There is so much to cover in Final Fantasy X/X-2, that one article alone cannot possibly do it justice. So here is the first in a multi-part special on the two games. It may help to read the Zelda article first to understand some of the concepts and theories talked about in this article.
Table of contents
Themes
The Noble Lie, terror and Orwell
When the truth becomes a liability, should it be swept under the rug and be branded as false instead? Plato, Nietzsche, and Leo Strauss would argue it should - but if truth can not be quantified, then what does that mean for society? Can a society be 'just' if it is based on lies that a tiny few have concocted? In George Orwell's 1984, the ruling party in Oceania, Ingsoc, makes truth itself obsolete by constantly rewriting history and debasing the language itself.
Several people have offered differing interpretations of Final Fantasy X’s storyline. This blogger sees in Yevon an institution that follows Plato’s – and later, Leo Strauss‘ – doctrine to a tee: that the vast majority of the populace need inspiring, larger-than-life heroes and myths to function in society, for lack of their own frame of reference. That some of these beliefs may not be based on truth does not matter according to this rationale, for certain people are more privy to truth than others – the ‘Noble Lie‘ as it is known.
The writer then draws comparisons between The Dark Knight and Final Fantasy X, seeing in the former basically a Straussian neoconservative tale where the (mostly perpetual in the real world, as astutely observed by the writer) threat of terrorism leaves the vigilante Batman with no choice but to break the law, going so far as to spy on the entire population to find the Joker’s whereabouts. When Batman’s exemplary attorney sidekick and Gotham’s last great hope, Harvey Dent, turns evil when half his face is burned and his girlfriend is killed by corrupt elements of commissioner Gordon’s policeforce, Batman decides to uphold the ‘Noble Lie’ and turns the dogs loose on himself. In short, he allows himself to be blamed for the murders committed by Dent to preserve his [Dent's] legacy, even though both Batman and Gotham police commissioner Gordon know the ugly truth. Hence, according to the movie, truth does not really matter, and ‘truth’ must be constantly redefined and reinterpreted by self-appointed ‘wisemen’ to uphold societal order. Orwell, meet Plato.
Similarly, in Final Fantasy X there is also a looming threat – Sin, an apocalyptic monster that can destroy entire cities in the bat of an eye. Yunalesca, one of the founders of the religious institution Yevon, has long since decided that a ritual sacrifice of a summoner and her guardian each and every twenty years is surely preferable to finding a real solution to getting rid of Sin that might never be attained – because the former gives people ‘hope’, whereas in the latter society might disrupt altogether because of chaos. Conveniently, the institution that Yunalesca represents is also the one enforcing this noble lie on the populace through their own religion. (L Ron Hubbard’s “The way to make a million dollars is to start a religion” comes to mind)
Perpetual crisis
Spirans face a constant threat from Sin, the whale-like creature leaving a trail of destruction in its path. Yevon's leadership, instead of working on a way to stop it, have become so numbed by the misery wrought by Sin that they in turn have become indifferent to happiness and instead welcome the suffering Sin brings with it, and actively try to perpetuate it whilst putting on a faux altruistic show to an unsuspecting public
Worse, Yunalesca’s ritual guarantees perpetual strife – as is later revealed in the game. After a brief moment of peace and prosperity, Sin eventually comes back to life and returns to terrorize the inhabitants of Spira. Thus the problem is never truly fixed, the people are always in a state of crisis, in danger of losing their lives every moment. And for that reason they will always flock to the state for support, not realising that the state had a hand in this perpetual cycle of destruction. The symbiotic bond between this vicious cycle and the feeding of the state’s own power structure grows ever more strongly – for without Sin, there would be no need for a religious institution such as Yevon. Hence, Yevon’s priority becomes not so much to stop Sin, but to stop anyone from really stopping it.
This brings to mind the Israel-Palestine conflict – currently a hot topic because of the recent turmoil. It has been reported by UPI correspondent, Richard Sale, that Israel initially founded Hamas in the late ’70s as a counterbalance to Yasser Arafat’s PLO[1], the latter which posed a threat to Israel’s foreign and domestic policy at the time. Recent reports indicate that at times, when Israel wanted to strike down a peace deal, they would get one of their operatives inside the organization [Hamas] to strike at Israel, thus voiding the peace deal talks under the banner of ‘national security’[2].
