While Winona is still standing in the damn doorway with his red face paint on, Celes says to herself, “On with the show! This is a big scene in which Maria senses that something’s happened to Draco!” Oh great, so Maria is also a Jedi? She truly has it all. Winona apparently changes his mind about leaving Celes to prepare in peace and tells her to read the score one more time. Whew! If he hadn’t stuck around to help her, Celes might have prepared by eating bonbons on her fainting couch while menstruating! Thank god for men.
Only because Winona told her to, Celes reads the papers on the table. I won’t spoil her big star-making moment by discussing the lyrics now, except to say that this apparent score for an opera is written out in paragraph form. Really helpful format for music. After she gets through the song portion, she reads, “…here you pick up the flowers. Climb the stairs to the balcony high atop the castle. Raise the flowers to the stars. (Hurry! You have just moments before Scene 2 starts! The Impresario)” Wait. I understand nothing about this. Did he stick a post-it note onto the script, telling Celes to hurry with these specific stage directions because the second scene will…come right on the heels of the first scene? Is that not the normal order of things? And more troubling: did he sign it “The Impresario” like that’s his actual name? Listen, the President wouldn’t even sign notes with “The President.” I mean, that’s because he signs them with an X, and maybe a stick figure with big hooters. But still!
Celes doesn’t read any of the subsequent scenes–they just devolve into ellipses starting with scene 2, indicating either Celes’s eyes glazed over, or the opera house staff writers are really winging it with this piece–and swans toward the stage after her one read-through of her big solo. As we take in a dark purple castle set that looks taller than the entire opera house, the narrator and his rocket boots recite, “The forces of the West fell, and Maria’s castle was taken. Prince Ralse, of the East, took her hand by force. But she never stopped yearning for Draco…” Not that I want to cast aspersions on the deep, everlasting love these two have for each other–just kidding, I totally want to do that. They haven’t even been in the same room yet, but their love is so pure! I get why men in this game would be totally into this story, though.
I am given a multiple-choice quiz, with an entire two choices, as Celes tries to remember her opening line. “Alas, Draco…” sounds like she’s lamenting his death, so I go with the other option, and so Celes begins to “sing,” as Draco did. “♬ Oh my hero, so far away now. Will I ever see your smile? ♬ Love goes away, like night into day. ♬ It’s just a fading dream… ♬” I promise, the placement of the musical notes makes more sense in the game’s text boxes. I’m just proving my own point that this shit should not be presented in paragraph form. Celes is spreading her arms out to the audience and really getting into her lovely soprano “whuh whuh WHUH whuh” routine, and it’s actually quite pretty, if your heart hasn’t shriveled up in your chest like mine. As it happens, I had this song in my head after I first recorded this footage, but again, I didn’t grow up playing this game over and over again, so I was singing it in the shower as Celes does, with no actual words. When my husband heard me, he immediately began singing along, but with the real lyrics, beginning to end. He hasn’t played this game in at least 10 years. It was a sobering moment.
Celes sings on, after another lyrical pop quiz, “I wish I…uh?” Oh no, I selected the wrong line! If only Winona had been more forceful in telling stupid Celes to study up! The orchestra speeds up, to spare Celes this embarrassment, or possibly to maximize it. I could go either way. Then an offscreen moogle or something squeaks out a confused trombone noise and Celes realizes she’s lost the crowd. You’d think she would have realized this the second she basically goes, “…LINE” and stops singing entirely, but whatever. A record scratch noise and a black screen later, I find that I fucked up so bad the party was thrown out of the opera house and is standing on the world map. That seems a tad extreme.
When the party re-enters, the Impresario is waiting for them. “Sorry, but yesterday’s performance was awful! I’ll give you just 3 more chances!” Now, hold on. Does this mean Setzer did not show up at this first performance? Is he hanging out in the audience, and will only attempt to kidnap Maria if she manages not to gag up there on the stage? I’m honestly more impressed with Setzer’s dickishness now: he’ll only ruin their show if it’s otherwise going well.
In a surprise move, Winona himself squashes any possibility of a Winona/Celes ship.
