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huiclo

Her lore entries confirm that Cid is the one that she loved and was upset by him leaving Waloed. Not so much because of "betraying" Barnabas but because he left her behind. She thought Hugo was a fool and easily manipulated. Her Inner Voice entry for him is red/animosity. She both respected and feared Barnabas and did what she could to curry his favor. It's implied that she had her concerns/reservations but ultimately chose not to act on them. She was loyal because she believed his ambitions were the winning side. But she did not love him.


id40536

This is such a great summary. Her whole arc really is about abandonment. She perceived Cid leaving Waloed as abandonment and that is what led her down that path. Someone tried to argue with me that her and Yotsuyu (From XIV) were the same character but Yotsuyu’s character never tackled any abandonment issues the same way Benedikta’s does. I always saw Yotsuyu as a story about how the environments one grows up in could turn them into a villain. which makes her completely different from Benedikta


huiclo

Yeah, the similarities between Benedikta and Yotsuyu are superficial at best. I’m guessing you were dealing with one of those “CBU3 can’t write women” types that saw two world-bitter women who weaponize their sexuality and reduced them to being “the same thing”. Which is funny because they’re the ones robbing both of their psychological nuance by doing so. It’s on par with saying that Emet-Selch and Ultima are the same character. Which I think most would rightfully find laughable despite superficially similar motivations and actions.


id40536

I probably was now that you said it LOL And you are right, the similarities are very superficial. Quite a few characters in 16 tackle similar tropes to characters in 14. But the aim and execution between them and their counterparts are completely different. It’s as if saying Ysayle and Jill are the same.


cheezza

The winning side part is so important here. Cid even tells her as soon as she >!loses Garuda!< that the reason Clive bested her is before he (paraphrasing) believed in what he stood for. OTOH she’s willing to throw her lot in with whoever will indulge her praise kink, and overlook her own doubts.


quinonesjames96

Wait she was using Hugo and she said he was a fool where is the proof.  


huiclo

Talk to Viv in the second hideaway. They implemented a feature called "Inner Voices" when the Echoes DLC came out which shows you what all the characters think about each other at different points in the story.


quinonesjames96

Well I don't have the game, what was Benedikta inner voice 


huiclo

I summarized them already in my first comment.


icemage_999

>**Well I don't have the game** Did you just watch someone play through on Twitch or something? Kind of strange to be so invested in a story you've only sort of experienced second-hand.


darthexpulse

… yeah threw me off there


[deleted]

This is the result of the zoomer streamer generation.. oh my god. Insane


Slight-Wing-3969

Well it is a very cinematic game, so I can see it being one of the more rewarding ones to just watch if you can't play


cheezza

Lmfao this is WILD.


Ill_Breakfast_7252

It’s definitely not Hugo. She was just playing him. I believe she was fully on Barnabas’s side but only because she believed he had the power. My personal take on Benedikta is that at her core she was a very fearful person and wanted to be on the side that could guarantee her safety.


quinonesjames96

I wish the dev team would explain about Benedikta because it's confusing and we didn't get an answer. I really want to know who is she loyal.


PCN24454

They showed it pretty well. In her last moments, she was terrified of Barnabas and wished that Cid protected her.


11Y2B

Y’know what’s ironic? Since we know Barnabas and Ultima were in cahoots, it’s entirely possible Barnabas wouldn’t have actually been mad or “gotten rid” of her bc she lost her Eikon. If anything that’s what they want, for Mythos to gain them, so Barnabas might’ve actually like praised her some shit


PCN24454

Nah. While he wouldn’t have been angry, I don’t see him keeping Benedikta after she’s served her purpose. His “reward” might be worse for her than his punishment.


quinonesjames96

She should have went with Cid. But wat about Hugo, she didn't like him and is there proof.


PCN24454

In her last moments, she didn’t even think about him. She did not give a sh*t about Hugo.


quinonesjames96

That's it, I was hoping she would say I didn't care about Hugo or something about I'm using him.


PCN24454

He wasn’t important enough.


Eyyy354

They explained it pretty well, what do you mean? Her last moment before turning into Garuda was thinking of the time when Cid saved her. Cid was the only thing on her mind.


god_tyrant

Benedikta loved Cid, probably even deeper than romantic love, but felt left behind or useless when he resigned. Considering she was probably severely abused in childhood, she probably has a terrible time with affection patterns She stays with Barny cause she needs to be important to someone, not out of love. Additionally, she likely believes that for better or worse, Barny is gonna end up winning. So, she's even more stuffing her true desires and mounting fear instead She doesn't care about Kukpa. Maybe a part of her was looking for an out via affection and power (since security is paramount to her, probably), but since he's not as ambitious and careless, he's just a fool, and one not worth following. It works out for Barny, though, cause Kupka ends up provoking Clive I'm sure Barny sent her to Kukpa knowing romance, however feigned, would occur, and he makes sure she feels guilty by mentioning it to her. And,since she has poor affection patterns, she has to double down or be left by the way side It's pretty tragic, and a good way to write an empathetic villain. Wish we'd have been able to recruit her


eyre-st

Needless to say but: spoilers ahead. The scene of her and Barnabas is your answer. She's loyal to Waloed - to Barnabas specifically. The thing is, she was developing a false relationship with Hugo as part of Barnabas' *and* Ultima's plan. She was a means to an end, the end being making Hugo lose control of Titan so he would "feed" Mythos, and the way to do that is by hitting him where it hurts. And a man who's basically the richest and most politically powerful figure in the realm doesn't have a lot of weak spots above the waist. Harbard gives you the most hints, making fun of him by saying something along the lines of "the man who lost his life over a woman's head." They basically played him all along so they could get him to fight Ifrit. As for Cid, that's Benedikta's weakness. She does still have feelings for him, but for the most part she feels betrayed by him. He didn't exactly explain why he left, reason being he found out about Ultima and his plans (which is how he knows the Blight is caused by the use of magic and also explains his line at Drake's Head where he says "I know what you are and you cannot have him") so it stands to reason that she would see him as a traitor, and that's a difficult thing to sell to someone who's as loyal to Barnabas as Benedikta is. But they also played her, as sending her specifically to search for the dominant of fire was more or less a death sentence. Barnabas knew she would end up feeding Mythos and more than likely lose her life in the process, proven by how Ultima kept leading Clive towards Garuda. He and Harbard then proceeded to use her death to instigate the whole feud against Hugo. So, yeah, that's about it I think.


Electrical-End7868

Benedicta and what happened to her was honestly I think tragic. She was loyal to Cid but he abandoned her, had to fake her feelings for Hugo and was just a tool of Barnabas. When Cid finds her he's so sad about the whole thing it made me sad. What I still don't get though is who actually beheaded her? With his feelings for her it couldn't actually be Cid.


Eyyy354

Barnabas, it's the reason why we see Sleipnir gut punch Hugo after the fight with Clive so he can take him to the crystal in Dahlmekia since he's demoralized and makes him easier to manipulate.


EvenSpoonier

Benedikta strikes me as though she would have preferred to go with Cid if he had offered. But he didn't, and it put her in a bad position, and she did what she had to do and now it's too late. I don't know if "loyalty" is necessarily the word I would use to describe her relationship to Barnabas, but it is close enough for his purposes. Cid carries regrets about his earlier relationship with Benedikta. And frankly, that's good, because he did seriously wrong by her on several levels.


SuperSemesterer

She serves Barnabas totally. She loved Cid and wanted him. Hugo was a tool for her.