Final Fantasy and Philosophy: The Ultimate Walkthrough (17 page)

As Nietzsche saw it, otherworldly religions encourage us to deny our natural instincts in favor of an artificial moral system. This moral system asks for strength to be weak, which is “just as absurd as demanding that weakness represent itself as strength.”
⁷
Yevon gives solace to the people that they would be free from the monster Sin, but then it denies them the use of the best possible weapons. Yevon infuses the population with the humility that teaches them that they are powerless to defeat Sin themselves; instead, they must put their faith in the martyrs, the Summoners.

The Maester’s Lie

As it turns out, Yevon has been preaching that faith in the teachings has the potential to eliminate Sin forever, but it knows that this is false. The subservience of the population, their piety, and their austere living have been in vain. According to Yunalesca, Sin is eternal, and it is doubtful that humanity will ever be able to attain the purity necessary for the eradication of Sin. Yevon is based on a lie.

The deception runs deeper than the absence of a Promised Land. A duty of the Summoner is to send the dead to the Farplane, the place where the spirits of the dead reside. If this task is not accomplished, then it is possible that the spirits that remain will become Fiends and terrorize the living. Although the task is extremely important, it is not carried out. Rather, it is revealed that the ruling council of Maesters contains the unsent; even the supreme Maester Kinoc is unsent. Auron remarks in the temple at Bevelle, “So this is Yevon’s true face, they betray their own teachings.”

This revelation proves devastating to Yuna and Wakka. Lulu remains resolved until the confrontation with Yunalesca, where she is informed that the religion is useless in defeating Sin. If it is all a lie, does it mean that everything we have said so far is worthless? Not necessarily. Machiavelli, for instance, did not concern himself with the veracity of religion. When the Dominican friar Savonarola tried to establish a theocracy in his Florence, Machiavelli lauded his accomplishments. Still, he criticized the monk for trusting in otherworldly powers to protect him, rather than forming his own standing army. Thus, when Savonarola became a nuisance to the papacy and Alexander VI branded him a heretic and sent troops to arrest him on trumped-up charges, Savonarola was defenseless.

Machiavelli believed that religion can serve a political purpose, as well as a spiritual one. As he recalled in
The Discourses
, “Numa, finding the people ferocious and desiring to reduce them to civic obedience by means of the arts of peace, turned to religion as the instrument necessary above all others for the maintenance of a civilized state.”
⁸
Ultimately, it does not matter whether a particular religion is true, but rather whether the people
believe
it to be true.

The Romans, Machiavelli noted, made extensive use of religion in motivating the population to civic loyalty. Consider how Scipio Africanus handled Hannibal’s invasion. The people of Rome felt that the city was lost and began to abandon it. Scipio, seeing that there was still hope, forced the Roman citizens to swear an oath that they would stay and defend it. In doing so, the Roman Republic held together, eventually defeating Hannibal and razing the city of Carthage. The religiosity of the Romans was such that the people were more afraid of breaking their word than they were of transgressing the law.
⁹
Although we know little of the development of the Yevon theocracy, we do know that it unites all of the people of Spira, despite their differences in race (Guado, human, Ronso), attitude, and culture. Uniting the people under the banner of Yevon was more effective than any laws or use of force could have been.

As a political tool, religion is one of the most effective instruments in instituting and maintaining social order. The Romans were not concerned with whether the law of Rome made it illegal for them to flee, but once they swore an oath to their gods, they were compelled to stay. In the beginning of the game, Tidus asks what the penalties are if Yuna violates the teachings. The response is that “she could be excommunicated.” For religious people, excommunication is a punishment without peer. Not only would being excommunicated deny Yuna the ability to make the pilgrimage, placing the responsibility for Sin’s continued existence squarely on her, but she would also be shunned from Spiran society. As an outcast, her only recourse would be to join the heretical Al Bhed. Yuna might be strong enough to join the heretics, but the average Spiran wouldn’t be—the principles have been so ingrained into their way of life that even as pariahs, they would still be compelled to follow the principles seeking forgiveness. Yevon binds Spira in a way that nothing else could. For Machiavelli, this was one of the most important aspects of religion, and although other methods can serve the same purpose, none of them are as effective as religion.

The End of Yevon

“For today little people lord it: they preach surrender and resignation and prudence and industry and consideration and the long etcetera of the small virtues.”
¹⁰
Thus speaks Nietzsche’s wandering prophet Zarathustra. The small virtues of humility and patience rule over our world, while in Spira the religion preaches an intellectual and technological limit. But for what purpose? We know that Yevon has lied to Spira: the Spirans have been promised that through piety, devotion, and their faith in the Summoners, the threat of Sin, their perpetual fear, will be vanquished. We know that in the end, it would have meant nothing. Yevon can stop Sin for only a short while; it inevitably returns, and all the while the people of Spira are kept in fear, unable and unwilling to fight on their own.

