Beyond the Fantasy: Getting off the train once and for all

[kotora]

On the artistic merit of Final Fantasy VII, and why it is found only after disregarding 75 percent of the game.
by kotora in collaboration with Jiro and Jowy

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The case: a wrecked story

Final Fantasy VII is a modern day tragedy, allowing us to take the fight to everything we hate about capitalism and win. Revolutionary for its day, it provides us with an experience of mimesis and catharsis that few games have been able to emulate. But there’s a catch, another tragedy in the game’s meta-narrative: after leaving Midgar, the plot quickly derails and becomes a horrible train-wreck. Most of Final Fantasy VII is garbage that only detracts from the rich experience found in the opening sections.

I would like to present two theses about the value of FFVII as a work of art:

• No other game in the Final Fantasy series provides a more pure reflection of capitalist society than FFVII does, and as such, provides us with the perfect cathartic experience
• To get to FFVII’s true value as a work of art, we have to disregard everything after the initial Midgar section. Final Fantasy VII, as a work of art, begins and ends with Midgar.

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things,
but their inward significance.”

- Aristotle on art

Mimesis, catharsis and Greek art philosophy

Some of you might be familiar with the ancient Athenian philosopher Plato and his allegory of the cave. According to Plato, what we consider to be the real world is nothing but a projection of the real world of Ideas. He considered art to be an imitation of a world that is already an imitation of a pure, ideal world. The old Greeks called this mimesis. Furthermore, he didn’t have a great impression of the popular theater tragedies of his time. Plato thought that the all the violence and emotions would have a negative influence on people, somewhat similar to those arguing against violence in video games today.

His pupil, Aristotle, was slightly more positive, and prescribed the function of catharsis, or emotional cleansing, to art: because it imitates the real world, art allows us to experience the violence and drama in it, freeing us from these feelings in our real world. People would go see a tragedy in a theater and experience all the feelings of sadness and anger demonstrated by the characters, and then be relieved of these feelings after the play. By experiencing them in this fashion, people were freed from negative emotion. I would like to make a case for Midgar being the centrepoint of the game’s ability to grab our attention and channel our feelings throughout the game.

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This is FFVII.

"Then why doesn't everyone move onto the plate?"
"Dunno. Probably 'cuz they ain't got no money. Or, maybe..."
"'Cuz they love their land, no matter how polluted it gets."

- Cloud and Barret on the mind of a slum dweller

Life in Midgar

In Final Fantasy VII's Midgar, life below the ‘pizza’ is by no means easy. The plate above the densely populated slums blocks direct sunlight and causes the air quality to drop drastically. Mako reactors have been draining the fertility from the soil. On top of these environmental issues, citizens have monsters to contend with. It’s a rough view from the outside and the idea of an economic class-system is readily apparent. In Midgar, the upper classes live literally above the lower classes!

The sectors are hardly a photorealistic depiction of real world slums. But through the setting and the NPCs, most of whom have only one or two lines, the world comes alive.

What the game offers us is a world in which oppression, pollution and poverty have become a way of life. We see evidence of human trafficking, sexual slavery, prostitution, theft, and murder. But, despite the horrors that comes with life in the slums, the dwellers go on with their daily lives. Citizens are warm and friendly to each other, and many of the residents have a positive outlook on life. There’s different ethnic communities, entrepreneurs operating shops and scavengers collecting what they can from the upper level of society’s waste. There’s even a lively gay community.

Despite the horrors that come with life in the slums, the dwellers go on with their daily lives; the slums are a vibrant community solely because of the spirit of the inhabitants. You would find a similar thing if you were to walk into a slum anywhere in our world, be it Rio, Karachi or Cape Town. The problems and the people we encounter in the slums are the symptoms of an unequal society where money and greed rule. Even as the player characters, we get dragged into some of these evils without being able to change anything. Don Corneo may be gone, but the conditions that create men like him still exist.

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It’s not hard to imagine Cloud running through these streets. Just like in Midgar, all the slum dwellers have to do is look up and see a better world they’ll never be part of.

FFVII offers no solutions for the societal problems of Midgar. Will destroying Shin-Ra improve the lives of these people? Will it take away the plate above their heads, will it root out the rampant crime, poverty and unemployment?

No. But fighting Shin-Ra gives us the illusion that we might make things better.

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Not this guy. That's a derailment to discuss another day.

"Oh boy!! Corel sure has gone to pot. It used to be a famous coal
mining town!"
"Got no job... I can't even show my face. 'Bout all that's left
for me is to just live in this hole all day."

- Bulldozer guy on how the system has made not just jobs, but people redundant

Shin-Ra as a perfect representation of capitalism

This is because Shin-Ra itself is a representation of this system, the very idea of capitalism dressed up as an energy company. Throughout its history, the corporation has expanded until it became the system itself.

