Kefka Sucks. Kuja Is Better

[The Man]

Ghastla didn't have other people around who would have been perfectly willing to follow any orders he gave them without "enhancing" them with their own sociopathy? And couldn't have done the stuff that would require advanced magical ability himself? There's absolutely no evidence to support either of those inferences. He's the ruler of an empire. It stands to reason that there will be plenty of people perfectly willing to do whatever the emperor tells them. That's the whole point of a frakking empire.

Furthermore, I'm quite certain that Celes explicitly cites Kefka's actions as a large part of her reason for her betrayal of the Empire in at least one translation of the game I've come across, so keeping Kefka around not only accomplishes nothing for him, but actually directly harms his interests by causing one of his best generals to defect to the enemy. It's entirely possible that, had he thrown Kefka to the side like he would have had he been smarter, he would never have had to manipulate the party in the first place.

[Wolf Kanno]

For the most part, I'm staying out of The Man and The Crystal's debate. Though, The Wolf Kanno does want to point out one thing.

Kefka only uses manipulation two times in the game that we know of. 1) When he tricked the Returner's into believing Celes was a traitor in Vector. 2) When he manipulated Leo's loyalty to Gestahl so he could could kill him. So he does do a bit of manipulation though its more for the short term goals. Not that most villains don't fall into this trapping if you think about it.

This is a difficult topic for me, I love both of them. From an objective point of view, I feel both have qualities that either one is lacking or one does better over the other. My other issue is that personality-wise, I like one of them over the other. Which is why I voted for him cause personality can overcome minor flaws. I guess I could break this down into categories...


AmanoKuja.jpg VS. 6-kefka-a.jpg



Origin story:
Kuja - Kuja is an experimental doomsday weapon who was unfortunately a created with a very strong ego that made him have a mind of his own. His goal is to defeat the nearly god-like Garland and take over Gaia for himself. This gives Kuja a somewhat sympathetic backstory as the player can relate to the call of freedom, but I often feel that people forget about the part where he wants world domination as well. Its not so much that Kuja wants freedom as much as he doesn't want to be the middle man anymore.

Kefka - First experimental Magitek Knight who was driven mad by a flawed process. Nothing else is known about Kefka before then officially speaking.

Verdict: Kuja wins this cause it adds to his character, but I would like to take a moment and be the apologist here and say that I feel too many people make a bigger deal about this than it needs to be. Kefka's backstory is simple, but I wouldn't say its weak. It gets the job done though. Backstory is great for building character but often times it can be counter-productive (like Sephiroth whom Nomura still tries to tell fans he's pure evil) and unless the past is important to the narrative, it really doesn't matter what happened before.

Ability:
Kuja is an artificial being with incredible magic powers given to him to cause as much death and destruction as he can. One of his signature spells ironically enough is Flare Syar which debuted in VI. Kuja is very manipulative and crafty and uses his brain more than his brawn to win his battles. He manipulates Brahne and creates the Black Mages to win his fight. Eventually he goes all brawn once he gains Trance though. His power allows him to destroy the surface of Terra and gives him enough power to wipe out Gaia's Crystal.

Kefka is a human being with incredible magical power given to him, which he uses to cause death and destruction for the sheer hell of it. Kefka is a bit unique in the FF series, he's the first main villain who is featured through most of the story and is not the most powerful being in his world. In fact he does get his ass handed to him once and he's not above running away to annoy people. As the story goes though, Kefka grows stronger. Going from running from danger to single handedly wiping out a force of Espers strong enough to level most of the Imperial army and the reinforcement espers as well. He eventually becomes a god that carves continents and burns towns to the ground. Kefka is more sneaky and crafty than a plotter. Using what he needs to simply get his way.