The only people whom Yevon sanctifies in Spira are the Summoners who have sacrificed themselves to rid the world of Sin. It is only in death that a person can achieve any kind of glory. The suffering of the living is only temporary, and death is the only true release from the miseries of the world. And so individuals do not seek to better themselves in the here and now, but instead they suffer the existence of Sin and tolerate the oppressiveness of a religion that violates its own precepts.

Is the solution the abolition of Yevon? The answer isn’t so easy, and here Machiavelli and Nietzsche would disagree. By the end of the story, Yevon cannot possibly remain. Its very power in harnessing “the original and basic feeling [fear] of man” is no longer applicable.
¹¹
The central aspect of life that kept the religious of Spira faithful has been destroyed. For so long the people have lived in fear of the monster, and without it their fate will be unknown. Nietzsche would see this fate as an opportunity for the people to move forward, transcending a life of service and humility, beginning instead to live for themselves, following their will, achieving worldly glory.

As a political philosopher, Machiavelli would fear for the people of Spira because the religion that united them is now irrelevant. The outcome of this could be a state of chaos, with factions rising against one another, perhaps resulting in the same type of war that caused the creation of Sin in the first place. The security of the people could be in grave jeopardy. Looking past that fact, Machiavelli would accept that the fetters of religion have now been broken. Either a new, compelling, and useful religion has to be found, or the new leaders would have to be quite exemplary in order to rule a people who no longer have a religion to unite them. In that case, theories regarding the conduct of rulers and government, like Machiavelli’s, may find a new popularity.

Concerning the rest of us, whose sin is an internal idea, rather than a creature that swims in the sea, our two philosophers would have similar prescriptions. We must live our own lives now, rather than in fear or hope of the next life. So long as we concentrate on being humble, meek, and lowly, this life will pass us by. The principles and ideas that we must value in this life should be the ones that favor ourselves.
¹²

NOTES

1
This
Art of War
is not to be confused with the Chinese general Sun Tzu’s book of the same name.

2
Niccolò Machiavelli,
The Prince
, translated by W. K. Marriot (New York: Everyman Library, 1992), p. 70.

3
This theory also makes up a major theme in Machiavelli’s
Art of War
.

4
Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morals,” in
The Basic Writings of Nietzsche
, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 2000), p. 473.

5
Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morals,” p. 476.

6
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Ecce Homo,” in
The Basic Writings of Nietzsche
, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 2000), p. 768.

7
Nietzsche, “On the Genealogy of Morals,” p. 481.

8
Niccolò Machiavelli,
The Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy
, translated by Leslie J. Walker (New York: Penguin Books, 1973), p. 139.

9
Ibid., p. 140.

10
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
, translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Books, 1969), p. 287.

11
Ibid., p. 302.

12
Special thanks to Alice Canaday and Laura Wysocki for comments and recommendations, as well as Ann Awad for the dialogue notes.

PART FIVE

OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THE GAME SO IT NEVER ENDS

12

HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN: CLOUD’S EXISTENTIAL QUEST FOR AUTHENTICITY

Christopher R. Wood

Final Fantasy VII
demarcates a rather peculiar place within the historical development of the
Final Fantasy
series. Putting aside the technological capabilities of the then new PlayStation console,
Final Fantasy VII
is known for leaving the first-time gamer with an experience that is nothing short of profound. The game’s complex plot and intertwining side stories culminate in an adventure as entertaining as it is epic, with a lush and diverse world for us to explore at our own pace and by our own will. And while this world, with its high technologies and physics-defying magic, is surely nothing short of fantasy, in the end, the gamer is presented with an experience that, in many ways, mirrors that of our own experience in the not-so-fantastic real world.

Much of this is due to the memorable mannerisms of the game’s primary characters. As we play through each of the game’s three discs, we encounter a number of colorful personalities whose hopes, fears, goals, and desires, however diverse, are revealed to be like our own. From an innocent and seemingly simple flower girl living in the slums of a harsh and desolate super-city, to a short-tempered and headstrong man with undying aspirations to become an astronaut, there is nothing tremendously unbelievable about the game’s main characters that might prevent us from relating to them on a deep and sympathetic level. All of the game’s playable characters are accompanied by a rich backstory that not only explains their involvement contra the malevolent Shinra corporation but, more important, helps to drive their actions and aspirations just that much closer to home and into the hearts of the game’s players.

