla to be with Yeul forever, he stopped her cycle of reincarnation, but it didn't save Yeul because her Chaos was too strong. She destroyed the world, not even on purpose because she can't control it. It's just her existences themselves that cause destruction. Time was destroyed, Yeul no longer was born into new lives and no longer had to suffer visions, but in return, the two of them live in an eternal half-dead, half-living state within Etro’s Temple. Yeul has Caius with her forever, Yeul no longer has to die, and yet it’s all still wrong.

So really, the main enemy of XIII-2 was Etro, who loved humanity so much that she broke the timeline, gave a man an immortal heart to the point that it drove him insane, allowed a girl to be reborn so many times that her souls became a living weapon, and who gave Serah the Eyes of Etro even though Noel can travel the timeline without needing them.

Final theory of the post: what if 700AF Caius deciding to use his power to change the timeline is what began Yeul's many deaths and rebirths in the first place? If he hadn't begun messing with the timeline to try and destroy it, what if Yeul rarely would have had visions without all those disturbances? She wouldn't have had a short life, she wouldn't have wanted to be reborn. Random people would have still been blessed/cursed with visions every now and then, but not to the point of always dying young. What if Caius created his own suffering with his vendetta? Caius is the eternal paradox, the one that started it all and who maintained the distortions so long as he lived.