Verdict: Both are somewhat equal by the end, personally I like Kefka more cause you actually watch him grow. He's not the typical super powerful badass who could have wiped the party out whenever he wanted to but waited until he gained his godlike powers to try, which Kuja sadly falls into. Yet, I feel Kefka's growth shows better escalation in the stories conflict. Kuja also doesn't have his powers long enough to really use it, whereas Kefka got to at least rule a dying world for awhile, so his power is built up more in WoR for me. Sadly both of them are pretty easy boss fights... Still I'm giving this to Kefka cause he was a nice change of pace from the norm.

Personality:
Kuja is a narcissist with a flair for the theatrics. He's at times cold, calm, and utterly ruthless, playing the usual manipulator role of previous villains, but once he emerges as the main villain, he gos for more over the top theatrics and homicidal tendencies. He also has a charming way of talking like an egotistical thespian (though Dissidia goes a bit too far...) which gives him more personality than most of the villains in the series.

Kefka is a sociopath with homicidal tendencies. Kefka is loud, not very subtle, sometimes pretty funny, sometimes pretty corny, incredibly bloodthirsty and ruthless. Kefka is not above making the player laugh and it's sometimes difficult to fathom he's not just a comic relief villain like Gilgamesh... which changes once you watch him torch a few cities for the hell of it, murder his own men, destroys the planet, and rules it like a god out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel.

Verdict: This one is a toss up... Kuja becomes more interesting as his backstory is revealed and justifies his personality, but he really takes off when he learns of his own mortality and goes off the deep end. This allowed Kuja to become both sides of the villain coin, world domination and destroy it all for the hell of it. Kefka is just a treat to watch on the screen but I give him points for also being one of the few villains to actually get some villainy growth as well. The Kefka met at the end of the game is very different from the one in the first half, more regal and mocking. Kefka's gorged on his lust for destruction so much that he started to find life utterly meaningless, and instead opting to wipe out existence. This I find is a great contrast to his more impulsive self in the earlier parts, and shows an intellectual and philosophical ideal that is frankly difficult to argue against. I's an 11th hour revelation but i shows he hasn't just been causing misdeeds while he rubs his black mustache for the year he was a god. For me, its a tie.

Swimsuit:
Kuja wears a metal thong and large armored knee high boots, with a white cap and shoulder armor exposing his rock hard abs. He has Sephiroth's hair and Kefka's feather, and is not so bad to look at. Though I can only imagine how much the outfit chafes him and his rock hard nipples when he's in colder climates.

Kefka wears a pachwork of different fabrics that have gone through a threshing machine and then throws on some pretty makeup.

Verdict: Let's face it, these two, combined with Seymour and Ultimecia are FF's fashion disaster squad. You would laugh at them, if they hadn't already ripped out your vocal cords. Granted Kuja gets an interesting fur form in Trance and Kefka sprouts some wings and gains a toga later on. They both fail.

Rep Sheet:

Kuja:

- Tries to kill Zidane when he was child.
- Manipulates Brahne into going to war, resulting in the death of countless people and the collapse of all four of Gaia's kingdoms.
- Creates a race of living weapons from the leftover souls of Gaia, which he then uses to kill more people from Gaia
- Gives Brahne the magical know how to extract and use Eidolons
- Participates in the massacre at Burmecia
- Kills Brahne and her naval fleet.
- Destroys Alexandria with Bahamut.
- Kidnappes Eiko and tries to extract her Eidolons.
- Lies to the Black Mages to get them to help him.
- Captures the party and holds half of them for collateral to get the other half to get something for him.
- Betrays Garland and kills him while he weakened after his battle with Zidane.
- Destroys Terra using the souls of everyone he's killed as fuel to power his Trance mode.
- Tries to destroy the world.

