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Note: My views are not necessarily the only true views. Use this editorial as a way for you to question everything you have taken for granted on RPGs, and eventually reach your own conclusions. If you agree with my views, that’s because you saw your inner wisdom reflected in my words. If you disagree with my views, it’s because you did not see your own wisdom reflected in my words. In either case, I will have made you return to your own wisdom… As always, retain what rings true to you, and discard the words that do not ring true… Maybe they were meant for someone else.
The editorials that have surfaced over the last months as well as the views on RPG's expressed by people on Internet message boards, have produced several conflicting opinions inside me that I felt the need to analyse and process conveniently. Such contradictions always appear in our minds in moments of transition and change. It’s doubtless that there are more intense changes occurring in RPG’s recently than usual… So it seems pretty logical to analyse the recent moves done by Square-Enix, the company that is undoubtedly at the helm of these changes in the paradigm of RPG’s. More important than that, however, is to analyse the psychological relationship between gamers and the Square-Enix products that they play…Because S-E is one of those companies that it’s impossible to be indifferent to: either you hate it, or love it, or just tolerate some of its games, but people always seem to have an opinion on the matter. The main reason why I’m writing this editorial is to scrutinize and reach the very essence of the reasons why people feel such strong reactions to Square-Enix’s games, and what those games have to tell about ourselves as individuals and society…So let’s not wait any longer.
One of the most common opinions of S-E in the present is that the company has “sold out”, that it has betrayed its long time loyal fans, by insisting on the graphical aspect of the games, in prejudice of the stories, and that characters in recent games have had their sexuality aspects more revealed, only to please soft-porno fans. They cry that S-E have sacrificed their “integrity” in favour of sales… It’s important to deconstruct these opinions and reach the heart of the matter…
First of all, what is “integrity”? Integrity can be defined as “an individual being true to him/herself, i.e., being true to his/her own beliefs, and being consistent with those beliefs”. There’s also the assumption that integrity does not allow contradiction, that they are mutually exclusive terms. Why do these people feel that there was integrity in the first games, and that it was lost in the recent games? If we are to find integrity in the first games, we need to discover what are S-E’s beliefs.
What are the ultimate “truths” in the Final Fantasy series? What are the “dogmas” present in the first games, that the latest games have “betrayed”? Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find any dogmas in the Final Fantasy series, except the dogma that there are no dogmas whatsoever. Any philosopher eventually reaches the conclusion that all universal truths ultimately lead to paradoxes. The only rule is that there are no rules, and if a rule has an exception, then it can’t really be considered as a rule. So we’re forced into the realms of contradiction whenever the subject of “integrity” comes to surface… Because if we’re to interview the Square-Enix staff, yes, there is a common thread linking Final Fantasy games, there is a common “truth”…
That common thread is the ability of “amazement”. The ability to make a gamer marvel and wonder, and feel amazed, is what all Square-Enix employees strive for in themselves, as gamers who create games. Later, we’ll discover some of the characteristics that create “amazement” in RPG’s…
But for now, it seems that there is no contradiction: if “amazement” is the common thread linking all S-E games, then there is necessarily integrity present, right? The problem appears when we consider that when you are amazed by something, you are not really amazed by it the second time you see it. Even “amazement” has to be built upon several distinct “truths” and “beliefs”, and these truths cannot remain constant, or else the ability of amazement is lost. In addition, not all gamers are amazed by the same things. Some are amazed by mountains, others by beaches, and others by cars, etcetc. Life (or at least portions of it) has always amazed us during our individual existences, and has surprised us in different ways during our growth. The amazement that comes from watching a sunset is a result of the fact that each sunset is an unrepeatable moment, that the next time it is viewed it will be different, and we are consistently amazed because of it’s constant variety. The power of amazement is tremendous and it leaves a permanent mark on our lives. Children, since they see everything for the first time, are constantly amazed. They are amazed by the flowers, by the floors, by their growing abilities, by all sorts of ordinary objects that we take for granted. If we leave a child on their own, they are almost always constantly happy, endlessly fiddling and messing with all sorts of boring things (to our eyes), as long as they don’t get hurt by their activities.
