#octopath ii spoilers | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

loregoddess · 2 months

Text

okay one of my all-time favorite fanarts for the first Octopath game were these doodles of the travelers sleeping, and it made me want to make art of the Octo2 travelers sleeping but I don't have a lot of energy for art lately so I don't think that'll happen, however I was still inspired to come up with a whole bunch of headcanons about the sleeping habits of the Octo2 travelers, sooo...I wrote them instead. Cheers. (some story spoilers)

Ochette Ochette has official art showing her sleeping, so we know she sleeps curled in a tight little ball (although she probably repositions herself in her sleep), but I also think she nests. Like, all the time. Staying at an inn? Ochette turns those blankets into a nest and curls up in them. Camping? no need for a sleeping bag (unless it's cold) she'll just tamp down some grass and make a nest. Will also nest in trees by rearranging the branches and leaves. Nests in Osvald's hair on occasion.

Also I think Ochette's a huge cuddler. She's usually cuddled with Akala or Mahina, but once she gets to know the other travelers better and figures out their personal boundaries, she'll cuddle anyone who's okay with it (probably usually Agnea and Castti. Throne wants to cuddle Ochette so badly but refuses to ask...Ochette eventually figures it out though. Osvald swears he doesn't know anything about Ochette making nests of his hair or snuggling into his coat during cold nights, but everyone knows he has the soul of a loving father. One time Ochette fell asleep leaning against Hikari and he was afraid to move at all for the rest of the night).

Follows something of a crepuscular sleeping schedule, so Ochette's most active at dawn and dusk, naps in the middle of the day, and sleeps through most of the night (although she's skilled at night hunting and can stay up most of the night if need be). Ochette can technically stay awake for a couple of days at a time if she's taking breaks and short rests, since it's useful for tracking and stalking prey over longer distances, but doesn't prefer this type of a hunt. Can also technically follow a "typical diurnal human" sleeping schedule, but Ochette thinks it's stupid. Would love siestas if they existed in Solistia.

Overall quick to fall asleep, quick to wake up. Only feels groggy if it's cold or the weather's bad, as she'd prefer to continue sleeping snuggled up in her warm nest.

Castti Castti can sleep anywhere, anytime, in any position, but mostly because she does not have any sort of healthy sleeping habits or regular sleeping schedule. Terrible, terrible habit of just staying awake to help patients and then passing out as soon as she gets a brief break in her work (her sleeping at a table in her ending card artwork attests to this). She was better about getting proper sleep when she was with Eir's Apothecaries and could share the work, and the other travelers are good at nagging her to get to sleep, but Castti doesn't really hold her own sleep health to the same standards she'll expect of her patients (she is, canonically, a bit reckless about her own health, re: Osvald telling to her to take better care of herself in that one travel banter). Snores if she's gone too long without sleeping, and won't stop until she's gotten at least two hours of sleep.

Not a really deep sleeper, but not a light sleeper either. Castti has the ability to sort of sense when someone around her needs medical help, and wakes up accordingly to help them. If no one's in trouble though she could sleep through a hailstorm on a tin roof. Because she doesn't follow any fixed sleeping schedule, her body's innate sleeping cycles are a bit wonky, but if Castti allowed herself to return to a "normal" sleeping schedule she'd be the sort of person who was up before the sun rose, and be in bed as soon as the sun set.

Throne Throne is the lightest sleeper in the group. A mouse scampering across the inn floor could wake her. Always sleeps on her side with a dagger in hand. If she's at an inn, she chooses whichever bed is against a wall or in a corner with no windows, so that nothing can sneak up behind her as she sleeps, and sleeps facing out towards the rest of the room. If she's camping then she either chooses a location where she can't easily be ambushed (under an overhanging boulder/cliff, against a large tree), or begrudgingly sleeps on her back so she can survey the area around her. Once she's more comfortable with the other travelers, she's willing to treat them as "walls" that she can safely have her back to, but overall being raised by a syndicate of assassins made her an extremely cautious sleeper.

