Final Fantasy 6’s Broken World Resonates Differently In Ours Today

Content warning: This article discusses subject material pertaining to psychological well being together with anxiousness, despair, and self-harm.At the almost-exact midpoint of Final Fantasy 6, the traditional 1994 RPG from Squaresoft, the power-hungry Gestahl Empire has raised the Floating Continent, the place it intends to make use of a strong magical subject to consolidate its energy and rule the world. At this level, what had been a well-known “evil empire versus scrappy rebellion” story takes a flip, as one of many Empire’s lieutenants, Kefka, overthrows his emperor and deliberately throws the magical subject out of stability, ushering in worldwide darkness and destruction. There is not any grasp plan at play right here. Kefka is pure nihilistic glee, destruction for the sake of destruction. When he emerges as the sport’s main antagonist, it is not an evil empire however sheer wanton devastation you are preventing towards. At this level within the sport, demise and destruction wins.Today, we all know how that feels. Death received right here in our world too, a minimum of for some time.A New York Times information challenge from June 2020 known as How the Virus Won confirmed in excruciating element the best way the COVID-19 pandemic manifested and unfold all through the inhabitants, largely unchecked within the United States, catching political and scientific leaders flatfooted till it was too late. As of the time of publishing final June, roughly 480,000 folks had died worldwide. Currently, that determine is properly over 3 million.New York Times “How the Virus Won” Data Project, displaying journey quantity from March 1-14, 2020This has been one of many bleakest intervals in fashionable historical past. Millions of individuals have misplaced their lives, and plenty of tens of millions extra have misplaced family members or pals or coworkers. An financial collapse has value folks their livelihoods. The mitigation measures which have suppressed the virus have had their very own unintended side-effects, like loneliness, despair, and exhaustion. Remote work for many who can carry out their jobs has been an amazing problem for single folks and households alike, who more and more discover the traces between work and residential life blurred.There’s additionally a way of trepidation that the world we’re about to re-enter goes to look completely different, really feel completely different, than the one we leftThe world is beginning to heal now. Vaccines are beginning to turn out to be extra widespread and accessible among the many bigger inhabitants in lots of nations. There’s a way of collective reduction as folks have a good time their immunizations and make plans to socialize and go to household. But there’s additionally a way of trepidation that the world we’re about to re-enter goes to look completely different, really feel completely different, than the one we left in March 2020. For these liable to anxiety–and who is not, after what we have all been through–it can really feel intimidating.I imagine within the energy of artwork to assist us perceive the human situation and tips on how to have interaction with the world. I care about video video games as a result of, other than offering a satisfying distraction like some other passion, they’ve energy to make us lively individuals in storytelling and foster a reference to the subject material and characters in a means few different mediums can. And in order hokey as it might appear, I discover it comforting to look again on Final Fantasy 6 and the way it portrayed the second half–the World of Ruin–and how its characters realized to re-engage with a damaged world.When the World of Ruin phase begins, the sport subtly shifts our perspective. Its first act within the World of Balance opens with Terra, the half-magic being enslaved by the Empire. This cues the viewers into associating with Terra, the sport’s foremost protagonist even amongst its ensemble solid. She is central to the occasions of the world, tied to each the magical Espers and the evil Gestahlian Empire. Following her story is the trail by way of which we perceive the world and its occasions. The sport options greater than a dozen playable characters, however for the primary half, Terra is the one particular person whose eyes we’re actually meant to see by way of. Everything is framed round her.Kefka illustrated by Yoshitaka AmanoWhen the second act begins, it not stars Terra. The perspective shifts to Celes–an necessary character, however no extra so than lots of the different members of the ensemble, like Locke or Sabin. This partially closes the guide on the centrality of Terra’s story. She represented the battle between a magical race chased underground and people hellbent on exploiting their energy. We primarily already know the whole lot we have to find out about Espers, and the Empire not even exists. Kefka used his place within the group to decimate the world.Celes, then, represents a brand new