One of the many things I love about the series is that there are always some interesting themes floating around in the background. That's not to say that Final Fantasy games have the sharp thematic insight of a James Baldwin novel or something, of course, but they still hold a surprising amount of depth. It's pretty clear that the creators of these games have more on their minds than spikey hair and oversized swords.
With their grand, sprawling stories that involve the fates of entire kingdoms and nations, one of the concepts that inevitably come up, sometimes in the forefront of the story and sometimes in the background, is political and economic power. Who has it? Who doesn't? What do those with power do? What does that mean for the rest of the world? How much power do the characters have? What is their relationship to those with and without power? How does all of this relate to everything that happens in each game?
Ultimately, after thinking about it more closely, it seems like each of my favorite Final Fantasy games has a clear stance: power needs to be challenged. Unchecked, the hunger for power can lead to threats to the entire world. Sometimes the entirety of existence. In most of these games, after all, the final villains are in some ways linked either to the powers that be or powers that used to be.
In this post I'll go through each game and analyze the role power plays, and what it looks like, in that game. Enjoy!
Final Fantasy VI: Steampunk Empire
Ahh, Final Fantasy VI. My third favorite Final Fantasy game, yet also the one I like talking about least because of how insufferable many of its fans are (seriously, do they sign some sort of contract where they can't talk about Final Fantasy VI without complaining about Final Fantasy VII's popularity?). Final Fantasy VI is a brilliant game that, unlike the rest of the series, has no definite protagonist. The closest person to a main character would be Terra Branford, a half human-half esper, who nonetheless isn't even playable for a large portion of the game.
The game's antagonists, on the other hand, are very clear. The adversary in the beginning of the game is the Gestahl Empire, a sort of industrial revolution-stage empire with overt imperial ambitions. In the very beginning of the game you play as Terra while she is being mind-controlled to do the Empire's bidding, letting us as the audience know right off the bat what they are willing to resort to in order to further expand their power. They only get worse from there. Everyone who's ever played the game remembers the scene where Kefka poisons Doma as the Empire is laying seige to the castle, despite General Leo's pleas to the contrary.
Symbolically, honorable characters like General Leo and General Celes make a very important point: not everyone who is part of an evil empire is bad. However, and this is a point a lot of people miss in real life, decent people in positions of power aren't enough to prevent a rotten system from perpetrating crimes against humanity. This is shown in the above-mentioned Seige of Doma, where Kefka is able to poison the water supply and remain in power without so much as a slap on the wrist. The Empire doesn't care because, ultimately, their goal is a Manifest Destiny-like need for power, and Kefka's methods allow them to advance that goal. Leo and Celes are powerless to do anything about his atrocities.
This is shown on an even deeper level when Emporer Gestahl and Kefka use General Leo and General Celes to broker a treaty with the espers, only to reveal it was a ploy to allow for the empire to gain access to the espers with their guard down. Kefka then incapacitates Leo's soldiers, as well as the party, to kill the espers and take their magicite. General Leo fights off Kefka and seems to beat him, but is so dispirited after Kefka reveals Emporer Gestahl ordered all of this that Kefka is able to kill him right after, symbolizing what happens to decent people, even those with power, when they trust a rotten system to do right.
RIP to a real one.
Of course, it's not long after this that Kefka usurps control of everything and becomes the main villain of the game. Even though Kefka killing off Emperor Gestahl and reaching for godhood ends the Empire as a formal threat, however, it still lives on in Kefka. Not only because he used the Empire to get himself in position to gain the powers he eventually gains, but because he is a product of the Empire in the first place.
Kefka was the first experimental Magitek Knight. He gained immense power, but lost his sanity and empathy in the process. Because of the Empire's lust for power they not only continued using him, but allowed him to rise up the ranks despite his utter lack of humanity. Everything that happens during this game, both before and after Kefka kills Emporer Gestahl, stems from this basic fact. The Empire is so hungry for power that they enabled Kefka because, ultimately, his cruel and destructive ways were in no way at odds with their mission.
I really wanna drive home that last point, because that's something that can't be emphasized enough when connected to the real world. An obvious example is how much the United States during the Cold War spoke of democracy, but often supported military dictatorships in Latin America over leftist democratic movements. The goal of the United States and the Soviet Union was a battle of empires disguised as ideology, and both were guilty of abhorrent human rights crimes in order to support that mission. The current Central American refugee crisis has refugees fleeing poverty and violence largely created by US intervention.
And to be clear, this isn't something the US or Soviet Union are guilty of alone. The atrocities of empires throughout the ages, from the Mongolians to the Spanish/Portuguese to the British are well-documented, as well as the imperial ambitions other powers today, whether they align with the US or against it. Final Fantasy VI shows us that, ultimately, imperial ambition and lust for power are not to be trusted, and can lead to some truly horrifying atrocities.
Final Fantasy VII: Military Industrial Complex
You may have heard of this lil ol' entry in the series before.
Final Fantasy VII takes places in a anime-y, mildly cyberpunk dystopia where an immense energy/security company named Shinra runs things. The company became powerful by using reactors to suck the life force (known as "mako") from the planet and use it provide power for the city of Midgar. Its influence runs so deep that, by the start of the game, it virtually controls Midgar. Yes, Midgar technically has its own government, but it's very much a sham. The mayor blatantly admits as much when you storm Shinra Tower shortly before leaving the city.
As you learn seconds into the game as you attack a mako reactor, Shinra's power doesn't just lie in its de facto control of the state. It also has its own well-organized, well-equipped security force. Hell, considering that security force's size, and the fact that Shinra literally fought a war with the nation of Wutai and beat it so thoroughly it turned Wutai into a tourist trap, it makes more sense to call it a full-fledged private army.
At the head of this private army is the creatively named SOLDIER, which is the elite... well, soldiers of Shinra's little crime against humanity. In the game Cloud admits to becoming enamored as a child with the idea of joining and proving his strength to the world (luckily, guys embracing militarism to prove to the world and themselves how tough they are is not at all relatable to the real world, am I right?). He never makes it, of course. His best friend and role model Zack Fair* does, however, and it's only by uncovering some of Shinra's darker secrets, fleeing the company, and choosing to protect Cloud when Shinra catches up with them that Cloud is able to fight them in the first place.
*Sigh* So dreamy.
Speaking of SOLDIERs who become disenchanted with Shinra, let's talk about Sephiroth. As I talked about in a previous post, despite the fact that Sephiroth breaks off from Shinra, he's still a product of it. Like Kefka, he's a result of experiments brought about by the greed of the powers that be stopping at nothing to further expand their power. Unlike Kefka, the experiments don't take his sanity at first. Indeed, he's a perfect warrior and lapdog for Shinra. This only changes when he learns the truth of his origins, which eventually puts him on course to, long story short, become the main antagonist of the game.
What's wild bout Shinra's grasps for power is that, even as humanity faces danger from both Sephiroth and the WEAPONs (wow, someone should really give the game's naming guy a raise), Shinra is so focused on keeping/expanding its influence that it is willing to publicly execute AVALANCHE just to give the public someone to blame- which, it's worth noting, is something they're openly allowed to do despite being a private company, once more illustrating just how deep Shinra's control of Midgar runs.
In many ways, Final Fantasy VII connects the most directly and urgently of any Final Fantasy to the problems we have with power in the modern day. Much like how mako threatens to suck Gaia of its life force, last year a UN report warned us here on Earth that we have about twelve years until the effects of climate change become catastrophic. Unfortunately, corporations exert so much power over the US's political process that they continually shut down meaningful action on climate change. Meanwhile, on the militaristic side of things, we are increasingly using private military contractors, who come with steep human rights abuses yet are rarely held accountable. They haven't replaced the state yet, but they have certainly infiltrated it thoroughly.
