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14 - Final Fantasy IV and Cecil's Dark Knight Redemption · Mythic Mind Games

0:03
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind Games, an extension of
0:06
Speaker 1: the Mythic Mind Fellowship, which pursues wisdom on the paths
0:09
Speaker 1: between primary and secondary worlds. I'm doctor Andreel Snyder, and
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Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're here. All right, welcome back as
0:19
Speaker 1: we continue with our Final Fantasy series, now with Final
0:21
Speaker 1: Fantasy four, which is I mean we've already alluded to
0:24
Speaker 1: this or actually outright said it that this is a
0:26
Speaker 1: huge step forward in the storytelling of the series. This is,
0:31
Speaker 1: I woulday, the first time we really have a story
0:35
Speaker 1: and it had a really meaningful sense. I mean two
0:37
Speaker 1: kind of moves in that direction but before. It is
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Speaker 1: definitely a hugely forward to the point where it's kind
0:42
Speaker 1: of hard to do a very succinct summary of the
0:44
Speaker 1: plot real quickly. But I mean, in very broad terms,
0:49
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's interesting that you know, you start
0:51
Speaker 1: off kind I'm on the wrong side of things, that is.
0:56
Speaker 1: Is it cecil or cecil? What do you guys say?
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Speaker 2: I don't know if I even parnassic consistantly. I'm gonna
1:02
Speaker 2: say cecil for now.
1:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I always said cecil when I was a kid, but
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Speaker 3: I believe in the the the City of Games. They say, Cecil,
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Speaker 3: So I'll go with that.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, that's pretty much how I've bet. I've had
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Speaker 1: Cecil in my mind ever since I was a kid,
1:16
Speaker 1: but I think Cecil is appropriate anyways. So you know, Cecil,
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Speaker 1: you're your main character. Yeah, he's headed off. He's like
1:23
Speaker 1: the head of this airship division and they go and
1:28
Speaker 1: they they attack this town to seize the water crystal,
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Speaker 1: and you know, he feels pretty uncomfortable about all this,
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Speaker 1: about how he's treated these apparently innocent people, and in
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Speaker 1: in voicing that the king who it became strangely malevolent
1:41
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Well he's not a big fan
1:43
Speaker 1: of this. And so you know, he sends you off
1:45
Speaker 1: on a mission along with your your buddy who stood
1:48
Speaker 1: up with you, Caine, that the dragoon, and then in
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Speaker 1: this this mission you end up kind of unknowingly launching
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Speaker 1: this bomb attack on this other town. And so it's
2:00
Speaker 1: just you're just you're not comfortable very much with with
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Speaker 1: who you are, and so you've get that that wrestling
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Speaker 1: moving forward, and you know, eventually you come to the
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Speaker 1: realization or you're told rather that Cecil needs to turned
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Speaker 1: away all you know, all together from his his dark
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Speaker 1: night ways way of life and embrace the light become
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Speaker 1: a palade, and you get this redemption arc here, which
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Speaker 1: I think it's it's significant and we'll we'll return back
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Speaker 1: to that. But you know, as you're you're you know
2:27
Speaker 1: of dealing with the mystery of you know what, what
2:30
Speaker 1: is the real force behind this change in your kingdom?
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Speaker 1: You know, you come to find that that the king
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Speaker 1: has been really replaced by a monster. There's a lot
2:40
Speaker 1: of brainwashing going on as what you think is gonna
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Speaker 1: be the chief antagonist. You know, Goldbez is pulling all
2:45
Speaker 1: these strings. You know, there's some tower of Babel imagery
2:49
Speaker 1: he's trying to reach to the moon. And then at
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Speaker 1: the very end, in final fantacy fashion, you learn that
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Speaker 1: the main villain is not the main villain and that
2:59
Speaker 1: there's a greater demonic entity that that's pulling the strings
3:02
Speaker 1: of the main villain, and you get that Star Wars
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Speaker 1: moment again where you find out that the guy who
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Speaker 1: you thought was the main villain was actually your brother,
3:12
Speaker 1: which is not very much unlike what they did in
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Speaker 1: Final Phantasy two. But so, I mean that's more or
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Speaker 1: less the basic plot. There's a lot that happens that
3:22
Speaker 1: we'll kind of get into. But so, so, tell me
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Speaker 1: about your experience with this game, David, why don't you
3:31
Speaker 1: kick us off?
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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, this is my I'd say this is my
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Speaker 3: second favorite Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy seven came along
3:40
Speaker 3: and knock this one off the throne for me. But yeah,
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Speaker 3: I got it for Christmas in nineteen ninety one when
3:46
Speaker 3: it came out, and I played through it, I think
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Speaker 3: in like four days over Christmas vacation, and I think
3:52
Speaker 3: it took like thirty six hours the first time, and
3:54
Speaker 3: then I played through it again and it only took
3:57
Speaker 3: me like sixteen hours to play through it again. But
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Speaker 3: I've definitely finished this one more times than any other
4:03
Speaker 3: Final Fantasy game. But I still distinctly remember just the
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Speaker 3: first time I was playing at the scene where Cecil,
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Speaker 3: you know, he's all distraught. He goes to his room,
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Speaker 3: turns the lights out. You know, he lays in his
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Speaker 3: bed and he's just wrestling with what he did in Massidia.
4:21
Speaker 3: And then Rosa comes in to visit him, and you know,
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Speaker 3: just through subtle sprite movements like him turning away and
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Speaker 3: the musical cues and stuff, they just it was a
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Speaker 3: surprising amount of emotion that they were conveying in a
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Speaker 3: video game, really for the first time to me, you know.
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Speaker 3: And then the next morning he and Kane meet and
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Speaker 3: then they march out of the castle gate while the
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Speaker 3: fanfare's playing, and I was just blown away by the
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Speaker 3: storytelling capabilities when I was a kid.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a very cinematic experience, potential literary
4:55
Speaker 1: experience to being on how he frame video games, which
4:58
Speaker 1: I know it's ongoing question, but yeah, I mean even
5:03
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, I mean going back in you know,
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Speaker 1: I just played it pretty recently, and it's just it's
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Speaker 1: incredible what they're able to do from a storytelling angle
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Speaker 1: in such an old game. Like you said, I mean,
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Speaker 1: relying on the sprites and the limited technological capability that
5:18
Speaker 1: they had that I mean, they're they're telling a story
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Speaker 1: that easily rivals many story driven video games today. I
5:25
Speaker 1: mean even I would argue many books and movies today,
5:28
Speaker 1: which is it's pretty pretty remarkable. And I think that's
5:31
Speaker 1: obviously one reason why this tends to be a fan
5:33
Speaker 1: favorite of those who have played the older games.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess for myself, I played this one
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Speaker 2: like many of the family. SI's a bit late. I
5:44
Speaker 2: played it after six and after Krono Trigger, which both
5:49
Speaker 2: resonated with me a bit more in story terms, and
5:51
Speaker 2: then I played fan Basy four on the Game Boy
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Speaker 2: Advance remake along with several of the others in the series.
5:58
Speaker 2: And then later there's a DS remake of this one
6:02
Speaker 2: as well that's in like Basic three D that I
6:06
Speaker 2: also played, though they're very very similar in storytelling, But
6:11
Speaker 2: having replayed just a little bit of it recently, I'm
6:14
Speaker 2: reminded of just like once again, I know I've mentioned
6:17
Speaker 2: this on some of these games, but it just moves
6:19
Speaker 2: so fast, like the plot beats get like just a
6:23
Speaker 2: few minutes apiece to happen, and then you're off doing
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Speaker 2: the next thing. So it's very brisk, and I actually
6:29
Speaker 2: appreciate that, but it's also striking how ambitious the story
6:34
Speaker 2: is for its time. Like we've just we're talking about
6:39
Speaker 2: Fumac one through three, all of which are trying to
6:42
Speaker 2: experiment with story, but they're still all kind of staying
6:44
Speaker 2: on mostly the Basic Side four is just playing with
6:47
Speaker 2: a ton of stuff, and it just feels like they've
6:50
Speaker 2: got wild idea after wild idea going on, Like you
6:55
Speaker 2: start with a redemption story which is pretty decently told,
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Speaker 2: I feel for Cecil, and then suddenly, yeah, you find
7:04
Speaker 2: out that Baron is being taken over and mind controlled.
7:10
Speaker 2: Then you're going after the crystals, and typical final fantasy fashion,
7:14
Speaker 2: you're going to this weirdly technologically advanced tower. All of
7:17
Speaker 2: a sudden you end up learning there's like four more
7:21
Speaker 2: crystals in like an underworld, and like there's like an
7:23
Speaker 2: underside to the Tower of Babble, like deep underground, so
7:27
Speaker 2: you're doing all that stuff there. Then suddenly you're going
7:29
Speaker 2: to the moon and you've got the Darth Vader moment
7:32
Speaker 2: with Golbez and yeah, it's just like it is like
7:38
Speaker 2: firing on all cylinders on imagination, and so there's just
7:41
Speaker 2: like a constant fun to it, but also like tons
7:45
Speaker 2: of characters where it's trying really hard to do something
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Speaker 2: interesting with all of them, lots of themes of heroic sacrifice.
