Hildibrand Questline Not Funny to Me

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Final Fantasy XIV Main Funny Index
Legacy/A Realm Reborn - Heavensward - Stormblood - Shadowbringers - Gentleman Inspector Hildibrand

The fact that they require a page all to themselves should be more than enough to explain the hijinks that happens here.

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Legacy Hildibrand Quests

• The very first meeting with the Gentleman Inspector is accompanied with the sounds of trumpets.
• Convinced that he is the hero who would stop Dalamud from falling, he finds a Garlean gunhalberd and accidentally ignited the ash powder he left earlier launching him into the sky. This becomes a brick joke in 2.0.
• Hildebrand's many attempts to pronounce Urianger's name. At one point getting it wrong in 3 wildly different ways in less than a minute.

  Hildebrand: You are the enigmatic prophet of whom the rumors speak. Are you not, Master Horay-ranger?
  Urianger: (shaking his head) Call me what thou wilt.

    Hildibrand Quests

The Immaculate Deception

• Hildibrand returns in usual fashion, digging himself out of his own grave, convinced he's a zombie because of his amnesia. His quest chain is silly, nonsensical, and ends in a way that might leave you flabbergasted by how crazy it is. At one point, Hildibrand makes a joyful face that stretches his model so much it's very obviously meant to push the Uncanny Valley. Hildibrand's teeth also sparkles in the light every time he smiles!
• Do remember that A Realm Reborn canonically takes place five years after 1.0 ended. The Echo makes it unclear just how long ago he dug himself out, but given that the dapper undead "Zombibrand" were teaching only recently began appearing... Just how long was he in that coffin without feeling any ill effects?

The Three Collectors

• We are introduced to Briarden, a straightlaced foil to Hildibrand. Though he may have a stiff upper lip, that doesn't make him immune to the weird shenanigans.
• This episode also gave us someone even more over the top than Hildibrand: His father, Godbert.
  • But in order to summon him, Hildibrand teaches you the ever-goofy jaunt that is the Manderville Dance. It's an emote at that, so you can do it anytime, anywhere.
  • After successfully calling Godbert, the moment he spots his long-lost son, he proceeds to chase him down at sonic speed and suplexes him. Hildibrand is fast, but Godbert can Flash Step.
• "But where are my manners? I have yet to properly introduce myself. I am Gilgamesh, and that is my companion, Enkidu! ...Well, not really. It has been many moons since last I saw him, so to ease the burden of loneliness, I tamed a rooster and painted it green."
• Gilgamesh's exit after his boss battle by attempting to fly away on a rooster leaves the player character so flabbergasted they forget to preform their victory pose with the rest of the party.
• The fight against Gilgamesh is also beyond silly; as a nod to his character, Gilgamesh will fake defeat halfway through the first round and then says he lied, proceeding to attack one random player as he buffs himself. Gilgamesh then runs away, saying he "remembered he had something to do" while he drops a bomb behind as another ambush attack. Gilgamesh also can cause Minimum, Toad, and Confusion, which makes the fight look even sillier as shrunk down and frog transformed party members are running around trying to avoid being hit while confused party members attack each other.
• Gets Extra silly if the confused members are casters, (And even more so if they're Arcanists/Summoners/Scholars). Ever see Summoner smack a Black Mage repeatedly in the face with a book while the also confused Black Mage smacks the Summoner with their staff?
• The developers couldn't resist the comedy factor of someone being smacked with a book, the first two rocket punches will prioritize book-wielders over every other class if they're present.

A Case of Indecency

• Nashu brings some more of her explosives along for some reason, and leaves them on a crate of fruit, and starts to (poorly) take notes of what her boss Hildibrand is saying for the record. A series of events causes all of these to fall into place when rival inspector Briardien comes back from questioning a victim of the Phantom Thief, and leads to this.
• Later on in the same branch of the Hildibrand quest, Briardien tasks Hildibrand (condescendingly) with creating a distraction while he attempts to keep the bride hidden. Hildibrand proceeds to wear the bride's wedding gown (provided by the player under the pretense of keeping it safe while the real bride was disguised) and proceed with the ceremony. He promptly accuses the groom of being the phantom thief in disguise since the groom had never seen his bride before, yet was able to tell at a glance that Hildibrand was not the fair maiden he was betrothed to. The kicker? The groom actually WAS the phantom thief in disguise.

