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It came as something of a shock when I realized that Kefka really is the best villain in the RPG world. No one does more heinous evil for no reason but evil itself and has no other redeeming features. I have to give a grudging respect to FF6's creators for taking the concept of villain to the extreme, without falling back on the Ultimate Ancient Evil cliché, if only because I like to see people try something gutsy. Unfortunately for Kefka, there's little I find more uninteresting than a villain whose main attribute is evilness. What do I look for then? Character. The way I see it a villain isn't different from any other character in a story and so the first duty of any villain is to be just that, a good character. I don't think Kefka is a very good character.
Motivation is often brought up when talking about Kefka. Some say he had none, and some say he didn't need any. Where do I fall? Somewhere in the middle, but leaning toward the "Kefka should have had some motivation" crowd. I agree that villains don't need complex motivations, but they do need something, and I think a little motivation would have gone a long way in Kefka's case. Something to put all his evil acts in a context, give them a slightly different perspective. A little motivation would have hinted that he's more than he appears. More than an evil insane kill-machine whose only goal in life is to be an evil insane kill-machine, something to push him towards being a real character. Evil for evil's sake might work for some people, and more power to them, but to me that's just mind-numbingly dull. Shades-of-grey, contrast, the unexpected, the unpredictable, these are the things that I find interesting. Kefka is none of these. The thing is, hating Kefka is a lot like hating an earthquake. It is what it is, and it's gonna do what it's gonna do. Kefka is what he is, and he's not going to change. No use crying over spilled milk. He's just a thing that goes around causing destruction. To me, destruction caused by a real character trumps destruction caused by a caricature like Kefka, no matter the degree.
Kefka simply isn't very effective for me. Now, I know what you're about to say, "But Michael, Kefka is one of the most effective villains ever! Look at what he did to Doma, and to General Leo, and to his own master, he even destroyed the entire frickin' world!" All that's true, but it's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about emotional effectiveness, you know, anger, fear, hatred, grief, admiration, respect, etc... whatever it is that you're supposed to feel about a certain villain. (I say "certain" because you're not supposed to feel everything about any single villain, although I do think you feel an emotional gamut from a truly excellent villain.) All the brilliantly laid plans, heinous acts, or stunning twists in the world aren't worth anything if they don't make you feel something. I've never thought that acts alone made a great villain, even before I played FF6 or started playing RPGs in general. If they did storytellers could just have their villains do increasingly villainous things and voila, better villains. It's this emphasis on acts that we have to thank for those ridiculous "Kuja is better than Kefka because he destroys an entire planet," "No, there weren't that many people on that planet, Kefka kills more," debates. Now, villains have to be able to back up their claims, there's nothing worse than a wordy windbag that can't really do anything. I don't want to talk about other villains too much here since this is supposed to be about Kefka, but if you'll indulge me for a moment I'd like to write about everyone's favorite badass, Sephiroth. Some people complain that Sephiroth didn't actually do anything or cause any harm. That doesn't really matter to me. He convinced me that he could, and that he would if he wasn't stopped. A small thing like Sephiroth skewering the Midgar Zolem did more for me on an emotional level, in this case causing fear and wonder at his power, than most of Kefka's villainous acts. Further aside: I say most because there is one thing that Kefka does that I really like, that is, destroying the world. Even then it's not so much because it develops Kefka as a character as that it's an original story development. The villain wins, and you have to pick yourself up and work your way back up to him. Very original and very cool.
You may be asking, "But Michael, do you really need all that character, motivation, and emotional effectiveness to like a villain?" The answer is no. It's not like I have any hard and fast rules as to the requirements of what I need for a villain to meet with my approval. I like a villain when I realize "Hey, I like this villain." If I had happened to like Kefka I would have been right on the bandwagon singing his praises. That didn't happen and so here I am, trying to explain to myself as much as to you, Gentle Reader, why that is. Kefka did have a chance to win me over without being a great character, and it's the way I'd bet Kefka wins most people over, as I don't see many people arguing that Kefka's a great character. It's what's usually called his personality, humor, and theatricality. None of it works very well for me. Why didn't any of that work for me in Kefka's case? Partially it's the same reason his acts don't have much of an effect on me, that is, things like personality, theatricality, and especially humor work best when they come from a real place, a real person, and not someone(thing) like Kefka. Other than that it may just be that I don't find Kefka very funny or entertaining, with no explanation possible beyond that fact. Many of his supposed great lines are more likely to be greeted by a roll of the eyes than laughter by me. His antics seem forced and just a little pathetic. The exception to this is his, "You all sound like a self-help book" line at the end. That's a great, very Whedonesque line that beyond simply being funny, which it is, serves to counter what could have been a very overblown scene.
So, what I have with Kefka is a character that doesn't meet my first requirement of being a good character, and doesn't offer me much of anything else. Looking back it's amazing that I like him as much as I do (by the way, did I mention that I don't hate Kefka as a villain? I actually think he's pretty average). I've always said that Kefka is one of only three FF villains that are worth talking about. Even after writing this and putting my problems with Kefka into a more concrete form, I stick by that.
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