Heroes Don't Need Plans

There is much irony involved in the Internet's hatred for Snow, not least of which is the fact he's the best XIII character by a country mile.

"Heroes don't need plans" might as well be the battle cry of most shounen anime protagonists and Final Fantasy is nothing if not a shounen anime.

The examples that stick out most clearly in my mind right now are how Zidane and the gang literally jump into a portal to another planet. How are they gonna get back? What would they do if a death squad waited for them on the other end? What would happen if there was no gravity or oxygen on the other planet? WHO CARES, LET'S JUST GO!


Then there's also how Tidus says, after he finds out what will happen to Yuna, that "I'll think of something!" Guess what? He never thought of anything. He and the others just kept bumbling along until the solution fell in their laps.

Because this is the Shounen - the FF - way. Act First, Think Never.

Actually, FFVIII could have used more of Snow's philosophy as literally every plan ever concocted in that game was beyond retarded. Which is why Seifer was the only smart person in that game. He didn't believe in plans either.

That's actually one of my biggest pet peeves about story telling in general. Have a plan? Got your trout together? Oh, you are obviously a bad guy.

Snow's main problem wasn't his "no plan" attitude. The problem with Snow was that he was a smurfing idiot who wasn't punched nearly enough by Lightning. Seriously, half the main party is insufferable. And yeah, VIII did it differently, which is something I like about it a lot.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

That's actually one of my biggest pet peeves about story telling in general. Have a plan? Got your trout together? Oh, you are obviously a bad guy.

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Ah yes, one of my most loathed parts of storytelling. Often enough it is practically expected for the 'heroes' to behave as complete imbeciles, and have everything fall into place for them.... Then be praised for their stupidity. While as VeloZer0 pointed, out anyone who is able to keep their thoughts together may as well be having a bright red flag with enlarged black text proclaiming 'I AM A VILLAIN' floating above their head.... As a planner myself, this trend is annoying when it comes to stories. It becomes outright infuriating with gaming which gives a feeling of the player doing the idiot hero's survival planning for him.

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Originally Posted by Fynn

Snow's main problem wasn't his "no plan" attitude. The problem with Snow was that he was a smurfing idiot who wasn't punched nearly enough by Lightning. Seriously, half the main party is insufferable. And yeah, VIII did it differently, which is something I like about it a lot.

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This is partly spite talking, but it's just sad that Lightning stopped at merely two punches.... Back on topic. Part of what I loved about FFVIII is that yes, they can actually plan! I always felt that the planning to assassinate Sorceress Edea alone put the game on a higher magnitude of organization compared to previous FFs.

Considering Forsaken Lover has gone far enough to call the planning 'beyond retarded', I must offer a rebuttal. For the sake of argument I'll be ignoring villainous plot armor or the anti-climax of things working out on disc 1. The failing point was not the plan being ignorant, otherwise they never would have made it up to infiltrating the area and trapping Edea during her parade... leaving the Sorceress a sitting duck. Hm, I can't recall all the types of ammunition in the game, but one with magic piercing properties doesn't come to mind... Given who we're dealing with that makes for an insufficient attempt at a killshot. Especially after Irvine choked to cost the operation the full element of surprise. The backup plan to brute force the situation actually went surprisingly well. Limit Breaks correspond to lowered HP as I recall, becoming most available in critical HP. Thus we can infer they at least gravely wounded Sorceress Edea.

So why back off? Assassinations are meant to be quick and dirty, annihilate the target before anyone can interfere. We could chalk it up to cut-scene incompetence, but I'd say the real problem was a severely wounded team leader and the impending horde of the Galbadian Military making an armed response to the assassination. Even with the inside job, ever since the gates went down it was a countdown to a trip to mookville followed by a guided tour to prison. While Squall was off in dreamland we no doubt missed any attempt at an extraction plan or another backup plan.

There are many reasons why the Sorceresses Assassination plan failed or why it was dumb. For starters, our heroes observed that the Sorceress can casually walk through solid material. She demonstrated this power twice right before their eyes. As such, closing her in a gate doesn't work.

You're also forgetting the Deling Abduction Plan, which was similarly full of holes and also failed.

There are probably more examples in the game as well.

Admittedly I had forgotten the tidbit of Edea demonstrating a phasing ability. *sighs* I admit your point there, and that honestly I've likely lost any right to argue after not playing the game for nearly ten years. Yet I cannot see it as a reason to admit that substituting a shounen-esque 'charge in, sword swinging is all we need' ploy would have worked any better for VIII as a whole.

The Deling Abduction Plan, now someone correct me if my memory has faltered again but the part which actually went wrong was the monster acting as Deling's body double. Questionable though the effort to forcibly re-junction the train car was, I recall that part working...

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

That's actually one of my biggest pet peeves about story telling in general. Have a plan? Got your trout together? Oh, you are obviously a bad guy.

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Okay, guys, I have a plan. What do you mean you have to stop me? But I just want to make the world a better place, and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids and that cursed chocobo/moogle/dog you fire off a whateverthesmurfthatthingis. Seriously, who designed this trout?

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Originally Posted by Anzai

The Deling Abduction Plan, now someone correct me if my memory has faltered again but the part which actually went wrong was the monster acting as Deling's body double. Questionable though the effort to forcibly re-junction the train car was, I recall that part working...

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Yeah, that's why the plan failed.

>>> In Snow`s case is "Heroes dont need brains"..:luca:

This is largely due to heroes usually being reactive. Most of the time they don't realize there is a problem until the villain acts first. It's better to build up a villain by making them proactive as opposed to being reactive, because then you just have Orcus on their Throne syndrome which frankly I feel makes for a poor villain. Let's face it, the best stories tend to have great villains/antagonist who drive the plot.

If the heroes are proactive and come up with plans that always succeed, then it diminishes the villain and the story's threat scale, unless the author pulls out some bulltrout plot point to give the villain an unexpected edge at the last minute but such tactics are cheap. Granted, RPGs tend to be a bit heavy handed on making the heroes doomed to fail until the plot reaches doomsday proportion a bit too much, so I can see the need for that to change or at least not feel as obvious.

In their defense, having the party make a perfectly rational plan in "earshot" of you, the player, and then execute it in a flawless manner, isn't particularly entertaining.
Phileas Fog and Sherlock Holmes are only worthwhile when something goes wrong.
Although the plan to steal Garnet did alright. Ish.

They can respawn or we reload the game. So no consequences means no need of a plan. :bigsmile: