Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Lightning (Final Fantasy)/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2014 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Lightning (Final Fantasy)

Nominator(s): ProtoDrake (talk) 10:38, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article concerns Lightning, a fictional character in the Final Fantasy series and the central character of the Final Fantasy XIII games, produced and published by Square Enix. Most references are both working and archived (exceptions are sites that won't allow archiving or won't archive properly: Square Enix-related pages, IGN, Complex), while those who had either flaky or not working anymore are archived and the archive pages work. The article was given GA status in October 2013, and was made part of the Final Fantasy XIII Good Topic in July of this year. The article has undergone a copyedit and its peer review has been archived. I feel that it is of sufficient quality to become a Featured Article. ProtoDrake (talk) 10:38, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Prose review from JimmyBlackwing

I'm not really qualified to review character articles—this stuff has never been my forte. However, this nom has been up awhile with no responses, and I still remember the Squall Leonhart FAC's slow and painful death on the vine. To prevent that from happening again, I'll be prose reviewing this article in the next few days. Letting you know now so that you don't think the nom's been abandoned. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 18:52, 11 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Part 1

• "She first appears as a playable character and main protagonist of" — Why the present tense? Since we're discussing her first appearance as a historical entity (i.e. as a character created by Square Enix), it seems like past tense would be preferable. If there's a precedent for this phrasing, please feel free to let me know. Either way, I don't understand how "a ... main protagonist of" makes sense—isn't the main protagonist of a fictional work a singular entity, rather than one of many?
• "Final Fantasy XIII, featuring" — This is an example of "noun plus -ing". See User:Tony1/Noun plus -ing. It's a tenuously grammatical construction that suffers from ambiguity. Perhaps: "Final Fantasy XIII, in which she features".
• "she and others are then chosen by the fal'Cie" — Is "she" Serah or Lightning? I can't figure it out.
• "She reappears" — Serah or Lightning?
• "Final Fantasy XIII-2, residing" — Another noun plus -ing.
• "in which she sets out on a quest to save the people of her world, which is destined to end in thirteen days" —> "wherein she sets out to save her world, which is destined to end in thirteen days".
• A sentence rewrite suggestion:

• "She is also has featured in other Final Fantasy games within the series, as well, most notably the crossover game Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy." (Italics signify an addition.)

• "Motomu Toriyama, the game's director" — Which game? It's been awhile since the original FFXIII was mentioned.
• "create a female protagonist new to the series" — If they're creating her, then it goes without saying that she's new to the series.
• "strong, good at fighting, and less feminine" — All three of these things are pretty similar, particularly "strong" and "good at fighting". I recommend merging a few or at least rephrasing them so that they're more distinct.
• "changed or transferred to other characters" — Reads as "changed ... to other characters", which I don't think is on purpose.
• A sentence rewrite suggestion:

• "Lightning's design was changed over time, Over the course of the games, she went through multiple design changes, many of which were meant often to reflect her role and development in each successive game, particularly in Lightning Returns."

• "Her Japanese name" — Since her name is the same in both English and Japanese, it's just confusing to specify that her "Japanese name" was placeholder.
• "placeholder, but eventually" —> "placeholder, but it eventually".
• "critics – much" — I haven't read the MOS in many years, but I'm pretty sure that spaceless emdashes (i.e. "critics—much") are the Wikipedia standard.
• "mixed reception; some" — Grammatically, this should be a colon rather than a semicolon. Also, "some" is an incredibly vague word that doesn't really add anything. In this case, I'd recommend "certain", which is more definite.
• "Nevertheless, her strength character development have been well received for allowing her to stand out among female video game characters." — I can't make heads or tails of this sentence.
• "Lightning was designed ... character designer Tetsuya Nomura ... character designer for" — Too many instances of "design" in one sentence. Replace at least one of them with a synonym like "create", "conceive", "develop", etc.
• "Conflicting accounts have been given on the ease of deciding on a design" — Is there a source to back up this specific claim? This is a larger point that the accounts themselves can't be used to source.
• "some staff have claimed that multiple designs—including some by other staff members—were considered" —> "certain staff have claimed that multiple designs from Nomura and other team members were considered".
• "one look at [Nomura's] design made [him] say 'This is it!' She looked so cool and strong that there was no need for any retakes." — The grammatical transition from the article to the quote is very hard to follow. Because at least the first part of this quote can be paraphrased without a loss in meaning, I recommend moving the quotation mark up to "she looked so cool etc." and turning the rest into standard prose.
• "Because of the graphic capacities of the game's prospective platforms" — Which game? Final Fantasy XIII has not been mentioned since the lead. Also, it should be "graphical capacities".
• "far more detail in her design than in previous Final Fantasy characters" — Did he include the detail in the characters themselves or in their designs? Current wording entails the former.
• "Final Fantasy characters, including" — This is a bit of a dangling participle, since it's unclear as to which entity is "including".
• "Commenting on her original design, Nomura explained that she is essentially a "cool character", meaning that she was serious and unforgiving, but that he couldn't make the character too masculine for fear of losing player empathy." — Several points. First, this is a very large snake that needs to be chopped. Second, her other designs haven't been introduced yet in the article body, so "original design" makes no sense. Third, contractions ("couldn't") aren't allowed outside of quotes.
• "Her earlier characteristics" — Earlier compared to what? I'm lost on this one.
• "included having blonde" —> "included blond". "Having" is unnecessary and "blonde" signifies a woman with blond hair (e.g. "a blonde walked in", "dumb blonde").
• A rewrite:

• "Her The final art design was made less Asian-looking than originally conceived these early drafts, and her hair color was changed to pink, while the silver hair color was given to Hope Estheim was given silver hair in favor of pink."

• "hair color and hairstyle was made" —> "hair color and hairstyle were intended".
• "balance against" —> "counterbalance".
• "Her motif was roses." — I don't get it.
• A rewrite:

• "While writing the script for XIII, Daisuke Watanabe, while writing the script for XIII, paid particular attention to developing the character's fleshing out Lightning's non-romantic relationship with Snow Villiers and to showing her development as a person while protecting Hope."

That's all for now. The article could have used an outside copyedit before the nom, but it's not in terrible shape. Impressive work digging up all this material on a relatively minor Japanese video game character. I'll be back to look over the rest of the article in a day or two. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 05:35, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've done what I could on you suggestions, and done some work of my own on the following paragraphs in the Character Design section. --ProtoDrake (talk) 08:52, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good work. I noticed that the noun plus -ing issue still needs to be fixed, though. I'll try to be back with more of my review soon. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Part 2

• "Lightning's real name was" — Should this be present tense? I can't tell whether her "real name" (is Lightning a codename?) was removed later in development.
• "to keep her then-real name secret" —> "to keep this name a secret".
• "was chosen over Eclair because the latter name was closely associated with a type of pastry" —> "was chosen because the name Éclair is associated with a type of pastry in English".
• "common weather-related naming tradition for Final Fantasy protagonists" — Way too long of a wikilink. Also, try rewording this to "tradition of naming Final Fantasy protagonists after weather events".
• A rewrite:

• "Lightning's home never appeared in Final Fantasy XIII, but the original work by Isamu Kamikokuryo is contained in an artbook: Several models of Lightning's home were constructed for XIII before this aspect of Lightning's life was but were removed from the game due to space issues."

• "created to mirror the transforming abilities of the game's summons, the Eidolons" — This is very vague. What's a "transforming ability"? And I'm not a stranger to Final Fantasy jargon, but nouning the word "summon" will make the average reader's life more difficult than it needs to be. Is there a better option?
• "as well as the theme of transformation found within the gameplay" — I'm also lost on this. How can gameplay have a theme of transformation?
• "Odin, Lightning's Eidolon, was designed around the concept of a father figure for the character." — Why is this Eidolon particular to Lightning? This is confusing even to someone who's played their share of pre-XIII Final Fantasy games. Also, try "designed as a father figure for the character".
• "The original game ended with a lingering question: 'Is Lightning really happy?'" — Is the quoted sentence literally in the game? If not, then this construction is more suited to an essay than to an encyclopedia, and it should be revised somehow.
• "The conclusion of the story in Final Fantasy XIII-2 was to have provided" — "Was to have"? I don't get it. That makes it sound like the ending failed to provide it. Perhaps "was intended to provide".
• A rewrite:

• "Toriyama revealed in an interview that, even before the decision was made to make a sequel was greenlit, he had wanted to create a happy ending for the character."

• "Kamikokuryo, with a qipao and a science fiction-inspired designs both discarded as they clashed with the game's atmosphere." —> "Kamikokuryo: a qipao and a science-fiction-inspired design were both discarded because they clashed with the game's tone."
• A rewrite:

• "The resultant outfit was designed along the lines of a is a leather body suit bodysuit primarily colored white and red, with spinal column patterns on the sleeves the arms given patterns designed like a spinal column and with white and red as the primary colors."

• A rewrite:

• "Some ideas for the ending were to have The team considered ending the game with Lightning either meeting up with or speaking with her allies, but Toriyama wished the story to both start begin and end with her alone."

• "a new type of female character" — Compared to what? Other Final Fantasy games? Games in general?
• "less feminine nature" — I'm not sure what a "nature" is, in this case. A personality? An aura?
• "For the last XIII game" — Which is? I assume it's Lightning Returns, but I'm no expert.
• "a 'female warrior'" — Why is that necessary to mention? It's just a flat description of what Lightning is—it doesn't seem to add anything.
• "Hillis was given the role of Lightning after reading a few of Lightning's lines" — Why was she reading them?
• "a novel set before the main game" — What is "the main game"?
• "discovers too late, on her 21st birthday," — Why is the birthday detail relevant?
• "and a task to complete within a time limit" — I have no clue what this could mean.
• "Pulse fal'Cie Anima" — Which is?
• "initially thinking that Serah was using it as an excuse to get married." — Using what? And who is thinking this—Lightning or the "Pulse fal'Cie Anima"?
• "contact with Anima" — Why is that important?
• "surviving exiles" — From where?
• "to save Cocoon" — This hasn't been introduced in the article body.
• "Cocoon's main military force, destroys Anima" — Didn't the party just destroy it?
• "Lightning abandons them" — Which group is she abandoning?
• "the pair are rescued" — Which pair?
• A rewrite:

• "During their time together, she inadvertently summons Odin, and she unknowingly supports Hope's plan to kill Snow by protecting and training her protects and trains Hope to fight, inadvertently supporting Hope's plan to kill Snow."

• "She realizes that she had been misdirecting her anger at being made an enemy of Cocoon, and resented herself for distrusting her sister." — I don't really understand any of this.

That's it for now. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 06:31, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've done my best, and I think addressed the issues you raised. I've probably missed something. And in my defense about some of the terms, if I tried to explain them, it would bloat the article to an unhealthy degree. It's one of the XIII series' faults. --ProtoDrake (talk) 09:22, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Understandable. You've done a solid job so far, in any case. I noticed that Cocoon still is not introduced in the article body, though, even when the lead defines it as "an artificial world". I'm also a bit baffled as to Anima's identity—is it a monster (like Sin from FFX) or a person? Both issues should be easy to solve. I'll do a little follow-up copyediting and return with Part 3 as soon as I can. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:29, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've done my best to introduce Cocoon and Gran Pulse, and explain the fal'Cie in the body of the article. It should make a little more sense now. --- Update: I've also found some more info about Odin's creation and his links to Lightning. --ProtoDrake (talk) 10:27, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Part 3

I made a few story-related tweaks while copyediting the article, based on my understanding of the text and a few glances at the other XIII articles. If I made any mistakes in the process, feel free to correct them.

• "Lightning disappears from Gran Pulse" — I thought she was from Cocoon? Why is she in Gran Pulse?
• "she saved Cocoon at the cost of her own life with Vanille and Fang" — The "with" conjunction here is extremely vague. I'm lost as to how Vanille and Fang fit into the picture.
• "as a direct result of Etro releasing her and the others from being l'Cie" —> "as a consequence of Etro's releasing her and the others from their condition as l'Cie".
• "This causes the timeline to become distorted and Lightning to be erased from that moment in history." — What timeline? Which moment in history?
• "protect the dying Etro from Caius Ballad" — A word or two to introduce Caius would help.
• "Valhalla's chaos" — What is that?
• "In her DLC episode, Requiem of the Goddess," —> "In the DLC episode Requiem of the Goddess,".
• "loses hope after learning of Serah's death and her role in it" — What? I know you want to avoid plot bloat, but stuff like this is so out of left field that it just leaves the uninitiated scratching their heads.
• "who reassures her" — We just found out that the spirit comforts her. This is redundant.
• "to not lose hope and preserve Serah's memory" — Reads "to not ... preserve Serah's memory".
• "unaffected by the released chaos" — The chaos was released? When? Why? And what is it?
• "chosen as the savior" —> "chosen as its savior".
• "Aided by Hope, she frees her former allies" — Why are they still alive 500 years later?
• A rewrite:

• "During her journey, She begins to doubt her humanity, and, when she learns upon learning that Bhunivelze stole Serah's soul from her and manipulated Lightning's memories, she plans to betray him when he has finished building the new world."

