Ellone



Ellone is a non-player character in Final Fantasy VIII who is pursued by evil sorceresses who wish to exploit her mysterious powers over time. In Japan, published Final Fantasy VIII materials spelled her English name as Ellione.

Appearance
Ellone's look and overall clothing style don't change much over the years. As a child she wears a blue short-sleeved dress with a white collar and yellow shoes, while her attire as an adult consists of a blue sleeveless top with a bigger white collar, paired with a white, below the knee skirt and similar yellow shoes. She wears a green shawl and maintains her hair trimmed above the shoulders and has brown eyes.

Personality
Ellone's dream is to have her family reunited, and she uses her unique powers to achieve this. When she discovers she cannot change the passage of time, she learns to accept the present. Despite being hunted her entire life for her unusual ability to send a human's consciousness back in time, Ellone maintains a childlike innocence about the world, even as a young adult.

Abilities
Both Adel and Ultimecia seek her for her unusual powers that allow Ellone to connect with the consciousness of someone she knows, and send their consciousness back in time to experience the events of someone else she knows. She can also communicate with others in the present through telepathy. When Ellone links herself mentally to another person, she calls it "connecting" and when she severs the mental link, she calls it "disconnecting".

Ellone can use her power consciously, but it can activate while she is asleep, and she is unable to disconnect until she wakes up. Ellone can only link her mind with those in the present, but once she sends their mind back in time both she and the person she is connected to can experience the past. When Ellone connects with someone, the subject falls into a sleep-like state. They experience the events of the past, which they may interpret as vivid dreams. The individual in the past, whose actions are being experienced, may be aware of those in the present, hearing their voices as indistinct buzzing. The person viewing the past is only a passenger and Ellone believes they cannot directly influence the person in the past.

The Junction Machine Ellone allows the user to control the person in the past, as Ultimecia does to control Edea and Rinoa. It is unknown if this is due to Ultimecia's own magic, or the Junction Machine Ellone being stronger than Ellone.

The Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania explains that Ellone's ability to connect to the mind of another is the same kind of process as when a person junctions a Guardian Force; one's consciousness can't be connected to another without an intermediary with a special ability—a Guardian Force, Ellone herself, or the Junction Machine Ellone.

The Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy character file for Ultimecia refers to Ellone as a sorceress, but this is an erroneous translation, as the Japanese profile merely refers to her as one with power over memories.

Story
Ellone was born in the village of Winhill on the Galbadian continent, about four years before Laguna's Winhill days, making her at least five years older than Squall. Ellone lived with her parents next to the town square, next door to the town pub. When she was two the Sorceress War broke out between Galbadia and Esthar and Estharian troops raided Winhill.

Esthar's leader, Sorceress Adel, was searching for an heir, and the soldiers demanded the village hand over all of its young girls for consideration. Ellone's parents refused to hand over their daughter and were gunned down for their rebellion. Ellone escaped the Estharians' clutches, and once the soldiers had departed, she was taken in by her next door neighbor, Raine.

Ellone and Raine enjoyed a peaceful life in Winhill and Ellone accepted Raine as a mother figure. Their makeshift family was not completed, however, until Laguna Loire, a wounded Galbadian soldier, was brought into their home. Raine, at first out of sheer obligation, took him in and in under six months nursed him back to health. Eternally grateful, Laguna remained with Raine, repaying his debt to her by helping her raise Ellone and patrolling Winhill in a daily effort to keep its residents and streets safe and monster-free.

Ellone bonded with Laguna, calling him "uncle" and following him everywhere. Laguna was similarly taken with the little girl, and enjoyed playing and joking with her. Ellone encouraged Raine and Laguna to develop their relationship, and they fell in love and married. Their family was torn apart when Sorceress Adel's soldiers returned to kidnap Ellone, this time succeeding and taking her away to Esthar to become Sorceress Adel's successor. Ellone ended up in Estharian scientist Dr. Odine's lab where he studied her powers of telepathy and sending a person's consciousness back in time.

