This article was inspired by Audacious Epigone’s excellent review of Final Fantasy VII.
Table of contents
Themes
Police state
Top to bottom: the fictional city of Midgar in FFVII, and Project Ziggurat, a self-contained city being built in Dubai.
Midgar seems to fit all the criteria of a modern dystopic society – the media is controlled, there’s an ever-greater divide between the rich and the poor, and a centralized surveillance apparatus keeps checks on the people at all times.
The ruling party, Shin-Ra, is a multinational company that has effectively outgrown its corporatist boots and is acting more and more like a supranational state. It’s the poster-boy of the ‘military-industrial complex’ as coined by Ike Eisenhower – it wages warfare on foreign nations, first by economic means, then militarily if that fails.[1] It seems to have little regard for the consequences of its mercantilist/empirical ways[2] – like globalization critics would argue, its only concern is the bottom line.
The aforementioned Midgar is Shinra’s main power base. It is a compact city, much like the Ziggurat Project currently being built in Dubai. [3] Unlike the real-world, so-called ‘arcologies’ or ‘hyperstructures’, however, which are portrayed as self-sufficient and with a minimal amount of environmental impact, Midgar can be said to cause great environmental impact, as it converts the planet’s lifestream into consumable energy. Seeing as the lifeblood of the planet is finite, you can make the case that when it runs out, everyone on the planet will suffer immeasurably because of it.[8]
Like HG Wells‘ ‘The Time Machine‘, there is an upper-class that enjoys all the perks of a technically literate and prosperous society, and a backwards, disease-stricken, impoverished lower-class playing Morlocks to the Shinra citizens’ Enoi.[4][5] To prevent an insurrection against the haves, the lower class is shut off from ever reaching the upper-class society by way of massive plates.
Even if one without the necessary money were to have the means to reach the upper class structure, there are security checks in place to detect if someone is a lawful upper-class citizen. Because of this, AVALANCHE often has to fake biometric ID passports when they need to travel between the slums (where they live) and the upper-classes (where Shinra has all of its core reactors). A biometric identification security check onboard the train can alert the authorities to ‘unauthorized passengers’.[6]
Ecological concerns
Part of the reason for Shin-Ra’s wealth and might is its mining of the world’s natural resources – a material called ‘Mako’.
Barrett’s rebel outfit, AVALANCHE, is concerned about the detrimental effects this has on the world’s Lifestream – it is argued that Shin-Ra is participating in destroying the world’s lifeblood for selfish reasons.[7][8] To counter this, AVALANCHE resorts to acts of terrorism[9]. Because of the deplorable living standards in the slums, most lower-class people seem to be silently supportive of AVALANCHE’s altruistic goals. This presumably changes later on when AVALANCHE is set up by Shin-Ra. (see ‘False flag attacks’)
False-flag attacks
False-flag attacks have been used throughout history by governments to blame a self-inflicted wound on a foreign enemy. This serves multiple goals: to shock the populace, rally them behind the flag and unite them against a common enemy.[10] Historical examples of false-flag operations include the Reichstag Fire and Operation Gladio.
In Final Fantasy VII, upon learning the location of AVALANCHE’s headquarters, the president of Shin-Ra decides to get rid of the ‘terrorist’ threat by destroying the sector they reside in entirely. This is done by detonating a bomb that will cause the plate atop Sector 7 to collapse, killing everything underneath it. The controlled media – a corporate mouthpiece of Shinra – blames AVALANCHE itself for the attack – thus causing the people of Midgar to despise AVALANCHE and sympathizing with the efforts of the state (‘Midgar’/Shin-Ra) to destroy the rebel outfit. This lie is made all the more plausible by the group’s earlier acts – such as the blowing up of a Mako reactor at the beginning of the game[9].
In a cutscene preceding the event, we see president ShinRa openly plotting the operation and devilishly approving of its deceptive nature:
“We’ll destroy Sector 7 and report that AVALANCHE did it. Then we’ll send in the rescue operation care of Shinra, Inc… Heh, heh, heh… this is perfect.”
When the attack occurs, we see the president watching the massacre from his ivory tower while music of Joseph Haydn is playing in the background, implying that he is celebrating seeing his plan unfold – with no apparent regard for loss of life.
