Random Chaos

It's surprising how many good things that become iconic or make a piece can be thrown in at the eleventh hour. Big Breasted Bitch and the whole 'endowed with male parts' exchange? That was literally created as I went along during the final edit in an attempt to fill the last little gap between Exdeath's revelation and the ending because I thought a spiteful comment from jealous!Exdeath was needed. Hell, almost every decent thing in my OC series was not there when I originally cooked it up - it was pretty much a Saturday Morning Cartoon standard formula!

I love the Prelude so damn much. It's one of those tunes I want played at my funeral, preferably when I'm led out in the casket. Because this track is the essence of fantasy and the sublime, so when I go everyone knows I've gone to my literal final fantasy world. (Though at the beginning of the service I want the Leisure Suit Larry theme because it would be completely inappropriate. Fun fact: that theme song was yet another last minute addition that's become an iconic ear worm over the years.)

First time I heard the prelude was in FFIX when I reached the Crystal World (AKA: Final Dungeon) which is canonically the beginning of existence since it is where the original crystal of all life itself comes from. You hear a haunting, distorted version of the prelude as you wander through what is (according to Sakaguchi) the origin point for the ENTIRE SERIES. The design of the place is beautiful yet cold, dark and ominous, despite the brightness of the crystals the place SCREAMS premonition. Even though the prelude is still on a harp it's not the same optimistic dreamlike melody that invigorates us: it's an unsettling, fragmented and menacing piece. Even though it's still got echoes of beauty about it, the entire track comes with a gloomy presence, as if to say that the fairest things in life cannot exist without something negative. Another interpretation is that since this is the center of life and death, the harp represents the beauty of life whilst the ominous strings represent the foreboding of death. But ultimately it says: this is where the element of all Final Fantasies lie. So go stop your brother, Zidane, or we're not getting another title!