7:54
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's really interesting how much is trying to do.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and for that reason that you know, even though
8:01
Speaker 1: it's very story driven, it couldn't easily be translated into
8:05
Speaker 1: something like a movie. You would take a series to
8:07
Speaker 1: deal with it. There is just so much stuff that happened,
8:10
Speaker 1: so many moving parts, moving characters that just come in
8:12
Speaker 1: and come out, usually when they go out there dying
8:15
Speaker 1: some a rowgue death. It's just one after another. They're
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Speaker 1: just people just sacrificing themselves, which I mean, obviously there's
8:24
Speaker 1: an important moral Christian lesson that can be drawn from that.
8:28
Speaker 1: Not that I need to, like, you know, beat that
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Speaker 1: over the head. It's kind of obvious, but I mean,
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Speaker 1: I just think that it's it's I mean, it's a
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Speaker 1: good game, Like it's got redemptions, got sacrifice. There's a
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Speaker 1: lot of just really wholesome stuff that drives the narrative.
8:41
Speaker 3: And this is the first game that Takashi Tokita was
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Speaker 3: the lead designer on, and he went on to be
8:50
Speaker 3: a director of like Chrono Trigger and some other games
8:52
Speaker 3: like that, But he had originally wanted to be a
8:56
Speaker 3: stage actor, I learned, and so I think some of
9:00
Speaker 3: that kind of comes through in the way they're storytelling.
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Speaker 3: And this apparently they had to cut out the majority
9:07
Speaker 3: of their intended dialogue for the game just because of
9:10
Speaker 3: memory limitations on the Super Nintendo, so they they made
9:15
Speaker 3: sure that what they removed was all kind of superfluous,
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Speaker 3: you know, just color dialogue and not the actual I
9:24
Speaker 3: think they were ambitious than they actually were able to
9:26
Speaker 3: do it. Oh did you lose me?
9:29
Speaker 1: Oh?
9:30
Speaker 2: Was it me that you lost for a second?
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Speaker 1: No? Yeah, yeah, David froze for a little bit.
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Speaker 3: Okay, did we miss any of my brilliant I think
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Speaker 3: the last little tail end of what.
9:40
Speaker 2: You were saying.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think that their plan was even to
9:46
Speaker 3: be more ambitious than they were able to pull off,
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Speaker 3: just because of the Super Nintendo's limitations, because they had
9:51
Speaker 3: to cut out so much dialogue that they had intended.
9:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
9:55
Speaker 2: That is an interesting point too, and it's something we
9:57
Speaker 2: don't think about right now, like because we think of
10:00
Speaker 2: text as being very easy to store, but this was
10:03
Speaker 2: still in an era where every bite mattered and they
10:06
Speaker 2: had to be very careful how much text they included. Like,
10:10
Speaker 2: once you got into the next generation after this, text
10:12
Speaker 2: was not an issue completely negligible. You could have as
10:14
Speaker 2: much as you want. But yeah, and I think that's
10:18
Speaker 2: another thing that struck me when I was replaying some
10:19
Speaker 2: of it recently, was that it feels like the scenes,
10:24
Speaker 2: although I did say they go very fast, like compared
10:27
Speaker 2: to coming off of like three, it does feel like
10:30
Speaker 2: the scenes are really trying to have a little more
10:32
Speaker 2: meat on them and a little more drama, And you
10:35
Speaker 2: can see the dialogue is trying really hard to condense
10:38
Speaker 2: as much presentation as it can while still giving the
10:43
Speaker 2: characters a little bit more time to breathe. So, yeah,
10:48
Speaker 2: it's so I'm sure the creators really appreciated when they
10:51
Speaker 2: got to the PlayStation era and they had space for
10:54
Speaker 2: all the texts that they wanted.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that what makes this different
11:00
Speaker 1: than even two, which is, you know, fairly story driven,
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Speaker 1: is that the characters are actually distinct and they really matter,
11:08
Speaker 1: like the personalities matter. Then you know, looking at at
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Speaker 1: Cecil's redemption arc, you know there's a lot of mythological
11:15
Speaker 1: elements tied into that that redemption. I mean, that's not
11:18
Speaker 1: totally dissimilar from some of the stuff that I tend
11:20
Speaker 1: to say on the Star Wars conversation. You know, like
11:23
Speaker 1: when he has to go to the Mount Ordeals, so
11:27
Speaker 1: he has to go through this trial by ordeal, which
11:30
Speaker 1: you know, it's a very medieval type of thing, and
11:33
Speaker 1: you know, when he's there, he encounters something like the
11:35
Speaker 1: spirit of his father, which connects him with the light
11:40
Speaker 1: and that. But before he can, you know, leave that,
11:43
Speaker 1: he has to first do battle with his own dark self, right,
11:48
Speaker 1: and he does that not by fighting, like the only
11:50
Speaker 1: way to get out of that sequence is by not fighting.
11:53
Speaker 1: And so you get this death and resurrection kind of
11:55
Speaker 1: idea here that you know you have to you know,
12:00
Speaker 1: to the spirit of your father, and out of that
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Speaker 1: you kind of lay yourself down, only to be renewed
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Speaker 1: in the right kind of way. So now you're adequately
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Speaker 1: situated to fight against the forces of evil, because darkness
12:12
Speaker 1: can't drive out darkness. You need the light for that.
12:14
Speaker 1: But to attain to the light, you have to undergo
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Speaker 1: a kind of sacrifice of yourself. And so there's a
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Speaker 1: lot of very rich symbolism, a lot of nods to
12:24
Speaker 1: various mythological concepts that are put into this redemption arc
12:28
Speaker 1: and just it's a very sophisticated way, which again it
12:31
Speaker 1: is pretty remarkable given where we are in the gaming history.
12:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and early on in the game, you know you
12:40
Speaker 3: have the you've mastered the dark Sword because the king
12:44
Speaker 3: wanted you to, but there are a lot of enemies
12:46
Speaker 3: there before you become a paladin that your powers just
12:52
Speaker 3: don't work well on them, like your sort will do
12:54
Speaker 3: one damage on it because you're you're fighting evil creatures
12:58
Speaker 3: with this evil power, which I thought was a pretty
13:00
Speaker 3: neat you kind of have to allow on your companions,
13:03
Speaker 3: and you kind of feel a little of the tension
13:06
Speaker 3: that the character is supposed to be feeling.
13:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the point I was going to make,
13:10
Speaker 2: because that was like the last part I was able
13:12
Speaker 2: to play before today. But yeah, like it's like what
13:17
Speaker 2: Andrew was talking about with symbolism, Like the symbolism goes
13:19
Speaker 2: all the way down to the game mechanics to where
13:22
Speaker 2: you feel that like sense of like I need to
13:25
Speaker 2: change in order to be able to be effective and
13:28
Speaker 2: what I want to accomplish. And even because like every
13:33
Speaker 2: in a lot of the older fountains and games, like
13:35
Speaker 2: every job class has its own unique like option you
13:38
Speaker 2: can pick and battle, and for the Dark Knight it's
13:41
Speaker 2: darkness which hits everything for some damage on the field,
13:45
Speaker 2: but it takes away from your health. So you have
13:48
Speaker 2: the sense even in just how the Dark Knight class
13:51
Speaker 2: works that Cecil is playing as like that it's actually
13:55
Speaker 2: like hurting you and it's taking from your soul to
13:58
Speaker 2: be able to be in that role.
14:01
Speaker 3: Right, And in the original Super Nintendo version, just as
14:05
Speaker 3: a piece of trivia, you didn't have those abilities. I
14:08
Speaker 3: think they took them out because they thought Americans would
14:11
Speaker 3: would make their own character die and not understand what happened.
14:13
Speaker 3: But it's been back in every other version since then.
14:16
Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, that was that was the easy version
14:18
Speaker 2: change then. I never played that version.
14:20
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, the American version was. Yeah, a lot of
14:25
Speaker 3: things were made easier in that you do a lot
14:27
Speaker 3: more damage, they do a lot less to you. There's
14:30
Speaker 3: only like one item that you have to buy to
14:33
Speaker 3: cure you of any ailment, and it's really cheap, and
14:36
Speaker 3: all of the hidden passages are made actually visible and
14:39
Speaker 3: things like that, Like they thought we were really, really
14:42
Speaker 3: dumb and really bad at these times.
14:43
Speaker 1: That's pretty condescending.
14:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Hilariously, if you ever played the DS version,
14:47
Speaker 2: they go in the opposite direction. They make it much harder.
14:52
Speaker 3: I think I may have interrupted you, Andrew, Oh.
14:54
Speaker 1: No, no, I I was just going to say that
14:57
Speaker 1: kind of roughing up this this Dark Knight element here
15:00
Speaker 1: that you know, they make the point that before you're
15:02
Speaker 1: equipped to fight the enemy without you have to first
15:05
Speaker 1: master the enemy within, which I think that that's a
15:08
Speaker 1: significant spiritual as well just general philosophical concept. You know,
15:12
Speaker 1: you can't clean up the world till they clean your in.
15:14
Speaker 3: The room, right.
15:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:16
Speaker 3: I love the themes of redemption and repentance and forgiveness
15:21
Speaker 3: that are in it. Like at one point, Cecil washes
15:26
Speaker 3: up on the shore of Messitia, you know, the city
15:29
Speaker 3: that he sacks at the beginning of the game, and
15:34
Speaker 3: the people in town obviously don't like you, but they
15:36
Speaker 3: still send you on this quest to become a parliament
15:40
Speaker 3: and send a couple of their disciples basically with you
15:44
Speaker 3: to do it, which I think is is pretty neat.
15:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was something that I also thought was interesting
15:50
Speaker 2: because it's almost like, I don't know the right term
15:54
Speaker 2: for this, but it's almost like all of my city,
15:56
Speaker 2: that city is trying to figure out if they're willing
16:00
Speaker 2: to forgive you or not, because most people there just
16:02
Speaker 2: hate your guts. Like and once again it goes to mechanics,
16:05
Speaker 2: because you talk to the wrong person, they'll turn you
16:08
Speaker 2: into a pig and throw you outside of town figure
16:11
Speaker 2: out what to do, and so you do feel that
16:15
Speaker 2: like oppression, and then you're kind of like I kind
16:18
Speaker 2: of deserve it for what happens there in the intro,
16:22
Speaker 2: and I think it's just like the elder is the
16:23
Speaker 2: only person willing to give you the time of day,
16:25
Speaker 2: and he's the one who sends Pallo and Porum with you,
16:30
Speaker 2: partly as spies, but he also does seem to legit
16:35
Speaker 2: legitimately wants you to kind of a tone I guess
16:39
Speaker 2: for what happened.
16:40
Speaker 1: It's like, trust but verify, right, like I'm gonna send
16:43
Speaker 1: you on this mission, but also I'm gonna keep some
16:45
Speaker 1: my eyes on.
16:46
Speaker 3: You, right and and ridly a when you you know,
16:52
Speaker 3: her mother dies because the bombs that you let loose
16:56
Speaker 3: killed their mother's dragon. You defend her in the hotel,
17:04
Speaker 3: not the hotel in the desert, in from the people
17:09
Speaker 3: from Barron, and then she begins to kind of trust you.
17:13
Speaker 3: But you know, he says, let me protect you. I
17:16
Speaker 3: don't care if you hate me, but please let me
17:18
Speaker 3: protect you. And I thought that was a pretty good moment.
17:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then you know, as they continue to get
17:24
Speaker 1: into the psychology of trauma, it's like, now she's afraid
17:28
Speaker 1: to use fire magic because her talent was burned by
17:31
Speaker 1: fire magic, and so you have to get through that
17:34
Speaker 1: on a mechanic level, as she has to melt some
17:35
Speaker 1: ice for you to go through the pass, and so
17:37
Speaker 1: it's kind of a you know, a little passing mechanical thing.
17:39
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, they use every
17:42
Speaker 1: opportunity to develop the characters to make some kind of
17:45
Speaker 1: point narrative wise.
17:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I do love how, you know, this doesn't
17:52
Speaker 3: have a job system, but every character has a built
17:55
Speaker 3: in job that makes them unique. I have to think
17:58
Speaker 3: of unique mechanics each character. And I have been playing
18:02
Speaker 3: Final Fantasy two since our last recording and I haven't
18:06
Speaker 3: quite finished it, but there are ties between that and
18:11
Speaker 3: this that I've noticed. But in that one, yeah, you
18:13
Speaker 3: have your three main characters and then a fourth character
18:16
Speaker 3: that comes and goes as the story requires it. And
18:20
Speaker 3: I thought that was great. But I love how in
18:22
Speaker 3: this one just every character can come and go as
18:25
Speaker 3: the story enfolds. But yeah, there are things like Messiitia
18:30
Speaker 3: is the city of the Mages in Final Fantasy two
18:33
Speaker 3: as well. And I even noticed that the young boy
18:38
Speaker 3: whose father was a dragoon his name is Cain in
18:41
Speaker 3: Final Fantasy two when you talk to his mother. I
18:45
Speaker 3: don't think this is supposed to be the same world
18:47
Speaker 3: just a few years later. But I still think it's
18:48
Speaker 3: an interesting and interesting tie.
18:51
Speaker 2: I have wondered if the story of four is inspired
18:54
Speaker 2: by two, like because Fantasy two also had a notion
18:59
Speaker 2: of Dark Knight who had to redeem himself. Like at
19:01
Speaker 2: the very end, he wasn't a playable character, but it's
19:04
Speaker 2: almost like they were thinking, well, what if we make
19:06
Speaker 2: him the main character of this other game and explore
19:09
Speaker 2: that theme further.
19:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as I've said, that's one of the things
19:12
Speaker 1: that I really have been enjoying about playing these games
19:15
Speaker 1: back to back is that you really see when they
19:17
Speaker 1: do play with certain ideas, when they take some ideas
19:19
Speaker 1: and develop them leave some things behind, you know, it's
19:23
Speaker 1: interesting to see how they're kind of playing off of themselves.
19:26
Speaker 2: So how much do we want to delve into the
19:29
Speaker 2: different characters, of which there's like a hundred of them.
19:32
Speaker 2: It feels like, because I'm trying to think, Okay, what
19:35
Speaker 2: are the themes that are being explored with Tella and
19:39
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, the barred character.
19:41
Speaker 3: This foody guard Edward.
19:44
Speaker 2: Yes, so would you argue that's also some kind of redemption,
19:49
Speaker 2: like because Tella really didn't like that Edward.
19:52
Speaker 3: Ran off with his daughter or something, and Edward he
19:57
Speaker 3: has a redemption moment as well, where he's because they
20:02
Speaker 3: talk about him being kind of this frail prince with
20:05
Speaker 3: a beautiful voice. But then he has to get up,
20:10
Speaker 3: stumble out of bed and play the harp. I haven't
20:13
Speaker 3: it's been a while since I've played that far in
20:15
Speaker 3: the game. But it's you're fighting like the dark l
20:17
Speaker 3: for something, right, and he has to play music.
20:20
Speaker 2: Are you talk about like when when it's night and
20:22
Speaker 2: he's like on the shore playing and then he gets
20:24
Speaker 2: attacked by like a merman or something. But he's in a.
20:27
Speaker 3: Kingdom of all women, right, and they're taking care of him,
20:32
Speaker 3: and he has to play the harp because he knows
20:34
Speaker 3: you're in trouble.
20:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, but at some point later on in the game, yeah, yeah,
20:39
Speaker 1: I mean there's that one part where you know he's
20:41
Speaker 1: playing the harp and by the tea hour and the
20:43
Speaker 1: spirit of his girl comes to him and says, you know,
20:46
Speaker 1: keep going. But yeah, later on when he's there's so
20:50
Speaker 1: much happened to this game that I can't keep it
20:52
Speaker 1: all straight, even though I played not too long ago.
20:54
Speaker 1: But he's like mortally wounded, but he Yeah, he's not
20:56
Speaker 1: a bad because he he just like senses his friend's
20:59
Speaker 1: need or something. Places Harpy gets out of trouble. Yeah.
21:02
Speaker 3: Right, there's a dungeon where you can't wear any metal equipment, right,
21:06
Speaker 3: you just can't move, and I think you get down
21:09
Speaker 3: there and have to fight some dark elf and he
21:11
Speaker 3: does something to you that the music. The music somehow
21:15
Speaker 3: wafts over into the dungeon and the dark elve's magic
21:18
Speaker 3: is dispelled by it. So I don't know.
21:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, these games really like to maximize this idea
21:26
Speaker 1: of like the power of friendship. Somehow you're in grave
21:30
Speaker 1: danger and somehow your friends like just come to your
21:33
Speaker 1: aid in ways that'll always makes sense. So it's more
21:36
Speaker 1: of a metaphysical thing, I guess, don't they do that.
21:38
Speaker 2: At the very end, like everybody on the planet is
21:41
Speaker 2: like praying for you or something.
21:42
Speaker 3: Right, It's like Dragon Ball Z with everyone is giving
21:47
Speaker 3: their strength to the heroes so they can get back
21:49
Speaker 3: on their feet and defeat the big evil, and you
21:52
Speaker 3: like see visions of them saying, you know, you can
21:54
Speaker 3: do it, and everybody one by one gets all their
21:57
Speaker 3: health back and stands up. Yeah.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did that in three as well, having just
22:03
Speaker 2: played that, and I don't know if either of you
22:05
Speaker 2: guys are playing it in Scimpula Ever series, but like
22:07
Speaker 2: earth Bound does that too, Yes, it does.
22:09
Speaker 3: That's the big surprise at the end of earth Bound.
22:12
Speaker 3: That's that's a heck of a game. Yeah, Andrew, you
22:15
Speaker 3: should play that sometime.
22:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, well to do that, I have vague memories, but
22:19
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if I ever played all
22:21
Speaker 1: the way through or not, but I'll definitely need to
22:23
Speaker 1: return to that at some point.