Speaking of dickishness, Winona warns Celes not to fuck up again and urges her once more to read the script. Maybe he should throw on a wig, strap his gut into Maria’s corset, and see how he manages out there under this pressure. But Celes placidly takes this bullshit, reads the script one more time, and drags her floofy dress train back to the stage. Thankfully, her second take goes better. And hopefully this is an entirely different audience, so they won’t even know how bad she biffed it the night before! “♬ I’m the darkness, you’re the stars. Our love is brighter than the sun,” she “sings” as she paces the balcony. I’m trying to figure out what the hell this line means, and I’ve got nothing. Like, their love is so bright that it obliterates both of them individually, and only their love is visible? Maria takes over their love at night and goes on the prowl for hotter men? I don’t know. “♬ For eternity, for me there can be, ♬ only you, my chosen one… ♬” Girl, you realize that if this situation were reversed, Draco would have already remarried by choice and had six kids by now, right? Just checking.
The third stanza clearly begins, “Must I…” because the alternative is “Prince Ralse…” and the writers were very careful to not include any names or actual plot details in this song. How else could it serve as a de facto theme for Winona and…whatever girl Winona is supposed to be in love with? Anyway. Celes hums on, “♬ Must I forget you? Our solemn promise? Will autumn take the place of spring?” The flower of her womanhood is wilting, when it should be blooming so hard it’s giving me hay fever! Damn that Prince Ralse! Finally, she wails in her big crescendo, as she ascends to the top of the tower, “♬ What shall I do? I’m lost without you. Speak to me once more! ♬” Listen, I’m not saying it would be a picnic to be forcibly married to some Sheriff Nottingham type just because he stormed your proverbial castle, when you don’t know if your actual intended is alive or dead, but I do wish this song could have been about a little more than Maria having no idea what to do with herself without her man. What can I say, I have high standards for this game that was written for emotionally stunted teen boys so long ago that it could legally drink if it were a person.
Speaking of the man Maria cannot function without, he emerges from the castle behind her. The sprite is flashing, so I don’t know if he’s supposed to be a ghost or a figment of her imagination or what. But without a word of explanation, he tells her, “Come, Maria! Follow my lead…” Well, obviously. What follows is an awkward test to ensure Celes learned her blocking correctly–not that anyone showed her how to do it–as she must follow Draco’s sprite around the stage to keep up with his waltzing. She manages this (barely, because I wasn’t paying attention), and at the end of one revolution around the balcony, Draco goes, “Ha, ha, ha…” and transforms into a bouquet of red roses. That seems…unnecessarily mean. Celes is so discombobulated by this bit of cruel stagecraft that she can’t figure out exactly where she’s supposed to raise these ghost flowers to the sky, and she misses her cue to do so. This plan is costing the opera house a lot of money in refunded tickets.
Okay, Christ. Take 3. I can do this. My problem is that I thought the stairs from which “Draco” emerged led inside the castle, but they actually lead up to the balcony in question. So Celes hits her spot up there and waits for the music to lead her in. “♬ We must part now. My life goes on. But my heart won’t give you up,” she sings. I for one am relieved to hear this, since there was a nonzero chance she was going to jump off this balcony rather than go on living without some dingus. She flings the roses into the air, and for a moment they hang like they’re going to fly off into space, but eventually they do drop. You can’t blame me for thinking this bouquet has magic powers when it was a man five seconds ago. Also, was that her wedding bouquet? I was only joking when I referred to Maria’s dress as a wedding gown earlier, but I think it might actually be that. Like, her toad of a groom is inside, toasting their new life and sensually shoving cake in his best man’s face, while she’s out her pouring her heart out and throwing her bouquet at the moon instead of the no-doubt billions of single ladies in attendance.
Prince Ralse will not enjoy the symbolism of her throwing out her flowers.
Why is this song still going? Not only should it have ended when she tossed the flowers, but Celes definitely did not read this far into the script. She could be ad-libbing for all we know. “♬ Ere I walk away, let me hear you say. I meant as much to you… ♬” This is where we find out that Draco and Maria are both, like, 13 years old and had only been dating for a week, right? Or that they only got together because it would piss off their dads? This is canon and I don’t care what anyone says. “♬ So gently, you touched my heart. I will be forever yours,” Celes, thankfully, seems to finish. “♬ Come what may, I won’t age a day, I’ll wait for you, always… ♬” Whoaaaaa, wait a minute. 1) So Maria is definitely 13, and Draco is definitely 22 and drives an IROC Z. 2) She is also going to use some kind of witchcraft, which she suddenly has, to not age and live forever just so she can pine on a moonlit night about her membership in the lonely hearts club. Sure! Like the end of Titanic, except the Heart of the Ocean keeps her a buxom teenager forever and she never has grandkids!
