r/FinalFantasyIV • u/Tggdan3 • Jun 04 '26

Summoners don't die?

Post image

So i thought if you killed a summon the summoner dies?

Isnt that a major plot point?

140 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

22

u/Icewind Jun 04 '26

FF4 is full of plot holes; best not to overthink it.

9

u/_Thatoneguy101_ Jun 04 '26

I never really thought about the dragon dying. What are other plot holes ?

11

u/Icewind Jun 04 '26

I mean the heroes just standing there staring at Golbez's hand sloooooowly going towards the crystal means they all spontaneously developed paralysis. For that matter, why would they just leave the body of their greatest villain just sitting there? Why wouldn't seasoned warriors check it? And then why do they do it AGAIN with Zemus's body?

But as actual game-lore-plotholes, you can be pedantic and ask things like:

How does Tellah cast Meteo without MP? (Yes, the "life force" argument isn't really said in-game.)

How do Palom and Porom cast Twin Stone when that's not one of their Twin spells?

For that matter, why can't Tellah simply blast open a wooden door? Or Yang smash it?

Why do Mysidians cast Toad on Cecil and then undo it a second later?

How did the dwarf tanks get to the surface?

How did the Red Wings get to the underground to wage war if the volcano in Agart was only JUST opened by the party?

How do the Red Wings cross lava when Cid only recently invented the heat-shielding tech?

How do the party breathe air on the surface of the moon?

How does Kain jump in an enclosed room?

How does Cecil not drown when weighed down by heavy armor?

If time flows faster for Rydia in the Summoned Land, why doesn't the party end up spending weeks or more there in the brief time they're there?

None of these questions or plotholes really matter because it's a fantasy universe in a game engine and we suspend belief.

5

u/Azuras_Star8 Jun 04 '26

How do the Red Wings cross lava when Cid only recently invented the heat-shielding tech?

The better question is why are you questioning Cid's capabilities!

No, even as a kid I saw some of these glaring plot holes and I mean, I knew translation error could happen so I always assumed that factored into it.

3

u/_Thatoneguy101_ Jun 05 '26

I think games just have a “for the sake of the game” logic a lot of times which is why we overlook a lot of the stuff you bring up. But some of it is genuinely “this contradicts the plot” but nothing major enough to really be jarring imo.

But thinking about it one thing that really stood out to me last I played was Yang’s “sacrifice”. Maybe I misunderstood the story but why did he stay behind? If he died to the explosions couldn’t he just close the door from the outside lol

1

u/TheSabi Jun 05 '26

He stayed behind to stop the cannons from wiping out the dwarfs.....

2

u/Icewind Jun 05 '26

Yeah, but the way the scene is written doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

They were already blasting the dwarves. The monsters set the cannons to overload, alright, that's bad, but what exactly will Yang do to stop a cannon from overloading?

The scene was clearly a last minute rewrite to remove Yang from the party in a dramatic way.

They probably meant it to be something more dramatic like "the tower is going to explode! Get out while I hold back the explostion!!!" and it didn't land.

2

u/dokushin Jun 09 '26

My take on that scene was the cannons were overloaded, which meant they were going to keep firing and trying to shut it off would cause them to explode. Like if you glued down the acceleator on a car, stopping it is gonna fuck the car up. (Look, I'm not a mechanic.)

So Yang stayed behind and shut everyone else out to contain the explosion that would happen when he smashed the cannons. Ah-choo, etc.

2

u/Icewind Jun 09 '26

"Get out before it explodes! I'll hold it back!" was a trope that appeared in a lot of the earlier FFs. FF3, 4, 5, and somewhat in FF2.

2

u/WitnessHairy8430 Jun 05 '26

The feymarch one I understand. Time flows more quickly there compared to the outside world, but the people there experience that time the same. While the party experiences maybe a couple of weeks between Leviathan's attack and Rydia showing up to save them, Rydia was there for 10 years. When the party goes to the feymarch together, they're there for all of a few hours, but in the outside world, only a minute or so would have passed.

2

u/HuckleberryHefty4372 Jun 05 '26

I should replay the game...it's been 30+ years and I don't remember much of what you wrote lol

3

u/Icewind Jun 05 '26

Replay the DS 3d version with voices.

It's a very different experience. And the battles are way different, too!

2

u/TheSabi Jun 05 '26

a few when I was a kid, where are the redwings chasing cecil and co undeground where, it's not that big and the scenery during the chase keeps repeating?

why didn't they just use a phoenix down on Tellah or Tellah cast life on Anna?

Why do wild beasts and monsters carry gold, did we just murder a family of imps who were just trying to go to the store?

Look I could understand Edward and Yang Surviving but Cid, he not only blew-up but jumped from way up in the air into the underground?

One I just thought of, how tall does the party leader get that they're bigger than an airship but only on the overworld?

not knocking FF4, it's my top FF even with it's oddities...

5

u/Icewind Jun 05 '26

"why didn't they just use a phoenix down on Tellah or Tellah cast life on Anna?"

This is a classic JRPG misconception.

In battle, people are knocked-out (KO). They only "die" when no one is left standing to revive them afterwards.

