Fantasy Is All in the Head

by Kris Wolfe

This editorial is semi in rebuttal to Darkeye Heruelen's editorial, which was entitled "Final Fantasy? No Such Luck." It's not that I disagreed with all his points, because he did say some really thought-provoking things, and overall I felt it was an excellent read; but there were a few points I wanted to contend with him on. That said, let's get going.

I think that Darkeye made some pretty good points about Final Fantasy games; they do indeed have confused characters and plots with holes you could drive Jupiter through. As mentioned in another editorial last week, FF7 fanfiction is insanely prolific and my friends and I believe that this is because, in part, FF7 had so many gaping holes in it that ficcers feel required to patch them up and put something there. (Of course, an equal number of ficcers just want to write about Cloud and Aeris's first time and how he'll endlessly love her and never look at another woman, which is bull, but I digress.) Darkeye refers us to "superior" games like Lunar, Phantasy Star, and so forth. Obviously an old-school chap, eh? Why not refer us to new non-Square games like Skies of Arcadia, Valkerie Profile, or Suikoden 2? Not that it matters. Let us proceed.

There was a common theme to the games he pointed out as being great examples of what Square SHOULD be doing instead of making us play as headcases. Lunar and PS both have semi-linear plots with honest, straightforward heroes who are out to do what's right and kick the ass of that bad guy, who tends to be unequivocally evil. Now, let me say that I like these games. I fully enjoyed L1, and L2, and the PS series, and other games in this vein, like Skies of Arcadia. It is at time very nice to play as characters who are secure in who they are and know pretty much where they're going and what they're supposed to be doing at any given time. The plots of these games tend to give me an overall feeling inside when I beat them that can best be described as "warm and fuzzy."

However, I enjoy playing games with more complex themes as well. I really liked FF7 when it came out; it was a very different experience, and I really liked the way you never knew where the plot was going, and the fact that the hero wasn't just some archetypal "hero" but rather a personality who was very unique and had his own issues and problems. I feel it's a little unfair of you to accuse Cloud of just sitting around examining his belly button lint and being introspective when he COULD have been out kicking Sephiroth's skinny butt. Cloud was suffering a lot of mental trauma and was being controlled by Sephiroth at times; it's not as if he didn't WANT to kill Sephiroth a lot of the time; he just couldn't. And it didn't help that Sephiroth could fly and drop through the floor if he wanted, and kept leaving behind Jenova sub-bosses to fight; I feel that it's unfair to blame all this on the fact that the protagonist of the game had some mental issues.

Similarly, I really love FF8. It's one of my favorite games, despite the fact that it had many, many problems. The only reason it's one of my favorite games is because I love all of the characters so much. And none of them shirked their duty because of mental issues, except possibly Rinoa who got hypnotized, but the girl was just weak-willed. Squall may have disliked people and been anti-social, but he did everything expected of him to the best of his ability. He just wasn't friendly about it. He did not at any point say, "Well, I can't go about saving the world or whatever because I want to sit in my room and sulk." He skipped game social events like parties and so on to sit in his room and sulk. This was plot related and had to do with developing the characters; it had nothing to do with whether or not eventual defeat came to the enemy. Squally could have finished the game, having done everything he did, without changing his personality a bit. The character development that almost all the FF8 characters went through, changing literally from one point of view to another during the course of the game, is the reason I like it. It's a complex idea, and I (and many other people) appreciate that complexity. Which is not to say the game was without flaw, because that is certainly not the case, but neither was it without merit.

As to villains, I happen to prefer complex, conflicted villains like Seifer or Sephiroth over raving evil megalomaniacs, myself. To me understanding the villain's motives and aims, whether or not I think the villain has any justification, is important in creating an aura of realism. Sephiroth was a crazy bastard who was, well, insane. His ultimate goal was fairly clear, as were the reasons he did most things; I was quite happy to step in and put the smack down on him, but I liked understanding why he did things. Some random villain who just kills people and puts monsters in your path cuz he CAN, well, I find those type annoying but not particularly horrible.

