If you look through the Balamb Garden website, you can find announcement from the Library Committee, which sheds some light on the books that the students at Balamb are ordering. First off, I want to mention that the Committee outright tells you who has what overdue books checked out, which is a serious violation of library ethics:
- Insect Guidebook (Color Edition): Raijin.
- Goodbye Pupurun: Also Raijin.
It also has a list of books that students have requested. For most of these, we can make an educated guess about who ordered them:
- We Meet Again, Pupurun: Let’s assume Raijin ordered this one too. Zell has also expressed interest in the Pupurun books, but he needs to read Goodbye Pupurun first and Raijin hasn’t returned it.
- Turbine Engines (Revised Edition): This one is tricky. According to Final Fantasy VIII Ultimania, turbines are used to power a variety of vehicles in the world of FF8, including T-Boards and the intercontinental train. So is Zell learning how to repair his T-Board, or is Selphie hyperfixated on trains? This one could go either way.
- The Sorceress’ Knight (Scenario Edition): As we’ve covered on this blog, Seifer is obsessed with the idea of being a Sorceress’ Knight. Obviously Seifer.
There is, however, another book that’s less obvious… Who ordered the book titled Edible Flowers?
An Investigation
Squall
No interest in flowers or cooking. Unlikely.
Zell
It’s not a hot dog, he’s not interested in eating it.
Seifer
Like Squall, he doesn’t strike me as someone interested in flowers or cooking. Seifer seems like the kind of guy who gets other people to do things for him, but then he has such limited life skills that he thinks “cooking” is putting ketchup on a tortilla and his first real girlfriend has to teach him how to take care of himself. They break up seven months later.
Selphie
Selphie has a real “ate weird things as a child” energy, so this seems extremely possible.
Quistis
Plausible. Quistis seems like the kind of person who puts her career ahead of her well-being but also wants to be a creative cook and burns herself out trying to be all things at the same time. AL thinks maybe Quistis requested the book because she wanted to learn about sources of blue magic, but considering she’s already eating spider webs and dark matter, I don’t think she’s worried about edibility.
Raijin
We know he likes insects. Does he want to learn about what bugs eat? This seems like a bit of a leap.
Fujin
I have no idea what Fujin is interested in besides order and violence. Girl’s a fascist.
Xu
Xu strikes me as being extremely competent but also incurious. She would probably eat field rations by choice.
Library Girl
She’s a sensitive soul. Maybe she’s into delicate things.
In my opinion as a Final Fantasy VIII overthinker… Selphie is eating the flowers. She was going to eat them anyway but she wants to make sure she’s not eating poison.
UPDATE: Reader Alex Jaffe suggests that maybe Quistis ordered the book for Selphie as an intervention because Selphie kept eating flowers and she wanted to make sure her student wasn’t poisoning herself. I am willing to accept this.