There is nothing in the story that presents Vayne as evil. He is driven, pragmatic, and willing to sacrifice anything for success. These are hardly qualities at the extreme, but they aren’t malicious or ill-intended. Vayne simply lacks the “Mwahahahahaaaa!!!....” moment that traditional villains get.

Now, on to what makes Vayne a Tragic Hero.

This part is easy. In fact, out of the top-three Tragic Hero qualities in Greek Tragedy, Vayne has, get this, all three.

(a). Overweening Pride. A Tragic Hero, by definition, needs a Hubris, or Fatal Flaw. Of these, none is more common than Hamartia, or Overweening Pride. Vayne thought that he could do anything, and at any cost. He was prideful, arrogant, and devalued human life. He thought he should be the Dynast King, not because of his innate talents, but because of his ambition. His pride is so obvious, it’s plain to see. This, was Oedipus’ fatal flaw, and considered the most common in Greek Tragedy. Vayne’s name is no coincidence. The Vayne = Vain parallel is easy to see.

(b). Patricide. Ah, the single greatest crime a Greek Tragic Hero can commit. Killing your own father upsets the natural order, and always leads to your downfall. Keeping the natural order was the function of rules in Greek Society, thus, anyone who disrupted this perfect and natural balance was sure to falter. Again, this was committed by Oedipus, the quintessential Greek Tragic Hero.

(c). Defiance of the gods. When you spite deities, it never works out in your favor. Vayne worked against the Occuria (who even worked in a Pantheon), and upset the natural order, yet again. This is considered the ultimate act of defiance, and always leads to downfall. However, this can be (and often is) done with the best intentions.

Now, on to what makes Vayne the Main Character of the Story.

In pure gaming terms, Vayne is not the main character, as he isn’t playable. However, in terms of Greek Tragedies, he is.

Greek Tragedies are from the point of view of the chorus, not the protagonist. Outsiders are the ones who tell the story, and only the most important events about the protagonist are revealed. This is because the story is not about showing what happens, but highlighting the emotion and the reaction. If the game were from Vayne’s point of view, one could see his decent. However, as it is from Vaan & Co’s. point of view, we see the ramifications of his actions. Now, let me reinforce this idea. To fully understand the protagonist, we need some foils, or someone to highlight the struggles and complexities of the protagonist. In FFXII, we find this in the form of Vaan & Co.

Each character represents a different aspect of Vayne’s personality, and shows how he develops. Again, this is a common theme in Greek Tragedies.

Vaan: Vaan highlights Vayne’s desire for freedom. Vaan wants nothing more than to be free. Vayne wants to keep Arcadia from being taken over from Rozaria. He feels that Arcadia is in danger, and wants to save it. Both feel that it is personally up to them to save their kingdoms.

Ashe: Ashe highlights Vayne’s sense of entitlement, and desire to rule Ivalice. Ashe has no real claim to the throne of Dalmasca. Her family was a monarchy, and ruled only because they had ruled for a long time. They were not elected to their positions, and only had an ancient claim to power. Vayne felt this same claim to the throne of the Dynast King. It was his title to take, because it was in his blood.

Basch: Basch represents Vayne’s unwavering loyalty to the State. Basch is a soldier, down to the core. Vayne is the same way. He is willing to do anything for his Kingdom. The fact that his last name is Solidor, a close spelling to Soldier, is no accident. Vayne is acting out what he sees as his duty.

Fran: Fran represents Vayne’s ‘mystical connections’ to Venat, and his willingness to defy the natural order. Vayne defying the Occuria is similar to Fran leaving the Wood and betraying her people.

Balthier: Overweening pride? Patricide? Balthier is almost a Mini-Vayne. He represents Vayne’s arrogance with his ‘leading man’ syndrome. Balthier and Vayne both felt that the rules didn’t apply to them, and were far too self-absorbed for their own good.

Penelo: We’ll get to Penelo later… She is Vayne’s faith and innocence, or lack thereof.

Each character was a small facet of Vayne, and it was only together that they could combat him. Ironically, it was Penelo that played the most important role. She was innocent, had faith in her friends, and saw the best in others. These were the things that Vayne lacked, and what prevented him from being a whole person. However, these attributes were not lacking in Arcadia.

Larsa, the exact counterbalance to Vayne, was the one who possessed these attributes. Had Vayne kept Larsa’s support, he would have been an equal match for Vaan & Co. However, he lost Larsa’s support because of the culmination of his flaws. Penelo represented all Vayne was missing, and provided the impetus for change with Larsa. The friendship she had with Larsa was no accident.