Basically, Final Fantasy VII urges caution against allowing private corporations to exert power upon the state. In the realm of energy they will literally suck the planet dry before giving up their profits, while in the realm of the military they will employ security forces to enact violence with little oversight to protect their interests. Unfortunately, in real life, a buster sword and devil may care attitude may not be enough to stop it. Hopefully Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal can gain enough traction to became the law of the land. As for the the alarming privatization of the military...
...hopefully Trump, already wanting to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan, somehow accidentally ends up defeating the military industrial complex through sheer dumb luck?
Final Fantasy VIII: Military Dictatorship
Final Fantasy VIII, like VII, takes place in a more modern world than most other Final Fantasy entries. There are cars, trains, urban buildings, industry, dumb face tattoos, gunblades, and other major hallmarks of modern society. It also has futuristic sci-fi concepts like teleporters, hi-tech space ships, time travel, and adequate public transportation.
The evil empire in this game is the Republic of Galbadia, led by a dictator (or as he calls himself, president for life) named Vinzer Deling. Deling is a crafty, power-hungry politician who came to power in then-small Galbadia during a war between it and Esthar of the eastern continent, which was under the rule of a ruthless sorceress named Adel. Deling, initially elected democratically, consolidated power through persecuting political opponents and expanding militarily in the western continent, which included an occupation of Timber. Eventually, thanks to an internal resistance movement against the sorceress, Esthar withdrew from the war. Deling used his popularity to switch from democratic to totalitarian rule and declared himself president for life.
This all happens before the start of the game, which really kicks off toward the beginning when you're sent with your team to help the people of the city-state of Dollet defend themselves against a Galbadian invasion. Your team losses out, but eventually you join a resistance movement in Timber against the Galbadian government. This leads the attempted assassination of Sorceress Edea, who has gained power within the Galbadian government because Deling wants her power and ability to intimidate.
Ultimately handing Edea so much power leads to his death. Needless to say, he wasn't exactly mourned.
Who could have possibly thought this ruthless sorceress would act so ruthlessly?!
While Edea doesn't have the background with Galbadia that Kefka does with the Gestahl Empire, they shared one crucial similarity: their brutality not only wasn't frowned upon, but actually helped them gain power within the empires they served. Edea's powerful magic, and willingness to use it to intimidate and control people, led to Deling making her an ambassador. It's what puts her in position to seize power.
After Edea gains power and her assassination fails, the plot gets pretty bonkers even by Final Fantasy standards. In the midst of all this confusion, though, it's worth pointing out this is yet another case of the main villain in some way using the greed, hunger for control, and short-sightedness of their world's power structures to gain power. Even when we get to the time compression and reality-bending end of the story, at its core is the fact that Ultimecia is willing to do these things in order to retain power. She is, after all, doing all this out of paranoia that the White SeeDs of her time (which is the far future) will defeat her and end her reign.
In other words, she's simply a power-hungry despot.
An interesting real-world example of President Vinzer Deling is former Mexican "president" Porfirio Diaz. A war hero who became legendarily popular after he fought to end the French intervention in Mexico, he came to power democratically but steadily chipped away at the democratic elements of the government until he became a dictator (or, as Deling would put it, "president for life"). Like Deling he was eventually killed, though by revolutionaries rather that a powerful sorceress.
Final Fantasy IX: Empire Redux
Honestly, the evil empire of Final Fantasy IX has the least interesting power dynamics to study of this list. That's not to insult this game as whole, nor to even call its ideas shallow or simplistic. Vivi's quest to make peace with his mortality touches on the ultimate conundrum of what it means to be a self-aware being with consciousness: the fact that we must live with the knowledge we will die someday. There are other big human themes the game explores, too, but really Vivi's personal quest alone is so incredible that it alone gives more than enough thematic depth to the game.
Still, though Alexandria is a boringly generic evil empire, it does have some interesting wrinkles. One of them is the fact that Queen Brahne used to be a kind, peaceful queen whom her people loved. It was only a few years before the start of the game that she began to change, partially because Kuja came into the picture. It's important to note that Kuja didn't trick her into become a greedy, power-hungry despot. He used persuasion, not mind control, to stoke her ambitions for control of the world.