Laguna, along with his friends Kiros and Ward, departed for Esthar to rescue Ellone never learning Raine was pregnant with his child before leaving. Once in Esthar Laguna, Kiros, and Ward joined forces with a resistance group against Adel and Laguna enlisted the help Dr. Odine to build a special cryo-containment device to bind Adel's powers and place her in suspended animation. The resistance placed the device inside a building outside of the capital, which would later become known as the Sorceress Memorial. They lured Adel to the site using a holographic projection of Ellone. Laguna and Ellone reunited, Adel's frozen body was shot into outer space.

With the threat of Adel removed, Laguna hoped he and Ellone could return to Winhill. The Estharians begged him to stay and unaware of Raine's condition, Laguna agreed, and sent Ellone home to Winhill ahead of him, promising to follow when his work was finished. Ellone returned to witness Raine's baby being born, who was named Squall, but Raine died shortly after.

The people of Winhill sent both Squall and Ellone to Edea Kramer's orphanage where Ellone—who was older than the other children—helped care for them like an older sister earning the nickname "Sis". Although Squall had no recollection of his mother or his hometown, he was drawn to Ellone, and became more attached to her than the other children.

One day a dying Sorceress Ultimecia and a teenage Squall appeared out of a time warp. Mortally wounded, Ultimecia transferred her sorceress power to Edea, who was a sorceress herself, albeit she tended to conceal it from the world. Squall told Edea he is a SeeD, a concept he claimed was started by Edea herself, before disappearing back into the time warp. Puzzled by these events, Edea concluded the orphan boy Squall will one day defeat a powerful sorceress. For this prophecy to come true, she must found the SeeD to train Squall to one day meet his fate.

Because SeeD was to be an anti-sorceress force, Edea's husband, Cid Kramer, was reluctant to go with the plan, fearing the SeeD might one day want to fight Edea. Edea and the orphans who were not joining the Gardens thus went into hiding on the White SeeD Ship, and Ellone and Squall were separated. The orphans who joined Edea and Ellone on the White SeeD Ship would become the White SeeD to ensure Edea and Ellone's safety; Ellone herself needed protection as Dr. Odine of Esthar was keen to have her back for his studies. Whisked away under utmost secrecy, Ellone did not have a chance to say goodbye to her younger brother who grew up believing she had intentionally abandoned him.

Ellone remained with the White SeeD for many years. Although grateful to those who had taken care of her, she wondered how things might have turned out had Raine lived and Laguna returned to Winhill in time. One day, twelve years after Balamb Garden's completion, Edea was possessed by Ultimecia. It is unknown whether Edea left the White SeeD Ship before or after being possessed, but the White SeeDs and other orphans voyaged to Balamb Garden to tell Cid of what had happened, while Ultimecia proceeded to use Edea's body and name to pursue a political career in Galbadia.

While in Balamb Garden Ellone comes across a wounded Squall in the infirmary, but he no longer recognizes her. Ellone comes up with a plan to use her power to prevent her own kidnapping so Laguna from never leave Winhill, and sends Squall's consciousness back in time to inhabit Laguna's past in a dream world.

Although unsuccessful at changing the past, Ellone comes to learn how much Laguna had loved her by viewing the past through his eyes. Ellone's attempt to change the past teaches her an important lesson: people may not be able to change the past, but they can make the most of the present. Squall, unaware what is happening to him and puzzled by the mysterious dreams, confronts her upon learning her name is Ellone and remembering a little girl of such name from one of his dreams. Ellone reveals she is the one sending him back in time and how saddened she is he has forgotten about her. A confused Squall pleads her to stop sending him back in time even if she claims he is her only hope.

Determined to regain her family, Ellone returns to the White SeeD Ship only to escape again at earliest opportunity, fleeing to Esthar on board an Estharian ship in search of Laguna. She has decided to not send Squall back in time again, but does so unconsciously while asleep. As she realizes what is happening she apologizes to Squall in a telepathic message. Squall calls out to her but the connection is lost.

