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The Act of Deicide!

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Drew Robarge
FAN EDITORIALIST

Final Fantasy VI Spoilers

Before writing this rebuttal, I was thinking about the shift of final bosses in RPG from being monsters to humans over the course of RPG history. After reading the editorial, I have realized that is how the game developers compensate for using human people, but that will be discussed in another editorial hopefully. Deicide is a word defined a person who kills a god or the action of killing a god or gods. So why have developers stooped to making characters become gods as their final boss? Surely it is not because they think the storyline fits in, but I believe it is because there is no alternative.

Really, if you take a long look at the games that you have played and beaten, you will find that a lot of games include aspects of beating someone who has ascended to another plane, or simply put, became a god. Why? Because one way to look at it is that your party has also become gods. Looking back, has your character been the same since you chose new game? No, they grew, perhaps too much and beyond what a person generally should grow. The boss doesn’t get the same growth. He/she doesn’t fight all that battles that you have, so how can a boss grow? It is by becoming something greater through an unknown power.

Take for example, Kefka in Final Fantasy VI. Now when you face him at Narshe, he pretty much reached his maximum strength. He cannot grow any better or stronger unless he faces monsters, but of course, he wouldn’t do that. Hell, he doesn’t even like sand on his boots. He is going to get the statues to help him grow in power until we see him as the incarnate that he is at the final battle. The same can be said for Kuja, Sephiroth, Wiegraf, and countless of others in different RPGs.

I have never played Suikoden, unfortunately. The scene of Barbarossa in the garden would have looked good if he fought as a human, but honestly, if someone gave an evil guy a potion and said this will make you more powerful and allow you to beat people who stand in their way, how would you think the bad guy would respond? It is human nature. Human nature is why communism can’t work. I might be one of the last people to say that, but human nature is that when a person is offered an opportunity to become better, powerful, they will take it.

I would love to see more human to human battles. I think they offer more intensity, but think of it this way, beating a human who has limitations and is fallible is good and all, but beating a god who has boundless power and infallible is much better. To topple a god, well, that says how the power of good hearts and intentions will triumph over anything, even a god. To quote Xenogears, the good heroes will “stand tall and shake the heavens!” Now that is my kind of deicide.