Given the nature of her work, Throne's mostly nocturnal, opting to sleep through the day, and be awake all night long. However, some jobs required more flexibility, so Throne also learned to just sort of be up whenever she needed to be up, and sleep whenever she could. If left to her own devices though she prefers to sleep through the day. Very quick to wake up, but also doesn't have too much trouble getting to sleep either.

Osvald Before prison Osvald was probably the sort of person to stay up late into the night as he pursued his research, and sleep in late during the morning. A very deep sleeper as well, although he did acquire the parental "oh shit, my kid needs me time to be fully awake" instinct when Elena was a baby that never really went away as she got older (Castti recruited Osvald to help her nurse the others when they get sick because he started having the parental "oh shit" reaction to the other travelers as well). If he needed to be up early for some sort of scholarly conference or to teach classes or something, then Rita was the one to get him up in a timely manner (she was more of a morning person), which was good because Osvald would take 1-2 hours just to fully wake up (very serious coffee person).

Osvald's time in prison changed him however, and between the cold and needing to survey everyone and everything in the prison, he stopped sleeping through the night and would sleep in short bursts instead. Like Throne, he became a very cautious sleeper, making sure his back was to a wall while he remained hyper-vigilant of his surroundings. Whatever his sleep schedule might have been didn't matter since he had to abide by the prison's work schedules. Being passed out as he washed up on the shores of Cape Cold was the first long "sleep" Osvald had in five years.

After escaping, he's sort of in a weird in-between state where part of his mind still thinks he's in constant danger and wants to continue being stressed and vigilant, and another part that realizes he's safe now and wants to finally get some rest. As a result Osvald's sleeping habits are...haphazard during his travels. Sometimes he manages to sleep just fine, sometimes he's restless, sometimes he'll be up for two days straight claiming he can't sleep. One time Castti offered him some sleeping medicine and he slept for almost an entire day. He doesn't stop being vigilant, although he's not quite as cautious as Throne (no weapons on hand), but this mostly just results in him knowing everyone else's sleeping habits and troubles. Partway through the travels, Osvald does ease up a bit as he's able to accept he's not in constant danger, and as he comes to trust the others more he begins to relax enough to start recovering his old sleeping habits.

Eventually, he is able to recover most of his sleeping habits, staying up late researching, and sleeping in late (unfortunately Clarissa and Elena have the same sleep schedule, so if they all need to be somewhere early chances are they're going to be collectively late). Osvald never does quite shake some of the habits picked up from prison though, and doesn't sleep as deeply as he once did.

Partitio Partitio doesn't sleep in any really odd positions, although he does rotisserie chicken through the night, turning from one side to his back to his other side to his stomach and back to his side, all without really waking up. Snores like a motor if he's on his back, but if one of the other travelers kicks him or tosses something at him, he'll turn over and stop snoring (won't remember this in the morning). Sleeps extremely deeply as well, and can sleep through almost anything. Coughing wakes Partitio up immediately though, because of the time he spent nursing his father's poor health--this in turn makes him a great nurse if any of the other travelers fall sick, and Castti was pretty quick to recruit him to being her aide as well.

Growing up working in mines meant Partitio was pretty tired come night, and would just pass out. He's a natural morning person, and typically follows a very regular "wake up with the rising sun, go to sleep with the starlight" schedule. Only oversleeps if he partied too hard late into the night, or else had to stay up all night for some reason.

Agnea Tosses and turns the most through the night. Not out of discomfort, Agnea just, doesn't really stay still when she sleeps, and sleeps in the strangest positions as well when she isn't moving around. At an inn the bed's covers will be an absolute mess when she gets up, and her sleeping bag ends up cocooned around her in ways the other travelers didn't think possible. Worst bedhead as well, it takes her a good half hour to get her hair brushed out sometimes. Which is fine because it usually takes her a bit to fully wake up in the morning (although if she's excited about something, Agnea can get up and be ready to go in ten minutes flat).

