Judge of Wings



The Judge of Wings is a major antagonist in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. She aims to invade Ivalice from the floating continent of Lemurés and start a war between the aegyl and humes. Sky Pirates call her the Judge of Wings due to her resemblance to the Archadian Judges.

As Mydia
In actuality, the Judge is a Feol Viera by the name of Mydia. Like all Feol Viera, she was born and raised in the Feol Warren amongst her sisters. Despite this isolation from the rest of the world, Mydia was a rebellious young woman. She would often argue with her mother about her people's cruel fate. One day, her mother gave her a tome explaining that the Feol Viera would eventually reach the skies and be free. When Mydia finally came of age, she decided to leave the volcano and explore Ivalice, ignoring her elder's wishes.

In Rabanastre, she encountered the hume Velis. They soon became friends, and eventually romantic feelings developed between the two. However, Velis, being a soldier of Nalbina, was called away to the war. Promising to return, Mydia waited, but after several weeks of waiting, she knew she'd never see him again.

Remembering the stories from her youth about the Eternal, a source of eternal life she thought could revive Velis, Mydia wandered Ivalice, getting clues about the islands of legend. She eventually found the Cache of Glabados, where she acquired a piece of auracite and the Galbana. Using this ship, she flew off to Lemurés.

However, when she arrived, Feolthanos easily detected her fresh anima. He knew she would be easy to control: she was descended from his Viera wife, she held a piece of auracite, which contained part of his anima, and she was feeling a burning anger from losing Velis. The combination of these attributes meant that Feolthanos could easily turn her into the Judge of Wings and control her.

Using his new puppet, Feolthanos started his plot to get revenge on Ivalice. To make sure he had complete control, he robbed Mydia of all of her anima, by tricking her with a means to revive Velis, but actually create a Yarhi in his image. Mydia completely gave up her will and became the Judge of Wings, a complete puppet to her master.

Collecting the Auraliths
The party first encounter the Judge on Tormelados, Isle of the Megalith. She is at the auralith's Cradle in the Fane of Tehp Qul, draining the auralith of its power. The Judge uses her powers to distort the feelings within the party's minds, rendering most of them unconscious. She shows them a flashback of her counter with Balthier in the same Fane.

Balthier had also attempted to stop the Judge, but she had already dispatched Fran. Balthier destroys his own auracite and tells the Judge that chasing eternal life is a foolish fantasy, then turns his gun on the Judge. The judicier quickly summons Shiva, who knocks Balthier out with a Diamond Dust spell.

Returning back to the present, the Judge fights the party for a while before vanishing and leaving her dirty work to Shiva. Even though the Empress of Ice is defeated, the Judge reappears in the room and uses a pair of machines to destroy the Auralith, absorbing its powers into her shard of auracite before disappearing again.

The party begins to search for the Judge and finds her in the Yapih Caverns, standing over a Summoning Gate in front of a huge crystal of fiery auracite. After using Belias as a distraction, the Judge summons Bahamut, who ends up shattering the Skysea into several pieces.

Velis
This strands the party on a deserted island, Tswarra, where they encounter Velis. He explains how he is looking for a Feol Viera called Mydia. When the Judge attacks the party later on at Tomaj's Camp, Velis's reaction to her makes the party realize she must be Mydia.

The Judge shows the party another flashback. She was at the Yapih Caverns in order to summon Velis back from the dead, using Feolthanos's power. However, the form she brought back was unresponsive to her, and Velis was spirited away in a flash of light, landing on Tswarra. Back at Tomaj's Camp, the Judge captures Velis is a globe of light and transforms him into the Yarhi Odin. After a while, she comes to the conclusion the Velis she has resurrected is not the true Velis she loved, so she leaves the island, and the party is forced to defeat and kill him.

On mainland Ivalice, the party encounters the Judge in the Paramina Rift. She tries to crush the party again, but Basch is not as easily put down as everyone else, and challenges her. However, the Judge just teleports away. The party journeys around Ivalice looking for clues Feolthanos left behind that would give them clues on where Mydia would strike next. It leads them to the Roda Volcano, where they find the hidden Feol Warren village.

Death
Inside the Volcano, they find the home of the Feol Viera. However, the Judge is already there, killing all the Viera, claiming it is the only way to end their suffering. The party tries to stop her, but she summons Chaos to stop them. When Chaos is defeated, the Judge fights the party herself, and throws her auracite into the lava, summoning an army of Wyvern. The party fights and finally defeats her.

When they gather round her, the Judge's armor disappears, revealing the young Viera underneath. Mydia had been possessed by the fake god Feolthanos, and used her to start his invasion of Ivalice. Her hatred of the people who shunned her people, the loss of her love Velis and the fact her auracite contained part of Feolthanos's anima made her easily possessed. She dies soon afterward, but not before asking the party to defeat Feolthanos and free him from the magick granting him perpetual life. Mydia's spirit leaves her, and reveals Eternity's March, the pathway to the Keep of Forgotten Time.

When the party reaches Feolthanos's Keep, they encounter the Judge one last time, this one having been created by Feolthanos to halt the party. She is defeated, but when the party reach the final Auralith, another Judge is summoned using Mydia's anima. This one is defeated too, and the party never sees her again.

Battle
The Judge of Wings is fought as a boss several times during the course of the game under both names.