Norse mythology
Final Fantasy VII is steeped in Norse mythology and race theology. Now, it is true that every Final Fantasy game prior to VII has always been a hotchpotch of every mythology under the sun, from Mesopotamian to Greek mythology, but never before has a single mythology been so integral to the story of a Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy VII is a departure for the series in this respect.
Places
From left to right: Thor doing battle with Jörmungandr, or Midhgardhsormr; FFVII's version of the Midghgardhsomor, 'Midgar Zolom'
Midgar
In mythology: In Norse mythology, located somewhere in the middle of Yggdrasil, the Gods built the last remaining inhabitable world for humans, seperated by a great wall from the outside world, which is mostly composed of water. This has come to be known as ‘Midgard’ – more specifically, ‘Midgard’ refers to the wall that is built around this world, shutting it off from dangers lurking outside the wall.
In the game: The videogame version of Midgard is not built by the Gods, but by man; megalomaniacal men at that. Like the myth, Midgar is a walled-off, self-contained city capable of housing millions of people. It is powered by the energy being derived from multiple Mako reactors. Inside, society has been compartmentalized into several sectors. It is literally a floating city, being supported by giant concrete pillars in each section. The rich live above the Plate, while the poor live underground. (again, this brings to mind HG Wells’ ‘The Time Machine‘) There’s basically no way of getting around Midgar without using the extensive railroad system.
Midgar has its own government (consisting of Shinra CEO’s), and a commander in chief (president Shinra, CEO of the ‘company’). It has a security system grid that I presume is biometric in nature, but does not include facial scanning. The only known time zone within the city is Midgar Standard Time, and the people at large refer to their homes not by name, but by a number: Sector 1, or 5, or 7, and so on. Like Jesse says to Cloud, this is indicative of the dehumanising nature of the city.
As far as the average Shinra citizen is concerned, Midgar is their ‘world’. And Shinra likes it that way just fine.
Midgar Zolom
In mythology: One of the chief antagonists in Norse mythology lurking outside these walls was the sea serpent Jormungandr (Midgardsormr, literally ‘World Serpent’), a snake so huge he was in danger of surrounding the Earth and eating his own tail. (this is where the concept ‘chasing its own tail’, or ‘endless cycle’, comes from) A snake fitting the description of the ‘Midgardsormr’ seems to pop up in every religion/mythology known to mankind, the most popular of which being Ouroboros (see Ouroboros in popular culture).
The game: Final Fantasy VII’s depiction of the Midgar Zolom remains mostly accurate to the one described in Norse mythology, though some artistic liberties were taken. Once your party leaves Midgar, your progress is blocked by a long marsh, with this huge snake lurking underneath. (artistic liberty: the snake resides in a morass instead of the sea.)
Meaning behind words/names
| Name/word | Meaning | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Aeris/Aerith Gainsborough | Aeris (US translation) is a play on Aesir, the collective name for the principal race of Norse gods. Rearrange the letters and you get ‘Aeris’. ‘Aerith’ (Japanese version) can be rearranged to spell ‘I Earth’. Another possible meaning for the word comes from the ancient Greek goddess ‘Eris’, the personification of strife and discord (’strife’, as in Cloud Strife). | Character |
| Barrett Wallace | Allusion to William Wallace (1270-1305) | Character |
| Bugenhagen | Reference to Johannes Bugenhagen (1485-1558), one of the “founding fathers” of the early Protestant church in Europe and a famous theologian and scholar in his time. | Character |
| Cait Sith | Reference to Cat Sith or Cat Sidhe from Scottish and Irish mythology. | Character |
| Heidegger | Reference to Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), German philosopher and Nazi Party member | Character |
| Hojo | Reference to family of hereditary regents to the shogunate of Japan (reign: 1199-1933) (see Hojo in popular culture) | Character |
| Jenova | Allusion to Jehovah, Hebrew god | Character |
| Lucrecia | Allusion to Lucretia, a woman who was raped in Rome by Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, the last Roman king. Shakespeare also wrote a poem about it, “The Rape of Lucrece”. | Character |
| Midgar | Named after Midgard, from Nordic mythology. It is an old Germanic name for ‘our world’. | Location |
| Midgar Zolom | Midhgardhsormr/Jörmungandr, from Nordic mythology. | Enemy |
| Safer Sephiroth | Sepher Sephiroth, ‘the book of countings’ from the Kaballah[11] | Boss |
| Sephiroth | Sephirot/Sephiroth/Sefiroth, from the ‘Tree of Life’ in Kaballah | Character |
| Tifa | Tifaret/Tiferet/Tifereth/Tyfereth/Tiphereth, from the ‘Tree of Life’ in Kabbalah | Character |
Footnotes
1. [^]In his book ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man‘, John Perkins argues that this is exactly how America operates across the world. He accuses the IMF and World Bank, among other international bodies, of intentionally ‘duping’ third-world countries into accepting massive loans for construction contracts, then leveraging them tenfold so that the country cannot hope to repay them. At this stage, it demands certain favors as recompensation for the debt they owe them – votes at the UN, establishing US military bases. According to Perkins, the IMF and World Banks are simply tentacles of a larger US corporatocracy. He gives several examples to support his claims in the book. It should also be noted that John Perkins, as the title suggests, is talking from experience – as he was a former employee of MAIN, a company that participated in this type of corporate mercantalism.