Also a bit of a sleep-talker, but the sort of "nonsense" sleep talk that almost seems to make sense but doesn't. The other travelers have held entire nonsense conversations with Agnea as she sleeps. She of course, does not have any memory of these conversations when she wakes up, nor do any of her dreams match the content of the conversations recounted to her. Agnea was a bit embarrassed by this at first, until she realized the others weren't teasing her to be mean, but because her nightly chatter was truly amusing in an endearing sort of way.

Prefers to sleep late into the morning/early afternoon and stay up into the night, since it fits her schedule as a dancer better. However, Angea also has one of those internal alarm clocks, so if she needs to get up early in the morning, she just tells herself at what time to wake up and then she does. Absolute envy of Pala, who does not have an internal alarm clock. Very useful when she's travelling though, since she can make sure all the other travelers are up on time if she needs too. Also, given the size of Solistia I'm assuming there's like, major time zone differences, but I feel like Agnea would be one of those people who almost never suffers from jetlag (partly bc the means to travel across the time zones quickly enough doesn't yet exist, but also because she just has a naturally good internal sense of time and adjusts to the times the sun rises and sets pretty quickly).

Temenos Temenos looks like he sleeps peacefully. On his back, hands folded over his chest, perfectly still, no matter if he's in a bed at an inn, or a sleeping bag while camping. The truth is it takes him 1-3 hours to actually fall asleep, and he's just pretending to sleep while he tries to get thoughts about whatever case (or general stress thoughts) out of his mind. Ochette, Throne, and Osvald have figured this out, since Temenos's breathing isn't actually steady until he's fallen asleep (Ochette has good ears, Throne's used to keeping a close eye on those around here, and Osvald also got good at monitoring his cellmates and the prison guards, which carried over to his traveling companions). Once he is asleep though, Temenos sleeps fairly deeply.

He's also had these issues getting to sleep since forever. When Temenos was really young, Jorg would read him stories from the scriptures, and once Temenos learned to read he'd stay up late reading and rereading these stories in hopes that the tedious language would bore him to sleep. This is at least part of the reason why he's memorized almost all the stories in the scriptures, even if he can't remember the details exactly. Sometimes if he knows he's not going to get to sleep easily, he'll still read, although he's expanded his reading list to just about every genre, and usually always has some sort of book on hand as a result.

Because he remains in the same position all night, Temenos wakes up stiff and needs to stretch to loosen his muscles. However, when he has nightmares he tends to toss and turn a bit, and then just wakes up achy from having slept in an odd position. Night owl by nature, feels most awake in the evening and early night, and would sleep half the day except his duties as inquisitor and cleric require Temenos to get up early (which he uses an alarm clock for, maybe? I mean, mechanical clocks do exist in Solistia, so...). Wakes up fairly quickly, but is always a little tired throughout the day.

Hikari Hikari tends to sleep mostly on his side, and also keeps a weapon nearby (he did grow up participating in a concerning number of wars and battles). He prefers to get up early and go to bed early, but given the need for flexibility on a battlefield, can and has stayed up through the night and slept part of the day with little consequence. Hikari's also an incredibly quiet and still sleeper, rarely repositioning except to sometimes roll onto his back.

He is also a deceptively peaceful-looking sleeper. Hikari's issue is less that he can't get to sleep easily, and more that he's afraid of the Shadow overtaking him somehow while he sleeps, a fear that was especially prevalent when he was in active warzones. Without anyone he could really discuss this with, Hikari had to figure out how to get to sleep on his own, and eventually settled for meditating before he planned to sleep. During his meditation he focuses on suppressing the Shadow the same way he's able to suppress it when he's awake, and specifically visualizes locking the Shadow away for the duration of his sleep. This meditation tactic, once Hikari refined it, did help him sleep with lessened fear of the Shadow overtaking him. It didn't stop him from occasionally having nightmares about the Shadow though, which eventually led to Hikari figuring out how to lucid dream so he could get the Shadow out of his dreams as well.

