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= Baigan Story = What makes a man a monster? Baigan, one of the great figures of Baron, was once a good man. Though at times stuffy and inflexible, the honorable Guard Captain and royal confidante has been recognized as one of those rare men who possesses gifts in both war and politics, able to serve as both warrior and administrator, and thereby maintain order and Baron's prestige. Well-spoken and possessed of a courtier's cunning, still no one ever doubted his loyalty to the King or integrity, or imagined that he might lust for power. Indeed, Baigan was more than willing to accept the menial task of ensuring the day-to-day working of his country, serving as liaison between people and King, rather than go gallivanting off through valleys and forests in search of glory. Such men are the uncelebrated heroes of great city-states. Baigan might have remained such a person, had he been stronger. But in his pride, Baigan buried his fears and smothered his questions, blinding himself in his need to believe in the order he strove to construct, and the chinks in his moral armor went unnoticed -- until a darker and far more cunning mind used them to his own advantage. Baigan's strongest traits are twofold: love of order, and love of authority. As a child, Baigan idolized his father, then Guard Captain, and the King that had appointed him. Though proud of his noble upbringing, the young Baigan sought not superiority over others but responsibility for them, seeing it the duty of the privileged to protect those less fortunate. Though always aloof and never doubting the divine right of King and aristocracy to rule, he was well-intentioned, and began training for the position of an officer in the guard out of a sincere desire to be of service. This sentiment changed abruptly when Baigan's father, on a routine mission, was cowardly backstabbed and unexpectedly slain by a nameless thug. Part of Baigan's mind cracked on that day. Nothing within his worldview could make sense of this turn of events: that the noble and just could die in filth, alone, felled by an inferior. Not only was the tragedy itself difficult to bear, but Baigan's staunch assumptions about the natural order were threatened violently for the first time. Refusing to accept such brute senselessness, Baigan hardened, unconsciously protecting himself -- and his aristocratic preconceptions -- with his self-possession and manipulative abilities, and becoming an relentless adversary of anything he perceived as chaos. In the public eye, this forged him into redoubtable ally of justice, and, when he later advanced to take his fallen father's place at the King's side, a highly esteemed man. In private, however, shaken and oddly unsure of himself for all his talent, he became a resentful and unreflective person, and nothing came to disgust him more than men who sought to rise above their station. Justice, for Baigan, was people knowing their place. Cecil Harvey refused to know his place. Though he acquired a dubious respect for Kain Highwind, given the Dragoon's pedigree, the next major threat to Baigan's worldview was the King's fostering of the orphan Cecil, a man of unknown blood. Yet Baigan swallowed his distaste, purely because he trusted the King's decision. Though he befriended the Dark Knight, and Cecil was perhaps none the wiser, Baigan's main motivation was not friendship itself but ensuring harmony in the court and expressing his respect for the King. Whether father or King, Baigan's concept of social order always assumed a figure at the top, through whom Baigan's acts and life were validated. This is likely why, despite his moderate guile, Baigan lacks a villain's megalomania; he seeks recognition as much as the power to achieve his goals. For a while, this mostly-steady harmony served Baron well. Cecil rose in the ranks, Kain became a great Dragoon, and Baigan was respected as -- though a lesser warrior, perhaps -- a pillar of Baron and the King's right-hand man. Though Baigan masked his inner sentiments at times, for the most part he was pleased to further the power of Baron, and forgave the implicit insolence of his peers. Years passed, the men grew, and in time, Baigan even came to respect Cecil Harvey as a worthy soldier of Baron, if not accept him as a nobleman. But all this was premised upon the King's goodwill, and as soon as the King began to change, Baigan began to change with him. When Cecil began to fall out of the King's graces, Baigan took no notice of the royal person's increasingly erratic behavior or imperialist tendencies. None of it was inconsistent with Baigan's own beliefs. Though he had not sought alliance with the Empire in the past, seeking to protect Baron as an independent nation, when the King showed interest in the prospect, Baigan's faith in the King led him to defend the proposal unflinchingly. Perhaps a part of Baigan knows, deep down, that the King has changed radically, and that he is no longer the man he once was. But with the King, so too did Baigan change. When at last Baigan turned against Cecil and Kain and felt the tremendous satisfaction of purging them from the court, his long-buried resentment erupted like a noxious cloud, and in his vicious delight Baigan realized that this is what he wanted all along: a world without these unworthy men, thugs who would only stab him when his back was turned. For Baigan, Golbez is an infinitely preferable commander of the Red Wings, and the power the Guard Captain has received for his allegiance is only a symbol that he has made the right decision. Now defender of Baron's borders and the highest-ranking Baronian below the King and Golbez, Baigan's own love of order has risen to a maddened pitch. As much an attack dog as a commander, he takes personal pleasure in wielding the serpentine powers at his disposal to crush those that would resist Baron's dominance. Ironically, though hard and uncompromising on matters of justice, he is not a heartless man, and still thinks of himself as noble and magnanimous, a part of him still clinging to his aristocratic ideal of noblesse oblige. Yet what was once a quiet internal inconsistency has become full-blown hypocrisy. A peasant begging Baigan for help might be aided on one day and then ruthlessly punished for a perceived infraction on the next. Now the embodiment of his neuroses, Baigan has abandoned his humanity. If there is any hope for Baigan, it is that he has not yet realized what he has become. ...Or that his arms have become sentient and endowed with quirky personalities. He hasn't realized that either. But he will. = Logs = {{Character Logs}} = Cutscenes = {{Character Logs|Cutscenes}}

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