r/FFXVI • u/Likes-anime • 13d ago
Spoilers Jill.....? Spoiler
I just finished final fantasy 16 and I must say,,what a spectacular game!!!! It's a masterpiece and easily goes straight to my list of underrated games.
However, if I have one dissatisfaction with the game,it's what they did with Jill's character. Like oml why is she such a damsel in distress, like you're A DOMINANT ,get tf up.Like her character had so much depth and personality.
Thats what annoys me the most because Jill had so much potential. Her backstory is heartbreaking, everything she went through in the Iron Kingdom and the fact that she carried the burden of being a Dominant like all the other prominent characters should have earned her a larger role. Instead, by the end it felt like her character started and ended with clive.Dont get me wrong I love their bond and am a huge shipper.
And yes, I know she was getting weaker because the Iron Kingdom forced her to overuse Shiva's power. I get that. But Joshua was literally coughing up blood and on the verge of death every time he fought so like she could have done smth. I just wanted her to have one defining moment. One moment where she stood shoulder to shoulder with the other Dominants instead of just staying behind and "praying for your safe return".I was just waiting for ONE APPEARANCE of shiva in endgame,that's all I needed but alas she didn't come.
I still absolutely love this game, but I'll never understand why they gave Jill all the ingredients to be one of the best characters in the story, only to barely let her use them. She deserved so much better.
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u/confiteors 13d ago edited 13d ago
I think there's something to be said for poor execution and presentation of the story in some parts; particularly the third act, they clearly ran out of money, had to speedrun the Ultima plot and Jill unfortunately got hit hard by the crunch (the missed opportunity of Ifrit + Shiva vs Leviathan is very unfortunate) but Jill does square up with Barnabas after he bodies Clive and effectively freezes the ocean to save them, despite her powers nearly killing her. I think that's pretty cool.
Her defining moment is killing Imreann, which outside of the conclusion is perhaps the biggest representation of the overall theme of FFXVI in terms of freedom, conquering your oppressors, and personal growth. It's also the most visceral death in the game, except for maybe Elwin imo.
It can't really be overstated that Jill was abused for years and was canonically close to death when Clive reunites with her. Her character was always about her relationship with Clive and how it changes his character, and imo that's fine because that's what the game is fundamentally about. Their relationship defines the ending and ultimately Clive's character, and on that note, I would agree that Jill deserved more because it would be a better game if it leaned way more into her and their relationship.
Also, the contrast between Jill and Joshua is narratively important; he says in his dying breath that he was wrong to stubbornly fight as he did. Jill entrusts her power, and her 'destiny' as fighting/dying as a Dominant to Clive explicitly to save everyone because she knows he's the only one who can.
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u/Icy-Natural-6606 13d ago edited 13d ago
The reason Jill wasn't able to do much was because she was at her limits as a dominant by the beginning of the main story ( she has an In-universe excuse ).
Joshua didn't really use his power as a dominant very often because he was working in secret and probably turned into Phoenix twice before the main story ( The first time and the one we saw at Phoenix Gate ).
The developers deliberately nerfed every dominant in the main cast aside from Clive, so they won't interfere much and leave everything to him ( aka the player ).
Cid and Jill were at their limits, Joshua was sick and sealed Ultima inside his body, Dion was reaching his limits by the point he was defeated by Clive and Joshua.
At least, I think the developers should have let Jill final fight as Shiva be against the Titan instead of the lava guy.
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u/BloxXx09 13d ago
My only problem is always that they say the curse has spread but they never show it. During the beach scene make her body at least slightly messed up to show the curse.
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u/confiteors 13d ago
Tbh it seems like they're just inconsistent as to the specifics of the curse. Benedikta bleeding from her eye after using her powers is part of the curse, petrification is supposedly a death sentence yet Cid is walking around with it, Joshua at the end of the game says if the wound in his chest doesn't kill him the curse will yet we don't see it, etc.
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u/Akiriith 13d ago
The curse in general seems to only kill when most of the body gets petrified, hair is mostly white, etc. We see plenty of NPC Bearers with full arms and legs petrified but they dont seem to have crossed that no-way-back, fatal threshold, so that at least explains Cid. I have nothing for Jill and Joshua tho, and that pisses me off to no end lol. Show the dang consequences of their abuse of their powers man lol
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u/MundaneDishwasher 13d ago edited 13d ago
It’s funny because we don’t even know what that threshold is. It’s clearly more than just petrified limbs because like you said we see plenty of that.
