- Kefka was probably in a position of enough power to arrange for the Emperor's "disappearance" and to have himself anointed emperor. There certainly isn't any evidence that the Emperor was a more powerful mage than Kefka was. The fact that the game explicitly depicts Kefka neutralising about twenty espers and absorbing their magicite without the slightest bit of effort indicates that he's easily one of the strongest mages in the world, and as the game never makes any reference to the Emperor being more powerful it is safe to assume that it's entirely possible Kefka was already stronger and just waiting for the optimum moment to dispose of the Emperor in the method requiring the least amount of effort and providing him the greatest amount of benefit.
- You apply questions to Kefka that you fail to apply to other villains. Sephiroth and Kuja built off other characters' actions as well; your drawing attention to the fact that they eventually became more powerful than those they built off is a double standard since Kefka eventually became more powerful than the Emperor as well. However, there is no indication that Sephiroth or Kuja were always more powerful than Jenova or Garland; indeed, the text of each game seems to imply otherwise. What would Sephiroth have done if Jenova had wrested control of his mind before he was powerful enough to control her? (Indeed there is strong textual evidence to suggest that Jenova is responsible for his mind snapping in the first place, and driving him to want to wipe out everyone on the planet so he could rule over their souls in the Lifestream - a brilliant gambit by Jenova if true since, had Sephiroth succeeded, it would've resulted in the fullest expression of Jenova's KILLKILLKILL instinct yet witnessed). What would Kuja have done if Garland had turned on him before Kuja was powerful enough to fight back? These are questions you ask of FFVI that you fail to ask of FFVII and FFIX.
- A character's raw physical/magical strength is an arbitrary characteristic to admire over the ability to improvise, an ability Kefka unquestionably demonstrates amply. If anything, I'd say Kefka is smarter than the other villains because the other villains spend tons of effort coming up with plans that generally fail miserably while Kefka expends a small amount of effort to cause the greatest destruction possible. Even if the Emperor was physically stronger than Kefka (a position for which there is no supporting evidence, although admittedly there's no strong evidence against it either; the text doesn't address it), and even if Kefka hadn't been planning to off him at the moment of greatest benefit to him from the start, the Emperor was smurfing stupid. It didn't occur to him that letting his dangerously unbalanced minion stand in the centre of the statues' mystical energy might not be a good idea? Even if he was ignorant of the statues' mystical power, that shows a lack of research on his part that's pretty retarded when messing with primal forces that have already reshaped the world.
Reply With Quote