A common thread is evident here: keeping people in a perpetual state of crisis, terror, fear and bloodshed, while the leaders, clearly implicated in the proceedings, keep the populace ignorant as to the real machinations of the conflict out of self-interest. George Orwell’s 1984 explains this governing structure quite succinctly in the ‘book-within-a-book’, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Even the Bin Laden-esque Emmanuel Goldstein turns out – depending on your interpretation of it – to be another cog in the Ingsoc political machine, or perhaps the founder of it all. Winston, secretly hating Ingsoc and therefore engaging in thought crime and rendering himself an enemy of the state, makes the false assumption that Goldstein must be the good guy in all this because the inner party focuses so much of their time demonizing him, when in fact Ingsoc uses a purported opposition leader (who may or may not even exist) to sniff out ‘thought criminals’ as well.
Yevon and Shintoism
San, Princess Mononoke's titular princess, has to stop an inconsequential queen from killing the rainforest, which threatens to upset the entire ecosystem. Tending to the environment is a common theme in Final Fantasy VII and X/X-2; more importantly, it is the one central theme that connects the two worlds (Gaia in FFVII, and Spira in FFX); more on that in a later article
Final Fantasy X’s religious themes seem to be a personal commentary on Shintoism, once Japan’s native state religion. Like Yevon, Shinto is a nature religion at heart – similar to the Gaea hypothesis. Its teachings (as far as it has them) instructs people to live in harmony with nature.
Unlike other religions, there is no central God to worship – everything, living to inanimate, has the potential to be a ‘Kami’ (a spiritual God – Shinto’s equivalent of ‘gods’). Japanese folklore features tons of Kami – ranging from mountaintops to rivers, from foxes to birdmen, and so on. To name but one example, Mount Fuji is considered to be a ‘Kami’, and is heavily featured on corporate logos in Japan.
While it is not big on taboos and dogma (on the contrary, Shintoists are pretty open to any religion, and usually incorporate it into their own – most religious people in Japan are both Buddhist and Shintoist, and the distinction between them has been muddled somewhat), it is very ambivalent on technology that could be potentially destructive to the environment. Hayao Miyazaki, the famous anime film director from Japan, seems to base almost all of his films on the concept of technology threatening to destroy the environment.
Likewise, Yevon tells its converts that Sin, the apocalyptic enemy that roams Spira and continuously destroys entire towns or cities, is man’s punishment for its use of machina – warfare technology, which is considered sacrilegious according to Yevon scripture. The institution then uses this belief to impose a strict ban on machina. This brings to mind feudal Japan, where the lower castes of society were not allowed to have any weapons or martial skills bar the samurai.
As the story progresses, you eventually find out that the leadership of Yevon does not take its own scriptures too seriously – and often employs machina to its own ends or stages conflicts with the aid of groups that are diametrically opposed to Yevon’s beliefs. This comes as quite the shock to obedient followers like Wakka and Lulu, but as no great surprise to Rikku, the Al-Bhed girl in the group’s party.
Al-Bheds are the heretics/outcasts of Spira’s feudal society. They do not adhere to Yevon’s religion and are not afraid to use machina. Because of Yevon’s ban on machina, however, all knowledge pertaining to how machina works has been lost. This entails that the Al-Bhed can use pre-existing machina, but can not develop their own or enhance it. Needless to say, Al-Bheds are shunned by the predominantly Yevonite society – and to add to the segregation, the use of machina contributes to the [Al-Bheds] having swirly green irises – more on that in an upcoming article.