As a company, Shin-Ra has continually re-evolved and expanded into whatever is most profitable. Originally a small weapons manufacturer, Shin-Ra escalated into having its own personal “defense” force before making the shift into Mako energy. Even with the profitability of Mako, Shin-Ra still develops other technology -- cars, aircraft, etc -- which are used to further increase their profit; Shin-Ra wants to be your number one choice when it comes to all essential and luxury items. Shin-Ra is not just a monopolistic company. Shin-Ra is monopoly. It holds absolute economic power in the entire world of FFVII.

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Cloud in front of the Shin-Ra HQ. The symbolism is quite obvious.

It built Midgar, it created the economic conditions that led to the existence of the slums, and it is responsible for the oppression of the poor and powerless in the world, as well as destroying the planet by exploiting it for energy. Shin-Ra is not a classical evil for the sake of being evil. Shin-Ra’s evil lies within its economic logic: all its actions are towards only one goal, maximizing profits. Even the search for the mythical ‘Promised Land’ is seen as nothing but an investment with near-unlimited returns. What better villain than one that represents the very system of exploitation in our world? Yet somehow, the game’s developers felt like that wasn’t enough.

Amano’s logo for Final Fantasy VII shows us the meteor coming to destroy the planet. But FFVII’s meteor hasn’t always been the threat. Shin-Ra’s work was inevitably leading to the destruction of life on the planet. The meteor is just another materialisation of this idea, because it is a tangible, more immediate sense of danger, an insurmountable threat to the planet’s existence that’s right in everyone’s face. Is the existence of Meteor even necessary? Perhaps the game needs a physical threat that can actually be destroyed? Is destroying Shin-Ra, or rather capitalism, too impossible a task for the player to handle?

"Why do you want to fight me?"
"You seek the Promised Land and Sephiroth."

- Cloud explaining to Rufus he has to derail the story

The artistic merit of FFVII

It is this representation, this very idea around which the plot is built, that elevates FFVII from a video game to a work of art. No other game in the series has managed to reproduce these qualities! There have been some attempts at showing inequality and poverty in other games in the main-entry FF series, like the divide between Zozo and Jidoor and the politics of imperial hegemony in Final Fantasy VI, or the issues of discrimination and social exclusion in FF9 (the black mages) and FF10 (the Al Bhed and Guado) . But none of the other games come close to giving us such a powerful impression of an exploitative society. It’s not because it is necessarily accurate, but because the representation of the ideas resonate so well with our own. We get to fight the very idea of capitalism and feel like we won!

That is, until Sephiroth comes in and hijacks the plot, to the rejoice of fanboys and fangirls worldwide. That’s when the plot completely derails - from the moment he is introduced, the game turns into a wild goose chase, one which is given no rationale or explanation until much later. Chasing Sephiroth and Jenova: they’re distractions that the story doesn’t need. That isn’t a bad thing in itself - stories can take different directions.

But in this case, they do not enhance the plot. They change it, rewriting Final Fantasy VII in a less creative way, and pandering to the teenage fans who wanted to see another typical JRPG villain. We went from saving the world from an idea of evil that we all understand and see in our daily lives, to saving the world from a villain who doesn’t even have any motives that are relatable for humans - and with that change, the perfect mimesis of our capitalist society falls apart, only returning briefly during plot segments related to Shin-Ra Corporation’s exploits.

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We save the game's value as a work of art.

"But you gotta understand that there ain't no gettin' offa this
train we're on, till get to the end of the line."

- Barret on why everybody went down with the plot as it crashed and burned

Final examination of the wreck

Mimesis is not something that defines whether anything is a work of art - but it certainly is the case for FFVII, because there is no artistic merit in the rest of the game. No other RPG, nay, no other video game has given us such a simple, but impressive and clear view of our capitalist society. FFVIIs dialogue provides the bare minimum to carry a story. There is very little to no depth nor development to most characters. But that is not important to the quality of the game. It presents us a very distilled, pure story about capitalism. This is an experience that Squaresoft - now Square Enix - has not proven to be capable of emulating or repeating.

Unfortunately, this representation is shoved into the background the second Sephiroth is introduced, a pretty-haired bore not even in control of his own actions, a puppet driven entirely by a powerful alien entity. The story is warped into a magical goose chase, and while we are treated to various obscure and exotic locales, imagery and plot elements, the experience as a whole feels vapid and shallow, because there is nothing behind it. Action and excitement exist, but their purpose is superficial - it exists because it entertains, not because it has true purpose or merit. Art becomes kitsch. In order to take back the art, we have to reject everything that happens after the Midgar portion of the game, especially the Sephiroth plotline. If we do this, Final Fantasy VII stands as an impressive piece of art, retaining relevance to modern issues and challenging ideals in a unique format.