This leads us to the “My First RPG” experience… All of us who are here had it at some point of our lives and to many of us, it was an unrepeatable experience, we felt joy and amazement with tinkering every possibility that the game allowed… customizing items, fighting monsters, interacting with characters, discovering the game’s secrets… the “My First RPG” experience can sometimes be like a tattoo that is imprinted within our minds forever (not unlike the first time one makes love). Most people’s experiences of “My first RPG” were with a game in the so-called “Old School” genre of games… But actually, the term Old-School is a fallacy, because it’s not “Old-School” at all… there are things even more “Old-School” than that… I still have old ’86 British Spectrum games magazines, and I remember some people complaining that the computer RPG’s were a disappointment compared to the Dungeons and Dragons’ style Do-It-Yourself “dice and math paper” games you played with your mates… They claimed that the magic in dice/math paper games were that you could freely imagine the situations described by the words, and that the new attempts to pass those games into computers left little to the imagination, and spoiled the fun of using your brain in creative ways. Plus, in computer RPG’s it was common to play alone, and it ruined the joy of playing with mates, of having that “cult” activity that only a select few knew about, and they gathered regularly at a friends’ bedroom to immerse themselves in a fantasy world…
To these people, Dungeons and Dragons’ dice/math paper games were “Old-School”, and Spectrum’s adventure games/RPG’s were “New School”, and they were a bit sad that RPG’s were becoming less of a cult thing, that they were getting slowly more and more coverage in gaming magazines (as it was the case during ’86 in Britain, then it died for some years, and then it resurfaced in full strength around 1993/94)… Even before that, it was probably not hard to imagine that there were people less than enthusiastic about dice games, because they felt it was not comparable to the joy of reading adventure/fantasy novels like “Lord of the Rings” or H.P.Lovecraft’s works… To these people, fantasy novels were “Old-School” and Dungeons and Dragon was “New-School”… Are we starting to notice a pattern forming? These people attribute the “Old-School” term to the “My First Experience” that amazed them in the first place when they were young.
Why is it so hard for some people to accept “New-School” products? Could it be that their difficulties in accepting “change” in games (or society, for that matter) results from their difficulties in accepting the changes that occurred within themselves? Because these people are not aware that the conditions that lead to “amazement” are not repeatable. They look at the elements that were present in their first experience, and conclude that those are the only possible elements that can generate amazement. And they look at current games, that have different premises, and they feel disappointed because the games have different elements than the ones that generated amusement in them during their youth. At the same time, they look at the “Old-School” RPG’s, and they also don’t feel the same amazement as they did… They look at it, and sometimes all they notice is the datedness of the graphics, the completely clichéd and overused plot that imitated a lot of games that existed before it, the unoriginal characters… Yes, for 5-10 minutes, it might still arouse the same feelings as before, but they don’t last long… Of course, this generates a serious contradiction within gamers’ minds… if they don’t like the new games, and the old games are not as brutally amazing as they used to look like, then it’s general to assume that the gaming industry has gone downhill, and will continue to do so.
There are exceptions, of course… I’m sure there are games that can still hold their quality and fascination with people regardless of time, but it’s undeniable: the intensity of the feelings they generated is unrepeatable. They might still be really fun, but not as intensely fun as they were the first time. New games often appear that recycle “Old-School” ideas with updated graphics… normally these are products that provide genuine pleasure to “Old-School” enthusiasts, because at least some of the elements (namely the audio-video aspect) don’t sound dated, and so it is possible to enjoy the recycled story without feeling bothered by “blocky Spectrum graphics” and “annoying bleepy music” (that at some point we worshipped and knew by heart, but in the present just seems hilarious and ridicule to most of us)… And these “recycled” games (“recycled” is not intended as a derogatory term, they can be quite fun and enjoyable) add fuel to fire for people who wish to critique the “New-School” games.
But these people often forget that it is impossible to define a very specific set of characteristics that will universally produce “amazement” on all gamers alike. No RPG has ever gathered the unconditional support and praise from the entire gaming fan base. In contrast, I have never seen a commercial RPG that was considered as “so freakin’ bad and awful” as to have never sold at least a single copy. Therefore, the “truths” and “beliefs” that produce “amazement” differ for each gamer… How is it humanly possible, therefore, to produce a set of games that possess “integrity”? That, at some point, do not contradict themselves? An “amazing” game certainly possesses integrity, but only to itself, in that particular moment, meaning that all the rules and beliefs and truths that compose the structure/mechanics of the game and its artwork do not enter in contradiction with themselves. But when a new game is made, it is impossible to produce the same intensity of “amazement”, following a set of characteristics too similar to the previous game. Therefore, “integrity” between games of the same series normally goes out the window if “amazement” is to be produced…
If we have a sequel to an “amazing” game that does not take a risk and is too similar to the previous game, just to please the already existing fan base, then we might have a “very enjoyable” game, but it’s not really an “amazing” game, is it…? In Life, the only constant is that nothing ever stays the same. Our bodies completely replace their atoms in a space of about every 4 years. So, we’re not even inhabiting the same bodies that we inhabited 4 years ago, not to mention the tremendous changes in our ways of thinking and in our views of the world…
We cry and scream that the new Square-Enix game has betrayed us… But, whom did those games really betray? The 13-year-old version of us that no longer exists? Whose atoms no longer exist, whose mentality no longer exists? Even memories of the past change with time. We often have different perspectives of our teenage years when we are older. Therefore, even our “inner truths and beliefs” are not constant factors! Even our “ultimate truths” change with time! In our teenage hood, we’re constantly obsessed with having “integrity” in our behaviours and thought patterns. How can we reconcile that ideal with a set of “ultimate truths” that are constantly changing? Accepting the contradictions in our lives and learning how to deal with them is the true result of maturity and adulthood. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have principles to stick by and defend. It means that we shouldn’t treat them as dogmas, and that we should be open to new possibilities if our old beliefs no longer serve who we really are, if they no longer reflect our current identity. Teenagers are very obsessed with “integrity”, so they strive to remain “constant”, but that is impossible, and a great deal of our traumas result from not being able to deal with this, from the frustrations of trying to remain constant in a Universe that is inconstant.
