Random question to FFXII experts

[auronlu]

So I've been continuing my "let's see what my games look like with crisp graphics" explorations. (Fran's clawed feet are my new favorite detail.)

ETA: Oh, owlmoose is right. This should've been posted behind a cut. Hope I didn't spoil one of the early dramatic plot twists for anybody.

SO. Basch. Reks. King Graminas. Nalbina Fortress. WTF happened there? The first time we see it happen, we don't entirely know what's going on. Later in the game, we're given clues that help explain the opening sequence, but not entirely.

I'm still confused by the opening sequence with Basch's brother framing him for the murder of King Graminas (Latin for grass, isn't it?)

This is me trying to sort out who's who, where, when:

--Reks and Captain Basch get separated.
-- Basch and his men enter the throne room and are surrounded byImperials.
-- Basch's men are killed. He's captured and hauled off.
-- Reks enters the room and finds Basch's dead men, plus King Graminas, dead.
--A man in Basch's armor appears and stabs Reks. Reks says, "Captain, why?" thinking it's Basch.
-- Vayne enters, says, "Seize the insurgent!", addresses Mr. Stabbity as "Captain", and takes him to task for killing the king.
-- Mr. Stabbity says, "We'll never surrender to you! We are not cattle to be sold by a traitor-king!" and "We'll never bow to you!" 
  
 Mr. Stabbity has Gabranth's voice.
So, Mr. Stabbity has got to be Gabranth. But: 

-- Why is he wearing Basch's armor, if he's been living in Archades and serving as a Judge Magister?  Shouldn't he be in Judge's armor?
-- Why does Mr. Stabbity, a loyal citizen of Archades, say "we'll never bow to you!" as if he were an outraged Dalmascan protesting his King's surrender to Archades?

It appears that Vayne and Gabranth expected Basch to be there, and therefore planned in advance to have Gabranth wear his brother's armor and pretend to be Basch.
But why was it so important to frame Basch? I guess so it didn't look like the empire had killed Graminas?

Assuming this was all an elaborate masquerade to pin the blame on Basch, they needed a credible witness to be duped by this charade and report what he saw to the world.
So that's why they spared Reks.
Except...they didn't spare him! Gabranth stabbed him.

How did Reks manage to crawl from Nalbina Fortress back to Rabinastre to tell everybody, "Captain Basch killed the king...and ME!!!!" 

It seems a bit paradoxical. Or at the least, it seems like poor planning to stage an elaborate hoax requiring a star witness, then mortally wound the witness and hope he tells someone before he expires.

Comments

[ellnyx.livejournal.com]

Basch fon Ronsenburg is a commoner, common born and because of that an especial hero to the Dalmascan people. Dalmasca is characterised by class structures (see: Migello's servitude, Vayne's magnanimous 'call me by name' in response), so for a commonborn foreigner to become a knight...well, Basch is a commoner's hero. Gabranth and Vayne decide to stage "Basch" killing Raminas, because they want "Basch, the commoner's hero" to give the commonfolk a reason to RESIST ARCHADES!!! So "Basch" states his little slogan re: Dalmascans never surrender!!!!

For a commonborn King's Knight to kill a king, disgusted by that king's 'surrender' of his people to Archades, well, I imagine massive insurgencies in Dalmasca's underground where, while people hated "Basch" for killing their king, at the same time they totally agreed with the principal RE Dalmasca should never have surrendered to Archades. This creates massive amounts of civil unrest, which gives Vayne a very good reason to send bulkloads of Archadian troops into Dalmasca, and when the civil unrest only gets worse, he then begrudgingly comes to Dalmasca on his own. (All staged for three reasons: one, to get Vayne somewhere where he can keep his eye on the search for Ashelia's throne; two, to get him his own private army out of the way of the Senate's interferences; three, to further Archadian expansion/keep an eye on Rozarria while Vayne does his killing-the-gods thing.)

After witnessing that critical play that Gabranth and Vayne put on for him, critically injured Reks as a POW of a war that was suddenly no longer a war, would have been coddled by the Archadians, who at this stage are playing Good Cop to Basch's crazy king-killing Bad Cop. Reks would have been even more likely to believe what he'd seen with the Archadians subtly reinforcing Basch as the voice of Dalmascan Terrorism. When Reks gets carefully shipped back to Dalmasca, what does he do? He tells his story to Vaan and the like. Vaan gives us a typical 'young dalmascan's response' - he hates "Basch" for killing his king, but at the same time he totally buys into "Basch's" philosophy of "Dalmascans Never Surrender!!!" Vaan resists the Archadian influence --> imagine if he was 20 or 24, and had been a fighter, he most likely would have been a part of the formal Dalmascan insurgency against Archadian takeover, generating all that chaos that Vayne needed for his own plot to seize power and total authority from the Archadian senate.

...at least, that's what I thought?

[ellnyx.livejournal.com]

Whoops, Ashelia's "stone" not throne. Because Venat was getting Vayne/Cid etc to find these stones...?

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Your analysis of Vayne and the politics of Ivalice on all sides (and the class system) is masterful.

I'm not sure Reks getting shipped back by the Archadians would work. Some random wounded kid being coddled and carried home by Imperial Soldiers, released, and announcing that Basch had killed the king?

That would look suspiciously like Reks had been forced to testify against his captain.

What do you think of owlmoose's idea that Vossler's band found Reks, left behind for them to find? I had forgotten Vossler still on the loose at that point.

[ellnyx.livejournal.com]

Moreso that he would've been coddled with all other Dalmascan prisoners, sort of like a prisoner of war exchange. The care aspect of those prisoners being there to make the Archadians seem like good guys. The Archadian military seems pretty desperate to appear like good guys - remember the bit where Basch quickens on the Remora and there's that mortifyingly embarrassing conversation between the Archadian Remora captain and his HQ? 'critically injured, sir' 'right-o, lad, withdraw - and well done, sonny jim, well done, thanks for your efforts, all much appreciated...'

owlmoose's idea is also very valid, too. (And also provides fuel for interesting Vossler-Vaan conversations!) I just like to dwell on the strangenesses of the Archadian military - conquestors with a conscience? (There's also Sherral who wants to protect the Rabanastrans, and a few other examples scattered around Rabanastre who really seem to care about the countries they forcefully colonise.)

But me, I'm Australian with an ancestry that basically beats to the rhythm of Empire everywhere I look for self-reference, so I could very possibly do an Imperialist reading of the migration patterns of crabs.

[zidane.livejournal.com]

(in from ff_press)


Nowhere is it stated that Basch is common-born (moreover he's not even Dalmascan-born); it's much more likely that he is a noble, seeing as he has a surname! While commoners in Final Fantasy Tactics do have surnames, Final Fantasy XII is very consistent about commoners having a first name, and a first name only.