Noctis Wanted To Save Luna

Noctis wanted to save Luna

had an epiphany tonight

in Luna’s death scene, Noctis says “All I wanted was to save you.” I thought for the longest time that that line was… sorta BS. He didn’t know she was going to die until she did, or he would have paid more attention to her during the Leviathan fight, or sent the Chocobros to guard her, or something. He had never really shown that saving Luna was an important goal to him during the game. All I saw was his mixed feelings for/disinterest in marrying her. I didn’t see him as having any real goals for himself aside from getting to Altissia for the wedding and short term things like carrot farming.

But then I realised, saving Luna was Noctis’s goal all along! But not in the way that is immediately obvious. All their lives, Luna has been living under the control of the Empire, and that must have weighed on Noctis as he wrote letters to her. I think that the reason he wanted to marry Luna yet was so seemingly unenthusiastic about it when questioned by Prompto is because he thought that by marrying Luna, he could save her from the clutches of the Empire. It wasn’t to save her literal life, it was to save her from a life of captivity. Of course her dying counts as him failing that mission, though, so that’s what makes “All I wanted was to save you” a true statement.

This is also why Noctis’s emotional state goes to shit after Altissia, not to mention gives relevant context for his argument with Gladio. He felt like he failed his biggest and most important goal, with drastic consequences. Probably the worst consequence he imagined was being unable to get Luna out of Altissia, not her straight up dying. And, I don’t think he had any other goals for himself. It’s the player who chooses where to go and what to do in the game, not Noctis - he just goes along with it…

I would bet that Noctis’s original, unstated plan for the first half of the game was to go to Altissia, marry Luna, and take her back to Lucis where it was “safe”. Of course, the fact that the Empire took over Insomnia is a bit of a wrench in the plan. I don’t know if Noctis mentally accounted for this. Maybe he thought that he and Luna had a better chance of reclaiming Lucis together.

This theory totally fits with my “Noctis wasn’t marrying Luna for love” theory, by the way. It was never about love, it was about responsibility, maybe heroism. So when Prompto was talking about Luna’s personal attributes as reasons Noctis should be excited to marry her, it meant nothing to him. Another reason he perhaps did not want to talk about the marriage is because he saw it as a rescue mission and thinking about it in light of Insomnia falling gave him anxiety. That’s also a weak justification, but it does add some depth to the way that Noctis is so avoidant to discussions of Luna and his upcoming wedding in the game.