Cloud Strife,
Final Fantasy VII
’s main protagonist, however, comes to us as somewhat more of a mystery. Passive and detached, Cloud tends to speak only when spoken to and rarely offers us anything beyond a series of short, arrogant remarks. Even well into the game’s first disc, we’re told very little about Cloud’s history (other than his vague childhood ties to Tifa Lockheart and his self-proclaimed status as an “ex-SOLDIER”), and as the game’s story progresses, much of what we learn about him tends to confuse, rather than illuminate. Heck, at times we even have reason to believe that the Cloud we
think
we know may be nothing other than a laboratory-grown creation of the crazed Professor Hojo—a supposition that might help us justify his cold and apathetic attitude. Putting aside the mysteries surrounding Cloud’s inception, however, there are ample reasons to argue that the Cloud we come to know is, in the end, really no different from you or me. Indeed, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) would likely agree that Cloud is, perhaps above every other character in the game,
all too human
. Cloud’s struggle to overcome personal crisis can be interpreted along Nietzschean lines as nothing less than a true expression of the human spirit.

From the Midgar Train to the World at Large: Thrown into Existence

Existentialist philosophers such as Martin Heidegger (1889- 1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), and the aforementioned Friedrich Nietzsche concerned themselves with the trials and tribulations of the everyday existing human individual.
¹
Although not all existentialist philosophers share the same views regarding the nature of the human being, most of them agree on a number of undeniable facts of existence common to all individuals.

First and foremost, our initial births into the world are never of our choosing. We are, as Heidegger said so eloquently, “thrown” into the world with virtually no guidance as to what we should be doing, let alone who we are or what we should strive to become. Just as Cloud is thrown off Midgar’s train into his first mission at Mako Reactor No. 1, we, too, are thrust into the world of existence without warning. This “thrownness,” as scary as it may sound, is nevertheless a fundamental part of our very
being
: we cannot help but find ourselves submerged in a complex world with others, and, try as we may, the world is never something from which we can ever escape (astronaut jokes aside).

To be sure, as Heidegger argued, our connection to the world is not merely a simple relationship between a subject and an object (that is, between myself as a
person
to some
thing
out there that exists separately from me), but, rather, the world is a complex series of meanings that we find ourselves
in
at all times. To speak of the human being without reference to his or her world, then, is essentially to commit the error of trying to understand the human individual without looking at what it even means to
be
human in the first place. It is for this very reason that Heidegger often characterized being human as
being-in-the-world
and why a distinct understanding of this very intimate connection between the individual and his or her world provides one of the keys to living an authentic life.

It should go without saying that the “world” of
Final Fantasy VII
holds supreme value to most of the primary characters of the game. The core members of AVALANCHE, in particular, hold their planet in high regard as the very platform of existence. Indeed, the early missions to destroy Midgar’s eight Mako reactors are carried out on the premise of not only saving human lives, but of saving
all
life in general. For Heidegger, however, the term
world
was not necessarily synonymous with the “planet” of
Final Fantasy VII. Planet
, as we come to learn through Bugenhagen’s “Study of Planet Life,” signifies a distinct living entity with its own life force; a sort of cosmic life that supports and produces all terrestrial lives. To Heidegger, the term
world
is of much more general import, understood primarily “as that ‘
wherein
’ a factical [human being] as such can be said to ‘live.’ ”
²
This distinction, though, has little bearing on the deep connection between the characters of
Final Fantasy VII
and their planet, as the death of the latter will most certainly bring about the end of the former.

Our earliest in-game experiences with Cloud reveal, however, that the intimate relationship between himself and the world is ultimately of little importance to him:

Barret: Little by little the reactors’ll drain out all the life. And that’ll be that.

Cloud: It’s not my problem.

Barret: The planet’s dyin’, Cloud!

Cloud: The only thing I care about is finishin’ this job before security and the Roboguards come.

And later:

Tifa: The planet’s dying. Slowly but surely it’s dying. Someone has to do something.

Cloud: So let Barret and his buddies do something about it. It’s got nothing to do with me.

It is clear that Cloud’s own connection to the world—indeed, his own connection to the planet as such—is being ignored completely. His only concern, it would seem, is to be duly paid for his contributions to AVALANCHE’s bombing missions. Although one might be tempted to ask what value his money might hold in a world without life, it is nevertheless obvious that Cloud is, at least initially, in complete denial of his own existence as
being-in-the-world
. But how did Cloud come to such a position? Is he justified in holding such a view? Perhaps more important, can his view
change
?