Final Fantasy X-2, more than any other game, caused the great rift between dogmatic “Old-School” and progressist “New-School” fans (Of course, there are fans of both genres at the same time, and that is wonderful)… This was the game that felt the most like a betrayal to many old-time fans. They complained that it wasn’t a “real” Final Fantasy game. But what is a “real” Final Fantasy game? What is a “real” sunset? Because no Final Fantasy games are exactly alike, just as no sunset is exactly alike. But FFX-2 has produced “amazement” for at least a certain number of people who bought it. If it’s impossible to cause “amazement” for all S-E fans at the same time, for which audience does S-E create its games, anyway?
Simple: Square-Enix are still committed to creating games for themselves first, and above all else. I’ve never seen anyone pick up Rpg Maker 2000 to create a game with the sole purpose of pleasing a certain specific group of audience. They do it simply to please themselves, first of all, and it’s no different with S-E. They seek to amaze themselves through their creation, and they can only hope that they will also please fans as well, but the reaction that fans have to their games is something that S-E could never hope to be able to understand, much less control. This doesn’t mean that S-E does not seek to please some fans. The wishes of some fans and the wishes of some games creators do not necessarily have to be different. But S-E certainly seek to please fans in a way to also financially support the games, or else, they wouldn’t be able to keep doing it. So, even though they strive for innovation, they can’t take all risks at once. They meticulously plan and invest in “calculated risks” that in case of not working out, never cause too much financial damage to the company, therefore crippling it for good.
So, if we see this as a hierarchy pyramid, after the responsibility towards their own creative desires, comes the responsibility towards the desires of the Japanese audience. This approach makes good sense. These are the people that can dictate if a game gets translated to the U.S. and Europe, after all. Many old fans supported the first Final Fantasy games, because they were “Japanese views” on cultures and myths that were predominantly European in nature. It was not difficult for some Dungeons and Dragons fans to accept Final Fantasy because the mythology behind both products is similar. But Final Fantasy X and X-2 caused a lot of divisions between RPG fans because they were games centered on traditional Asian mythologies and traditions. Since Asian mythology and traditions are still quite alien to many Western fantasy fans, many of them were unable to fully accept and immerse themselves in this strange new environment. Instead of “European fantasy”, we got “Asian fantasy”, so to speak, and that change alienated some FF players. The more sex-oriented approach also appeared here… it should be noted that the Japanese culture is far more open to eroticism than Westerners… Eroticism creeps up regularly in Japanese TV shows in all channels. Therefore, they clearly don’t have as much complexes with their bodies as many Westerners do. But we’ll approach the sexuality subject further on…
Many FF gamers critiqued S-E for going “J-Pop”… but seriously, they were only truly approaching their take on Asian cultures instead of European ones, and it’s totally understandable. If you were working on an American RPG company creating RPG’s for the U.S. market, and some Japanese kid sent you an e-mail criticising you because your games were “U.S.-oriented”, I wonder how each of us would react… In fact, when you create a game, nothing about it is dogmatic. You’re certainly free to alter it as you please, but you can’t do anything to prevent people from being way too attached to the game you created, and being specifically critical of the changes you introduce to the game.
The Square-Enix staff certainly takes the Final Fantasy series in a much less serious way than many of us do… The most appraisable aspect about the FF series is precisely that nothing is dogmatic, that nothing is safe, that everything can change form one game to another. They can’t help it that some people play FFVII, to mention an example, and consider the FFVII elements to be the definitive elements of “amazement”, and that everything else fails by comparison. Is a certain woman/man more attractive than another? Depends on who’s viewing them. They might share 99% of the same DNA structure, they might even be called by the same name… but under those characteristics, we can just as well be comparing a woman and a female chimp, both called Final Fantasy. Both of them share so much and yet are so different. The woman might be attractive, but the chimp is certainly lovable and adorable… It’s impossible to compare, even with so much similarities… what to say, then, of the FF series?