Though a good person gradually succumbing to greed isn't uncommon in the real world, nor in certain types of fiction, it is pretty uncommon in the world of video games and other sci fi/fantasy/comic sorts of stories. Especially among parents, who are almost always wholly good, wholly bad, or wholly absent. Here, though, the game implies that she adopted Garnet with entirely good intentions. It's only when Kuja tells Garnet about her summoning powers, mixed with him already feeding her growing desire for power by selling her black mages, that her intentions towards her daughter begin to change.
Speaking of Kuja, let's reiterate what I just said above: the guy sold black mages to Brahne. He's a weapons dealer, a merchant of death, a person who profits off of mass violence. Even worse, the weapons he sold were made from Mist. Later in the game we find out Mist is made up of the souls of living creatures who are unable to return to the planet. He's really knocking it out of the park in profiting off of atrocities!
But hey, shout out to him for having the confidence to rock an outfit like that, I guess?
This is where things get a little complicated when it comes to the whole 'secret, actual final villain' thing. Because Kuja is indeed secretly in the employ of a bigger, badder force than either Alexandria or himself. He's secretly been working for Garland, who started releasing the Mist on Gaia (the homeworld of Final Fantasy IX) to prepare it for takeover by Terra, his homeworld he was created to protect. The protagonist, Zidane, is an avatar created to help Kuja carry out the destruction of Gaia to help make the assimilation easier.
The fact that Terra's overseer has no problem with committing genocide against the creatures of Gaia in order to allow Gaia to prosper is, of course, reminiscent of European colonization of the Americas. The lack of regard for other life that comes with believing that's okay is astounding. Garland never has a moment of empathy or hesitation for what his mission is, which reflects pretty damningly on those who created him. It's the classic colonizer mindset of believing other lives and cultures have no value, and has been used to justify countless atrocities throughout history.
The final villain complication comes when Kuja destroys Garland in order to usurp power and destroy the crystal that created all life, as Kuja cannot accept his own mortality. On one thematic level, the villain trying to wreck havoc on life itself as an angry response to his own mortality is meant to contrast with Vivi's response to his own mortality, which is to look out for his friends and protect the world. On another, more political level, Kuja's meltdown can be seen as a consequence of someone who is part of an evil political project realizing how utterly disposable he is in the grand scheme of things.
Kuja's desire to rebel against that meaninglessness is understandable. Who wouldn't feel upset after finding out their role in an evil power grab is a role designed to end? But, as he had willingly gone along with that evil system up until the point he realized he no longer would benefit from it himself, Kuja is no hero. His rebellion against life shows he is exactly the same selfish monster that he was while serving Garland. Only the kindness and camaraderie of the main party can hope to inspire Kuja to change in any meaningful way.
Whether or not Kuja actually did change, or even live, after the final battle is left up to the audience's imagination. It makes me wonder how many people in the real world who have sold their souls for power can find a change of heart if given the right example of others living for more than themselves. Ultimately I don't believe every awful person can change, nor that none of them can. Everyone is different. But I'd like to believe that there are more who can change their minds, and more importantly work to atone for what they've done, than there are those who can't. I hope Kuja became good. I hope he lived and decided to put everything he had in trying to make up for what he did.
Final Fantasy X: Theocracy
Final Fantasy X asks questions about the human condition that are as old as time: what if your co-protagonist was a whiny doofus with frosted tips (shout out to the early 2000s)? What if one of your party members starts off the game as the Spira equivalent of a Ted Cruz supporter? What if your dad turned into a demon whale? Really makes ya think.
All sass aside, though, Final Fantasy X is an excellent game with a great co-protagonist (Yuna) and great supporting characters (Lulu, motherfucking Auron). In the world of Spira, which Tidus is thrown into at the start of the game, the land is ruled by the Yevonite religion. The four leaders of the religion, the maesters, are sorta like Catholic cardinals, except they're able to cast magic and shit (so, y'know, way better). They're led by the grand maester, which in this game is Grand Maester Mika.