Ellone follows Laguna to the Lunar Base Space Station. Presumably during the time she is put into a forced sleep to be launched in a pod to the base, she again accidentally sends Squall back in time. After arriving at the base she tells Laguna, who is at the station to oversee Adel's containment, of his son.

Squall follows her to the base, desperate to find a cure for a comatose Rinoa Heartilly. Squall, who by now has recovered his childhood memories, begs Ellone to send his consciousness into Rinoa's past to see what has happened to her and prevent it. Ellone is happy Squall remembers her, and sends Squall into Rinoa's most recent past to help him uncover the secret to her strange behavior: Rinoa has become a sorceress and been possessed by Sorceress Ultimecia from the future. As the Lunar Cry begins the space station is destroyed and Ellone, Squall and the staff evacuate to an escape pod.

Squall pleads for her to try again, although Ellone had already explained to him changing the past using her ability is impossible. She instead connects Squall to Rinoa's mind telepathically when she is floating in space, her body having been left to dye by Ultimecia. Via Ellone as an intermediary, Squall communicates to Rinoa to activate the emergency supply of oxygen in her spacesuit before abandoning the escape pod and jumping out to space to catch her.

The escape pod lands safely on the coast of Esthar and is found by Galbadian forces who take Ellone captive within the Lunatic Pandora, which the G-Forces have recovered under Ultimecia's orders. Squall and Rinoa return from space on the derelict spaceship Ragnarok, and he and his friends meet with Dr. Odine and Laguna. They are surprised to learn Laguna is the president of Esthar, which is why he was unable to get away and reunite with Ellone for so long.

As explained to Squall and his friends by Dr. Odine, in the future, Sorceress Ultimecia is using an invention of his called "Junction Machine Ellone" to send her consciousness into the past to possess past sorceresses to compress all time and space to become a godlike being. The junction machine mimics Ellone's powers and was created by Dr. Odine as a result of experimentation done on her brainwaves when she was held captive in Esthar as a child. The machine has limits to how far back it can send Ultimecia, and so she wants to make use of Ellone's power to travel even further back in time. Odine uses this knowledge to design a plan to stop Ultimecia: Squall and his SeeD partners have to do away with Sorceress Adel, forcing Ultimecia to possess the only sorceress left in the present, Rinoa.

Squall and his friends infiltrate Lunatic Pandora and save Ellone and kill Adel. Once Rinoa is possessed, Ellone sends both Rinoa's and Ultimecia's consciousnesses as far back in time as she can. Ellone pulls Rinoa back to the present and sends Ultimecia back to the future, halting the time compression (if only temporarily), allowing Squall to travel through the partially compressed timeline to reach Ultimecia and defeat her.

Laguna returns to Winhill to visit Raine's grave, and Ellone's family is finally reunited: with her "uncle" back in Winhill and Squall—her brother in every way apart from blood relation—looking over them from Balamb Garden.

Triple Triad


Ellone possesses Laguna's Triple Triad card. It can be won from her while aboard the Lunar Base. This may prove to be a challenge as the Lunar Base uses almost all the card rules found across regions; this can be made easier if the player by chance abolishes the Random rule.

Etymology
"Ellone" may be derived from "Elona".

Trivia

 * The quote "You're my only hope", a line Ellone speaks to Squall, may be an allusion to Star Wars where Princess Leia says the same line in a recorded message meant for Obi Wan Kenobi. It is unknown if this is an intended allusion, but Final Fantasy VIII already has multiple other allusions to Star Wars.
 * In the Laguna dream in Winhill he addresses the pictures on a drawer in Ellone's old house as Ellone's parent, telling the pictures Ellone has been a good girl. If Squall's party visits Winhill in present time, he can note the pictures are gone, likely taken with Ellone as her belongings when she was taken to the orphanage.