Now, let’s get back to the concept of “sexuality”… The most “shocking” case of the last years is certainly Yuna. In many gamers’ eyes, she passed from “Miss Puritane” to “Miss Playboy”, or to put it more bluntly, to a “slut”. Why is Yuna considered a “slut”? Because in X-2, she wears mini-skirts and clothes that follow closely her polygonal body contours. But is it inherently “wrong” for women to wear clothes that accentuate the natural curves of a body? Is it inherently ”wrong” for a woman to wear mini-skirts? And why does the term “slut” gather such negative connotations in the minds of some people?
Many people act like it’s only in the late 90’s that human bodies have started using less and less clothes, but frankly, mini-skirts are hardly a “novelty” thing… I don’t remember the exact date, but mini-skirts started being used consistently in the 60’s, i.e., 40 years ago. The 60’s are certainly the subject of many socio-cultural studies, because they were a period of intense revolutions, including that of the feminist movements. Feminist movements were formed many decades earlier, but the 60’s represented a change in the ideologies of such movements. Up until then, feminist movements defended a “mimicking” of men in all possible areas: Women started wearing trousers, started doing the same jobs that men did, started fashioning themselves in similarity to men, etc.
This brought a dangerous future for women’s own identities: women were only successful in the measure in which they were able to beat men at their own game. In attempting to defeat the enemy, they became the enemy. And so women who were in politic and economic positions were just as ruthless (or even more) as the men they challenged. The women’s intrinsic qualities, that might have given them an advantage on men (such as their ability to handle large doses of pressure, their greater respect for life in general, the sensibility to focus on complex social issues, and resolve conflicts without necessarily resorting to war), were on the verge of being lost forever, in attempting to equal themselves to men. The 60’s brought this issue to the forefront and women changed their demands: equality of opportunities, but not necessarily equality of sexual identities.
And what does this have to do with FFX-2? In the 60’s, many women and men reclaimed the destruction of taboos regarding the human body, and demanded a more open-minded view of sexuality. Women started wearing mini-skirts not because they wanted to be “sluts” and sell their bodies as prostitutes, but because they wanted to shock and express their desire of freedom from the moral repressions of religion. Many women and men performed in theatre plays where they were naked before the audience, in part to shock, but also to show people that they were not ashamed of their bodies, that there was nothing dirty or guilty about any part of their bodies. Maybe even some of the women who wore mini-skirts in the 60’s and 70’s could be the mothers of some of the people reading this text. And I’m certain that those women who are now mothers never regretted wearing mini-skirts or performing naked in a theatre. It was what they felt was right to do at the time, because there was so much repression and control. It’s a very similar situation to that which exists in Final Fantasy X. People lived in fear, and did not have freedom to express themselves in the ways they wished.
People will always fight to obtain freedom. It’s in our human nature. Those who signed the Declaration of Independence said they were giving their “lives, fortunes and sacred honour” for the cause of freedom. And they did it. The founding fathers of America claimed in several ways, “Give me freedom, or give me death”. And they meant every word. Repression will always be fought against by someone, no matter where it occurs. In FFX-2, there is finally freedom, and in that context of chaos, there are a lot of contradictions present. Just as when Portugal went out of its dictatorial regime in 1974, many women started wearing more shocking and revealing clothes, as well as mini-skirts.
Freedom implies the possibility of choice. If people are not free to choose, even if their choice might not necessarily be the most appropriate for themselves, then the very concept of “freedom” is a fallacy, and we’re all just slaves. Even if today’s mothers might choose not to wear mini-skirts today, it was important for them that at a certain point of their lives, they had the option of doing so. The concepts of “morality” and “personal principles” are quite different. “Morality” has always been a way for organized religions to control and obtain power over people; “personal principles” are a result of an individual’s self-affirmation. Sure, we might all agree as “society” that it’s “wrong” to kill a person, but is it truly “wrong” to wear a mini-skirt? Morality denies freedom, because it forces people to choose only one possible way of expression (often to the benefit of certain individuals, such as men…All moral concepts in current “moralist” societies work to the benefit of men and prejudice women to a certain extent). Personal principles exalt freedom, because it is the individual itself that chooses to express in a particular way, whether that way reveals more inches of the body, or less inches of the body.