The Yevonite power structure is presented as fairly benign in the beginning of the game. Of course, this being a Final Fantasy game, there is much more beneath the surface. Long story short, all of the maesters except for the Ronso maester are deceitful assholes who engage in murder and allow widespread corruption in order to keep their grasp on power. They also ban the use of technology (called "machina" in this game) for everyday people, calling it unholy, while using a shit ton of technology for themselves in secret.
Speaking of everyday people, let's take a moment to talk about Wakka. I joked about Wakka being the equivalent of a Ted Cruz supporter, but that's a bit unfair, because Wakka knows how to read and has at least some empathy inside of him. He's simply an avatar of the sort of person who uncritically accepts whatever religion they grow up with and do exactly what they're told to by said religion. In Wakka's case it's being anti-Semit... err, anti-Al Bhed. He starts the game hating the Al Bhed because his religion tells him to, despite the fact Yuna herself is secretly part Al Bhed.
The fact that someone with hair this fucking stupid feels justified in judging anyone else is wild.
Throughout the course of the game Wakka slowly unlearns his hatred. He's living proof that no matter what you grow up believing, you can unlearn bullshit and think for yourself. He serves as a stand-in for many of us in the real world who'd like to think that if certain folks were stripped of super fundamentalist/orthodox religious persuasions, they could be brought to overcoming their hatred and, eventually, fighting the good fight against oppressive power structures.
And fight against the Yevon power structure they do. But that still leaves Sin. Like IX and unlike the rest of the series, the primary big bad remains the big bad throughout the game. What you learn throughout the course of the game completely challenges your understanding of what Sin is, however. He was created in desperation a thousand years ago in a war between Zanarkand and Bevelle, the forebearers of the Yu Yevon theocracy that rules Spira in the game's present day. The Zanarkand summoner Yu Yevon created Sin our of fear for his people as it became clear Bevelle had the upperhand. Zanarkand still lost, but the creation of Sin meant the ultimate Pyrrhic victory for Bevelle.
In other words, Sin is the result of Bevelle's war against Zanarkand. Yet again it's the powers that be which create the game's ultimate protagonist, in this case the result of a cornered summoner worried about the fate of his people. No one alive during the events of FFX may be responsible for the creation of Sin, but the Yevonite religion/Bevelle state that controls most of Spira was. Like in every game, the power structure must fall along with the ultimate enemy.
In the midst of all of our confusion with modern society, many people turn to religion to find answers. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. But some people dig in so far they turn off their ability to empathize and think critically, and that negation of both heart and mind allows leaders of powerful religions to manipulate their followers into some pretty scary shit. FFX is a great reminder that we need to be weary of powerful religions, and keep religion as far away from our government as possible. Otherwise we face the possibility of giant whale demons.
Historical Context?
I think it's pretty cool that these Final Fantasy games address power in such a critical way. Other Japanese RPG fans will rightly point out, however, that a lot of games in the genre have similar storylines. It's pretty common for the ragtag party of a JRPG game to unite against the powers that be, usually an evil empire of some sort, and eventually end up saving the world. So what gives?
Well, not being a creator who works on JRPGs, I don't know for sure. But being a historian, I can make an educated guess. First, notice something about the "good" kingdoms in most RPGs: they often resemble medieval monarchies more than modern democratic states. Hell, some of the characters who join your party throughout the series are either royalty of their respective kingdoms (Edgar in VI, Yuffie in VII, Garnet in IX) or protectors of their local kingdoms (Cyan in VI, Steiner and Freya in IX).
This leads me to wonder if the evil empires in these games are a stand-in for what we would call the "West" in modern times, which is a nebulous concept that usually means the United States and Western Europe. During the 1800s the West forcibly opened up then-isolationist Japan to the outside world, starting in the 1850s with Commodore Matthew Perry of the US Navy. Japanese consent mattered little to the US at the time; the country would open up whether it wanted to or not.