2. [^]It comes as a bit of a surprise to find out that Barrett was originally in favour of letting Shinra build a Mako reactor in his hometown of Corel, which was previously dependent on coal. Despite his best friends’ objections, Barrett maintained the view that coal had become outdated and that by harnessing Mako, the town would become prosperous beyond all recognition. As it turns out, he couldn’t have been more wrong – when an explosion occurs at the Mako reactor, Shinra blames it on a local rebel faction and burns the whole village down, including every man, wife and child.
With coal mining technology gone and the Mako reactor turning out to be a Chernobyl-style disaster, Corel is irreparably damaged. The remaining survivors (of which Dyne is a part of) shun Barrett, blaming him for his blind-eyed naivety. Barrett never quite recovers from this tragedy – with his wife killed in the village raid, he turns from technocrat to total luddite in an instant – leading the fight against Shinra through counter-terrorism.
3. [^]There is now an actual real-life counterpart to Midgar’s ’self-contained community’ concept – Dubai’s Ziggurat Project, capable of sustaining a “community” of up to 1 million, will be running ‘off the grid’ by utilizing the natural resources of the planet.
Link: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/08/25/ziggurat-dubai-carbon-neutral-pyramid-will-house-1-million/ (Inhabitat: ZIGGURAT: Dubai Carbon Neutral Pyramid Will House 1 MillioN)
4. [^]The comparison between Midgar’s social hierarchy and the Eloi/Morlocks of ‘The Time Machine‘ doesn’t entirely hold water when you consider that in the latter, both classes were effectively dehumanized – the Eloi being relatively docile and a mere shadow of a human being physically, while the Morlock was a grotesque spider-like creature representing the lower class people that were being forced to work for the more privileged, yet pathetically docile and stupid Eloi.
5. [^]Social Darwinist Oliver Curry predicts that the human species will eventually split in two – in effect making HG Wells’ science-fiction novel a reality.
The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said – before a decline due to dependence on technology.
The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.
Transhumanists figure it might not even take that long – their take on it is that humanity by 2030 will be split between the post-humans and the all-natural humans.
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm (BBC: Human species ‘may split in two’)
Link: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith092002.asp (National Review Online: The Transhumanists)
6. [^]It’s interesting to observe that Dubai’s ‘Project Ziggurat’ will feature a biometric security system based on facial recognition:
The security system will be based on facial recognition technique thanks to biometrics therefore all the inhabitants should feel safe in the Ziggurat.
Could it be that Midgar features a similar, yet less-advanced security grid onboard its transportation system?
Link: – http://devicedaily.com/misc/the-ziggurat-coming-to-dubai-a-carbon-neutral-city-for-1-million-people.html (Device Daily: The Ziggurat Coming To Dubai – A carbon Neutral City for 1 Million People)
7. [^]‘Little by little the reactors’ll drain out all the life. And that’ll be that.’, Barrett tells Cloud in the leadup to the reactor bombing.