• "On the final day" — The final day before what? The end of the world?
• "Though prepared to fulfill her new role, Lightning accepts Lumina as a part of herself and calls for aid." — I'm not sure what the contrast is supposed to be. Needs to be made clearer.
• "unite with her" — "Everyone" is a singular, so this should be "unites".
• A rewrite:

• "Lightning then witnesses the creation of a new universe, into which she and goes with alongside her allies and the souls of humanity to a new world."

• "a series of special Full Active Time Events (FATEs)" — I have no idea what that means.
• "Lightning appears in the land of Eorzea along with many monsters during her time in crystal stasis between XIII-2 and Lightning Returns." — First, this is the second "Lightning appears" in two sentences. Second, I can't understand any of this. Is it Lightning or Eorzea that appears "along with many monsters"? Are the monsters "during her time", or is it the crystal stasis? Grammatically, all of them are possible.
• "Lightning meets up with the Adventurer one last time" — Who is the Adventurer?
• "Players who participated in the FATEs received gear" — The discussion so far has been in present tense. Why the switch to past tense? Is the event now over? If not, this should be present tense; if so, all of it should be changed to past tense.
• "During speculation about her continued role in the series" — "During"? Perhaps "in response to" would be better. Either way, which series are we talking about? The XIII series or the Final Fantasy series as a whole?
• "Lightning can be found within a minigame in Kingdom Hearts Re:coded where the player creates avatars for themselves" —> "Lightning can be found within a minigame in Kingdom Hearts Re:coded".
• "In Dissidia 012, one of Lightning's alternate outfits was based on Aya Brea, made available as downloadable content by using a given password when purchasing The 3rd Birthday." — Is this relevant? Seems like material for Aya Brea's article; not this one.
• "A version of Lightning's first outfit" — This is extremely vague. What is her first outfit? The final one used in XIII? The early drafts mentioned above? "A version of" makes it even more nebulous.
• A rewrite:

• "Lightning has been featured in used as the theme for multiple pieces of Final Fantasy XIII-themed merchandise produced by Square Enix."

• "Play Arts Kai, who have" — This article is written in American English, so corporations should be referred to as singular objects ("which", "it", "has") rather than as collections of people.
• "Lightning in her outfit for Final Fantasy XIII appeared in a live-action PlayStation commercial titled 'Michael'" — Why does it matter which outfit she's in here?
• "portrayed the character in her XIII-2 attire" — Ditto.

I was hoping to finish the whole article by today, but my review was slowed down by unforeseen computer problems. I'll have to look through Reception tomorrow. Thanks for your patience and your hard work so far. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 08:16, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've done my best with everything you mentioned, but there is one exception that I must explain. "Savior" in Lightning Returns is not just a word, but a formal title used for Lightning. She's not 'a' savior, but 'the' savior. I've capitalized the word to make that a little clearer. And I hope that there won't be many more plot-related expantions needed: what with one having lots of lore, one having time travel and one tying up loose ends from the other two, it can't be a headache using as few words as possible to get the point across. And thanks for catching that UK/US grammar slip: I'm UK-native so sometimes my spelling and grammar slip into what I write. --ProtoDrake (talk) 10:25, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good work. I doubt any more plot expansion will be needed; I'm into Reception, now. I'll do the usual follow-up and get back to you with the final part of the review ASAP. As for the US/UK thing—since you're a native speaker of British English,

WP:ENGVAR entails that articles you've created and/or edited early can be written in British English. That doesn't apply in this case, but it's something to keep in mind for the future. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:44, 18 October 2014 (UTC)[reply

]

Once these are done and I've followed up, we should be finished. Thanks for your cooperation during this long review. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 00:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All done and addressed, I think. --ProtoDrake (talk) 08:19, 20 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong support: An excellent article. I find most Wikipedia pages on fictional characters very boring, but this one is different: all meaningful, interesting content; no cruft. The prose quality—my main complaint—is now easily 1a-level. You've hit it out of the park with this article, ProtoDrake. Before I get out of your hair, I should mention that some of my final prose tweaks may have misrepresented the sources. Feel free to correct any mistakes I made. Hope the rest of the FAC goes smoothly. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 08:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Image review - Passed

• File:Lightning CG.png - Fair Use of the character in question; I'd prefer if the source was more specific as to where the image was gotten from, rather than just the copyright holder
• WP:IMAGERES
  , shoot for width x height <= 100,000- right now you're at ~140,000, so you'll want something closer to 420x236 than 500x281). I'd like the purpose of use to be a bit longer, too; right now it's mainly "to show that Lightning looked different in the second game". Talk about what visual aspects changed that necessitate another image to show them.
• File:Lightning LR screenshot.png - Fair Use of the character in her third appearance; same issues as the XIII-2 image.