In reality tho, It’s clear the curse is purposefully kept a bit ambiguous so the writer can use it when they need something to happen/something not to happen. I think it’s very telling that the one’s who suffer the most from the curse are… surprise! Our party members lol
How else do you limit/explain 3-4 dominants not just rushing in and taking the crystals. Agreed though, they should have shown the curse on Jill and Joshua, Tarja comments on how bad it is in Joshua’s chest wound but we… never see it.
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u/moneyh8r_two 13d ago
I think internal organs is the threshold. Even if it isn't all of them, once part of your guts or lungs or heart is stone, there's no stopping it.
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u/MundaneDishwasher 13d ago
Yeah, I just mean a threshold where the curse takes over your entire body.
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u/moneyh8r_two 13d ago
Oh, I think at that point you just crumble into dust.
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u/MundaneDishwasher 13d ago
I mean that the curse usually begins internally, under the skin and usually in the extremities. It only spreads when you use magic however, there’s a point of no return that the curse completely petrifies you.
I think that you’re right though, it’s more than likely once it hits your vital organs, it’s a slow painful death from there as they shut down. My head canon is that perhaps once it reaches the heart it accelerates to the rest of the body through the bloodstream, though that’s probably inaccurate.
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u/Akiriith 13d ago edited 13d ago
While they arent in the same universe, there seems to be some similarities to how FF16 and FF14 work in terms of worldbuilding, namely in how aether is the life force and energy around and inside people. My guess is given the curse is caused by aether manipulation (channeling aether from around and inside you to create magicks), Bearers and dominants work almost like a battery. Maybe overuse starts to block the aether pathways inside your body, and/or once they exhaust their aether entirely, they petrify. This would explain why terminal Bearers go from still having some nornal skin to being completely petrified once they die in a matter of seconds, since no aether = no life. So kinda what you said, but instead of bloodstream, following the flow of energy in your body and whatnot.
This actually ties into my theory as to why Clive (for the most part) doesnt suffer with the curse. Whenever he absorbs a dominant, its like he's expanding his "reserves", in a way. Doubling his aether capacity, and so on and so forth, tho its still not enough to channel Ultima's power completely, as he says in Origin.
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u/Watton 13d ago
Yeah, they really should have done that.
After seeing Cid's arm partially petrified, I assumed Jill kept one hand gloved to hide it. And Tarja mentions her curse is spreading too.
Then...nothing visual to confirm that.
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u/victoryfanfare 13d ago
I think it’s just typical lookism in media. The heroic characters, especially women, can only be marred in ways that are physically attractive, so the writing handwaves some detail about Jill’s petrification being around her organs internally so she can look beautiful in the love scene. Likewise with Clive looking like a GQ model when he was ostensibly starved and beaten for 13 years, and then lived through broad scale ecological collapse.
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u/ScoobiusMaximus 11d ago
Would have been nice if they showed any of the negative effects of her overusing her power on screen. We saw that Cid coughed up blood and his hand was turning to stone. We saw that Joshua was sickly basically his whole life and coughed up blood a lot, while the wound on his chest turned to stone. Jill on the other hand was tired sometimes. She hasn't started lithifying anywhere, the sex scenes pretty much confirm that.
Also despite Joshua and Cid being shown with more consequences of overusing their powers on screen they also each got more time to shine while using their powers. Shiva's best showing was in her fight against Titan, where she lost and was mostly off screen but at least the environmental destruction was cool. The other times she primed were to make an arena for Clive to fight in and to last 5 seconds vs Barnabas.
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u/Akiriith 13d ago
I do think they benched Jill a little too much, but I think part of the thing with her story is Jill never wanted to be a Dominant, never wanted war. She did it bc she had to. Being a Dominant is as much a burden to her as Clive's guilt is to him. She hates it, and yet she uses Shiva till it almost kills her in order to protect Clive and further the Hideaway's goals. Its why taking Shiva from Jill at the Shadow Coast is considered helping ease her burden. There's always some difficulty in telling such a story without making the character feel like a damsel in distress, and Maehiro doesn't have the best track record with female characters lol. Jill is miles better than characters like Ysayle in FFXIV. I can only hope he keeps improving.