This started a chain reaction of events that led to the feudal shogunate ruling Japan falling to the Western-backed "Imperialist" forces. This began the Meiji Era, which saw Japan switch from its feudal Japanese model to a more Westernized state. This connected Japan to the then-industrializing world, even giving Japan its own industrial revolution that started around 1870. As a result of these political and economic forces Japan changed radically, leaving many Japanese citizens feeling anxious and alienated.
Thank you, Rurouni Kenshin, for being a surprisingly accurate introduction to Japan's Meiji Period.
It stands to reason, then, that the evil empires of many games are based on the West's invasion of Japan and other Asian societies during the period of colonization. The benevolent monarchies, therefore, represent Japan after its own feudal kingdom has its sovereignty invaded. This could even be said of VII, since by the mid-19th Century the West already represented a sort of proto-global capitalism; a private company causing everything to go to hell could certainly still be a criticism of the West, especially as it is today. Hell, Yuffie's Wutai, despite its Chinese motifs, could be said to be a direct stand-in for Japan.
There is another interpretation, however. This one doesn't let Japan off the hook; in this interpretation, it is the evil empire.
The totalitarian, imperialist Japanese system the Allies fought during World War 2 didn't happen overnight. Japan gradually gained power in the international arena ever since it was forcibly opened up in the 1850s. This came to a head in 1905 when Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, establishing the country as the first non-European world power of the era other than the US. However, there was also much debate in Japan about how to run the country, and from 1912-1926 Emporer Taisho actually took Japan in a moderate, democratic direction.
Unfortunately, the Great Depression of the 1930s took a toll on everyone, Japan included. Even more unfortunately, the upheaval caused a takeover by the military, unlike some parts of the world where social democracy emerged instead. The military took power and worked to create the mindset that militaristic might is everything. They wanted to strengthen Japan's status as a world power and create their own empire in Asia. This led to horrific occupations in China and Korea, among other places.
One of the problems with how we portray other countries we've gone to war with in the past is we think of everyone during that time period as being on the same page. We never, say, talk about anti-war rallies in countries we went to war with, or just the general popularity of a war among a country's citizens the way we do our own opposition to various wars throughout history. However, it needs to be noted that many in Japan opposed the increasing nationalism and materialism, including Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, and celebrated directors like Akira Kurosawa and Masaki Kobayashi, among many others.
Fun [depressing] fact: the Japanese diplomats in the US negotiating for peace during Pearl Harbor
didn't know about the attack ahead of time and, unlike the military leadership, sincerely wanted peace.
In modern times, it's pretty common for Japanese creative types, who generally lean in a progressive direction like most creative types, to denounce the Imperial Japan of World War 2. The famous Hayao Miyazaki, for instance, has an entire movie expressing dismay about planes designed to give people freedom to travel this skies being used as an instrument of death during WW2. In the same article he also says Japan should apologize to Korean women used as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during WW2, should share the disputed Diaoyu Islands with China instead of fighting, and criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his denial of Japanese war crimes during WW2.
All of this is to say that, like how the United States (and pretty much every country) is still reckoning with its past, and creating art that reflects that reckoning, so too is Japan. The Final Fantasy series could be an extension of that, a work where the evil empires in each game represent the evils of Imperial Japan during the 30s and 40s. Perhaps creating a game where the evil empire is vanquished allows the creators and some of Final Fantasy's more conscientious Japanese fans the ability to reject the sins of their country's past, like a movie or videogame in the US that involves fighting slaveholders. This would explain the Chinese motifs of Wutai in VII; Wutai could, after all, be an actual stand-in for China after what Japan did to it.
Or perhaps the creators have good historical minds and simply wish to condemn empire itself, rather than any specific society or set of societies. Throughout history, empire has pretty much always been an enemy of human rights. Perhaps the creators are students of history who believe that local autonomy and respect for human dignity is important. Not just for modern democratic states but for any society, even those we might consider less "advanced" than ourselves.
Or maybe they just wanted to make a cool game about teenagers with rad, entirely impractical weapons and I'm overthinking this whole thing.
So impractical, BUT SO COOL.
Thanks for reading!
*Shoutout to Varoujan.
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