All this means that, so long as Hikari has adequate time to set up, he's able to meditate and then simply lay down and go to sleep. Unfortunately, it also means that he will refuse to sleep if he does not have adequate time to properly mediate, and has on occasion just...stayed awake for a concerning amount of time. Hikari's so earnest and polite about insisting he simply can't sleep though that the other travelers have a hard time arguing with him in these rare instances where he refuses to sleep. When, on occasion, he ends up knocked out from a battle (or getting zapped off a bridge), and doesn't have control over passing out, Hikari actually does fine, since his subconscious kicks in to keep him safe from the Shadow, but this doesn't stop him from practicing his disciplined sleep ritual.

Hikari doesn't ever truly stop his meditation before sleeping after the events of his story, but he stops forcing himself to stay awake out of fear if he can't meditate, much to the relief of his friends and retainers. It's less that Hikari no longer fears the Shadow, and more that he believes in his own strength to keep it out of his mind entirely. At that point, Hikari actually sleeps just as peacefully as he looks while sleeping.

#octopath traveler #octopath traveler 2 #octopath ii #octopath ii spoilers #actually if I'm being honest I think I like these headcanons better in writing than I would've in my artstyle #I had a lot of fun writing them although I'm sure there's all sorts of weird typos #like all my silly stuff don't take this too seriously it's just me having fun and making it everyone else's problem #I dunno why I have a ton of headcanons for Octopath characters specifically but I'm not complaining #oracle of lore

49 notes · View notes

loregoddess · 1 year

Text

Final (maybe?) batch of assorted Octopath Traveler II theories and observations before TotK drops (I promise I am not procrastinating something else ~ <3). Divided into sections based on topic, but there's no meaningful organization, it's more just a list of some of my other theories and thoughts.

As usual, major spoilers for everything including the endgame. I'm still not trying to argue for or against any particular theory, I'm just herding the stray thoughts in my head. So as usual, all theories are based on my own reading of the text, nothing's canon or word of god, it's all wild speculation and good fun.

Following sections include:

-Addendum to my "Temenos is related to the Alpates blodline" theory

-Theory about Roi and the bloodline of light

-Speculations on why Throne isn't the vessel for Vide

-Possible typo in one of Ori's Journal entries which might be causing a misunderstanding of what occurred during this one event

-----

Addendum to My Theories About Temenos (specifically that he's related to the bloodline of Alpates)

-I totally forgot to note that his name, "Temenos", is the Greek word for the sacred land around a temple (yes this is like giving a character the name Churchyard or something, like this is just the name for a type of land, but it's Greek so I guess it sounds fancy?) ahem, anyhow, odd name choice aside, if Temenos was related to Alpates, but not the main bloodline, then he is, in a sense, the "land" that surrounds the sacred temple (the relic mirror) in that he is blood-related but not the direct bloodline of Alpates.

-An argument against this theory: Both Hikari and Elena are canonically known descendants of bloodlines of light which may be related to the bloodline of Alpates, and both exhibit unusual light-based powers because of this. Hikari's "Shadow's Hold" becomes "Light's Radiance" when he is finally able to conquer his shadow self, and Elena is shown to have some sort of unusual power (discussed in detail later on). Alpates herself doesn't show any unusual powers like this, although she is able to "see" the Flames in both Throne and Temenos, suggesting she either has some sort of very strong spiritual power, or that her ties to Aelfirc allow her a connection to the Flame itself outside of what the average person is able to sense. The counter-counterargument to this would be that, after completion of Temenos's personal story, he learns the EX skill "Heavenly Shine" which is essentially an explosion of light, and the most powerful light-based attack in the game, which could be his version of Hikari's Radiance or Elena's mysterious magical powers.

