The Blessing of Obscurity

by Steve Watts

Over the months, I've heard complaints ad nauseum about how people wish there had been more closure in the endings of games such as Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Xenogears and several others. Is it just me who sees how idiotic this is? I'm an amateur movie and game reviewer, and over the time I've spent in this hobby, I've seen how obscurity is not some evil that looms over the heads of the masses, forcing them to actually (*gasp*) think, consider, and analyze something for themselves. Rather, obscurity in endings is used for theatrical effect and to enhance the movie feel that the creators have openly admitted they were trying for.

Now don't get me wrong. Games such as Final Fantasy IVj had the happy "everything is resolved" ending, and it fit quite nicely, akin to perhaps a Disney animated movie, or basically anything rated PG that's been called "The family movie of the year." That kind of ending, in which the audience doesn't have to consider anything for themselves, can work. And it does. For some games. But let's face it, it wouldn't work at all for any of the games in question here.

"Why?" you may ask? Simple. Once Square and other RPG developers hit the PlayStation era, they began to try for a more theatrical, avant-garde effect. With the theatrical appeal comes obscurity. And, as all should be able to see, most of the movies and literature that are generally accepted as "great" or "classic" have some (if not a lot of) lack of closure.

For example, in the novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Clemens gives us no other closure but that Jim and Huck are free. Where do they go afterwards? What do they do? What exactly is their fate? Do they remain friends or drift apart? What are their lives like, say, thirty years in the future? Well, the reader never really knows any of this. Obscurity. As early as the 19th century, professional writers knew the magic this could bring to the storytelling.

Or in a slightly more recent era, the 1939 movie Gone With the Wind has perhaps one of the most unclear endings in movie history. Whatever shall Scarlet do? Wherever shall she go? Frankly, my dears, the "hero" doesn't give a damn. But the audience does. And the rest of the story is for us to decide. After all, "Tomorrow is another day."

The popular Good Will Hunting left us with only one ambiguous message. "I went to see about a girl." The rest of the story is fill in the blank.

Forest Gump leaves the hero, now a single parent, sitting on a bench, lonely and waiting. Saving Private Ryan leaves you never knowing how a certain cowardly linguist makes use of his latter years. Maltese Falcon. Casablanca. Beau Gest. All of these have incredibly cryptic endings.

Why don't the masses shun these like has been the fate of so many games? It's a double standard. One that shouldn't exist. Perhaps gamers, or more specifically role playing gamers, aren't all the type that sit at coffee houses, clicking their fingers, drinking cappuccino, and discussing the finer points of the deep and involved relationships and their own personal theories of the characters' fates, nor should they be. But some thought should go into a game which depends so heavily on plot. Role players almost brag about how their preference involves a plot that those "lessers" cannot understand, and yet they constantly whine when the resolution of their beloved story isn't wrapped up in a nice little package.

I'm a role player, I have been for years. But the actions of most of my kin makes me sick. Stop the whining, accept the obscurity, and realize it's for the good, not the bad. These game developers know what they're doing. Trust me.