The Colosseum Conundrum

• When Hildibrand's latest case takes him to the Colosseum in Ul'Dah, Uncle Ulty joins the fray. Every time Ultros tries to stop the player character and their crew from entering the tournament, it hilariously backfires on him; a crate of explosives meant to blow up Hilidbrand's friends is tossed back to him unwittingly, he falls into one of his own pitfall traps, and gets attacked by Hildibrand's father, a guy who is known to be insanely strong. Butt-Monkey doesn't even begin to describe Ultros.
• The Thief of a Thousand Faces maanges to escape the Colosseum by summoning a Bomb, which suddenly grows to enormous size before exploding... into a cloud of confetti.

Her Last Vow

• Briardien makes a callback to the Costa del Sol incident; Hildibrand, Nashu and the Warrior of Light avert their eyes knowing full well what happened that day.
• Hildibrand's mother. Julyan Manderville shows up after the phantom thief is unmasked. Just when the thief prepares to attack, Hildy's mother knocks the thief out with a frying pan. Shortly after, Gilgamesh appears and prepares to fight the Warrior of Light, only for Hildy's mom to hit Gilgamesh with her frying pan so hard that he flies into a wall. Even Godbert is scared out of his wits of her when she's angry. After witnessing her knocking Godbert stupid and Gilgamesh into the wall even the player character, who at this point has made a career out of slaying gods as far up as Bahamut himself , followers her orders to the letter without any complaint or hesitation.
  • The real kicker is that, when nodding your head as quickly as you can, your neck makes a sound that can only be described as "tennis shoes quickly squeaking on a basket court". Not to mention that certain character models (such as Highlanders) don't nod their heads completely - it looks more like your head is spasming up and down erratically.
  • For a Rewatch Bonus, flash back to the 2.4 scenes where Ultros was trying and failing to woo some women. One of those women was Julyan! Uncle Ulty is lucky she didn't turn him into takoyaki on the spot.
• When Briardien learns that Hildibrand built up an immunity to being zombified, the inspector gives up trying to find any sort of logic in the whole scenario and decides to just roll with it.
• Hildibrand finally recovers the genuine Treaty Blade...only to find himself being rocketed towards the sky, after proving that the Blade did in fact have special powers.