22:24
Speaker 2: It's a very weird game. I've played through it just
22:27
Speaker 2: a few years ago. It's like what were there's people
22:30
Speaker 2: were I don't know how they got some of their ideas,
22:33
Speaker 2: So I'll just say that I don't know. I'm kind
22:39
Speaker 2: of just interested to think about. Like the other characters,
22:41
Speaker 2: so like Ridia has interesting stuff going on where you
22:46
Speaker 2: lose her as a little girl and then the next
22:49
Speaker 2: time you see her she's suddenly much older and is
22:53
Speaker 2: a more advanced summoner. Been a while since I played,
22:56
Speaker 2: so I'm trying to remember kind of what was going
22:57
Speaker 2: on thematically there.
22:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's followed by Leviathan, which is a recurring theme
23:02
Speaker 3: also from two, and she ends up in the fey
23:07
Speaker 3: March where the idolins live, and I don't that's Greek
23:14
Speaker 3: for like ghost or image and things like that. I
23:19
Speaker 3: believe like where it's I think where it's used in
23:21
Speaker 3: the New Testament it means like an idol, but I
23:24
Speaker 3: do think that they would use it for the term
23:26
Speaker 3: of a ghost or something, so they're probably in a
23:29
Speaker 3: Japanese way trying to say that. This is kind of
23:31
Speaker 3: like the Realm of Fairy basically, and there are literally
23:35
Speaker 3: fairies there, if I remember right. I just remember having
23:39
Speaker 3: to use float on my whole team so that they
23:43
Speaker 3: wouldn't take damage from the tiles on the floor as
23:45
Speaker 3: I walk through that.
23:46
Speaker 2: I do remember that.
23:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then you fight Azura, who's kind of the queen,
23:52
Speaker 3: and Leviathan is there as well. Azura is like a
23:56
Speaker 3: Buddhist four or five faced thing I can't remember, and
24:00
Speaker 3: the heads would spin and wherever it landed would determine
24:03
Speaker 3: what it does to you. In this game, I remember
24:06
Speaker 3: having to cast wall on myself so that I could
24:09
Speaker 3: bounce magic off myself to hit her. But yeah, those
24:14
Speaker 3: are I thought, having a Realm of the Fairy in
24:17
Speaker 3: this was kind of an interesting thing.
24:19
Speaker 1: I don't.
24:19
Speaker 3: I don't recall other Final Fantasy games really doing that.
24:23
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I suppose it's kind of similar to
24:27
Speaker 1: in six when you go to the Land of the Espers, right.
24:32
Speaker 2: I was just thinking of the Espers and it's a
24:34
Speaker 2: whole plot point that the Empire invades their realm, right.
24:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. It is interesting how the summons can increasingly get
24:43
Speaker 1: more agency, more, more characters, more they become characters essentially.
24:48
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. You got Bahama eventually, and yeah, and Odin
24:53
Speaker 3: those are recurring summons through the Final Fantasy Games. Idolins
24:59
Speaker 3: are in other Fantasy games as well. The only one
25:01
Speaker 3: I can think of it at the moment is thirteen.
25:03
Speaker 3: I can't remember if if they're another ones I can
25:08
Speaker 3: google it while we talk.
25:09
Speaker 2: Or what they were in thirteen.
25:11
Speaker 3: They were your they were your summons basically, Oh okay, Yeah,
25:18
Speaker 3: you had to learn how to impress them in order
25:22
Speaker 3: to recruit them in certain parts of the game. They
25:24
Speaker 3: found it really frustrating.
25:26
Speaker 2: But yeah, it is a common thing in the later
25:30
Speaker 2: Found fantasies to where you have to beat the summon
25:32
Speaker 2: creature in battle before you can use them.
25:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
25:38
Speaker 2: But yeah, like I'm trying to think Okay, so what
25:40
Speaker 2: other characters are there? There's said, I don't know if
25:42
Speaker 2: Sid really does much. He hasn't. He has a heroic
25:46
Speaker 2: sacrifice too, and he has a wife. I had forgotten that.
25:52
Speaker 2: It's like he's this little squat guy with a beard.
25:54
Speaker 2: You don't think about him being married, but he has
25:57
Speaker 2: a daughter.
25:58
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I always like Sid.
26:04
Speaker 2: Yeah he's a very different said from like fan Fantasy
26:06
Speaker 2: seven said, so, yes, he keep the name around of
26:09
Speaker 2: the notion of like this is the person that does airships,
26:11
Speaker 2: but he works a little differently.
26:14
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then in eight he's the schoolmaster, and then
26:17
Speaker 3: nine he's not a great guy. He's been turned into
26:21
Speaker 3: a roach because he cheated on his wife or something.
26:24
Speaker 3: I can't quite recall or go ahead, Nope, I'm.
26:32
Speaker 2: Just going through the characters in my head, trying to
26:34
Speaker 2: remember them all.
26:36
Speaker 3: Edgar the Nina or Edge the Ninja guy.
26:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, Edge was the next one I was thinking of.
26:41
Speaker 2: I'm trying remember what was going on with him. Wasn't
26:42
Speaker 2: he like a prince or something or am imagining?
26:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, his parents. I think they did like experiments on
26:48
Speaker 3: his parents and they become monsters that you have to fight, right.
26:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, you fight them somewhere at some point in the
26:56
Speaker 1: Tower of Babbel.
26:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.
26:58
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was that was dark. Yeah, I'm rey twisted.
27:03
Speaker 2: And I mentioned Tella earlier, so I know he has
27:06
Speaker 2: to deal with this notion of revenge because he's like
27:09
Speaker 2: being very self destructive in his attempt to take out Goldbez,
27:13
Speaker 2: because there's this whole thing about how he wants to
27:14
Speaker 2: learn Meteor, but he's so old that like just using
27:17
Speaker 2: media as a risk of just killing him outright in
27:20
Speaker 2: addition to causing however much destruction that it does. And
27:24
Speaker 2: I can't remember exactly how that works out. I know
27:28
Speaker 2: you lose him at one point, Yeah, he does die.
27:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Goldbez is threatening to kill Cecil and he
27:38
Speaker 1: Tella jumps in there and fights Goldbez and uses Meteor,
27:41
Speaker 1: which causes gold Bez to pause a little bit and
27:45
Speaker 1: not to kill Cecil, which I assume means the brainwashing
27:50
Speaker 1: that the spell on Golbez was at least a little
27:52
Speaker 1: bit weakened. There. There's a little bit ofhy sanity coming out.
27:55
Speaker 1: But in the process, Teller dies.
27:57
Speaker 3: And I think he loses his control of Cain, or
28:01
Speaker 3: so it seems, because Caine joins you at that point,
28:04
Speaker 3: and then later on you find out haha, I wasn't
28:07
Speaker 3: really on your side all along, But then eventually he
28:11
Speaker 3: really does come back around.
28:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does feel like they want you to keep
28:15
Speaker 2: guessing with Caine like the whole time, like is he
28:17
Speaker 2: gonna come to our side or not?
28:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, even in the beginning, when you get to the
28:23
Speaker 3: town and the bomb it kills all the summoners, he's like, well,
28:26
Speaker 3: we got to kill this little girl too, and you're
28:29
Speaker 3: like what no, And he's like, okay, I need you'd
28:31
Speaker 3: say that. Let's let's let's not do that.
28:33
Speaker 1: Okay.
28:39
Speaker 2: Kane's a fun character in that story. There might be
28:41
Speaker 2: one reason why I think he's one of the more
28:43
Speaker 2: remembered of the side characters from that game.
28:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do.
28:47
Speaker 1: We make of the deep symbolism of a giant robot
28:51
Speaker 1: coming out of the Tower Babble?
28:54
Speaker 2: Don't you remember that part of Genesis's the Tower of Babble,
28:57
Speaker 2: At a giant machine came.
28:59
Speaker 1: Out of it, you have to go into its head
29:02
Speaker 1: and defeat its CPU.
29:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's what happened. That is how everybody got
29:09
Speaker 2: different languages, just.
29:11
Speaker 1: As the the Babbel builders had the CPU of their
29:15
Speaker 1: minds you messed with I don't know. Yeah, that's that's
29:21
Speaker 1: another thing where it's like the whole like mix of
29:24
Speaker 1: fantasy and sci fi that fan fancy loves to do. Like,
29:28
Speaker 1: does it ever really explain why they have all that
29:31
Speaker 1: technology in the tower babble? Is it like the ancients
29:34
Speaker 1: had it or something like that the people from the
29:36
Speaker 1: moon did. Yeah, where did the babble come from? Is
29:38
Speaker 1: that the luminarians or are we ever told?
29:42
Speaker 3: I don't know. It sounds like we're having a conspiracy podcast.
29:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how did the nephline? Maybe that was the
29:52
Speaker 1: giant it was a Nephelo. Yeah, you know, wait, it's
29:55
Speaker 1: coming together.
29:58
Speaker 3: So the Yeah, and I remember just wondering why are
30:04
Speaker 3: there two moons? And they don't explain, and then at
30:06
Speaker 3: the end you learn that, you know, one moon that
30:08
Speaker 3: you don't go to at all is because it's just
30:10
Speaker 3: our natural moon. And then the smaller moon is where
30:13
Speaker 3: all the lunarians are sleeping or I'm not sure, but
30:18
Speaker 3: it's where the So there's Zemus and then there's zero.
30:23
Speaker 3: Maus is the real big bad at the end, right, Yeah,
30:28
Speaker 3: but I don't remember how long ago they arrived at Earth.
