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Hello all, I'm new here and wanted to dive into the CoN society.
So, Maybe we could all discuss the themes of FF6?
I always thought that some of the themes other than the friendship thing, was finding love, dealing with the past, and acceptance.
Wonderful themes, which make the game universal, wouldn't you agree?
*sighs* Games like this remind me of Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

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Empty treasure chests are the bane of my existence!!

Hm...you know, the more I think about it, the more, despite its changes of the formula, VI seems to be part and parcel to the earlier games in the series. The main overarching theme in I-V, it's always seemed to me is the victory of light and darkness over the forces of nothingness. This is exemplified best in III and V, of course, where the final boss is manifestations of 'the void' out to engulf everything, but I think it works well for VI as well, really. Despite scaling back the plot to deal more with characters than the epic templates of the earlier games, the heroes are still represented as this glimmering 'light' that emerges after the world has ended. Kefka is a nihilist and so he fits into the model for 'the void' very well despite being, at his core, just a power-hungry man; sometime between the Floating Continent and the end of the game he's warped more to just desire the end of everything, regardless of meaning or stature. And these 12 (14?) adventurers, just average people with above-average hope, manage to dethrone Kefka, at this point devolved into an almost primal force of nothingness. Thusly, though the story has changed from "substance vs. nothingness" to "man vs. man" it still has the same trappings as before, just in a more human guise.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

You're right, I never thought of it that way. It's more like a "traditional" fantasy story in that sense, that it's about the triumph of light and good over darknes and evil.

Though they started in this game to somewhat reverse those roles, what with Kefka's final form.

Dealing with one's past is definitely a theme in this game, for a lot of characters. This even goes for ones who run away from their pasts, and merely dream about them...

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I agree with trismegistus about the triumph over evil, light/dark thing~
That kind of stuff is so...Cool! Reminds me of oodles of fantasy stories.

Thinking about this stuff makes me want to go play the game...

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Empty treasure chests are the bane of my existence!!

I think you simplify this a bit, though, trismegistus. FFVI's general plot may have followed the evil villain trying to reduce the world to servitude/nothingness, but the great themes of the game are found in the characters and in the events taking place within that overarching plot. The real themes are more along the lines of moving beyond the faults of the past (Locke, Celes, Shadow), to understand loss (Cyan, Setzer) and to learn to love (Terra).

The basic plot for a ton of RPGs, those before and after FFVI, all boil down to one crazy evil person/thing that wants do destroy everyone/thing that is eventually stopped by the awesome good guys. That isn't what makes the games special: it's the story of how everything unwinds, the events along the way, the world it takes place in and the developing personalities involved.

This post has been edited by Death Penalty on 8th October 2010 02:02

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Quote (Death Penalty @ 7th October 2010 20:55)

I think you simplify this a bit, though, trismegistus. FFVI's general plot may have followed the evil villain trying to reduce the world to servitude/nothingness, but the great themes of the game are found in the characters and in the events taking place within that overarching plot. The real themes are more along the lines of moving beyond the faults of the past (Locke, Celes, Shadow), to understand loss (Cyan, Setzer) and to learn to love (Terra).

The basic plot for a ton of RPGs, those before and after FFVI, all boil down to one crazy evil person/thing that wants do destroy everyone/thing that is eventually stopped by the awesome good guys. That isn't what makes the games special: it's the story of how everything unwinds, the events along the way, the world it takes place in and the developing personalities involved.

Oh sure. FFVI represented a huge leap forward in the series' storytelling and especially its characters, I just wanted to point out that not only it was the first 'modern' Final Fantasy game, it was also the last 'classic' Final Fantasy game. It was more deep and mature than what came before it, but at its core you can still find the "light vs. void' theme that drove the plots of the Sakaguchi-directed games. VII is an excellent game, but it has little in common with the games that proceeded it; likewise V has nothing do to with VII and on. VI is the only game in the series that I think could fit in either the modern or the classic camp, and I think that's one of the reasons for its continued appeal.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."

That's an interesting point, the idea of nothingness being the enemy. In the final battle, Kefka wants to make a monument to non-existence, and then, the tower below him contains enemies that are images of himself. By that point, it's almost like Kefka doesn't exist anyways. It's interesting to think about, and man, I've thought about the story so much I feel I could write a book about it. It's hard to focus with all the different areas that can be talked about. And I do think it's a mix of old and new, in more ways than one. The newer ones have a different style than the older ones, not only in design, but in characterization. FFVI does seem to have quite a bit of what the modern ones have, but not too much.

But what Death Penalty says is right. The great thing about the story is that it's plot is simple but interesting, but it allows for each of the characters to grow. So, it alows so many different areas to explore, thematically. It's almost hard to talk about.

Edit

Oh, and I just read a chapter in Final Fantasy and Philosophy (The book's more like Final Fantasy VII and Philosophy, but it's still interesting, lol). Anyways, It's about whether Kefka is insane. Has anyone else read it?

This post has been edited by BlitzSage on 8th October 2010 03:17

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