Unrequited love
Yuna, the game's Shinto shrine maiden, makes heavy sacrifices in her quest to defeat Sin: emotionally (at one point she even considers an arranged marriage if it makes the people of Spira happy, thereby going against her unrequited feelings for Tidus), spiritually (finding out her faith is based on falsehood, the ritual killing of her Aeons saddening her deeply), and physically (the Final Aeon ritual, if enacted successfully, would have resulted in her death and that of her aeon - she has been raised from birth to be prepared for this self-sacrificial act). But in the end, nothing is as painful to her as losing her love interest when the threat of Sin has been subsided - by opening up her feelings, she has allowed herself to be emotionally scarred
When Final Fantasy games delve into the metaphysical realm, western gamers tend to tune out, missing the forest for the trees and either not getting the message at all or disregarding it entirely as inconsequential [to the main plot].
It appears that western gamers’ minds, moulded by years of Jungian archetypes observed in other mediums such as movies and television, have come to expect nothing more from stories than archetypes of good and evil, with different shades of grey inbetween. Likewise, they don’t seem to react too kindly to sad, reflective, non-conclusive endings – though it might be argued that the 40+ hour investment it takes to finish the game brings with it a certain entitlement to an emotional payoff.
Final Fantasy X, unfortunately for them, ended on a tragic note. Tidus recognized that in order to save Spira [and the ones dear to him], he had to sacrifice himself – because he is a partially imagined construction from a dream of the Fayths, that basically keeps them alive and prevents Spira from ever escaping out of its destructive spiral.
Yuna is not quite ready to part with her true love yet, so his departure comes as a massive shock to her. Her refusal to ’send’ Tidus – which seems to go against much of Yuna’s character seen previously in the game, where she merely does what is asked and expected of her – emphasizes this. In the end, eternal peace has been attained at the expense of great personal sacrifice, and a heartbroken Yuna is left with the unenvious task of pacifying [and uniting] Spira’s disenfranchised inhabitants.
Near the end of Final Fantasy X, Yevon as an institution starts to lose its grip on society and people grow ever more disillusioned with it. It isn’t after several Yevon priests start to expose the corruption going on within Yevon’s inner circles that the populace becomes so disgusted with Yevon that it disassociates itself with religion altogether.
This is not unlike Japan post-WWII. Emperor Hirohito, claiming to be a living ‘Ikegami’ and descending from Amaterasu of Shinto lore, was forced by the Americans to give up his divinity claims. The combined shock of the two atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the atrocities committed by their country in the war caused the Japanese populace to blame religion for their ignorance and proceeded to drop their faith altogether.
Shintoism has never really fully recovered its popularity percentage before the war – the current generation prefers Japan to be viewed as a secularist country, though there is still a significant percentage of people in the country that practice Shintoism/Buddhism. It’s not uncommon to see Japanese businesses holding religious Shinto ceremonies to coincide with the announcement of a new product line – be it cars or videogames.
Post-X, Yuna decides that she has sacrificed enough, hangs up her summoner’s robes and joins Rikku’s renegade outfit – modern-day pirates on the lookout for spheres[3].
Much of the demand for spheres comes from a want to explore and document Spira’s history, this knowledge being obfuscated for so long by Yevon.
The spheres in the game can hold audio-visual information (much like a hologram), and even pass emotions and ideas from the previous owner to the new one.
Footnotes
1. [^]The original article is no longer available on United Press International’s site, so make do with this transcript on the Information Clearinghouse.
Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10456.htm
2. [^]There are a plethora of similar articles, but here is one of the most recent ones.
Link: – http://www.daily.pk/world/middle-east/8827-cia-mossad-infiltrated-muslim-organizations.html (Pakistan Daily: CIA, Mossad Infiltrated Muslim Organizations)
3. [^]Editorial commentator Pauline Chan is critical of what she sees as an unsuccessful attempt to bridge the gender divide. While simultaneously lauding Yuna’s attempt to ‘liberate’ herself, she is not sure adopting skimpy clothes and joining a ragtag ‘Charlie’s Angels’ group is the best way to go around it.
Truth be said, the marketing campaign did seem to focus on the girls’ sex appeal.
Link: – http://flux.blogs.com/gamedesignandculture/2008/09/final-fantasy-x.html
Links
Link: – Cronotica – The Dark Knight’s Willing Deception, or Die Truth Die