Why are many of us so weary of the usage of the female body in our image-obsessed societies? Because “sluts” in videogames are not only associated with “sin”, with repression and “dirtiness” of certain body parts, but essentially because there is fear that the human body’s image is used to manipulate people. Sex in advertising and entertainment is unconsciously viewed as a form of manipulation. There is an inherent fear that people who view media that features sexy women or men can be judged by society as being “easily manipulated people”. Many gamers resist playing Final Fantasy X-2 not because the women are depicted with tight clothes, but because they fear being labelled by others as “weak-willed people” who will pay money simply to view skin, and not because of having fun with the product. And if they are weak-willed on this area, then they probably are weak-willed on other areas of human’s social life. This is an accusation that directly offends our personal integrity and social status before others, so to avoid the situation, we tend to stay away from such things, and we will also sneer and judge those who actually have the courage to purchase such a product.
However, these judgements are always originated by those who would have an interest in controlling us, and it’s just a case of others following the flock of sheep. This saddens me because many people who condemn others who have an open-minded view of sexuality (of course there are people who are easily manipulated by products with sexual content, but personally I wouldn’t confuse the forest for the trees), many times do not even have a formed opinion of why they judge others. Our educational system is not prone to encourage people to question things. Many times, we never really considered what we thought of as being “right” and “wrong” in the field of sexuality… We were simply told by moralists that things are the way they are, and there’s no arguing about it. And very few have the courage to challenge such “thought-imposed moral laws”.
Moralists obviously defend that societies with open-minded views on sexuality are prone to rapings, sexual crimes, abuse, manipulation in large-scale, undesired births, abortions, and polygamy, amongst others. Then why is it that I see none of that in the societies on this Earth where all members walk naked?
There are tribes in the Amazons and in Africa where all the members in their communities are constantly naked, and are never ashamed of their bodies, nor has their sexuality ever been repressed. Honesty, truth and sincerity to others are crucial factors in the children’s’ education. And surprisingly, in those communities, sexual crimes are something that has never been heard of amongst its members. There are very little unexpected births and even so, all newborns are welcomed and taken care of by all members of the community. It’s also surprising that in those communities, there is a severe absence of power hierarchies. Even the elders or shamans act more as consultants, and the majority of decisions are taken in council, with the presence of most of the members. So there is a true connection between power and sexuality. In fact, the majority of sexual crimes in “developed” countries are a result of sexual repression.
In light of these considerations, FFX-2 approaches the touchy subject of “how does a society reconstruct itself when all is permitted”? When there is a sudden turn between a repressing society and a society where all is permitted, there is obviously a certain period of time where things are undefined, where there are contradicting views, where some people abuse their new-found freedom, but eventually things end up falling into place and stabilize. Yuna and her companions in FFX-2 are experiencing that confusing period between repression and stabilization of a newly free society. And it’s perfectly natural that some women in that society would choose to wear different kinds of clothes. As I have defended before, there is no such thing as a constant universal truth, and Yuna certainly has the right to change herself in any way she sees fit, not just to pass unrecognised to the populace as Yuna, but also to mark her distance and newfound persona towards the period of Final Fantasy X.
And to those people who feel that it’s stupid for people to live joyfully and in humour 2 years after a major disaster, well, talk to any New Yorker, 2 years after September 11, and I think you’ll reconsider your views. When people are confronted with the possibility of death on a large scale, they are often reminded that it’s more important to live each day to the maximum, as if it was the last, and that there are more important things to do in life than to be bitter and argue over trivial matters… More essential than being constantly obsessed about mourning the dead, is to aid the living. And when Yuna feels that Tidus may be alive, that is the last push that she needs to go and search for him. Because she doesn’t know when death may strike again and if she’ll ever forgive herself for not chasing her dreams. Therefore, I am not of the opinion that Square Enix’s choices of plotlines and character designs are totally unfounded and motivated solely by profit. Especially because there is another topic in X-2 that hasn’t been discussed yet: the fashion aspect of the game’s clothes and ornaments.
Despite many male (and some female) gamers’ views that FFX-2 is an attempt to exclusively please the male gamer, it is my belief that FFX-2 is in fact mainly biased towards attracting a larger portion of females to game playing. It’s an understandable assumption, especially since many male gamers sincerely do not understand the interest of females in clothing and textile fashion. But clothing fashion in itself is an art form, as any of the women (and men) who study degrees in those areas will comply. I do not study Fashion, but I have several female friends that do, and there’s a whole world of knowledge that surrounds clothing. From colour theory (as well as the science of Colour Therapy), to the symbolism of graphic ornaments in textiles, to the study of the social contexts and spiritual beliefs that lead to the production of specific types of garments. Even the mini-skirt revolution is closely studied in such terms.