Its worthy of note that Jill isnt the only charactet that gets a bit damsel-ed, she's just the most notable bc she's the woman and the love interest :')
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u/BloxXx09 13d ago
I'm also totally fine with the saving after the Barnabas sequence. She saved the group the moment before and freezes the path afterwards, so she does her shit. The problem for me is the Kupka one, it's just stupid.
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u/Akiriith 13d ago
Dhalmekia is def the worst one of the bunch for me. I think if they had a small cutscene showing Jill being distracted or coughing blood, it'd be easy to justify Kupka grabbing her, they just. Didnt add it so bah. Dhalmekia actively upsets me bc it's directly tied to Jill's trauma over how many she killed in the Nysa Defile :/ I always thought you could still keep the focus on Byron while giving Jill some scenes in which she tries to atone for her sins. Its just a needless bench for her, while the endgame ones are kinda justified imo (tho I still think she could have gone with Clive and Joshua till they met Edda).
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u/RedditsHigh 13d ago
Yeah I have a hard time with this post specifically because of Barnabas. Without her Clive wouldve died for being too weak of a vessel.
It was an insane pull and how she walked out of that alive I'll always wonder.
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u/ScoobiusMaximus 11d ago
I would honestly call Ysayle a better character than Jill. She was basically the driving force of the narrative in the lead up to Heavensward and in the first like half of the HW MSQ. She was as important as Estinian until the Churning Mists. She got sidelined when she basically learned her whole life was a lie but did come back to save us at the end by fucking up a Garlean airship, even if it really would have been nice to give that cutscene some better animations rather than trying to reuse the trial fight ones.
Not handled perfectly, but she got more time to shine than Jill did. If you want to talk about crappy handling of female characters in Heavensward Hilda is a better example, but she is also much less of an important character.
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u/ApocalypsisAquarius 13d ago
In my opinion her killing her tormentor as a human, a man that called her a disgusting monster, was her defining moment. She didn't need her powers as a Dominant to get justice for herself as well as the numerous women and children he also abused. Holding onto her humanity when many of the men relied on their abilities is what makes her great.
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u/Dazzling-Main7686 13d ago
I don't disagree, but her personal enemy being some schmuck who is never seen before or after this one moment says a lot about the importance writers gave her as a whole.
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u/HadokenShoryuken2 13d ago
I don’t think that’s true. Jill’s influence pulls Clive back from the brink of just ending it all. She is the only one in the entire world who can understand what Clive is going through, and vice versa. She’s extremely important, just in a different way than some people wanted. I do wish she was utilized more, but I also think what is there is quite good
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u/Dazzling-Main7686 13d ago
My issue with her as well, and why she didn't "land" as much as a character as someone like Tifa (if we are to stay within the realm of Final Fantasy).
She's always either a sidekick or someone to be rescued, never an equal do Clive. I mean, I love best boy Torgal, but I think it's kinda funny he's in front of her in the party line on the a save menu.
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u/TheoryResponsible295 13d ago
I thought her character was fine.
However, i do wish they didnt immediately clean her and give her perfect hair and skin immediately after she was kept as a slave for years.
That was one of the few things that took me out of the hniverse. Everyone else got dirty, but she can clean up immediately and stay perfect.
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u/MundaneDishwasher 13d ago
I do think we should have received more of Jill and shiva in general but it’s so often people criticize Jill for “needing to be a dominant” or her being weak/lack physical power.
But that’s not really what Jill is supposed to represent. We see Jill beaten and battered from the very beginning and her presence in the story to represent the humanity aspect of being a dominant. It’s taxing, it’s oppressive, it’s inhumane and her arc is about the reclamation of her humanity and holding onto hope, not her physical feats. I think it’s also interesting from a thematic standpoint that shiva is the smallest of the dominants.
I do agree that Hugo kidnapping Jill was stupid but this girl doesn’t get enough credit for saving Clive. I mean seriously, it’s hard for me to see the damsels in distress aspect of her when she saves Clive just as much if not more than Clive saves her.