lens by way of which to see the world. She’s a former Imperial officer herself, who grew to become disillusioned with the Empire’s strategies lengthy earlier than Kefka’s nihilistic heel-turn. She wasn’t an oppressed determine breaking free from her constraints, she was an oppressor in search of redemption. She labored proper alongside Kefka, in truth.She wakes up within the World of Ruin, practically alone in a desolate panorama. Her one companion is Cid, one other former Imperial and the creator of the highly effective Magitek armor that helped the group put its boot to the neck of a number of kingdoms. He explains that it had been a 12 months for the reason that cataclysm and that others on their small island had both handed away or thrown themselves from the cliffs in despair. Celes and Cid are the one ones left.These two, who each have to be carrying round guilt for serving to construct the Empire that introduced Kefka to energy, depend on one another. Cid gives companionship and assist, and Celes is tasked with catching fish to nurse him again to well being. The sport briefly turns into routine and monotonous because the pair deal with survival, they usually type a de facto household unit to the exclusion of contact with some other people. Celes even takes to calling Cid “grandfather.”If you catch dangerous fish, Cid can move away as properly, leaving Celes fully alone. In this model of occasions, she even makes an attempt self-harm by throwing herself off the cliff, similar to the opposite despondent survivors Cid informed her about. But whether or not he lives or dies, in-person or through a posthumous letter, Cid provides her a raft–the key to rising from her unintentional exile and reconnecting with the world.The sport briefly turns into routine and monotonous because the pair deal with survival, they usually type a de facto household unit to the exclusion of contact with some other people.From there, the sport turns into way more open than it had been within the World of Balance. You journey the world searching for out your companions, however lots of them are elective. Terra is particularly immune to rejoin the trigger, having discovered a brand new function caring for orphaned youngsters. But that is additionally the sport at its most hopeful, as you progressively rediscover your whole celebration members on this new context. Each of them has discovered a brand new cause for residing or one thing to attempt for on this damaged world, and every can be a part of, nonetheless reluctantly, to guard the brand new lives they’ve constructed for themselves.This context makes the ultimate confrontation towards Kefka that rather more important. The villain, having ascended to god-like standing from magical vitality, is downright jubilant in having taken so many and destroyed a lot. This is the place Final Fantasy 6 reaches its emotional climax, in a second that will appear maudlin however in-context feels completely earned:Party Member: People will maintain rebuilding the stuff you take from them!Kefka: Then I’ll destroy these too. Why do folks rebuild issues they know are going to be destroyed? Why do folks cling to life after they know they cannot reside ceaselessly? Think how meaningless every of your lives is!Party Member: It’s not the web results of one’s life that is necessary! It’s the day-to-day issues, the private victories, and the celebration of life…and love!Party Member: It’s sufficient if individuals are in a position to expertise the enjoyment that every day can deliver!Kefka: And have you ever discovered your pleasure, on this practically lifeless world of ours?Kefka is not actually asking. He’s taunting them, together with the very concept that they might presumably discover function within the corrupted world he is made. But one after the other, every celebration member you’ve got recruited solutions. They’ve every discovered their very own pleasure within the damaged world, they usually resolutely inform Kefka they will not enable him to hurt one other residing factor. A remaining battle ensues, the villain is in the end defeated, the heroes are triumphant.But the world stays destroyed. There is not any magical want for the whole lot to be because it was. The World of Ruin is not transformed again to its former lushness. The panorama continues to be brown and desolate. Vegetation is sparse. Lands are nonetheless swallowed by water.Those who died are nonetheless gone.And that is correctly. Final Fantasy 6 is not a sport a few band of heroes who resolve the world’s issues and set the whole lot proper. It’s about rising from lonely isolation with a renewed sense of function, partaking with society by itself phrases, and accepting that some crises are too large to reverse. It’s about discovering pleasure and hope and that means in a damaged world. It’s in regards to the resilience of humanity to maintain rebuilding what’s taken from them. As we begin to emerge from our personal islands, this quarter-century-old sport can assist to encourage us to do the identical.