Ultimecia

[Yaoi Master Gavin]

Ultimecia really doesnt get much screen time in FFVIII so I wanted to see what other people got from the times you can actually see her. And by asking this I mean personality wise, the way she thinks, and how she acts. The way she looks is obvious enough. I'll start it off.

Clearly she likes opulence. Look at her castle. A treasure vault and an art room- signs of extravagance. Her clothes are seem rather expensive as well. Wath how they flow and move. Its a soft sort of movement, like fine silk.

 

[Gaige]

I think she seems rather determined to change her fate. I wouldn't call her completely evil, but she seems to be more focussed on changing the eternal loop she's in. She also seems to have been looked down on because of the future persecution of sorceresses. Even if she caused that herself because of her actions in the past, I did feel some sympathy for her. She wasn't just a villain for the sake of being evil. She had motives, and reasons for the audience to feel for her. When I first played it, she was the intimidating sorceress I feared and hated, because I was young. Now, however, I can feel some empathy for her, and see her as a character, rather than an enemy to be defeated.

 

[mattbgamer]

I think she seems rather determined to change her fate. I wouldn't call her completely evil, but she seems to be more focussed on changing the eternal loop she's in. She also seems to have been looked down on because of the future persecution of sorceresses. Even if she caused that herself because of her actions in the past, I did feel some sympathy for her. She wasn't just a villain for the sake of being evil. She had motives, and reasons for the audience to feel for her. When I first played it, she was the intimidating sorceress I feared and hated, because I was young. Now, however, I can feel some empathy for her, and see her as a character, rather than an enemy to be defeated.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Unlike Adel whose main goal throughout the entire game was to enslave, destroy, and basically be extremely evil to everyone. Ultemica on the other hand like Mitsuru said she was complete misunderstood, while granted she went about getting what she wanted in a completely wrong way, she did it because she saw it as the only way she could get out of her situation. Dont quote me, but I believe it was her last chance, so she sacrificed it all for this one chance at changing history.

As for her personality I really couldn't give a accurate reading as to what her personality is, obviously she was a person who would do anything to get what she wanted so she had I would call it a extreme determination. Other than that I dont know.

 

[blakstang98]

Actually, I agree. Ultimecia definitely doesn't spend enough time in this game. Considering she's the final boss and all, she's almost completely non-existant in the storyline. I guess she gets completely overshadowed with the rivalry between Squall and Seifer and the sorting out of fighting Matron, who was thought to be the ultimate enemy. Then you spend all of disc 3 figuring out how to get to Ultimecia. Then Sorceress Adel became the immediate enemy.

So yeah, all in all, I think Ultimecia was definitely overshadowed by a lot that happened in the storyline, which compromised her storyline time. There definitely wasn't enough of her.

 

[Toshiya]

Actually, I agree. Ultimecia definitely doesn't spend enough time in this game. Considering she's the final boss and all, she's almost completely non-existant in the storyline.

That's like Necron in FFIX though. The final boss but it's also the first time the player comes across him...
I agree though, and I've never really seen her as the main villain. (I don't really see there as being a main villain at all in FFVIII though.) Although she does have a lot to do with the storyline - everything to do with the sorceresses is also to do with her, even though she may not be present.

(And, I definitely don't think she should have been put as the villain in Dissidia, she didn't get enough time in the original game for that)

As for personality... hmm. I definitely think, like most of you, that she wasn't completely evil. Then again, I've not really seen enough of her to form an opinion of her. However, even if all she wanted was to change her fate, she went about it the completely wrong way

 

[Donald Trump]

Actually she's the villain the whole way through. The Edea of the first two discs is Ultimecia, which is something people seem to forget. Also she did want to destroy the world etc. Her main aim is to achieve time compression, a state in which only she can live. She wants god like powers. She is persecuted in her own time, but that's hardly an excuse for killing everyone, her castle is surrounded by White SeeD bodies, and the world in the future is destroyed.

 

[Yaoi Master Gavin]

So heres what this was all leading to. I made an interpretation of the final form Ultimecia fights in. i intentionally left the actual fight vague.



Ultimecia had always had power; that was part of being a sorceress. But now...now she was a god. One of those faceless entities that controlled the materials of life. Time and space were now a part of her; by her will alone they existed. Not that anything would. Her persecution would end for eternity.

"I am Ultimecia," she intoned, her voice filling the void where time and space had once existed. A flash of blue in front of her showed defiance. Standing before her were Squall and his friends, the annoying insects that had interfered with all of her plans. She had thought they would be lost int he void yet there they stood, determined looks upon their faces, a reminder of the incomplete time compression.

"Time shall compress..." she sneered, "...all existence denied."

"Not as long as we remain standing," Squall answered, charging Ultimecia and unleashing Lion Heart.

She reeled back from the barrage but returned with blazing daggers in her eyes. 'You would dare to challenge a god?" she thought. 'Then you will feel my suffering!' She reached into her own mind for the embodiment of her past.

Years of persecution and hate condensed into Apocalypse, the ultimate black magic. She cast it, showing them the pain that culminated in her actions. Yet still they stood before her, battered but not yet broken. Bound by the links of friendship, they kept fighting. Though Ultimecia obliterated their magic and cast her most powerful spells, they stood firm, always pushing forward.

She was at the end, sinking into the despair of realization. She knew her fate was unavoidable now, despite everything she had done. She cast Apocalypse again, a futile attempt to annihilate the SeeDs. It was all in vain though as Squall struck her down with a final swing of his gunblade.

That was all it took. Time and space flooded out of her, unable to be contained any longer. 'Is this the end? Was it fate that led me here? I thought I had stopped it... Was it all for nothing? My death... inescapable... If I can't live, then I will have the pleasure of dragging you to hell with me!'

A flash of light and an explosion. She began to dissolve into the flows of a decompressing time. 'This is the end...'

 

[Exoskeleton]

Gavin....are you writing a fanfic?

xD I loved Ultimecia, and she technicly did appear in the game, she just had different appearances. Edea, Rinoa, those were just her vessels but she was there. Now the actual her didn't get much time, but what can you expect from someone fighting from a distance. I really liked her motive and I think she was actually a good person at once point. I don't really think about her much though when thinking of this game. You think mostly of Adel and Edea, but that's only because they were being used by Ulti.

 

[adramalik]

i hate when they introduced ultemicia i didn't suit her..i mean disk one enemy Edea disk two edea how then they changed the enemy in disk 3 and 4

 

[Gert]

Possible spoilers in here!

Honestly, even though FFVIII is perhaps my all-time favorite FF, I originally never liked Ultimecia as the villain. She seemed to have zero motives...just the destruction of everything, and living in a time-compressed world doesn't really make sense if you're the only one there. But then again, she was living alone in that huge castle, killing off everything that came near, other than her "servants." But either way, her motives never made much sense to me.

Recently, I read over tons of forums out there about Ultimecia and the ending of FFVIII, and things made a little bit more sense. There are some theories that give her more depth (like R=U), but if you take her at face value...she's just a sociopathic megalomaniac. Like others have said, I feel she probably started out "good" (everyone does), but as she moved through life, people feared her because of her being a sorceress, which was ironically her fault because of "Adel's" and "Edea's" actions in the past. Being a hated outcast easily has the ability to turn a person vengeful and hateful...so it would make sense that eventually she would be twisted and trust only in herself. Also, I'd imagine she would have read the history of Garden and found out that she was to be killed later in life by the SeeDs. So, I suppose trying to prevent your own death by compressing time, and essentially stopping it, is a pretty good motive.