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(portions based on texts from Dragonrider, Bojack and other GameFAQs Grandia II message board members)
Note: Major spoilers ahead. You should not read this document if you have not finished the game yet.
Light is the power of creation. The power to make the world.
Darkness is the power of destruction. The power to un-make the world.
Not all light has to be good, and not all Darkness has to be bad as well. Light and Darkness are as Mareg said. It depends on how you use it. If you use Light to bring prosperity to the world by creating machines to fulfill everyone’s wishes, Light is good. If you use Light to create a mass-murdering weapon, Light is bad. If you use Darkness to destroy a city, Darkness is bad. If you use Darkness to destroy a mass-murdering weapon, Darkness is good.
In the world of Grandia II, Light and Darkness were historically tagged to Good and Evil, Granas and Valmar, but actually, Light does not have to be perfectly good, yet restrictive, and Darkness does not have to be perfectly evil, yet liberal.
Ancient men had a greatly developed technology. One day, men created a huge high-tech laboratory to work on giving special powers to somebody’s mind. This place is known as the Birthplace of the Gods. The two lead creators of the BOTG were two much respected scientists, named Granas and Valmar. They were famous, and each one had a crest to stamp on his work. As the BOTG machinery was a product of the two, they put both crests on it (hence the crests in Elmo’s place).
Valmar helped Granas, a pure-hearted man that considered the whole world as his family and had great ambitions for a Light-blessed, perfect world, to use the BOTG and ascend to superhuman. Please note he was not a god, because he had not invulnerability. Granas even did not want to be considered a god, because he had not any selfishness.
The seal turned Granas into a very powerful being, able to deliver what he always wanted, able to realize his dreams. Granas acquired the power of Light, the power to create with the thoughts. Therefore, Granas “came”, not from the outer space, but from the Birthplace of the Gods itself.
Granas developed technology even more, creating the seals and the first automatas (which were quite similar to Tio). These automatas are shown in Elmo’s FMV, fighting in the Light side. Elmo, by the way, was the predecessor of automatas: the main BOTG computer. She cannot move, and her voice is not perfect, but she can do her work. Granas helped the people, giving them whatever they wanted, and putting technology at people’s service. Humans then began to conquer the space with Granasabers. People worshipped Granas as they realized Granas power was increased through it, feed with the strength of the worshippers. So men created the Church of Granas (not Granas himself): an organized religion to worship Granas, teach the folks what is good and what is bad (probably with words from Granas himself), attract adepts, and thus, give Granas more and more power to create with people’s prayers and hymns, the last ones sang by groups of girls devoted to the art of singing. A girl who belongs to this group is a Songstress of Granas. The Church of Granas original purpose was to help Granas being more powerful to make a world even better. A perfect world; a world where love and peace ruled, and nobody had any necessity; a world where every single person would be able to be happy.
So Granas used his power to bless everyone and fulfill everyone’s wishes. The entire world was in peace, and the world capital was set to St. Heim Papal State, in the Silesian continent. With a huge mass of worshippers, Granas’ power became nearly supreme, nearly like the power of a true “god”. Granas was then the being almost everyone wanted: a true, existing god you can talk to, giving you whatever you want to be happy, protecting everyone.
Granas acquired the shape of a light star (shown in the intro FMV). It represents Granas’ generosity and creation power. People represented Granas as a four-legged man with wings and a sword, as the picture of the title screen shows. Granas’ primary color is white; secondary color is blue.
Granas had two problems. First, in a world where everyone gets whatever he or she wants; in a world where you do not have to fight for anything; in a world where you cannot have unfulfilled dreams if they are good and you deserve them, life is somewhat hopeless for a number of people. Second, some people were afraid of him. As their hearts where evil, they thought Granas could be evil too, and planned to destroy him. They also might have wanted to do this because they wanted to have freedom to destroy, kill and murder, which Granas undoubtedly would forbid. They wanted to destroy, to harm, and they found in freedom their excuse. These were called the people of Darkness, and lived in the Kingdom of Cyrum, at the East of the Papal State.
Valmar, the one who helped Granas to ascend in the BOTG, encouraged by the people of Darkness, filled with envy and afraid of Granas, returned to the BOTG. With a new group of scientists from Cyrum, he made some tweaks to the BOTG for a new “god”. The reason of the tweaks is he wanted to make her new body usable by others if he dies. Of course, Granas knew nothing about this, for he was not a real god, not omniscient at all.
Valmar entered the seal Granas used long ago, and became what he really was: an ugly monster. He acquired the power of Darkness, the power of destruction. And while Granas’ power was being increased with prayers and hymns, Valmar’s power increased with evil thoughts, anger, envy, and such things.
It is possible that Valmar the man was shown in Elmo’s FMV: A man with the look of a wizard standing in the center of Elmo’s room.
Valmar acquired the shape of a dark hand (shown in the intro FMV). It represents Valmar’s greed and destruction power. People represented Valmar as a lizard-like red demon, as the picture of the title screen shows. Valmar’s primary color is black; secondary color is purple.
The people of Darkness developed the seal technology to gather more power for themselves, power which was used for evil. These seals transformed people into aliens, and were capable of storing a part of Valmar and melting it with a human being when needed.