Clothing in itself is far from being a trivial subject, even if shopping relentlessly for clothing might be. And the Japanese female audience is particularly prone to being extremely fashion-sensitive. It is a country of contrasts and contradictions: just as there are the conservative approach of school uniforms, the censorship of genitalia in media entertainment, and the hardships of a demanding educational system, there are just as much teenagers that are growing tired of all the demands, of all the identity control, and of the misogynistic repression in traditional Japanese society. Such contrasts are perfectly comprehensible: if a Japanese girl is forced to wear a school uniform during all week days, it’s understandable that she would want to “take vengeance” and wear something totally out of the norm during the weekend… And the colourful dresses, uniforms and garments found in FFX-2 are the interesting reflection of such a curious society. And judging by the sales of X-2, it’s safe to assume that Square-Enix have not failed in their objective to attract more female gamers to the Final Fantasy series. Yuna is a strong and brave lead character, after all, and assumes her independence during X-2, which is something many Japanese female teenagers aspire to as well, including the possibility of having full control over their bodies and the way they are presented to society.
Now there’s a final interesting point to be made about the picturing of women in modern media and the picturing of the same in Art throughout the ages. Are videogames just mere entertainments, or can they be considered as an art form? Are movies just “pure entertainment”? Are they not considered as the “7th art”? And what about comic books? Mindless entertainment or worthy of being labelled as the “9th art”? The excellent British videogame magazine Edge has always made a strong case for promoting videogames as a valid form of art. They have gone to great lengths to support games that presented innovation and challenged players to think for themselves. Just as there are “pure entertainment” movies, there are very “artistic” movies. And just as there are “pure entertainment” videogames, so there can be “artistic” videogames. I’m also a strong defender of the “videogames as Art” view. I believe that many gamers would like to support this view as well, since games and namely RPGs, can be an interesting medium for the presentation of topics of reflection about the world.
But how have women been pictured in other art forms during the centuries? As far back as the Renaissance period (and perhaps even before), there are abundant depictions of naked women. And they’re all documented in every art museum of this planet. Are all these women “sluts”? Actually, some of them are, since artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec did several portraits of the lifestyle of the cabaret prostitutes living in Paris in the early 20th century… More examples could be mentioned, but it’s important to remember that artists such as Toulouse never condemned prostitutes. He always painted with the purpose of representing the humane and emotional side of the prostitutes. That they were women, who had once dreams, or objectives, who had feelings and opinions about the world, that they were not objects, even though many men at the time (and even today) treated them as such.
Women have for several centuries been the muses of many painters, architects and musicians, and their purpose in depicting them naked was not to present them as objects, but to homage them, to immortalise their natural beauty, to present their inner worlds just as importantly as their outer bodily shell. Countless statues or drawings of naked females and males, represented as ideals of perfect beauty, were produced by such people as Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci, he who is generally considered by many to be the greatest artist that ever existed. Female representation in Art took a serious deathblow during the late 16th century, with the Church Inquisitions and local burnings of material considered “immoral” (which includes, by the way, Galileo’s discovery that the Earth turned around the Sun and not the other way around), as well as beatings and torturing to artists who did not obey to the Churches’ guidelines. Then, in the late 19th/early 20th century, females recovered their role as the primordial theme of representation in Art: from the already mentioned Toulouse-Lautrec to Picassos’ cubistic/expressionistic (and sometimes mysoginistic, given his Andaluzian roots) rendering of his many lovers and wives.
From then on, there was no stopping: the 60’s were once again fertile ground for art that featured naked bodies, and today, there are still famous photographers who, with the consent of several people, take pictures of artistic groupings of hundreds of naked people in public urban or natural places, and exhibit those photographs in art galleries everywhere. I could mention much more extreme cases, but I think you get the point. If we really are to view videogames as an Art form, maybe we should begin to ponder carefully on how women and men have been presented in the various Art forms during the last 500 years.
And what about videogames’ status as a commercial product? Does that not overshadow its artistic value? No worries, the relationship between art and commerce has been approached to death by Andy Warhol and Pop Art during the 60’s/70’s… he exalted mass production and common consumer products as a form of Art, that Art was not only resumed to big grandiose statements, but that it was also tied to the everyday small details that fill each of the individual lives of the individual citizen. It has been long proven that a mass-produced object is not excluded from being considered as Art.