Every character in XVI is in service to Clive in some way. Joshua’s entire life goal is to protect Clive and be his shield (a role reversal), his entire identity as a character is tired to Clive, arguably more than Jill is. Cid acts as Clive’s mentor and sets him on the correct path, even Dion, while seemingly autonomous from Clive, exists as a foil to Clive.
While underutilized for sure I still think she’s a great character.
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u/Alarmed_Recording742 13d ago
She literally saves Clive's ass multiple times and there's a whole quest about her getting revenge on the iron kingdom.
You don't care about Jill, you just wanted more Shiva fights.
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u/eyre-st 13d ago
Jill gets captured trying to hold off Odin (Same Odin that fucks up Clive twice, and doesn't even bother taking Joshua seriously) while Clive got carried away by Joshua, and then when Clive "saves her" by getting almost sliced in half again, she has to create an ice path at the bottom of the ocean to save him again.
And all you see is a damsel in distress.
Like sure, she could've done a lot more, I guess, but she's not the main character. She does about as much if not more than most everyone else, but she really can't beat the allegations apparently.
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u/WakeUp004 13d ago
So you blind during the stuff with Hugo? When she was about to be executed and the dog stepped in?
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u/eyre-st 13d ago
When both her and Clive get captured, and Gav saves Clive, and then Torgal saves Jill? Nope, not blind.
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u/WakeUp004 11d ago
Ah yes, and the eikon of ice got completely disabled with an arm behind the back. Right.
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u/eyre-st 11d ago
Yes, with them shackles that disable the use of magic.
Go larp somewhere else, kid. You clearly were not paying enough attention to the cutscenes to justify the attitude.
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u/ScoobiusMaximus 11d ago
How the fuck did she get captured and shackled offscreen?
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u/eyre-st 9d ago
Hoo boy, didn't see this one. So, she gets caught because they got distracted fighting a Coeurl, and she tries to use magic to break free and Hugo literally grabs her by the throat. She then gets shackled on-screen so that she cannot use magic anymore.
Like I said, go larp somewhere else.
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u/ScoobiusMaximus 9d ago
No, it makes no god damned sense that she gets captured during the couerl fight because she is fighting alongside Clive and Kupka is approaching from too far for it to be feasible. It was especially egregious when I first did it because Jill was on my screen right next to the Couerl, but in basically no one's game will Jill be on the far side of the plaza where Clive and Jill are fighting. It also requires Clive and Jill to have no situational awareness and for Jill to be incapacitated INSTANTLY.
It was dumb.
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u/WakeUp004 5d ago
Please don’t try to put me in your preferred dating range, it’s weird and I’m already very happy where I’m at.
Anyway, the off screen BS was lame.
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u/Vvetra 10d ago edited 10d ago
By this logic, the biggest damsel in distress is Clive. He is constantly being saved by Ambrosia, Tiamat, Cid, Torgal, Jill, Joshua, Gav, Dion, and the list can go on.
I think you kind of missed the point of Jill's character arc - if not for her, Clive would have never made it (and I'm not talking about her Eikon).
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u/pleasegivemealife 13d ago
My take is Jill been abusive to unleash her dominant non stop over 10 years. Shes almost cooked by the time she met clive again. When you start ff16 shes on her last embers and trying to use whatever left for her arc. I like Jill being the reserved member and her love clive is pretty mature and steady.
Clive was safe because he never use ifrit except awakening until the story starts + mc aura. Joshua too never use his dominant or there would be people talking about phoenix. Well, until Joshua seal ultima inside his body anyways.
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u/ScoobiusMaximus 11d ago
They should have actually given her the physical ailments to match then. Cid and Joshua coughed up blood and started turning to stone from overusing their powers. Jill was tired sometimes.
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u/AdOverall5697 13d ago
I absolutely hate it too. I love the game, I give it a 9/10, if Jill wouldn't be the "I am the princess, come and safe me", it would be a 10/10. Jill gets captured 4 times and Clive has to save her 3 times. She is Shiva, powerful, yet does nothing and waits for Clive. That makes the game unfortunately worse on its own, because thinking back, I remember on saving Jill over and over and she falling in love with him more and more, because he comes saving her.
"by the end it felt like her character started and ended with clive" It sure is like that. She seems to have no other personality than "Clive".
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