They also created an automata factory in their kingdom, to produce robotic soldiers that protected themselves. These automatas were very similar to Granas’ (which were shown in Elmo’s FMV). Tio is one of these automatas. The Church of Granas created a new form of automatas with a factory in their main base, the Granas Cathedral, at St. Heim’s Papal State. These new robots were called the Cathedral Knights, but evidence proved that they are not as powerful as the Tio-like ones. Granas people already had the other type of automata; they had to create the Cathedral Knights seeking for more resistant and more suitable for a big army automatas. However, the Cathedral Knights were not able to speak.
Granas had big production plants in the Earth, to create Granasabers and other machines and buildings. The people of Darkness went further, creating Valmar’s Moon: a huge, biological hi-tech production plant to create monsters to fight against the Light, and with the capability of rebuilding Valmar if he died and his individual parts were reactivated. Valmar’s Moon was built with a new, cell-based technology, which had to have advantages over mechanic plants (for example, auto-repairing, and less building costs). This, together with the fact that the Church of Granas automatas were not as advanced as the Tio-like ones, proves that the followers of Granas had more advanced technology.
With Valmar’s Moon and the automatas ready, Valmar declared war to Granas, and the people of Darkness fought against the Granas followers. The Battle of Good and Evil had begun.
For ages, Granas and Valmar fought each other with various ships and weapons (like Granas’ Granasabers), without neither side making a real progress. Both were semi-gods and had many followers, thus, their massive power regenerated. In the Earth, people too fought for one side or another in a terrible war that looked like an end would never came.
Granas was aware of this. In a desperate attempt to stop the war and avoid the death of more people, he decided to face Valmar directly. It was in his nature to try to protect people, and destroying Valmar seemed the only way to do so. Yet he probably knew that he would not survive the battle. Finally, both deities fought directly in a combat that only would end with at least one of them falling dead.
It was probably the fact that both Light and Darkness are parts of Nature and that both are important and neither of them is perfectly good or perfectly evil, what decided the end of the Battle of Good and Evil: stalemate. Both Granas and Valmar died in battle.
However, Valmar the deity was conceived with the ability of being reused if the original Valmar died. The mechanism for that was the splitting in parts. These parts were the Wings, Tongue, Eye, Claws, Horn, Body and Heart of Valmar, being the Wings of Valmar the reactivator of Valmar. Granas never had such a feature.
After the battle, Granas and Valmar fell in Arachna Island, at the Northeast of Nanan. The collision of their bodies produced huge cracks in the planet, starting from the point where both of them fell. These cracks were called Granacliffs. Granas disintegrated through them, and Valmar remained stabbed by a Granasaber.
The human leaders of both sides (namely the King of Cyrum, the Pope of St. Heim and a few generals) knew the truth. Both Granas and Valmar died, but the people of Darkness still had a card to play: Valmar’s ability to be reused.
Both sides came to an agreement: the high technology facilities, which allowed men to become gods and automatas to be created, had to be sealed, and these technologies had to be forgotten. Part of that agreement was the sealing of Valmar parts in different safe places around the world, to “completely disable and forget” Valmar. However, what the leaders of Darkness did not tell to their Light counterparts was that the pieces would regain their power in some centuries and then they could be used to recreate Valmar.
To fulfill this agreement, they went to where Valmar lied, and took all the parts but the Body. The Wings of Valmar were sealed in Garmia Tower, in the North part of Silesia. The Tongue of Valmar was sealed in an underground temple of Granas, which was forgotten after it and a city named Liligue was built in the ground. The Eye of Valmar was sealed in a cave near Mirumu. The Claws of Valmar were sealed in the automata factory of the Kingdom of Cyrum, while the Heart of Valmar was sealed in the automata factory of the St. Heim Papal State. Both automata factories were also sealed. The Horn of Valmar was sealed in a cave in Grail Mountain. And the remaining body of the old Valmar, the Body part itself, Valmar’s Core (which was the central control of Valmar, lied inside the body and could be reactivated when the parts regained their power) and the last Granasaber were sealed with a wind-based force field. The Demon’s Law was forgotten. Finally, the BOTG was sealed with the only key remaining in possession of the Cyrum Royal Family, and reciprocally, some rooms of the Granas Cathedral, like the Forbidden Room, were sealed and only the Popes had the keys. To further protect the Wings and Horn of Valmar, the authorities said the people that the places where they lied are sacred and nobody should enter there. In Garlan, they invented the idol myth.
The Pope, even knowing the truth, decided that the best thing he could do is to lie to the people and say that Valmar was defeated and sealed, and that Granas won but he was in “deep sleep”. This way the religion would keep alive, and people would be supposedly happier. This is the origin of the “Seal of Granas” lie. The Cyrum people accepted the lie and became agnostic.
The truth and the keys of the BOTG and the special rooms in Granas Cathedral were passed from generation to generation in the Cyrum Royal Family and from Pope to Pope in Granas Cathedral. However, evidence proves that a King of Cyrum had to decide not to tell the prince or the princess that Valmar could be reactivated, because Roan’s father only knew about the automata factory (“their lost pride”).
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Copyright © Miguel Pérez (Wiseman) 2001. No republishing is allowed.