30:32
Speaker 3: So I don't know if the ancient technology is theirs
30:34
Speaker 3: or if it's just the recurring theme of there's ancient technology.
30:39
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, in Final Fantasy seven there's guys
30:42
Speaker 3: excavating like an F fourteen, and nobody ever explains that
30:47
Speaker 3: at all, but it's just something that happens in the game.
30:50
Speaker 3: So I don't know, they just like having ancient technology.
30:54
Speaker 2: It is a fun world building thing, like just kind
30:56
Speaker 2: of like, wait, what is that? It makes you think
30:58
Speaker 2: that they just never explain it, so you're sagitation is left.
31:00
Speaker 1: To do its thing, which I mean, you know, it
31:04
Speaker 1: is a bit different than say you're reading you know, Tolkien,
31:07
Speaker 1: and for him, like you know that even if you
31:09
Speaker 1: never know what it is, you're encountering like he probably knows,
31:13
Speaker 1: whereas with Final Fantasy, I feel like just stuff happens
31:16
Speaker 1: and they don't know why it's there. They just thought
31:18
Speaker 1: it would be cool. That's impressions I get.
31:21
Speaker 3: And some of it does seem borrowed from Tolkien. When
31:24
Speaker 3: I think about some of these themes of you know,
31:27
Speaker 3: like like ridly A disappearing and then coming back as
31:32
Speaker 3: a more powerful thing. That's almost like Gandalf to some degree.
31:36
Speaker 3: And in the beginning you have the you know, the
31:38
Speaker 3: advisor whispering in the ear of the king. Oh Cecil
31:42
Speaker 3: is betraying you. You shouldn't trust him. And I didn't
31:45
Speaker 3: know anything about Lord of the Rings, you know, when
31:47
Speaker 3: I was fifteen, but I can see some of those.
31:51
Speaker 3: I wonder if the creators were familiar with that and
31:54
Speaker 3: borrowed some of those themes.
31:57
Speaker 2: I feel, like anything fantasy, there's a fair, very high
32:00
Speaker 2: chance the creator is familiar with Tolkien. Yeah yeah, I
32:06
Speaker 2: mean obviously Tolkien created modern fantasy. Yeah, pretty much in
32:09
Speaker 2: the way that we know it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So.
32:17
Speaker 1: Basically with the is it I keep wouldn't call the Luminears,
32:21
Speaker 1: but that's the band what.
32:24
Speaker 2: Laminarians? I think.
32:29
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Lunar Yeah right, So so they they
32:32
Speaker 1: show up from So originally they come from somewhere else
32:34
Speaker 1: in our solar system, like somewhere around like between Mars
32:38
Speaker 1: and Jupiter, I think, and then there wherever there's that
32:42
Speaker 1: they're living on starts to fall apart or whatever that
32:45
Speaker 1: they have a need to move. So then they come
32:47
Speaker 1: to Earth, but humans aren't developed enough to live with them.
32:51
Speaker 1: I don't really know what that means. Why they don't
32:54
Speaker 1: just I don't take over or something. But so they
32:56
Speaker 1: have to sleep for a while until humans are ready
32:59
Speaker 1: for them, essentially, and I forgot where I was going
33:05
Speaker 1: with that. That's the basic kind of setup for how
33:07
Speaker 1: they got here in our orbit.
33:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't explicitly say that it's Earth, but it
33:14
Speaker 3: does seem like it, and like the the remains of
33:17
Speaker 3: their planet is the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars.
33:21
Speaker 3: I think so. Yeah. But and Fuso Yah is one
33:25
Speaker 3: of the lunarians, right, was he Cecil's dad?
33:29
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember the relationships of these characters.
33:32
Speaker 3: No, Gobez is Cecil's brother. You just find out that
33:36
Speaker 3: you are like half lunarian, I think, or maybe all lunarian.
33:40
Speaker 3: I can't remember. I do feel like you and Kin
33:43
Speaker 3: have kind of been adopted by the King of Baron
33:48
Speaker 3: before he got doppelganger switched, I guess, or whatever happened.
33:52
Speaker 3: But don't you now I'm remembering, don't you find the
33:58
Speaker 3: real King of Baron in the basement and it turns
34:00
Speaker 3: out he's Odin right?
34:02
Speaker 1: Like?
34:03
Speaker 3: Or is that separate?
34:05
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it's like you encounter his it's like
34:09
Speaker 1: the spirit of the king or something. He's not there
34:11
Speaker 1: in the flesh but the spirit of the king, but
34:14
Speaker 1: he won't do anything with you until you go to
34:16
Speaker 1: the fairy land and come back for some reason. Okay,
34:20
Speaker 1: something like that.
34:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I don't think he's related to Fu.
34:24
Speaker 1: So yeah, which to me before the get Skyrim, some
34:31
Speaker 1: guy dragon shout, yeah, that's right.
34:36
Speaker 3: Well, I gameplay wise since I've been playing Funal Fantasy too,
34:41
Speaker 3: and it's probably because I was using the cheats, you know,
34:44
Speaker 3: to get me extra experience and stuff. But I was
34:47
Speaker 3: often confused about where to go because it's really only
34:52
Speaker 3: supposed to be the overwhelming strength of enemies compared to
34:56
Speaker 3: your level that prevent you from going the wrong direction,
35:00
Speaker 3: And so I ended up doing weird things in Final
35:02
Speaker 3: Fantasy too, like rescuing all the guys from the methral
35:06
Speaker 3: mind before I went to the town where the women
35:09
Speaker 3: were wondering where their husbands were and stuff, and when
35:11
Speaker 3: I found it, they're all just like, thanks for rescuing
35:14
Speaker 3: our husbands. But I think Final Fantasy ford does a
35:19
Speaker 3: good job of keeping you pretty much on a clear
35:22
Speaker 3: path while still giving you a sense of freedom. And
35:26
Speaker 3: it's not really until you get like the airships where
35:30
Speaker 3: it sometimes it's more difficult to know what your next
35:33
Speaker 3: move should be. But also in two, like getting the
35:38
Speaker 3: airship doesn't really it only makes one new place available
35:43
Speaker 3: to you. And I like how in Ford there's lots
35:45
Speaker 3: of little islands that you can visit and do little
35:47
Speaker 3: extra things on, like the island with the many people
35:51
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. I like when you gain the
35:57
Speaker 3: ability to do further exploration as the game progresses.
36:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does feel like four is very deliberate about
36:06
Speaker 2: what areas that allows you to go to at any
36:08
Speaker 2: given time, which I think is pretty standard throughout the series.
36:12
Speaker 2: It does feel a little confining early on, where you're like, oh,
36:16
Speaker 2: I've got all this place to explore. Oh there's exactly
36:18
Speaker 2: one location I can meaningfully go to. Yeah, but it's
36:23
Speaker 2: in this kind of game, like the linearity is helpful
36:27
Speaker 2: to guiding the story and keeping you moving.
36:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say that when you find out that
36:34
Speaker 1: you have to go to the underworld that you know,
36:38
Speaker 1: when when I first heard I'm going on in the world,
36:40
Speaker 1: thinking all right, here we go, going to Hell again,
36:42
Speaker 1: but it's literally just the world underneath, you know, It's
36:46
Speaker 1: like the you know in Narnia, the underland. But you know,
36:49
Speaker 1: you go down there and that's that's where the dwarves live,
36:53
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's it's kind of fun that
36:55
Speaker 1: you go there and you get caught in this this battle,
36:58
Speaker 1: which I think that's when I might be confusing this
37:01
Speaker 1: with one of the other games. Does the airship get
37:03
Speaker 1: broken up here? Or am I mixing it up with
37:05
Speaker 1: the other game? Maybe not?
37:08
Speaker 3: You have multiple airships in this one, I recall. You
37:10
Speaker 3: get the one that has the drill on the front.
37:12
Speaker 3: That's so you can go down there. Right At one point,
37:14
Speaker 3: you get like a claw so you can pick up
37:16
Speaker 3: the hovercraft and take it other places. And then of
37:19
Speaker 3: course you get the lunar whale eventually, but Sid has
37:25
Speaker 3: to jump out with like a grenade to seal up
37:29
Speaker 3: the entrance, and then somehow he still doesn't he doesn't die.
37:33
Speaker 3: I don't know how that happened.
37:34
Speaker 1: But the power of friendship right.
37:38
Speaker 2: Fun fact, if you ever played the specifically the Game
37:41
Speaker 2: Boy Advance Fan Fantasy for which I played, at the
37:44
Speaker 2: very end of the game, all the characters who supposedly
37:47
Speaker 2: died are there available for you to bring back into
37:50
Speaker 2: your party for the finale. Huh. I don't know if
37:52
Speaker 2: it does like anything like that in any of the
37:54
Speaker 2: other versions. I think that was just the GBA version.
37:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I haven't The GBA version is a great version,
38:01
Speaker 3: by the way, but they're all pretty good of four.
38:06
Speaker 3: I love the graphics and the PSP versions, but I
38:09
Speaker 3: really am enjoying the quality of life improvements in the
38:13
Speaker 3: Pixel remaster. I've only played up to the Kraken or whatever,
38:17
Speaker 3: where I've got Tella and Ridia, but I am enjoying it.