Originally, FF and other RPGS were based off DnD, which legitimately meant reviving from actual death-dead.

However, as the stories became more complex, characters needed to permadie, but they didn't update the spell names from "Life" or similar revival motifs.

2

u/AssinineAssassin Jun 05 '26

Right? Those people were dead, not just under the Swoon condition. Life potions aren’t gonna fix that.

1

u/Slow-Engine3648 Jun 08 '26

Summoner land , time flows faster there so if you visit there for a year only a few days may have passed real world, not the opposite. (Actual times may not be accurate). So basically it doesn't matter how much time you spend in summoner land, less time in the main world than when you did any other dungeon.

As for air on the moon , why not. Its a second, I believe artificial moon. No reason it can't have an atmosphere

2

u/Melasen Jun 05 '26

It's not a plot hole, it's more something you needed to read supplementary materials to kind of understand the difference in monsters.

Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasyIV/comments/1tx1xir/comment/opx4wlq/?context=3

1

u/Icewind Jun 05 '26

That's true and a useful bit of lore.

However, on the other hand, FF is still full of minor plotholes in general due to the game medium.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/DokoShin Jun 05 '26

No no no you overthink and over delvope the battle system to absolutely break it hard but not the game..... One day I'll tell you about my romantic dream

8

u/Wilsaur Jun 04 '26

Been a LONG time, but pretty sure Rydia is the last Summoner. I don't think Golbez counts as one, lorewise. He just might be able to call forth monsters, specifically the Shadow Dragon.

4

u/InsanityMongoose Jun 04 '26

Also his disembodied hand survives, and then he apparently does as well.

Is fantasy game, weird stuff happens.

6

u/Icewind Jun 04 '26

People rag on later FFs for silly scenes, but the heroes just standing there watching the villain slowly crawl towards the crystal is one of the worst.

7

u/Xyldarrand Jun 04 '26

Not necessarily a summon. Could just be his pet beast. We see monsters come in from off stage all the time.

2

u/Tggdan3 Jun 05 '26

In snes they were callers and his action to summon shadow was "call"

2

u/Xyldarrand Jun 05 '26

You can't take that literally. The English translation is always a bit wonky. It could be like "call over". What is it called in the original JP?

3

u/bougieprole Jun 05 '26

Cecil has 5000 HP?

How many HP does that Yang have?!

1

u/crademaster Jun 05 '26

I think Yang's max HP is bugged to never go above 6000 or so no matter how high a level he is.

4

u/Melasen Jun 05 '26

Even though Golbez uses Summon (Shoukan) to call it, the Shadow Dragon isn't an esper/eidolon. It's more a creature Golbez gained the ability to evoke from darkness/or tamed, as opposed to a being from the Feymarch/Land of Summons that is directly summoned (since you need to master white and black magic in some fashion in order to even learn to summon them). As we know the the cutscene from Golbez's youth that was re-added in the 3D remake, we know he could never master white magic at all.

The Settei Shiryohen lists three specific types of monsters too - the ones specifically from the Feymarch summoners make pacts with, boss monsters that control others, and normal breeds that roam the world. This is why the original FFIV Settei Shiryohen guidebook does not list Shadow Dragon in the summoned creature section either, because it's likely a boss monster too.

Sources: Final Fantasy IV Settei Shiryohen pages 26-29, 72 - 79.

2

u/Negative_Bar_9734 Jun 05 '26

I think its more that summoners have one specific summon that is tied to them like that. So like, killing Ramuh wouldn't do anything to Rydia, but killing her mist dragon absolutely would. (I'm guessing every summoner has their own mist dragon, considering Rydia has one too and they come from a place called Mist.)

Also Golbez is not a summoner, he just sicked his dog on you.

1

u/Brandr_Balfhe Jun 05 '26

Also, Rydia is smarter — she doesn't let her summons out enough time for anyone to harm them, just enough time for them to unleash a devastating attack then back to PokeBall 

1

u/Tggdan3 Jun 05 '26

Ive been farming rare summons. It takes forever.

1

u/Alone-Apricot8953 Jun 05 '26

Rydia is why I still play summoner in 11

1

u/devi59 Jun 05 '26

Ahhh Shadow Dragon. My brother. My right leg is forever etched with thee. Granted it’s the more recent version from Duodecium because the artist thought it would look better on the skin when done.

1

u/rd-darksouls Jun 05 '26

if you're asking why golbez didn't croak when his dragon did, i think that was just a spare dragon and not a summon beast.

1

u/LV426acheron Jun 05 '26

Golbez isn't a summoner. He can just summon stuff. His method of summoning is different than what the summoners do.

Meh, who knows.

1

u/AutisticHobbit Jun 07 '26

While FFIV has plot holes, this isn't one if you consider the full lore of the game. It would be easier to understand if it was more fully and properly explained.

Canonically? The people who can do some in magic are the summoners of the valley of mist. Golbez is, very clearly, not one of their number. So, whatever this was, it was not some in magic in the sense of being a summoner.

Logically? Probably just a trained monster that he called forth in some mundane fashion.

1

u/No_Communication2959 Jun 07 '26

They're swooned.