8. [^]A real-life equivalent to this theory is ‘peak oil’ – the idea that we are rapidly running out of fossil fuels, bringing our way of life to an abrupt end.
9. [^]Barrett’s philosophy – actions speaks louder than words – is exemplified in the beginning when Cloud participates in a mission to destroy one of Shinra’s Mako-tapping reactors. Initially, Cloud does not share Barrett’s environmental concerns – he’s simply in it for the money – a trait of the typical gun-for-hire archetype.
10. [^]While I don’t wish to suggest that Leo Strauss, founder of the neoconservative movement, was publicly inciting false-flag operations, this line of thinking does seem to mirror his ‘Noble Lie’ concept – that the government/controlling oligarchy needs to impose noble lies on the general populace to keep them in check.
11. [^]See Sepher Sephiroth (PDF) – by Allan Bennett/Aleister Crowley
Link: – http://popularsymbolism.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/liber_d-7.pdf (Sepher Sephiroth (revised) – by Allan Bennett and Aleister Crowley)
Links
The Audacious Epigone: Final Fantasy VII review (spoilers)
The Final Fantasy VII Citadel: Game Information | Final Fantasy VII Name Origins
November 19, 2008 at 7:17 pm
[...] Vote Final Fantasy 7 (spoilers) « Popular Symbolism [...]
June 4, 2009 at 5:54 pm
[...] most people here will know, FFVII is steeped in Norse mythology, a decent read of that can be found here. Clearly the writers of FFVII were highly intelligent people to weave tales of Scottish/Irish [...]
July 21, 2009 at 2:30 am
I am in love with each of your writings. You’ve so far done taken two of my favorite games (Final Fantasy VII and Bioshock) and taken them deeper then I could have ever imagined. Again, well done.
July 21, 2009 at 2:44 am
NosLived: Be sure to read the following link/essay too (not written by me, most probably by a Russian writer):
http://off7.org/
Though it’s written in relatively poor English, he/she makes a stunning case for the possibility that Midgar was actually based on an actual ancient city of the past. Some place in Russia, Arkaim, if memory serves correctly. It had a similar hub/dome concept to that of Midgar.
Anyway, I am planning on playing Crisis Core someday for the purpose of writing another FF7 article – there are some things in the storyline I would like to talk about some more – but since I haven’t played that prequel, if I did a piece on it now I might be missing out on a lot of additional backstory.
There is a scientific theory both Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve share in common: that of the Mitochondrial Eve theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
This ‘Eve’ is supposed to be the matrilineal ancestor of all human beings – and apparently our DNA can be traced back to her. According to the theory (so far I’m not yet sold on the idea that it is actual fact) she supposedly originated from Africa.
Now, what do we have in FF7? Jenovah, which basically fits the description of the Mitochondrial Eve’ to a tee. In Parasite Eve, they don’t even beat around the bush – the whole story is about mitochondria, and the woman/villain is even called ‘Mitochondrial Eve’.
Anyway, this and other subjects related to FF7 I would like to explore in a future article.
September 16, 2009 at 7:40 pm
There are two major things ‘wrong’ with this essay.
Firstly, ‘Aeris’ is an artifact of the translation, not intended by the creators (bizarrely, even the earliest design docs render her name in roman characters first), so it’s unlikely that her name is intended to sound similar to the goddess Eris. Similarly, the ‘Aesir’ connection seems weak for similar reasons.
Secondly, ‘Tifa’ is short for Tiffany, according to the character designer, and revealed in one of the Ultimanias, so the Tifaret allusion is again not that likely.
Otherwise, the allusions are reasonably coherent, some being a bit too obvious.
Of course, You missed Nibelheim/Nifleheim and Cloud’s adoption of Fenrir as his emblem in the sequel.
September 17, 2009 at 12:15 am
Ryu: I know that ‘Aeris’ was a botched name courtesy of the translators – I have noticed they have retconned this and are referring to her as ‘Aerith’ now even in the US versions of Crisis Core. Given that, even in the WIkipedia Aerith article, it says it is most likely an anagram of ‘Earth’ with an I added.