38:22
Speaker 3: It's funny as I've been going through the pixel remasters,
38:25
Speaker 3: like the graphics don't feel very different on four, five
38:29
Speaker 3: and six, just a little more polished, a little more
38:31
Speaker 3: depth to the colors, but like the enemy sprites and
38:34
Speaker 3: everything are just almost exactly the same, and the music
38:39
Speaker 3: doesn't even change that much.
38:41
Speaker 2: I've been longing for a while for them to do
38:43
Speaker 2: like like the HD two D art style that they've got.
38:46
Speaker 2: They remade the early Dragon Quest games in I want
38:49
Speaker 2: them to do that specifically for six, because I think
38:52
Speaker 2: it would look fantastic in that style. But that's agree
38:56
Speaker 2: an artistic thing. We forgot about Yang. That was another character.
39:01
Speaker 2: He's like the monk. I don't remember anything interesting going
39:05
Speaker 2: on in his story other than there's this failed defense
39:09
Speaker 2: of his city and then he gets mind controlled for
39:10
Speaker 2: a bit and it comes back to his sinces.
39:13
Speaker 1: And he's also someone who sacrifices himself, of course, because
39:17
Speaker 1: most of the characters seem to do that, right. And
39:20
Speaker 1: then there's Rosa, who's plays damsel In Distressed a couple
39:23
Speaker 1: of times. But I think she's one of the ones
39:26
Speaker 1: in your.
39:26
Speaker 2: Final party, right, she's like your white mage going to
39:29
Speaker 2: the final battle, or I misremembering. You have like five
39:33
Speaker 2: specific people who stick around to the very end, and
39:35
Speaker 2: I don't.
39:36
Speaker 1: Think you're usually I think she stinks onto the lunar
39:39
Speaker 1: whale right as you go to the move for that
39:41
Speaker 1: final time.
39:42
Speaker 3: Yep, my connection went bad there for a sec, but
39:46
Speaker 3: I think I caught all of that. But yeah, one
39:49
Speaker 3: of my favorite things is always in j RPGs. I
39:52
Speaker 3: don't know if y'all are the same, but like rare
39:55
Speaker 3: expensive items, I'm always saving him for a rainy day,
39:57
Speaker 3: and then the rainy day never comes, and I have
40:00
Speaker 3: a bunch of elixirs and stuff for the very final battle.
40:03
Speaker 3: But one of the things I love about Edge is
40:06
Speaker 3: you know he has the ability to throw any weapon.
40:09
Speaker 3: So when you get to the final battle, you know,
40:13
Speaker 3: like I'm throwing ex Caliber and for nine at the
40:18
Speaker 3: final boss and stuff. I'm like, I know this is
40:19
Speaker 3: the end. I'm just gonna use all these things I've
40:22
Speaker 3: been saving. And it's pretty cathartic.
40:25
Speaker 2: Getting this weird mental image of King Arthur throwing his
40:28
Speaker 2: sword at a giant alien flea to save the world
40:33
Speaker 2: on the moon.
40:34
Speaker 1: That old trope. Yeah, so the final boss was was
40:42
Speaker 1: it Demus?
40:46
Speaker 2: It's like they call him Zimas and they call him Zerumus,
40:49
Speaker 2: and I'm not computely clear on the relationship between those two.
40:52
Speaker 3: I feel like Gobez and Fusolago to fight Zemas and
40:59
Speaker 3: then like they get wiped out and then the real
41:04
Speaker 3: baddie zero must shows up. I think that's what happens
41:08
Speaker 3: if I remember right. The baddie behind the baddie.
41:13
Speaker 2: Is the idea like Xermus is like some evil mind
41:17
Speaker 2: control spirit that has basically been mind controlling Golbez and
41:21
Speaker 2: everybody else. So my understanding is that he is basically
41:25
Speaker 2: just another lunarian who happens to have these psychic abilities right,
41:30
Speaker 2: especially over other lunarians such as Goldbez.
41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking at the synopsis on Wikipedia.
41:38
Speaker 1: Up.
41:38
Speaker 2: Earlier.
41:40
Speaker 3: Arriving on the Moon, the party meets Fuzo. Yahu explains
41:43
Speaker 3: that Cecil's father was a lunarian. Yeah, and then a
41:47
Speaker 3: lunarian named Zema's plans to destroy all life on the
41:49
Speaker 3: blue planet so they can take over, using Goldbez to
41:54
Speaker 3: summon the giant of bab Bil, a colossal robot just
41:57
Speaker 3: like the Nuffalo yep, right right, But Goldbaz and Fusia
42:03
Speaker 3: kills Zemus, but then quickly fall to an evil spirit
42:07
Speaker 3: named zero Mus, the embodiment of all of Zemas's hatred
42:10
Speaker 3: and rage. There you go.
42:13
Speaker 1: That's very very final fantasy, it is. Yeah, it's a
42:19
Speaker 1: you go from the first game where now something you're
42:22
Speaker 1: after fighting against chaos, now you're fighting literally chaos itself,
42:26
Speaker 1: and it's now you're fighting against literally hatred itself. It's
42:30
Speaker 1: very i don't know, very very metaphysical, very you're operating
42:34
Speaker 1: in the realm of the ideals here. Yeah.
42:36
Speaker 2: I think that happens in others too, So like nine,
42:38
Speaker 2: you end up just fighting an embodiment of death all
42:41
Speaker 2: of a sudden, after there's all this like exploration of
42:45
Speaker 2: killing things. Five I think has a similar embodiment of
42:49
Speaker 2: hatred thing going on with X deeath xtaths. This is
42:54
Speaker 2: for the next podcast, but X death is like like
42:57
Speaker 2: a tree that gets like a bunch of evil souls
43:01
Speaker 2: like poured into it and then becomes like an actual
43:05
Speaker 2: like mind of its own.
43:08
Speaker 3: Egg class. There's just a heck of a name, and
43:11
Speaker 3: maybe it sounds cooler if you're Japanese, but.
43:14
Speaker 2: It has kind of a Star Wars sub to it, doesn't.
43:16
Speaker 1: It, right? I mean, I guess it's kind of interesting
43:20
Speaker 1: dealing with all this mind control stuff as well as
43:23
Speaker 1: the opposition to that from these competing lunarians. Especially consider
43:27
Speaker 1: the the symbolism of you know, the moon as that
43:32
Speaker 1: line between ordering chaos, madness, and reason, and that there's
43:36
Speaker 1: a reason why in to go to European myths like
43:42
Speaker 1: were wolves, right, they can be driven mad as reason
43:46
Speaker 1: gives way to the beast sleep by the power of
43:47
Speaker 1: the moon. But also it's silver, which you know, in
43:52
Speaker 1: kind of alchemy understandings like silver is produced by the moon,
43:56
Speaker 1: and so it's like the very source of madness is
43:59
Speaker 1: also the source of reason that provides the cure, and
44:02
Speaker 1: so there is a lot of that order, chaos, madness,
44:05
Speaker 1: sanity wrapped up in the imagery of the moon, and
44:08
Speaker 1: that could potentially feed into some of these plot elements
44:11
Speaker 1: that we've been discussing.
44:14
Speaker 2: So looking kind of into themes again and the notion
44:17
Speaker 2: of redemption, do you guys feel like learning like the
44:22
Speaker 2: bad guys were just being mind controlled? Do you think
44:24
Speaker 2: that takes away too much from the notion of the
44:27
Speaker 2: agency of sin and like how we choose to sin
44:31
Speaker 2: and that's something we need to repent of. Don't you
44:34
Speaker 2: feel like it takes something away just learning the bad
44:36
Speaker 2: guys were just they were mind controlled, They didn't know
44:39
Speaker 2: what they were doing.
44:40
Speaker 3: So I think that's part of what's interesting about Cain,
44:45
Speaker 3: because I feel like Cain Cain is not letting himself
44:49
Speaker 3: off the hook like he he makes it clear earlier
44:53
Speaker 3: on that he wishes that he had Rosa, and so
44:57
Speaker 3: I feel like he may not feel like he was
45:00
Speaker 3: being manipulated as much as he was allowing himself to
45:03
Speaker 3: be manipulated, because at the end, you know, he's on
45:06
Speaker 3: the top of Mount Ordeals because he wants to atone
45:09
Speaker 3: for his misdeeds. So I feel like he has a
45:13
Speaker 3: true desire to repent of his involvement and doesn't want
45:19
Speaker 3: to act like, well, I was just mind controlled, so
45:23
Speaker 3: y'all have to forgive me kind of a thing.
45:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point that he you know, on
45:30
Speaker 1: one hand, obviously he had the suppressive force placed upon
45:33
Speaker 1: his soul, upon his mind, but it's also a force
45:35
Speaker 1: that he did. It was working with some pre existing
45:38
Speaker 1: material there that he gave himself over to, and I
45:42
Speaker 1: think that's exactly why they bring out that stuff with
45:44
Speaker 1: Rose at the very beginning, to demonstrate the fact that
45:46
Speaker 1: he has something going on inside of him that can
45:49
Speaker 1: be exploited.
45:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
45:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is an interesting one I've seen in other games,
45:53
Speaker 2: like or other stories in general, Like this is a
45:59
Speaker 2: different I don't think either of you guys have played this,
46:01
Speaker 2: but specifically one of the later Trails games, in Trails
46:05
Speaker 2: of Cold Steel, they play with this notion of mind control,
46:08
Speaker 2: but which it first feels like it kind of cheapens
46:10
Speaker 2: some things, but then you learned, like what it's actually
46:13
Speaker 2: what's actually going on, is like there's this like force
46:16
Speaker 2: that's like seizing on whatever evil impulses lie buried in people,
46:21
Speaker 2: and it just like brings those out further. And I
46:24
Speaker 2: think that's where mind control, like grounding people towards evil,
46:27
Speaker 2: can be interesting because it's like we do have some
46:31
Speaker 2: level of sin we wrestle with internally, and we might
46:35
Speaker 2: be able to prevent it from appearing on an outward
46:38
Speaker 2: like on the outside, but evil will continually try to
46:44
Speaker 2: draw that further out. And what if suddenly we rouse
46:47
Speaker 2: we can't hide it anymore. Our sin is suddenly out
46:49
Speaker 2: there to be seen and we have to wrestle with that.
46:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, which again brings us back towards the beginning with
46:58
Speaker 1: Cecil's own redemption arc, when he has to face his
47:01
Speaker 1: own demons, his own darkness before he can go out
47:04
Speaker 1: and be set against the true darkness. Whereas Kin obviously
47:10
Speaker 1: doesn't deal with that, he doesn't have his ordeal until
47:13
Speaker 1: the very end.
47:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's almost like with Cecil, you have like
47:19
Speaker 2: on the outside he looks evil because he's a dark
47:21
Speaker 2: knight and he's going out and doing bad stuff, but
47:24
Speaker 2: internally he has a conscience, So there's kind of like
47:28
Speaker 2: a goodness within within the evil frame that is coming
47:33
Speaker 2: out that eventually helps redeem him, as opposed to like
47:38
Speaker 2: at evil within an outwardly good frame. Then eventually overcoming,
47:43
Speaker 2: interning them completely evil. So the conflict between the outside
47:48
Speaker 2: and the inside I think is interesting.
47:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, he it's true because Cecil is never truly an
47:55
Speaker 3: evil character. He's just aligned with someone who is ordering
48:00
Speaker 3: him to do evil things. And you know, in the beginning,
48:02
Speaker 3: they're on the airship and he's justifying what they've been
48:06
Speaker 3: asked to do, Like, hey, the king says, the crystals
48:10
Speaker 3: are too powerful. We can't let them have them. Just
48:12
Speaker 3: them having them is a threat to our kingdom, so
48:15
Speaker 3: we got to go get them. We do what he says,
48:17
Speaker 3: You guys, don't talk back. You know, he doesn't know
48:21
Speaker 3: how to deal with it, but you can tell he's
48:22
Speaker 3: struggling with it because like, the only animation they give
48:25
Speaker 3: the sprite is like for the ability for them to
48:27
Speaker 3: hang their head, and he does that a lot there
48:30
Speaker 3: at the beginning. So he's like in in this evil involved,
48:36
Speaker 3: kind of wrapped up in this evil system and he
48:40
Speaker 3: doesn't think he has the power to escape it or
48:43
Speaker 3: do anything about it. But then eventually, I guess with
48:47
Speaker 3: the encouragement of Rosa and the Messidians, they they helped
48:52
Speaker 3: send him on that quest.
48:54
Speaker 1: So it makes you think of it. I've been playing
48:57
Speaker 1: through six and I'll get into the details. We'll get
48:59
Speaker 1: to that another time. But you know, in that game,
49:02
Speaker 1: you some of your party members are formerly part of
49:05
Speaker 1: the evil Empire, and that becomes a problem at one point.
49:09
Speaker 1: And you know it said that, Okay, the Empire is evil,
49:12
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean everybody in the Empire is evil, and
49:15
Speaker 1: so they're they're good guys even on the bad team. Yeah,
49:20
Speaker 1: it's another one of those ideas that they are obviously
49:21
Speaker 1: working with.
49:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just in the Kingdom of Baron is where
49:25
Speaker 3: he lives, and so he's serving as king until he
49:30
Speaker 3: just can't do it anymore.
49:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
49:33
Speaker 2: I think the complexity of civilizations and they're being both
49:36
Speaker 2: good and bad people in them is one of the
49:37
Speaker 2: more interesting things that fantasy explores. I think sometimes it
49:42
Speaker 2: can cheapen the idea too much if the storyteller is
49:45
Speaker 2: not careful to where it's like it's like there's a
49:50
Speaker 2: whole discussion about I have not watched Rings of Power,
49:53
Speaker 2: but I know, like one thing a lot of people
49:55
Speaker 2: complain about is that it tries to redeem the Orcs
49:58
Speaker 2: by showing some that are not like totally they have families. Yeah, so,
50:03
Speaker 2: but it's like, but Tolk, But like Andrew, you know
50:07
Speaker 2: Tolkien's intent better than me. But wasn't his intent that
50:09
Speaker 2: the Orcs be kind of representative of like evil, barbarism
50:14
Speaker 2: or something, and there wasn't supposed to be anything redemptive
50:16
Speaker 2: about them?
50:17
Speaker 1: Yes, although I mean to be fair, Tolkien himself did
50:20
Speaker 1: kind of struggle with the Orcs as to the question
50:23
Speaker 1: like do they still have a soul? Because you know
50:26
Speaker 1: that they Orcs as they are, are a perversion by
50:29
Speaker 1: the perversion of something real. I mean, if you take
50:31
Speaker 1: this in Earling account, they are elves, or at least
50:34
Speaker 1: they were once upon a time. And so Tolkien does
50:37
Speaker 1: actually continue to struggle with the question of what exactly
50:40
Speaker 1: are Orcs now as they are manifested in the published writing. Yeah,
50:45
Speaker 1: they're just symbolic of evil, but it's like there are
50:50
Speaker 1: some questions to be asked there. That being said, Tolkien
50:54
Speaker 1: never provides a path of redemption for them. And so
50:57
Speaker 1: when you get to Rings of Power and they are
50:59
Speaker 1: portrayed as being sympathetic, that's doing something that Tolkien was
51:02
Speaker 1: intentionally not trying to do. Even though Tolkien himself has
51:05
Speaker 1: some questions in that vicinity so it's kind of complicated,
51:10
Speaker 1: but to your point, yeah, Rings of Power is definitely
51:12
Speaker 1: trying to get you to have sympathy for evil as such.
51:16
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, not toa veris totally off found fantasy. It's
51:19
Speaker 2: just like something that occurred to me as we're talking
51:20
Speaker 2: about about that, because it's kind of like what I
51:22
Speaker 2: was bringing up with My City earlier, where it's interesting
51:25
Speaker 2: like not everybody in my city thinks the exact same way.
51:27
Speaker 2: Some people are more hostile to you than others. And
51:31
Speaker 2: the Kingdom of a Baron, although it's doing evil things,
51:33
Speaker 2: it has people like Cecil and Rosa in it who
51:36
Speaker 2: are don't really aren't really on board with all that evil,
51:38
Speaker 2: And so there's that internal wrestling of each civilization which
51:43
Speaker 2: with like within its people debating like what are we
51:46
Speaker 2: actually going to do as a people and do we
51:50
Speaker 2: need to like change what our civilization is doing and
51:53
Speaker 2: how we're acting toward others. So that's a really interesting
51:57
Speaker 2: concept to me.
51:59
Speaker 3: Well, as long as we were drifting into Lord of
52:02
Speaker 3: the Rings, I did think a little bit about Theodin
52:06
Speaker 3: When I'm thinking about people being under a mind control
52:08
Speaker 3: sort of a thing like he it's not like quite
52:13
Speaker 3: the same. But I do feel like once he's freed
52:17
Speaker 3: from that control, he feels guilt about what have I
52:22
Speaker 3: been doing this whole time? You know, the same sort
52:25
Speaker 3: of a thing. Now, I haven't read The Lord of
52:29
Speaker 3: the Rings. I need to, so I've only got the
52:31
Speaker 3: movies to work from, So I don't know how it's
52:34
Speaker 3: portrayed completely in the in the books.
52:37
Speaker 2: But yeah, it really wants you to read them.
52:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, that needs to happen. But also, yeah, if you
52:42
Speaker 1: ever want to derail me on this podcast, to start
52:44
Speaker 1: talking about Tolkien, because now I do have to say that. Yeah,
52:48
Speaker 1: in the movies, you know, Theta is basically possessed by sermon,
52:52
Speaker 1: whereas in the books it's not quite so magical in
52:56
Speaker 1: that sense that it's more that a warm tongue has
53:00
Speaker 1: just been speaking despair into his mind, and so it
53:03
Speaker 1: very much is more of a spiritual, psychological kind of
53:06
Speaker 1: thing rather than a magic that's placed upon him, to
53:08
Speaker 1: the point where Theyden like, at any point, if he
53:10
Speaker 1: wanted to, he could just choose the side of hope,
53:13
Speaker 1: he could choose against despair, and so it's it's something
53:17
Speaker 1: that he's very much has given himself into, which brings
53:19
Speaker 1: back to final Fantasy might be something like what's going
53:21
Speaker 1: on with with Kane right that he is giving himself
53:25
Speaker 1: over to his well, his his demons essentially, and in
53:30
Speaker 1: so doing he becomes demonic.
