Death, Eternal Life, and Final Fantasy Villains

A series of recent events has returned my thoughts toward the literary significance of the Final Fantasy videogames. My nieces and nephew received a Playstation 2 for Christmas, routine and repetitive duties at work called for some soul-lifting melodies courtesy of Nobuo Uematsu, and three weeks without home Internet access, while giving me an opportunity to get some book reading done, did invite the temptation to break out Final Fantasy XII and complete a few still awaiting side quests. I did spend more time reading than playing. Really.

Each game in the series, with an exception or two, has its own world, cast of characters, themes and plot. Each presents an anachronistic blend of futuristic technology, magic, monsters, medieval weapons and armor, and names referencing myriad mythologies from East and West. In pretty much all the games, though, the villain is marked by the desire to become a god, usually by means of some dark magic that involves mass murder and mass destruction. Chaos, the clownish and mad Kefka, the consummate soldier Sephiroth, Exdeath, the sorceress Ultimecia, the summoner Yu Yevon, Vayne Solidor: each, in his or her own devilish way, threatens the world in a murderous pursuit of false divinity. They seek eternal life through the death of others. The heroes, on the other hand, show real grace by their sacrifices of love and loving willingness to give their own lives. Aeris comes immediately to mind, of course, but I’m thinking also of Zidane, Balthier, Terra and others.

While organized religion plays into some Final Fantasy stories more than others, religiosity is a theme central to them all due to the aims and methods of the villains and the responses of the heroes. Indeed, the religion of Final Fantasy is not foreign to the story of Christianity. Where I hear the villains shouting, “We will be like gods,” I hear the song of sacred self-giving love in the struggled breaths of our heroes.