-----

I didn't discuss it in my other post, but Roi could also potentially be related to the bloodline of light, if only because it's heavily implied that he and the Dark Entity are the same being. It could be that Roi was used by Harvey as an early attempt to find the One True Magic, but that Roi's blood wasn't "pure" enough, leaving the Dark Entity. It's also possible Roi has no connection to the bloodline of light, but that this lack of connection is what made him transform into the Dark Entity as a Harvey's failed attempt at creating the One True Magic. It could be that, by the failure of Roi, Harvey was able to come up with the methods to turn Rita into the Grieving Golem, a more "perfect" attempt at creating the One True Magic, since her blood is of the Lumina family line and either more pure or powerful than Roi's. There's also a handful of minor similarities between the Grieving Golem and the Dark Entity, and notably both repeat phrases they used when they were alive (the Golem's use of "my darling" when encountering Osvald, and the Dark Entity's repetition of the last words Roi spoke to Temenos).

It's interesting to note that, as far as Osvald and Temenos are aware at the start of their respective stories, Rita and Roi are both dead. For Osvald this is apparent, since his entire story arc begins as a vengeance quest and how Rita "died' is clearly shown. But this isn't as obvious for Temenos, as he only mentions that Roi was "killed" in his Crackridge Travel Banter with Agnea, which is...odd since Roi's body shouldn't have been recovered if it was used to create the Dark Entity, and yet Temenos is very much aware of the fact that Roi is no longer alive. How this came about is never explained, so it's possibly an oversight by the writers, but it is something interesting to note.

-----

I've been puzzling over why Throne is not the vessel for Vide in any way, despite the entire point of the Blacksnakes being Claude's attempt to foist the role off to his "best" offspring.

-One explanation could be that, since Throne was "chosen" by Aeber, the Flame she carries within her soul negates her blood ties to Vide.

-It's also possible there was Something going on with Marietta, her mother. Possibly Marietta had blood ties to one of the branches of Alpate's bloodline of light--although if this were the case, Throne should have been in a situation similar to Hikari, and she's clearly not.

-Actually, the fact that Throne does not struggle with the Shadow in any way, especially looking at how Hikari struggles with the Shadow due to his blood ties to D'arqest, suggests her blood connections to Vide are actually quite weak at best. It could be that Claude being biologically engineered (for lack of a better term) to be Vide's vessel was not hereditary.

-Throne is also shown to actively dislike violence and hates bloodshed. She's also the only Blacksnake stated to have not been raised by Mother, and Father was notably raising her specifically to kill him rather than to take over the Blacksnakes. So in a sense she was never raised as a "true" Blacksnake. That she was able to kill both Mother and Father, and then make her way to Lostseed and kill Claude could be more testament to Throne's personal strength and the fact that she was intent on ending the Blacksnakes for her freedom, to get away from the violence and bloodshed, rather than to wrest control of the Snakes by besting the founder. This would make her unsuitable as a vessel for Vide because she does not commit violent acts as a means of attaining power and spreading chaos, but rather to break free from a cruel structure of power and end the chaos caused by it.

-It's also possible that there is no actual need for a "right" vessel, but that Claude was meant to be a "perfect" vessel because he is functionally immortal, and would have been significantly harder to kill if Vide had used him to return. However, Ori's Journals suggest that it doesn't really matter who the vessel is, and considering that Oboro is able to sacrifice himself and become the vessel, this seems to ring true. Notably, Oboro as Vide's vessel is weak enough that Vide is sealed away by eight mortals chosen by the gods, rather than needing to be sealed by the gods themselves. I thought for a bit that Vide's revival might be connected to how Vados's murders were supposed to be a reversal of the order of prayers to summon a curse, but I haven't actually found any evidence to support this, since no dancer dies after Lucien is murdered, and a merchant would have had to die last (with Ori being strongly suggested to be the "merchant" of the Moonshade order) but it's more likely that Arcanette, the "cleric", is canonically the last death before Oboro's self-sacrifice (and he's the "warrior"). So it seems more like Vide's revival has nothing to do with sacrifices and the order of prayers, and that the vessel can be any person who has given up on the dawn.

