History Headscratchers / LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII

** The final side novella (They were only released in Japan, but you can find translations online) pretty much flat out says that Hope's feeling for Lighting (or at least his idealized version of her) were romantic in nature. There are also some moments in game that subtly imply Hope's feelings for Lightning. The "I'll always be on your side" comment at the beginning of the game, Hope's comments during the Adoring Candice sidequest in Yuusan ''heavily imply'' that he's been in love before (he outright states that Bhunivelze's repressed those memories), and some of what he says in the scene where he fades away (especially "I'm glad I met you" and "I'm not afraid because you're with me") have a romantic leaning (at least for Japan). The FoeYay comments in the Japanese version are actually supposed clue the player into the fact that Bhunivelze has Hope's Heart and is (likely) merging with him. As for changing Last Resort, I have no clue. The name of the track on the album is actually called Last Resort so it doesn't make much sense to change the name of the attack to me, but I'm not the person who gets to make these decisions.

** [[spoiler: It's pretty obvious the world at the end is Earth: we get a darkened but still visible shot of North Africa and southern Europe, and the camera lingers quite a bit on Spain and Morocco, giving us a good look at the Gibraltar Strait. As for what design decision led to this, I'd say the production team was [[FollowTheLeader taking inspiration]] from the endings to ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' and ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'', which both ended similiarly (killing God and creating a new world that turns out to be Earth]]).

** Likely a ShrugOfGod? As you say, the original Japanese text implies there to be ''something'' going on from Hope's side towards Lightning. Though what exactly it is, isn't revealed or properly elaborated. And the English version definitely changed things, including turning Lightning's teasing line towards Hope and him asking her to 'please not tease him' into a blatant Hope-Vanille nudge. Whether the English translation made mistakes or intentionally changed things to maybe avoid the {{Squick}}-factor of Lightning-Hope (regardless of both of them being actually adults) is unclear... Also doesn't explain why Lightning's final attack of Last Resort was changed to a completely different line in the final battle.

* It seems back when it was just FFXIII alone, fans interpreted it as simply Hope finding a sort of mother figure in Lightning after losing his mother while she saw him as a younger sibling in Serah's absence. However, could it be that once Light and Serah were reunited and Hope came to terms and reconciled with Snow that their feelings for one another changed? I ask this because, although not clear in the English dub, the Japanese game really seems to strongly push at this being a thing. Especially see the Fridge page for this game; in short, one of the most poignant details is that through possessing Hope, Bhunivelze seems to be influenced by his heart. As a god who is stated to have no heart (therefore no emotions) it makes little sense why, as the battle goes on, he would start expressing a desire for Lightning (although a bit twisted).

** I imagine the reason is thus; while Sazh did appear with her in the opening cutscene (and Vanille narrated, but wasn't physically shown, so likely didn't count), his presence and actions in there considerably less than Lightning, who stole the show by kicking the asses of every soldier that got in their way. In other words, the logic behind the trilogy starting with Lightning appears to apply to actions, rather than just appearances - and by that logic, Lightning certainly made the greatest opening show of action, whereas Sazh merely went to help the other people. So therefore, not ''exactly'' false, in a way

* Only Lightning is in the ending because the trilogy started with only Lightning, so it should end with her. ...except this is false. Lightning was with Sazh when XIII started. If we're counting voices, the game technically started with ''Vanille''. Huh?

* Since [[spoiler: Bhunivelze was in possession of Hope all this time, and part of the plan called for exterminating all of the dead souls in the Chaos to erase their memories from the surviving humans]] it's very likely the Clavis wasn't a random find at all, but [[spoiler: delibareately marked as one of the "massive" source of Chaos in the Dead Dunes that Lightning was supposed to find and defeat.]]