It seems a little hypocritical to me for Darkeye to criticize Sephiroth's villainy when he used Lunar games as an example; it's not very clear in Lunar 1 for the PSX, but in Lunar 1 on the Sega CD and in Lunar 2 (for either system), Ghaleon is a DAMN complex villain who never quite makes sense at times. I'm STILL wondering how the hell he "helped" me in Lunar 2; by not killing me stone dead early in the game? That's about all I can think of, but the game acts like he did you some huge favor. In keeping with what I said, I happen to really like Ghaleon as a villain; he was evil, of course, but it came out of a twisted sense of justice and desire for revenge. I thought that was pretty damn spiffy. And accordingly, I thought Zophar was stupid. I can't even waste emotion on a villain like that. "Ooh! Look at me! I'm EEEEVIL! Observe how I randomly kill people and destroy villages! Grr! Scary!"

Other Squaresoft efforts like Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story, Xenogears, and so forth have an unfortunate trend to them that i really hate, which is: have a game that's 95% coherent, and then at the last second drop a bunch of new info on the player to try to rationalize some weird plot twist right at the end. I don't like that, not because I have a problem with weird plot twists, but rather because it usually just doesn't make sense. However, I still like these games a lot; despite their somewhat confusing endings, they are complex, with characters who act like people (screwed up people sometimes, yes) and I feel like I've gone through some great experience, having played them. I'm very interested in character change and development. So, while I really enjoy them, games like Lunar 1, PS, and even Skies of Arcadia have less of a draw in that respect because the characters start out honest and brave, and end up honest and brave. I don't think it's right to act like Square has committed some heinous wrong by making their plots and characters complex; it's obviously something many people have interest in, considering how popular the games are. I agree that more people should play non-Square games because there are some really excellent ones out there, but there's nothing wrong with Square.

And my second point. Fantasy. Your editorial seemed really good to me until I read your anal-retentive whining about how they incorrectly use the word "fantasy," which I felt was just completely uncalled for in the editorial. So, let's discuss this. "Fantasy" as described in the dictionary has very little to do with "Fantasy" the GENRE. That's right, genre. Fantasy is a genre with certain rules and so on, but the main one is that something in the book/game/movie must be "fantastic," i.e., not explainable through science. There's no rule that science cannot appear in fantasy, there's no rule that there must be elves and swords and castles, there's no rule that something can't be provable and logical and still be magical, and there's no rule that there must be something "imaginative" and completely invented straight from someone's mind. Many, MANY fantasy novels, books, and games base their weaponry, religion, and politics on things straight out of real life (often times history books). That does not make them "not fantasy." All something needs to be classified as "fantasy" is an element that is not something explainable via science. Despite cars, trains, laboratories, machines, and guns appearing in FF6, FF7 and FF8, they all have heavy elements of fantasy. The summonable creatures are one; the magic they use still another; the worlds they live in even more so. I don't know about you, but despite the fact that Squall uses a gun, I had no problem believing the world was a fantasy world when I had to fight a giant flame elemental and was able to cast magic on myself to heal my wounds. Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere, despite taking place all in modern-day London, is undeniably a fantasy. All something which is a "fantasy" needs is something which is unreal and which is not explained via science.

Just as a side note to this, many times the only difference between the fantasy and science fiction genres is that in Sci-fi, there are long technological explanations given for why something floats (even though they are generally entirely made up by the author) to give the ILLUSION of something "scientific" whereas in fantasy they don't pretend; they just say it's magic.

Furthermore, criticizing Square for borrowing elements of mythology and legend from around the world doesn't lessen the fantasy elements. King Arthur and his Knights are a fantasy-like story regardless of the fact that the story is really old; just because it's an old story doesn't make it REAL. And if it's not something that could happen in the real world, and the story doesn't try to pretend that it IS something that could happen in the real world (i.e., science fiction), then it's fantasy. It's STILL fantasy when they are attacking your enemies in FF7. And as for the creativity of such... I thought the way they portrayed various summons, given what I know of their actual mythological background, was pretty damn creative. (Maybe a little TOO creative with Shiva.) Also, the decision to use things people associate with magic and fantasy, i.e. stuff from myth and legend, makes the world feel more fantastic and less real. I really, really have to agree with you though; when people don't know that Ragnorak, Odin, or Quetzalcoatl are not just made-up stuff appearing in games, I fear for the minds of our generation.

Anyway, that's about it; feel free to write your own rebuttal to this. I felt the original editorial was a good one, and even though it's entirely based on Darkeye's opinion ("I don't like these confusing over-complex games, what the hell,") he supported his arguments and made for a good editorial to read and get all worked up about. Come onto IRC sometime, man.

Original Editorial: Final Fantasy? No Such Luck