(Although I will note that the actual facts about the gods are extremely fuzzy, especially taking what little we know about them from Orsterra into account, so it's hard to tell how accurate the legend of Vide being sealed as recounted by Temenos is when compared to however events may have actually happened. These same gods were somehow also responsible for sealing Galdera away in Orsterra without much consequence, but were nearly killed in Solistia while sealing Vide. The Kal also notably seem to have a cult around the Flame itself and no associated gods, so that brings into question whether Aelfric and the Flame are connected or not, and if they are then exactly how. Unfortunately there's nothing in-game to really explain or expand the mythology of the pantheon which Aelfric leads, and even trying to take the shaky lore from CotC into account does little to elucidate exactly how this pantheon works).

-----

Speaking of Ori's Journal's, there's been one entry in particular that keeps confusing me, and that being the entry in which Ori states that Harvey escaped alive...somehow. This is the quote I'm referring to specifically:

I found a nice, cozy place to conceal myself, and sure enough Osvald showed up. Just as predicted, the two fought it out, and I was able to retrieve the Book of Demons in the wake of their battle. There was one surprise, however: Harvey escaped alive.

What was that bright flash of magic? A glimpse of a force that may dwarf even that of the Book of Demons? That girl...Does she have some special power within her?

So, according to this Ori was camped out and saw the entire battle so she could snag the book, but then she says Harvey escaped which is...puzzling, since he very much appeared to be vaporized by his own magic. She also mentions a "bright flash of magic" which seems to be Elena's magic as per her blood connection to the Lumina family. I went and rewatched a playthrough of the post-battle cutscene, and I think I've found the "flash of light" Ori mentions. Here's a series of the best screenshots I could manage:

Harvey prepares his final spell and it begins to expand. Osvald is facing him, and Elena is passed out at the bottom center of the screen.

The magic continues to expand and gather in strength. We can no longer see Osvald but Elena is still visible.

As the magic reaches its peak power, we see several small lights appear in a circle around Elena at the bottom. These lights do not seem to match the magic that Harvey is casting since that is in a circle expanding from him, and it is Elena at the center of this circle of lights. After this the screen is awash completely in white before clearing to reveal...

Osvald holding Elena, both safe, with Harvey nowhere to be seen. (Screenshot lightened a bit by me bc it was really dark and hard to make out).

So I think the writers...actually just made a mistake, and that it was supposed to be Osvald who mysteriously survived due to Elena's mysterious magic. It would make more sense in context of what actually occurs during this cutscene if Ori's Journal had read:

What was that bright flash of magic? A glimpse of a force that may dwarf even that of the Book of Demons? That girl...Does she have some special power within her?

If written this way, the discussion of Elena's mysterious power follows a note about Osvald surviving a direct blast from the Book of Demons, which would make the question of whether Elena's power is greater than the Book of Demons make more sense, as it would suggest that it had been Elena's power that was directly responsible for Osvald's survival. We also know that the Moonshade Order was watching several the the Eight Travelers carefully, and wanted a few of them out of the picture, and so it would have been convenient if both Harvey and Osvald had died in this moment, but it makes the most sense for Elena's power to save Osvald since, even if her memory is currently suppressed, she still loves him as her father subconsciously, and love is one of the key theme's of Osvald's story arc.

I dunno if any of this has merit, but I am inclined to think the writers just got the names switched while writing the journal entries, if only because this would be the only way to have the journal match the events we're shown in-game.

-----

There was one other thing about a recurring narrative theme in every characters' story that I wanted to note, but it started to get long enough that I'll probably make a separate post about it in the future at some point. Just...maybe sometime waaay in the future if I get distracted.

In any case, this about wraps up my shorter thoughts that I wanted to document. Again, I'm not trying to prove anything right or wrong, I'm just musing for the sake of musing.

Again, if you read all this, thanks!

#octopath traveler #octopath ii #octopath ii spoilers #I was absolutely procrastinating working on some art which I very much want to finish but don't want to work on #anyhow there's only minor editing on this so if there's typos I'm sorry #at least I managed to use some screenshots this time to aid my observations #oracle of lore

12 notes · View notes