Is God Dead? Nietzschean Nihilism and Mako Morality

Our initial experience of being “thrown” into the world at birth is by no means the only cold fact of human existence. Most existentialist philosophers also assert that the human world is, by and large, a
godless
one and that the human individual is ultimately alone in the universe. Nietzsche, in particular, is famous for his proclamation that
God is dead
and that it just may be time to elect a new leader:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, comfort ourselves? What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must not we ourselves become gods simply to seem worthy of it?
³

The passage above is arguably also one of Nietzsche’s most misunderstood. Nietzsche is
not
, for one, claiming that God once
lived
in any sort of physical sense, only to have been somehow killed off by his followers. Rather, he is asserting that God has become
obsolete
and should no longer be recognized as providing us with any sort of real guidance in the modern world.

The importance of Nietzsche’s proclamation is manifold. First off, it forces individuals to come to terms with their own deep-seated reliance on values that are not of their own making. This abrupt recognition, Nietzsche thought, would assuredly lead mankind into a state of
nihilism
, that is, the belief that no objective values are possible and that life as we know it is essentially devoid of meaning. After all, if God is the creator of all values and God is dead, then the foundations of our current values are revealed to be mistaken at best or completely arbitrary and groundless at worst. The crisis of nihilism, however, is not entirely negative for Nietzsche. In fact, it is only through our acceptance of God’s absence that the individual can finally become liberated and learn to create values that are truly his or her own: for so long as we’re looking toward an
otherworldly
God for the solution to our earthly problems, we’re turning away from our
worldly
problems as such. That being said, the death of God ultimately signifies the opportunity for the human individual to re-fulfill the role of God by taking full control over his or her own domain and creating new values that are purely our own. Of course, one must also be continually aware of attempts made by others to create a new and equally false God from the rubble of the old—or, as in the case of Sephiroth, of attempting to achieve godhood itself!

The notion of the death of God and its accompanying state of nihilism is prevalent throughout
Final Fantasy VII
. The game’s opening cinematic itself is notable in this regard for portraying a vast and starry sky sharply contrasted against the hustle and bustle of the streets of Midgar. Through the loud noise of the city, a quiet Aeris Gainsborough emerges from an alleyway, and despite her vivid surroundings, we can’t help but think of her as being alone in the world. Indeed, her world is one of
nihilism
. Crime and desolation run rampant in the heart of the city, and very few seem willing to ponder whether a better lifestyle exists, choosing instead to live out their dreary lives much like common cattle confined to their own Mako-powered cages. As Jessie explains shortly after the first mission at the No. 1 Reactor,

The 8 Reactors provide Midgar with electricity. Each town used to have a name, but no one in Midgar remembers them. Instead of names, we refer to them by numbered sectors. That’s the kind of place this is.

Even Cloud, in what proves to be a rare display of empathy, agrees that Midgar presents us with “pretty unsettling scenery” and, given what we ourselves see throughout disc 1, it’s difficult to disagree.

Jessie and the other members of Barret’s ecoterrorist organization, AVALANCHE, however, are determined to provide the city—indeed, the world as a whole—with a solution to the growing problem of their modern Mako-powered nihilism. By destroying the world’s Mako reactors, AVALANCHE hopes to liberate humanity from its dependence on the new “god” of Mako energy and force people to recognize their own value as the inhabitants of a thriving (not to mention
endangered
) world. Arguably, Barret and company are calling for the revaluation of values proposed by Nietzsche and the rebirth of a society founded on self-created values, not on values that have been forced on us by the oppressive powers of the Shinra corporation. Of course, the liberation of mankind and the creation of new values cannot happen solely through the actions of a select few: all people must come to recognize their own capacity for change, indeed, their own capacity for
freedom
.

Condemned to Be Free?

More so than any other existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre highlighted the paradoxical nature of human freedom. Indeed, most of Sartre’s existential works can (and should) be read as descriptions of the effects that absolute freedom might have on the concretely existing human individual. Like Nietzsche, Sartre believed that the individual is born into a world free from the reins of God and that we, as human beings, are ultimately left to our own devices not only in creating values for ourselves, but also in determining what we truly are. For Sartre, this condition was best summarized by the statement “existence precedes essence.” Unlike common household items or tools that are created by us in order to fulfill a specific role or purpose, human beings are peculiar insofar as they come into existence without any such predetermined essence or reason for being. We can easily conceive of the essence of Cloud’s Buster Sword, for example, as an object used to inflict damage on enemies, but when it comes to defining the essence of Cloud
himself
, the question becomes considerably more difficult for us to answer. Is he a former inhabitant of Nibelheim? A childhood friend of Tifa? An ex-SOLDIER? A member of AVALANCHE? A sworn enemy of Sephiroth? An impersonator of Zack?