    Further Hildibrand Adventures

• 3.2 has the return of Hildibrand and his wacky adventures are back in full force. The side quest introduces an inquisitor named Cyr who believes Hildibrand is a heretic and he quickly wonders how he and his companions are associates with a gentlemanly zombie while also wondering if he was transported to a new realm where logic doesn't exist. When the party does find Hildibrand buried head first in the snow, Godbert prepares to wake up his son, causing the Warrior of Light, Nashu, and the zombie to slowly back away as Cyr confusedly looks at them before Godbert's suplex power throws him several yards back. Needless to say, he's basically the stand in for Briardien.
  • It's even funnier when you question what the zombie is doing walking around Coerthas in the first place. Apparently, he was looking for Dusk Vigil (a very serious dungeon unconnected with this questline) because he heard other zombies were there and he wanted to meet them... until it's revealed that the player already went through and killed them all, much to his mild disappointment. He just decides to go along with you to find Hildibrand after.
  • One of the highlights is unsaid but very obvious. When you encounter Godbert in Ishgard city he's wearing more or less a full set of winter clothes. The farther you go into Coerthas (which is explicitly said it gets colder the farther north you get) he's wearing less and less clothes, by the time you find Hildibrand he's in just an undershirt... and when that gets removed (complete with the sound and effect for changing classes), that's when the people who know what Godbert is capable of start backing up.
  • 3.3 has the Hildibrand gang trying to find a way to make Gigi into a real boy, but every attempt doesn't work. Hildibrand doesn't mind that Gigi remained a mammet and declares that he is his son, which Godbert also celebrates to. Juliyan isn't pleased that both her son and her husband are stupid enough to take a mammet in as a child, causing her to get so pissed off that her Frying Pan of Doom grows tenfold in size and she gains Glowing Eyes of Doom. Godbert and Hildibrand know far too well that staying would spell doom for them and they quickly hightail it out of the highlands while Juliyan calmly walks after them. Cyr is left shaking in his shoes in absolute terror and states that while he would like to find out whether or not Juliyan had the power of a Dark Knight or worse, he isn't going to risk his life to find out.
    • Godbert's attempts to turn Gigi into a real boy involve modifying his body so that he appeared to be a lalafell (with his head unaltered), then right afterwards, giving him the hulking physique of a roegadyn. After the second modification, Hildibrand and Gigi run to each other in slow-motion as heartwarming music plays. Papa Hildy stretches out his arms, ready to embrace his mammet son...only to have Gigi clothesline him straight into the snow.
• The added chapter for Further Hildibrand Adventures has Gigi being kidnapped by three very aged adventurers. As the trio make a VERY slow retreat with the captive Gigi, Hildibrand considers pursuit hopeless and vows to rescue the captured Mammet. All of this causes Cyr's face to twitch uncontrollably in response before pointing out that they're escaping at an Adamantoise's pace.
  • When the player must steal the armor from the elderly dragoon. After having him fall asleep and taking the armor, the game is very quick to ask What the Hell, Hero? for leaving an old man asleep in the bitter cold in an area infested with Sun Bears and Morbols. Interacting with the sleeping old man after stealing his armor prompts the text "Good night, sweet prince."
  • The journal entries for the above section only highlight how low the Warrior of Light has fallen.
  • The reason why you must steal his armor? Hildibrand believes the best way to deceive them, is for him to wear it and pretend to be him. He proceeds to do so...whilst acting exactly as normal, poses and all. Cyr's reaction is priceless.

  Then it works.

  Cyr: Okay, no - that's bollocks.

• In the finale of the Further Hildibrand Adventures Questline, the Grand Sers reenacting the Knights of the Round summon animation from Final Fantasy VII.
  • It turns out that Gigi's real ability is to alter reality to what he thinks is the right state for things to be in. So a vase becomes unbroken, the Grand Sers (who have been filling his head with stories of their heroic legacy) become incredibly strong... and when subjected to it, Godbert becomes almost nude, Hildibrand's clothing becomes trashed again, and Julyan winds up with her excessively large Frying Pan of Doom and glowing, demonic red eyes.

    Even Further Hildibrand Adventures

• The new Hildibrand questline doesn't lack for these moments. Among them are the Warrior of Light chasing off the namazu who tried to sell you to the Garleans in the main storyline with a pointed glare, Nashu being, well, Nashu, and the option to tell her she's being tailed by an obsessive Lalafell.

  Warrior of Light: A creepy little bastard who followed you to Kugane says he's been stalking you for five years.