After a shooting star streaks through the sky–I wonder how they pulled that off in the backdrop–a sprite labeled CHANCELLOR, wearing a green cape and red and black armor, approaches Maria. I’m pretty sure it is the same exact sprite as Edgar’s actual chancellor in Figayro. Rigid dress code for chancellors, apparently. “Prince Ralse is looking for a dance partner,” he tells her. “Leave the past behind! Our kingdom is adopting the spirit of the East…!” WELL, IN THAT CASE. The spirit of the East needs Maria’s vagina! Realizing this, Maria follows the chancellor downstairs. Enjoy being a brood mare, girl!
A fade brings us back to the main stage, where the All-Ginger Jidoor Orchestra is playing a jaunty dance tune for four waltzing couples. Three of them are pairs of nondescript clones extras, and the fourth is Maria and presumably Prince Ralse, who has green Billy Ray Cyrus hair and a red tux with shoulder pads. He looks like a Fifth Element villain. Celes lets this dude spin her around at the top of the stage, clearly relieved she doesn’t have any more lines to remember.
Are the other men clones of Prince Ralse, or are they required to conform to a palette swap of his style, like how everyone in the White House is slowly growing Trump hair?
Backstage, Winona is watching all this play out. “Well done, CELES,” he murmurs. She couldn’t have done it without your Monday morning quarterbacking, champ! I am now free to control Winona–sigh–and steer him back to the dressing room, where suddenly there is a conspicuous envelope on the floor. I am sad we did not get the scene of Urktros blobbing over to where it landed the first time, picking it up, and carefully placing it here. The letter reads, “I owe you one, so I’m gonna jam up your opera! [Urktros]” I fully expect Winona, who never actually met Urktros, to be all, “Who?” But instead he decides to tell the Impresario. At the exact moment Winona is spilling this to him, the camera pans back to the stage, where a page has just run amid the dancing couples to announce, “The survivors of the West attack!” Prince Ralse has no sooner bellowed, “Impossible!” before said survivors, clad in bright purple turbans, swarm the stage to attack the Easterners. That is to say, before the sprites bounce off each other like Pong balls and paddles.
“Wait!!” someone cries, and a beat later fucking Draco rides in from backstage on his chocobo, plowing over Prince Ralse in the process. He waits several interminable moments before singing, “♬ Maria.” I wait like a putz for him to add anything to this. He does not. Instead Maria throws out her arms and sings back, “♬ Draco, I’ve waited so long. I knew you’d come. ♬” Didn’t Celes read in the stage directions before she took the stage that in the first scene she’d just “sensed” something had happened to him? How long have they been apart, a day? I mean, I know she’s 13 in VGR canon now and time is therefore of the essence, but let’s all calm down. Including Prince Ralse, who pops right up from his hit-and-run to also sing his feelings. “♬ Maria will finally have to become my queen! ♬” Will she, though? Didn’t her castle just get un-conquered? “♬ For the rest of my life I’ll keep you near… ♬” Ralse goes on. But not too near! Just over in that corner, please. He finishes, in Draco’s direction, “It’s a duel! ♬” He went from taking victory as a given to challenging Draco to a duel in roughly half a second. This man is an emotional rollercoaster.
While the Red Orchestra is working itself into a percussive frenzy at the possibility of long, hard swords crossing each other, the camera pans back to the balcony. The Impresario is in the middle of asking Winona how exactly Urktros intends to ruin everyone’s good time. One of them blurts out, “…With that!?” as we see the opera–featuring a bunch of “fighting” sprites–playing out from the vantage point of the catwalk above the stage. Directly above Celes, Urktros is sitting next to a weight labeled “4t.” It’s not an anvil, but it’s close enough. He chuckles, “Mwa ha ha! Let’s see if Maria can shrug THIS off!” Okay, first of all, how can Winona and the Impresario even see this from the balcony? Second, how exactly does murdering Celes with an anvil translate to “impersonating Setzer”? Or did he just abandon that plan for being too smart and subtle? Third, does this game really need Wile E. Coyote, but purple and dumber? Is it not wacky enough?
Urktros moves to push the weight off the wooden beam, which is holding it somehow, but he Don Knottses at the strain. “N’ghaaa! This is heavier than I thought! It’ll take me 5 minutes to drop it!” Even as announcing one’s plans goes, this is a bit much. Better still, not only can the gang on the balcony see him, they can also hear him over the orchestra, the stage action, and the crowd. “We haven’t a second to lose!” Winona announces. The Impresario tells him to talk to “the man in the room to the far right” to get up to the catwalk. And with that, a five-minute timer begins ticking away in the lower right corner. Wait, time limits in RPGs aren’t supposed to be real! This is bullshit!