53:33
Speaker 2: I did almost compare Baron to the nice from that
53:36
Speaker 2: hideous strength. I'm like, is Cognizo Frost or the head?
53:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I suppose you can do that with
53:45
Speaker 1: a lot of final fantasies where he say, ultimately at
53:47
Speaker 1: the head you have the macrobes, you get the demons
53:50
Speaker 1: in charge.
53:51
Speaker 2: That's what zerobis is. He's a backrobe exactly.
53:54
Speaker 1: It's all. It's all makes sense, trying to descend from
53:57
Speaker 1: from deep heaven on us.
53:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, after it, it's really derailed that completely.
54:06
Speaker 1: I mean, anything else on your mind about Fan Fantasy.
54:10
Speaker 3: Four, I will say there were some other interesting changes
54:17
Speaker 3: on the original Super Nintendo version, like that is probably
54:21
Speaker 3: the worst version of the game to play at this point,
54:23
Speaker 3: but because of the way Nintendo was at the time,
54:26
Speaker 3: they were removed any references to death and any religious
54:31
Speaker 3: imagery like crosses. They changed Holy Magic to just be
54:35
Speaker 3: called white and the Tower of Prayer they changed to
54:39
Speaker 3: the Tower of Wishes, which I guess is better somehow,
54:44
Speaker 3: And I just always thought those sorts of things that
54:46
Speaker 3: Nintendo did in the late eighties and early nineties were
54:50
Speaker 3: just kind of weird and silly.
54:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'd forgotten about that, that they censored anything
54:57
Speaker 2: they thought might be religiously sensitive back then. They did
55:01
Speaker 2: it with Zelda too, like I think it like literally Zelda
55:04
Speaker 2: two at one point you would get across, but they
55:08
Speaker 2: changed it to something else in America, I think like
55:11
Speaker 2: a dollar or something anyway. But besides that, like for
55:14
Speaker 2: final thoughts, fun, Patty four is a game like I'm
55:17
Speaker 2: glad we got in the US, even in its I
55:22
Speaker 2: guess neutered form because we missed out on two and
55:26
Speaker 2: three and later we missed out on five. But four
55:29
Speaker 2: is significant for its attempt to tell more of a story.
55:33
Speaker 2: And I think that game probably did a lot in
55:38
Speaker 2: America to kind of make us rethink the ability of
55:42
Speaker 2: a video game to tell a story, because coming off
55:45
Speaker 2: of the NES where you did not generally have like
55:48
Speaker 2: really sophisticated stories. Super yes, because of what we were
55:52
Speaker 2: talking about, like it just being able to have more
55:54
Speaker 2: text allowed them to do more and experiment more with that,
55:58
Speaker 2: and so I think it probably had a impact there,
56:01
Speaker 2: And like I said before, like it's significant when we
56:04
Speaker 2: can get games when closer to when they were released,
56:07
Speaker 2: because if it comes much later, you don't have kids
56:09
Speaker 2: growing up with it and having nostalgia for it so much. Right,
56:12
Speaker 2: That's why we don't really have much nostalgia for Finacy five,
56:14
Speaker 2: even though I think it's a great game, but four
56:17
Speaker 2: people do because of that, and so that that is
56:21
Speaker 2: significant for a game with a story to be able
56:24
Speaker 2: to get that nostalgia attached, because that helps build a
56:28
Speaker 2: general love of storytelling and again helps build this notion
56:32
Speaker 2: that video wiams can tell stories.
56:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think those are some good closing thoughts that
56:36
Speaker 1: David do anything to add?
56:38
Speaker 3: No, that was great. Did you prepare that that was
56:40
Speaker 3: really good?
56:42
Speaker 2: Nope, I was just thinking about the nice still.
56:46
Speaker 1: Well good. I'm content with that wrap, And so we
56:50
Speaker 1: will go ahead and finish there, and next time we'll
56:53
Speaker 1: pick it up with Final Panc five. So then God's peid.
57:02
Speaker 1: All right. Thank you for listening or watching if you're
57:04
Speaker 1: over on YouTube, Hope you enjoyed that, as I know
57:05
Speaker 1: that I did. Next time we'll obviously be getting into
57:08
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy Vive. As a reminder, we have the Elder
57:11
Speaker 1: Scrolls and Philosophy coming up in October, or it's going
57:15
Speaker 1: to start in October but runs for six weeks. If
57:17
Speaker 1: you want to participate in that, then go ahead and
57:19
Speaker 1: become a Tier three patron that will give you access
57:22
Speaker 1: to that course. I really look forward to putting this
57:24
Speaker 1: course together and going through it with you, and I
57:26
Speaker 1: really hope that you'll be joining me in that. I
57:28
Speaker 1: hope that we'll have a good, strong group dealing with
57:30
Speaker 1: what I believe is some valuable material, right that there's
57:33
Speaker 1: a reason why these games are as popular as they are,
57:36
Speaker 1: there's a reason why this franchise is as important as
57:39
Speaker 1: it is in the world of video games as well
57:42
Speaker 1: as just kind of broader cultural realities. And so hope
57:45
Speaker 1: you'll join me in that study. Head over to patreon
57:47
Speaker 1: dot com slash Mythic Mind become a Tier three patron,
57:50
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57:51
Speaker 1: any level of support is certainly helpful, and we'll give
57:54
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58:10
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58:13
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind podcast where I'm recording this advance here. If
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58:18
Speaker 1: next thing will be beginning CS Lewis is till we
58:21
Speaker 1: have faces over on the main Mythic Mind podcast. All right, well,
58:24
Speaker 1: that's it for now until next time.
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Speaker 2: God speed.
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Speaker 1: The Elder Scrolls and Philosophy, a new course beginning in October,
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Speaker 1: led by doctor Andrew Snyder. I played a lot of
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Speaker 1: video games in my youth, perhaps more than I should have.
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Speaker 1: But as I got older, got married, had kids, and
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Speaker 1: completed a PhD on the Danish philosophers Soaring Kirkey Guard,
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Speaker 1: I almost entirely stopped playing games. However, there were certain
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Speaker 1: titles that stayed with me during this time, at the
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Speaker 1: very least in my mind. In fact, looking back, I
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Speaker 1: now realized that most games of my youth were not
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Speaker 1: entirely frivolous, but the instead served quasi literary roles, fueling
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Speaker 1: my imagination intellectual curiosity in my appreciation for wonder. Chief
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Speaker 1: among these titles are the mainline games of the Elder Scrolls,
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Speaker 1: and in particular Morowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. And I know
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Speaker 1: that I am not alone in this, as the wild
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Speaker 1: success of the recent Oblivion remaster would indicate. Now, in
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Speaker 1: addition to teaching university courses in philosophy and religion, I've
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Speaker 1: also started offering independent courses to anyone who has to
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Speaker 1: come along with me and with the community in pursuit
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Speaker 1: of wisdom through primary and secondary worlds. So far, these
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Speaker 1: independent courses have been literature based, such as the fiction
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Speaker 1: and philosophy of C. S. Lewis, Life, Death and Meaning
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Speaker 1: with Beowulf and Boethius, The Lord of the Rings, A
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Speaker 1: Brief History of Ideas, and Plato's Stoicism until we have Faces. However,
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Speaker 1: I've recently been leading the Mythic Mind Fellowship into popular
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Speaker 1: media as well, such as movies and games, and it
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Speaker 1: did not take me many steps in this direction to
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Speaker 1: decide that I wanted to do something with the Elder Scrolls.
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Speaker 1: During this six week study the Philosophy of the Elder Scrolls,
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Speaker 1: We're going to go deep into various aspects of morow
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Speaker 1: and Oblivion and Skyrim to better understand the driving forces
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Speaker 1: of the subcreated world and our movements within it, Among others,
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Speaker 1: we'll be asking questions like what is the creation mythos
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Speaker 1: of the Elder Scrolls and how does this relate to
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Speaker 1: primary world ideas. What are the thirty six Lessons of
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Speaker 1: Evek and where do they direct us? What is unique
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Speaker 1: about the hero of Kavacha's particular kind of heroism. What
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Speaker 1: does the Oblivion crisis reveal about the nature of evil
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Speaker 1: in relation to societal institutions. Why are dragons so prolific
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Speaker 1: in our fantastical imaginations? What unique opportunities for existential exploration
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Speaker 1: are made available in open world games. Join this community
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Speaker 1: as we enter Taminal with the purpose of learning more
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Speaker 1: about our place within our own world. Each week will
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Speaker 1: include ongoing discord conversations, at least one or two asynchronous
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Speaker 1: videos to watch whenever you want to, and live discussions
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Speaker 1: which will be recorded and made available. If you're not
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Speaker 1: able to participate, you can purchase enrollment in the shop
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Speaker 1: over at patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind, or become
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Speaker 1: a Tier three annual patron to get access to all
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Speaker 1: courses that begin within your yearly term. This course begins
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Speaker 1: in October, so go ahead and make it happen, and
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Speaker 1: I hope to see you there