What I do take issue with is the TIfa contention – Tetsuya Nomura can say all he wants about ‘Tifa’ just being a shorthand for ‘Tiffany’ – and that’s fine and well. But to assume that Tifa in no way refers to the Sephiroth Tifereth is to cast a blind eye on the game’s prevailing theme.
We have ‘Sephiroth’ – obviously named after the ‘tree of life’ concept from the Kaballah – this super-soldier that somehow seems to have convinced himself that, being a descendant of Jenovah, he is superior to all of mankind and he needs to remake man in his image.
Then we have Tifa – which, if you go with the Tifereth angle for a minute here, is one of the ‘Sephiroth’ in the Kabbalist Tree of Life-diagram, and conveniently, ‘Tifereth’ is the ‘Seventh’ Sephiroth – as in ‘Seventh Heaven’, the bar where she works at?
And to top it all off, the ‘Tiferet’ according to the Kabbalah is supposed to represent ‘beauty’ – wink wink, nudge nudge.
Here’s another article that dwells on this:
http://everything2.com/title/Meaning+of+the+Names+in+Final+Fantasy+VII
[quote]
#
The literal meaning of Sephiroth, however is “numbered”, which could be a reference to the fact that Sephiroth’s various clones have tattoos numbered on them.
As a last note, I would usually say that no actual people of Jewish background name their children Sephiroth, (or after a Sephiroth) since it would be like naming your child God, but strangely enough I do know someone named after a Sephiroth.
# As is, perhaps, Tifa Lockheart. I wouldn’t think of it if we didn’t already have Sephiroth, but since we do, I think that Tifa is perhaps a short form of Tifereth, which means beauty (which Tifa certainly is!), and which is the central one of the Sephiroth. It is the Sephiroth that balances out creation and destruction, which perhaps relates to one of the many themes in the game.
[/quote]
I think you have to pay in mind that often artists have both an esoteric and exoteric explanation behind the reason why certain characters were given a specific name or appearance – having a game where the entire thing revolves around a central character like ‘Sephiroth’ and then having another crucial character with the title ‘Tifa’ – which is not that dissimilar from Tifereth – and Tifereth being the ’seventh’ Sephiroth in the tree of life diagram (as in ‘Seventh’ heaven) and representing ‘beauty’ in Man – well, you do the math.
Here’s more on Sephiroth (the concept from the Kabbalah, not the character) – even one of Sephiroth’s final forms, Sepher Sephiroth, is straight from the Kabbalah again – read that document I link to in the article writen by Aleister Crowley:
http://popularsymbolism.wordpress.com/symbolism/sephiroth-in-popular-culture/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephiroth_%28Kabbalah%29
[quote]
Of course, You missed Nibelheim/Nifleheim and Cloud’s adoption of Fenrir as his emblem in the sequel.
[/quote]
This article was the first I posted on this blog, and admittedly it’s far from complete – it doesn’t even pretend to cover everything under the sun with regards to Final Fantasy VII – there is a lot of material to elaborate on.
There are very interesting parallels between Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve – the Mitochondrial Eve theory – Jenova and Mitochondrial Eve in Parasite Eve – that obviously seems to indicate Final Fantasy VII was originally intended to be like Parasite Eve, but because of the New York setting that would be deemed too much of a change of direction by the franchise’s standards, they decided to create a separate project called Parasite Eve. Notice that Sakaguchi or one of the creators of Final Fantasy VII even admits to this – that the original script was entirely different and that instead of Midgar the setting was New York – and the crux of the story was to be based around the Gaia theory. You can still see remnants of the Gaia theory (or at least large parts of it – when you meet Bugenhagen he walks you through it) in the story – Midgar in terms of an urban setting is obviously a lot more ‘advanced’ than New York in that it is a self-sustained city with biometric ID scanners, numbered residential area zones and a pyramid governing structure. So they decided to ‘fictionalize’ it all a bit and then throw in several allusions to Nordic mythology – which are well thought-out (even Midgar fits into this).
So FFVII was in essence a ‘compromise’ because they needed to have a new ‘Final Fantasy’ anyway, and of course totally dropping the fantasy theme and setting the game in New York would be a sure-fire way to alienate core franchise fans. (as it is, they already complained A LOT that Final Fantasy VII was TOO different, too futuristic – imagine if it would have looked like Parasite Eve)