  • What makes this Lalafell even more hilarious is that he really has been stalking her, since 2.4.
  • If you try to tell her she just laughs it off insisting that even she would notice something like that. Checking your journal afterwards states you've seen the futility trying to warn her, even if you didn't try.
• Hildibrand's return in Stormblood does not hold back on the laughs. How does he come back? By being sold off as a statue in Kugane and is then stolen/kidnapped by the wolf burglar who also thinks the man is a highly valued statue. Later on, you meet one of Hildibrand's undead gentleman in a wolf suit, who says a merchant gave it to him to make him look less scary. The zombie also mentions that he heard some of his brethren were in the Sirensong Sea, only to find out that the Warrior of Light slayed them all like they did with the undead in Dusk Vigil. The zombie then tells the Warrior of light to stop killing the undead everywhere they go.
  • So, how did Hildibrand get into the auction as a statue? Somehow, after landing from being launched into the stratosphere (again) at the end of the previous adventure, his body froze into a pose and was as rigid as a statue and unresponsive, with a serene look to his face. The auction house in Kugane found him and presumed he was simply an incredibly lifelike statue, and dubbed him "The Eoruzean(sic) Gentleman". However, the second Nashu merely gets ready to throw one of her "delights" again at him much like back in A Realm Reborn in an attempt to wake him up at the auction house, his unconscious face twists into a look of abject terror.
  • When Hildibrand finally comes to the inspector and the Wolf Burglar find themselves dangling off of opposite cliffs. If the Warrior of Light chooses to (begrudgingly) save Hildibrand he breaks out in a overjoyed smile, only for it to twist into a contorted frown of dismay when Nashu says catching the Wolf Burglar is more important. The kicker? Hildy just lets go of the cliff, assumes a position like an Olympic diver, spins rapidly, and drills into the ground below head first before his legs slowly creak into their familiar "Hildibrand buried in the ground" position.
• Hildibrand's shenanigans in 4.3 does not let up on the laughs or the shenanigans:
  • To get Nashu to sneak into Akebono's place as a geiko, the party needs to acquire the right attire for her. An old woman says she'll part with it for 70,000 gil. You can either respond that you are so loaded that your subligar is worth more than geiko clothing or admit you blew all your money on gambling on a horsebird named Kweh Rhapsody.
  • Shigure aims to join what is basically an order of the samurai. No one takes him seriously because of his extremely long and flowing hair. Nashu offers to clean him up by changing into the same attire that the NPC who does your hair wears (complete with the theme music!) and basically cuts all of Shigure's hair off. The player character can only react with a massive ◊ Jaw Drop while Shigure is left to wallow in self pity over going bald.
  • In order to convince Akebono that he needs more security against the Wolf Burglar, Hilibrand has Nashu go in as a geiko to distract the man. Hildibrand himself later bursts into the room wearing geiko clothing and makeup ◊ that would make Kefka scoff. Yojimbo, who was standing guard the whole time, completely believes Hildibrand to be a lady, is taken in by his beauty, and refuses to throw him out when ordered to. His reaction when Hildibrand drops the disguise? "I feel so...so conflicted!" What's even better is after Hildibrand changes back into his normal clothes, he still has the makeup on for the rest of the quest.
  • Like he did with calling Gilgamesh "Greg", Hildibrand resorts to calling Yojimbo as "Jim". Yojimbo barely restrains himself from his expressing his annoyance at newly acquired nickname. Yojimbo is even more annoyed at how Hildibrand can remember his dog's name (Daigoro) and yet not remember his name.
  • After catching up to the Wolf Burglar, Yojimbo sics his dog on the wolf and is immediately distracted when the burglar tosses a single koban coin over the horizon thanks to Daigoro being trained to fetch money for Yojimbo. The Wolf Burgler then summons his falcon to escape, but the bird hesitates when it sees Hildibrand, who is still wearing makeup. Hildibrand blows a Projectile Kiss at the bird, which horrifies the falcon so much ''its very soul visibly leaves its body and heads off into the heavens causing the bird to crash head first into the ground with the same honking sound effect whenever Hidlibrand crashes into the ground.
• The insanity of the Hildibrand quest line still goes further in the 4.4 quests.
  • In an attempt to get the Wolf Burglar out, Nash - who alongside Hildibrand is suddenly and inexplicably wearing sunglasses - presents a tonic for the bald Shigure to regrow his hair. This may sound rather non-sequitur, but astute players may remember that this hair tonic emitted an intense light when applied, which happened as far back as 2.0. The duo exploit this, using the bright light to snatch the cell key, break the Wolf Burglar out, swap in the werewolf-costumed zombie in place, and make a mad dash out at speeds that would have The Flash nodding in approval. The guard who holds the key and ends up blinded by the light also has a call-back to a certain Ascian as he looks on.

    Guard: The light... it binds them... they are too many!