Kefka:

- Helps the Imperial army subjugate the Southern Continent
- Takes Terra's free will away.
- Trains her and uses her to murder people at his discretion. Including several imperial soldiers.
- Torches Figaro Castle
- Poisons Doma, killing almost all of its population and even Imperial troops.
- Leads the attack on Narshe
- Drains and nearly kills Ifrit and Shiva, brutally beats them, and leaves them to die in a pit.
- Manipulates the Returners into believing Celes is a traitor.
- Tries to destroy the Blackjack with the metal arms.
- Torches Thamasa, and attacks the populace.
- Kills Leo and his own men.
- Wipes out an armada of Espers
- Betrays and kills Gestalh
- Destroys the planet with the Warring Triad, which also unleashes several monsters and causes untold amounts of casualties.
- Kills all the adults in Mobliz and wipes most of the town off the map.
- Attacks cities with Light of Judgment and rearranges the surface with this spell.
- Tries to wipe existence out.

Verdict: Kefka has a much more personal touch in his game than Kuja. While Kuja certainly amasses quite a body count in his title, a lot of it is indirectly his doing. By which I mean, the devastation of Gaia's war is his doing through his arms trade, convincing Brahne to go to war and giving her the power of the Eidolons to win, yet Kuja makes sure to stay out of the limelight. He's like Zemus and Golbez who cause untold destruction by manipulating others. Kefka is physically responsible for his crimes, rarely working through other people to cause mayhem and generally, I feel he gets some extra points from having his own allies fear and loath him, which is incredibly rare in FF villains if not RPG villains as a whole.

Both have impressive rep sheets, but I appreciate villains who don't mind getting their own hands dirty, as well as the fact that Kefka did most of this for his own twisted pleasure as opposed to being a means to an end. It just feels more personal and malicious to me, whereas Kuja could hide (and does) hide behind Brahne's greed and the fact he was created for mass murder by Garland. Kefka doesn't have much of an alibi, nor does he hide behind some Freudian excuse for his actions.

Overall - Kuja is a well rounded villain and for the most part, I feel he has something to offer to anyone looking for good villain qualities. Kefka is more specialized, but he's incredibly well made for it as well. If you don't feel you need all the well rounded traits then Kefka is certainly more appealing. In the end though, I feel it comes down to fear and Kefka will trump most of the villains in this department because most of the villains are more concerned about their own goals, if you don't play into them, you will most likely be passed over. If Kuja kills you, you are most likely just collateral damage for some larger goal or were indirectly killed b some agent working towards Kuja's goal. Kefka on the other hand would most likely kill you on the spot and without provocation. He would just do it for his own amusement and is ultimately unpredictable and that I feel makes him a forced to be feared.

Though I hate using Dissidia as an example since its story is terrible. It should be noted that Kefka is a dangerous force within the Chaos warriors, and what makes him so dangerous is how indiscriminate he is about causing destruction and chaos. He is seen even by his own allies as a threat to them, as he manipulates Kuja, Sephiroth, Cloud, and Terra. He's not out for some power grab like most of them are or waiting for some inevitable end like the others. He's attacking and manipulating all sides for his own personal amusement, and I feel this makes him a scary person cause he is absolutely unreasonable and unpredictable.

In the end, I feel Kuja is a great villain cause he has all the qualities that makes a great villain and so objectively I feel he's the better villain. Kefka is an amusing and terribly frightening murderous creature and subjectively, he has all the qualities I see in a great villain so I have to side with him.

[ReloadPsi]

Now that you mention it, Kuja does obliterate an entire planet and bring many civilizations to their knees (by proxy in multiple cases but meh.)

I still find Kefka far more interesting, however.

[TaylorS]

Kefka is the best portrayal of a true psychopath in an RPG I've seen. No conscience, enjoys inflicting suffering on others for the fun of it, impulsive, delusionally grandiose, etc.

He's not some superhuman monster, he's all too human, and his similarities to real-life psychopaths is what makes him so terrifying, because we have all run into people who show traits of Anti-Social Personality Disorder, we can relate to him through out own experience, he is not some empty trope of a stereotypical villain.

[Christmas]

I think Kuja will get cold easily during Winter from his X-2 Rikku like outfit. So Kefka is better cuz he is alway ready to receive Santa and get his gift.