--PresN 22:03, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done my best with all three. If the source for the main infobox image is not adequate, that can be sorted, I think. Image resize was easy enough, expanding the fair use was a bit more challenging. I also added sources for the other two images. --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:44, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good, now passed. --PresN 23:55, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jaguar

Sorry for coming to this late. I think that all of the prose issues have already been addressed as reading through most of the article concludes no issues. I'll support this transition from GA to FA as the prose is flawless. However there was only one thing that confused me: ☠ Jaguar ☠ 12:19, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• "She was depicted as having transcended her human limits, making it "kind of hard to approach her" as a person." - why does this make it hard to approach her and where did the quote come from?

Done my best with that. I think, given the nature of the question that statement was part of an answer to, that they meant in approaching her depiction and characterization rather than physically approaching her. I've adjusted it accordingly. --ProtoDrake (talk) 13:15, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tezero

Nothing major.

• Why are "fictional character" and "protagonist" linked?
• "featuring as a resident" - strange wording
• "She was also criticized for her relative absence in XIII-2." - use of "also" (which I'm surprised JimmyBlackwing didn't pick out) implies that the "mixed" reception attributed to her Cloud similarities previously was actually mostly negative.
• " Famitsu, Square Enix and other organizations."/"Hope, Sazh Katzroy and Oerba Dia Vanille"/"strong, beautiful, and"/"a chibi figure in Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Mobile,[79] and a character card"/etc. - I don't really care whether you include the Oxford comma or not, but keep it consistent.
• "whose two factions " - do they have names? (I've played very little of Final Fantasy XIII.)
• "like a female version of Cloud" - "Strife" is never used in the body text; consider including it here in brackets

Tezero (talk) 19:41, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All sorted as best as I could. Thanks for catching those Oxford comma mistakes. --ProtoDrake (talk) 20:01, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Looks great, especially with JB's large-scale prose spitshining. We haven't had a VG character FA in quite some time (although Lightning may not be alone in the fall 2014 crew), and this article deserves to break this sorrowful period of stagnation. Tezero (talk) 20:47, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

Source review - spotchecks not done

• Dead links
• Explanatory notes should still have the references attached, particularly when they include direct quotes
• Be consistent in what is wikilinked when in references
• Fn11: publication name should be italicized. Same with FN89
• Be consistent in when you include publisher locations
• External link appears to fail
  WP:EL. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:44, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  @Nikkimaria:; I've fixed the dead links (also did some archiving for the Square Enix Store links), publisher locations, and italics. I think I've fixed the wikilinking, apart from the quotes: another editor recommended I not use links within those references, but it can easily be altered. I also deleted the external link as, as the Wikipedia article is now, the Wikia page doesn't seem the best thing to link to. But I don't know how to fix the notes. How do I attach the references to the notes? I tried putting the citation inside the note and they didn't display. How can I solve this problem? Also, is there anything in the article I haven't caught? I am still learning and am always willing to accept help. --ProtoDrake (talk) 09:37, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Fixed it for you; you can't nest references directly, but if you use the {{efn}}/{{notelist}} templates, you can. --PresN 19:09, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you. That should be all the problems fixed, unless I missed something. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:13, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikilinking isn't the same as external linking - you've now got some publication titles linked externally, some linked internally, and some not linked at all, and it isn't consistent (for example, sometimes Famitsu is linked and other times not). Nikkimaria (talk) 15:38, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria, I've fixed the external links and the Famitsu links, I think. But I can't link all of them sites used in references without leaving red links. Should I just remove the links outright? --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:08, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If no article exists about the site, it's fine not to link it - this point is mostly concerned with consistency regarding linking of the same publication (ie. Famitsu should be either always linked or always not linked). Nikkimaria (talk) 16:38, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria I've done a spotcheck, and it seems to be alright, with the only detections being deliberate quotes or repeats of the names of games. There is a url (3djuegos.com/foros/tema/33612126/21/especial-la-batalla-de-las-estrellas) that's at 82.4% violation, but it isn't part of the article. I don't understand. Other than that, I've gone through the references again and.... I think the rest of the issues have been sorted. I really, really hope this can be finished successfully. --ProtoDrake (talk) 23:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria, please could you give me a verdict some time, or tell me what else needs doing? I'm getting very nervous about this article. --ProtoDrake (talk) 13:07, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey ProtoDrake, source review is done, you're waiting for the delegates to either pass the article or tell you what else it needs to pass. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:00, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This
  WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Graham Beards (talk) 09:21, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]