  • Shigure, being accomplice to a break-out, needs to change out of his Sekiseigumi uniform to divert attention. What does he wear? The Arhat Togi of Striking...and the zori from his Sekiseigumi uniform. Might need to work on coordination there, sir.
  • Daigoro betrays Yojimbo to the player and investigation group twice, thanks to the latter group taking advantage of Daigoro's Pavlovian training to fetch any gold laid out for him to retrieve. First the Wolf Burgler uses the offering of a single koban coin trick again to entice Daigoro over (who charges at full speed to collect it) and then follow Daigoro back to Yojimbo. When they find Yojimbo, Hildibrand again comes up with one of his absurd plans to retrieve the stolen sword from Yojimbo: Give back the sword or else Hildibrand will give Daigoro the most furious of belly rubs to cause Yojimbo loyal companion to turn against him and depriving "Jim" of such joy. This of course works because Daigoro can sense the Manderville-family's wealth about Hildibrand and because life is funny like that, causing the dog to happily flop on his back and happily wag his tail for free belly rubs while not only ignoring Yojimbo's commands to heel, but flat out refusing him.
  • Hildibrand (and Nashu) has been surprisingly competent for 4.45 patch set of quests, giving decent suggestions, being right to follow up on several smaller leads to figure out what Yojimbo's motives and possible destinations are, and several on the fly and completely oddball plans that worked out, all while avoiding all harm. It seems like Hildibrand has finally been on the receiving end of Throw the Dog a Bone. Right until he accidentally steps on a certain dog's tail while trying to catch the stolen sword that Yojimbo throws to the Inspector, Daigoro's in particular. Cue Daigoro chasing after and utterly thrashing Hildibrand, before burying the hapless inspector in his traditional "tattered cloths, legs sticking out of the ground" pose as though Daigoro was hiding a dog bone.
• And of course, the finale of the Hildibrand quests in 4.56 spares no expense in hysterics.
  • So it is time you (and seven others) confront Yojimbo and reclaim the stolen sword from him at Kugane Ohashi. After taking down his HP a bit, he decides to get much more serious. Wait a second... "It is Gilgameshing time!"? You thought it was Yojimbo, but it was the man, the myth, the legend, Gilgamesh all along! And he's got new tricks up his sleeve! Or rather...he "borrowed" some from a certain kami named Susano. And the power meter used to charge his ultimate? It's called "Divine Epicness".
  • After defeating Greg, er, Gilgamesh, in the battle on Kugane Ohashi (by the way, "ohashi" can translate into "big bridge"), he joins you in freeing Shigure from his execution by seppuku. What ensues is Hildibrand showing up in the Sekiseigumi uniform, making the other Sekiseigumi officers giving chase as Hildibrand runs around the barracks like a maniac. Shigure is understandably dumbfounded at the ridiculousness of the scene.
  • Once it's discovered there's a dewprism (a drug that can mind control the consumer) dealing scandal underneath the sword case, the group pursue Akebono for his arrest. However...the group has to deal with a mind-controlled Godbert under the trader's control. And since Godbert is known for being a Memetic Badass, pretty much everyone but you gets curb-stomped in seconds flat, with the player escaping only because Godbert doesn't target them.
  • The villain of the piece also orders Godbert to "Finish them all! Finish EVERYONE!", and predictably becomes the next victim of the unstoppable goldsmith's rampage.
  • And what does Hildibrand do to make his father come to his senses? Attempt to pile drive him and make him remember his own son. Cue a flashback slideshow of father-son shenanigans...that consist of Godbert suplexing, throwing, and performing OTHER miscellaneous forms of bodily harm on Hildibrand. It works... resulting in Godbert reversing the piledriver, and making Hildibrand take the blow instead. Cue Hildibrand's signature distressed clothes and legs out state.
  • The entire Stormblood season has Hildibrand and Co. dancing to his theme on a stage, known as the Manderville Mambo after every patch questline. The dance itself is pretty silly, incorporating all the Character Tics our favorite inspector is known for. The finale ends with a Dance Party Ending, with the entire cast (yourself included!) dancing away, and you're even rewarded with the Manderville Mambo dance emote, so you can boogie like an inspector anytime and anywhere.
  • After the wild plot twist that Yojimbo was secretly Gilgamesh in disguise, he drops this line lampshading the absurdity.

  Gilgamesh: I know it seems far-fetched, even insulting to your intelligence, but there's a simple and highly satisfying explanation.

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