*** Or, another scenario is this: because of their rather unique qualities (IE: A young, crystallized Sanctum l'Cie and a chocobo blessed by a goddess), they were affected in markedly different ways than others who were also at Ground Zero and suffered few ill effects (IE: Sazh, Noel, Mog, and Hope). No matter what, it's already established that Chaos does ''weird'' shit to living creatures, so it's not out of the realm of belief to think that it could have affected both of them differently because of their circumstances.

** [[spoiler: Ereshkigal and the likes were the backup plan if Lightning failed and humans proved unable to earn salvation, not some sort of long-term plan by God. While Bhunivelze doesn't understand humans (which is part of the reason he tried possessing Hope to get closer to them), he still wanted to grant them eternal joy in the new world. However, for that to happen, they needed to leave the past behind since it's attached to sorrow and regret (they needed to live "knowing only joy".). In other words; he ''could have'' created his perfect world from scratch, but he wanted to try saving humanity if he could because he's not actually evil. The reasons his actions don't seem to make sense from the point of view of him as a villain is because he doesn't actually plan like a villain and most of his "evil acts" are actually misunderstandings - even Lumina points out that he's not actually trying to deceive Lightning or string her along by manipulating her feelings with the fake Serah; he's just trying to keep his word and doesn't see the difference between "reviving Serah" and "creating a copy of Serah". The only purposeful deception coming from him is initially hiding from Lightning that he plans to make her a new Goddess, and even then it's not like he made any actual effort to hide it.]]

** [[spoiler: Ereshkigal and the likes were the backup plan if Lightning failed and humans proved unable to earn salvation, not some sort of long-term plan by God. While Bhunivelze doesn't understand humans (which is part of the reason he tried possessing Hope to get closer to them), he still wanted to grant them eternal joy in the new world. However, for that to happen, they needed to leave the past behind since it's attached to sorrow and regret (they needed to live "knowing only joy".). In other words; he ''could have'' created his perfect world from scratch, but he wanted to try saving humanity if he could because he's not actually evil. The reasons his actions don't seem to make sense from the point of view of him as a villain is because he doesn't actually plan like a villain and most of his "evil acts" are actually misunderstandings - even Lumina points out that he's not actually trying to deceive Lightning or string her along by manipulating her feelings with the fake Serah; he's just trying to keep his word and doesn't see the difference between "reviving Serah" and "creating a copy of Serah".]]

** For what it's worth, the chest containing the fragment that's right outside the front door actually does not appear until Lightning talks to him and he leaves. So it may very well be something that only responds to the Savior.

* So Caius destroys Time itself. Lightning wakes up "five hundred years" later. ''By what measure of time?!'' This isn't a question of abstraction. The fact that Valhalla explicitly ''lacks'' linear time is the reason why Lightning and Caius can get away with so many temporal shenanigans in ''VideoGame/{{Final Fantasy XIII-2}}'' (like Caius continuing to exist even after he is killed by Noel). Of course, it ''is'' possible that Caius' plans didn't have the exact result he intended...

** If I recall, in the Sazh DLC for XIII-2, Chocolina claims she got lost in time but was rescued by Etro, who gave her the ability to take a human form and travel through time and junk. So I'm guessing she got her soul from that interaction, meaning she is still a chick when the TimeCrash happened.

* Why is Chocolina's bird form still a chick instead of a fully grown chocobo? Does having a human form give her a soul which prevents her from aging?

* [[spoiler: He needed a human with a chaotic soul in order to become the Goddess of Death. Otherwise, the Chaos would just destroy the new world he was making. And he can't create a human soul without tainting himself in Chaos like Etro by dying (or at least that's what I figured), something he ''really'' doesn't want to do. Hence, his complex machinations. If Lightning failed as the saviour, I imagine he'd have tried again with a different human from the new world he made. He also makes an effort to understand humanity with Hope, probably so that he can manipulate Lightning and his worshipers better. There's also the Ultimate Lair, which implies God was going to replace humanity with his "superior" creations eventually anyway, once he tired of humans.]]