And now, let’s talk about Final Fantasy XII… Another thing that has been the topic of great discussion is the character design of the latest male characters, such as Tidus and Vaan. There’s an undeniable trend in recent years towards the androgination of characters, and it’s going to happen more and more, whether we like it or not. There was such a strong case for the polarization of female roles and male roles in the last decades, that it was only natural that women’s and men’s appearances begin to approach each other, even if I believe that they will never truly meet, maintaining some differences. There are both female and male aspects in each of us, and opening ourselves to a larger understanding of the opposite sex’s ways of thinking and acting is certainly beneficial towards avoiding a “war of the sexes”.
This does not mean that men will become homosexual and that women will become lesbians, it means that this more vast view of each sex will help in eliminating a mentality of “separation”, of us vs. them, of men vs. women and vice-versa. This androgination of characters happens not only in videogames, but also in movies such as Lord Of The Rings, where there was an obvious care taken in choosing actors for the main characters that were not excessively “manly” in appearance. If you look at the actors’ eyes, they are given extensive care, and they’re all in clear colours such as blue to add depth and emotional potentials to the male characters. So it is possible for men to take more care with their looks without being labelled in a derogatory way.
Actually, in the Egyptian era, for example, wearing make-up was a realm mainly of the men, where they had tremendous care taken in following their beauty standards. And they were certainly not viewed in a negative way because of that. Once again, the current hatred towards homosexuals or even the approaching of men to a more female mentality was spawned by “moral” notions of organized religions… In many ancient civilizations, both men and women would be more open to comprehending the other’s mindsets, and complementing each other, without sacrificing their respective chosen roles. Certainly many of the greatest musicians and composers definitely had a “female” aspect in their creativity, such as Bach, or Mozart, or even contemporary artists such as Jimi Hendrix (who was a musical performer that exalted sensuality in many of his songs), or the indie rock scene that was extremely supporting of feminist views, fronted by people such as Kurt Cobain or Chris Cornell, or Daniel Johns.
Regarding the topic of chests, its just common sense to have characters with bare chests in tropical/Mediterranean climates… If you go to any of the tropical/Mediterranean areas on this planet, you’ll see lots of bare chests, mainly of men but also of women. And given the temperatures, it’s a necessity in many cases, unless people love to sweat like pigs and feel great discomfort. Plus, if we look at how fantasy characters have been depicted since the early 80’s, well, we have Conan the Barbarian and Heavy Metal magazine as perfect examples… And women are hardly depicted in a moralistic way, to such an extent that FFX-2 pales by comparison…
Personally, I think we’ve come a long way since that. If you still need to comprove my views, check any art books from the main fantasy illustrators such as Frank Frazetta and you’ll know what I mean. Not that I don’t like his work, it’s just that it’s pointless for Square-Enix to present fantasy games with such characters, if they’re to appeal to today’s young women and men. Women have as much right to see a male character with bare chest just as men are allowed to see a female character in a mini-skirt. I might be wrong, but I don’t sincerely think that there are many female gamers out there desperate to play an RPG with a male lead character that looks like Conan The Barbarian, or looks like he came out of Muscle Mag magazine… And I’d hardly consider Yuna and Ashe as “Playboy” material… their bodies are pretty down-to-earth in terms of bone structure and physiognomy, and no part of the body is blown out of proportion…
One of the things that worries me is the preference of some gamers to play a male character that is “cool”… whenever that word comes to mind, I think of Alucard from “Hellsing”… he was an interesting and morbidly funny character, but in the context of current Final Fantasy games, his character just wouldn’t work… A character that is “tough” to the point of being insensible to loss and suffering, and unable to express emotions, or crying. It’s a character that definitely has not a trace of “female” aspects inside him. Many gamers believe that the main character in an RPG should be a character that they can relate and identify with, but to my view, “relating to a character” is just a side-effect from the main objective of a character that is part of a story… Ever since the tragedy plays of the ancient Greeks (the ones who created the art form that would lead to modern Theatre), passing by the Chinese Operas, and Japanese Noh, to mention some examples, the purpose of the existence of a character is to present a “measuring stick” for the audience: in other words, the characters are consistently stereotyped and exacerbated, so that their identities would be reinforced by contrast to the identities of the other characters.
The aim of these exacerbated characters was to serve as a reference for the audience: people were invited to reflect on the behaviour and choices of each character, and to define themselves in relation to the character they were viewing. Therefore, the characters were instrumental to redefine the viewers’ identities, by opposition and comparison. It’s impossible to conceive a character with which all gamers will relate to, so the fact that a gamer intimately relates to a character is just a coincidence, but the main purpose is not to make characters equal to gamers, but to make characters that lead gamers to think for themselves, and reach their own conclusions: “do I agree with the actions of this character?”; ”would I have acted differently, if I were faced with a similar situation”?
That’s why characters such as Neo or Agent Smith exist: they were never meant to be characters to which we could relate, but rather to represent the very extremes and polarities of the human experience, so that each of us could decide whether to position ourselves nearer the extremes, or more in the middle. That’s exactly what Gandhi or Martin Luther King, or any of us are doing at all times: through each and every single action we take, people around us are constantly using us as “reference sticks” in order to define themselves. We always serve as examples, no matter what we do.
Finally, as promised, let’s define the most important aspect that allows the creation of “amazement” in RPGs, and this is related to the “reference sticks” mentioned above.
My case for RPGs as Art forms results from their possibility to depict alternatives to our current models of societies. Therefore, RPGs are a testing ground for the presentation of different social models, and experiencing the results of the implementation of such rules. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Final Fantasy XI: hundreds of thousands of people interact on a completely fictitious and experimental social model, based on very specific rules, but it is a model that is gradually altered based on the wishes and needs of the gamers.
In the same manner, Art is always a product of the socio-cultural context in which it was conceived. Such as Picasso’s Guernica, for instance, that depicts the horrors of war. Is it not interesting that the main theme of Final Fantasy XII is “war” and “racial tensions”? Is it just a coincidence that we’ve been witnessing quite a lot of tensions and wars in the Middle East and on the Palestinian side of the Mediterranean? I’ll be curious to witness how Square-Enix deals with this touchy subject, and if they present during the course of the story any possible solutions, or clever analysis of the situations that provoke war…
We can learn a lot about our own society by examining the ways in which people behave, when inserted in completely different social organizations. We can analyse the behaviour of individuals both acting solo, or in groups. This doesn’t have to be a scientifical study, but it’s often the case to wonder if some successful social experiments in RPGs couldn’t be transposed to the social/political structures in our reality. The interesting thing in FFXI is that even though there is a sense of “hierarchies”, in reality, the power is distributed almost equally by all the players.
Everyone has a shot of succeeding in the online world, and Square-Enix makes constant adjustments to ensure that it continues that way. And this leads us to the crucial point: the secret of an “epic” RPG lies on its “belief” structure: in other words, if you wish to create a “believable” and “realistic” world, you have to create a set of beliefs first. Because all beliefs generate behaviours.
It is the beliefs of a community that generate the presence or not of hierarchical power structures, of determinate ways of clothing, of certain types of architecture and urbanistic design, determinate ways of cultivating or hunting food, etcetc. In all nations and societies, everything in a city is a product of the common beliefs possessed by the people who live there. It’s not by chance that most medieval European towns had their houses organized around a big church, much taller than the houses. The church was a symbol of power, and dominated the region. The same occurs in Roman cities, divided into vertical and horizontal axis, that expand outwards, from an initial square that is produced in the crossing of the axis. In that square, were often located the political power structures of the town; The same goes for Mayan cities, the Forbidden city in China, Japanese ancient cities: in each of these cases, the houses surround the power structures in particular ways.
It’s also curious to check the organization of small tribes, where power is equally distributed: tents are often circular, and the distribution of tents also in some cases approaches a circular form. Circles are “perfect” forms with equal distance on every point of its outer line towards the center. Just mere coincidence?
After you create a set of beliefs, it’s up to you to generate a social structure that encompasses those beliefs, whether they are spiritual, political, or economical in nature. After that, you have a structure that can coherently dictate the construction of cities and infrastructures that mimic the functioning of real cities. Many enthusiasts of RPG making who try to make an “epic” RPG fail because they don’t have yet a consistent set of beliefs that can generate a consistent world. They are often too focused on specific types of characters, leaving the environment details largely unsolved.
The “amazement” produced by Square-Enix’s games comes from the “believability” and “realism” of their settings/environments, which doesn’t mean that their environments have to mimic our reality. It means that Square-Enix staff defined a set of rules that govern their world, that are coherent, non-contradictory, and that display “integrity”… Even the machineries and aircrafts are not completely fictitious, since there are always some elements based on studies of aerodinamical elements. All elements, from houses to vehicles to political/social models, have an inherent structure: many gamers often stick with the aesthetics, and fail to realise the structure within.
Every artist progresses from an initial state of apprehending only the outer appearances, without understanding the real essence, and gradually evolving until they have a unified view of the world. It’s the difference between a beginner’s drawing and a professional drawing. The first is only concerned with the image. The second possesses an idea that governs the entire drawing. Creative gamers must be patient, for it takes time and effort to evolve in their craft. However, it is ultimately the discovery of the structures that compose the essential elements of our Earth that will allow people to really create games that can “amaze” fellow gamers.
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