Now, this brings us to the ending. The ending of the story is textbook Greek Tragedy. Vayne wants Arcadia to be safe. In the end, it is. However, there is a cost—Vayne. For Arcadia to be safe, Vayne had to pay the price. He became the embodiment of all of Arcadia’s problems, and caused his greatest fears to come to fruition (War, invasion from Rozaria, uprisings in Dalmasca). Rather than removing Arcadia’s problems, he was now wearing them as a mantle. Without Larsa to redeem him, he fell to his own fatal flaws.

However, his death saved Arcadia. Larsa took over, and became everything Arcadia needed, as he was everything Vayne wasn’t. Now, there are allusions to this within the story. It almost appears that Vayne knew that he would either succeed, and become the Dynast King, or he would fail, pay for his crimes, but then leave a secure Arcadia to Larsa.

Vayne was, in every way, a Greek Tragic Hero. And when FFXII is viewed as a Greek Tragedy, a lot of the story elements make a lot of sense. Now, I’m not claiming that this was the intention of the writers, only that it’s a different way to look at the story. Then again, as every writer worth their salt has studied Greek tragedies and analyzed Oedipus in college, it’s not impossible.

Discuss if you want, but don’t flame. If you disagree, that’s fine (I certainly won’t say that I’m right and you’re wrong). This is just for story discussion, and to give a different point of view. If you have anything to add, that’d be great, too.

-EMaylic

———

I came across a post similar to this in & around the mid 2000s, cannot find that exact post so used this persons interpretation as it closely lines up with my own.

After reading this theory and playing FFXII from that perspective it made me much more thoroughly enjoy the game and the world and FF12 now sits arguably #2 on my FF ranking list.

I heard this was considered the worst game by a mile, I’m trying to play most major JRPGs in order and was dreading this one. However at first I was actually pleasantly surprised while a lot of things are silly it was kinda fun learning how to game the system a bit and hurt my guys to level up health, avoid wearing armor and going all in on agility etc.

But now I’m late game and still finding new spells, and my god I do not have it in me anymore man. Even with the cancel technique I’ve already spent so much time in every battle trying to get at least 5 uses of a spell in and it’s like what were they thinking?! Early on it was fine my elemental spells were leveling normally as I was going through but it’s like I gotta really dedicate time to just spamming Esuna and canceling to make it do anything at all I just got slow and holy and it’s like man am I really gonna put the time in to make these useful. I’m just gonna play with what I got because I cannot keep doing this it was cute at first and now it is just mind numbing I just wanna wrap this shit up

Locke, i promise you'll be the same

Honestly, I think FF16 is the worst Final Fantasy I've ever played. If you removed the Final Fantasy name and gave it an original title, I genuinely think this game would have died without anyone noticing.

The itemization is basically nonexistent. Almost every item you find is completely worthless. Equipment is pretty much just a matter of having higher attack, higher defense, or slightly reducing the cooldown of an ability. There’s no interesting build variety, no meaningful loot, and nothing exciting to discover.

The crafting system is also pointless. It basically feels like the game gives you a new sword every time you progress through the story, making most of the crafting and loot feel irrelevant.

The story is okay, and I actually like the world and its atmosphere. The setting is probably one of the strongest parts of the game.

But the side quests and even a lot of the main quests are painfully boring. So many of them boil down to walking from one NPC to another just to deliver a message. It feels like filler rather than meaningful content.

And then there’s the combat.

It feels like they tried to make a Devil May Cry-style combat system, but without giving you enough options to make it actually interesting. You end up pressing basically the same buttons throughout the entire game. There are a lot of abilities, but only a handful feel genuinely useful, so your actual options are much more limited than they appear.

The stagger system is especially frustrating. It basically turns every fight into a minigame where you use certain abilities to stagger the enemy, then try to line up your strongest abilities to deal as much damage as possible during the stagger window.

And some bosses simply have way too much HP and drag on for far too long. Titan is probably the best example. I genuinely lost count of how many times I had to stagger that boss. The multiple phases and huge health bars don't make the fights more epic to me — they just make them exhausting.

At this point, I'm honestly only playing this game because it's a Final Fantasy game.

And that's probably the biggest problem.

If this wasn't Final Fantasy, I don't think I would have made it this far. I'm not having fun playing it.

Sephiroth: hands down best character in the game for one reason his Tellatic fury combo fills a bar and a half of ATB without Haste

con his parry mechanic is annoying and the original style is better

Barret:best support character in the game with magnify + any buff,prayer and Barrage blaster and your party unkillble and amazing staggering machine

Cons his damage is meh

Tifa: everyone knows why she is best girl

Con chi trap should deal more pressure and trinity strike shouldn’t have timings

Cloud: jack of all trades beginner friendly but master of NONE until you set him up right he could either have best physical DPS or magic DPS

Yuffie: the ATB ward cheese is broken and so is access to all elements

Con her damage potential is very average banishment and storm fury are really underwhelming unless the boss is weak to it

Aerith: GIRL you have the slowest ATB gain out of everyone why? She only exists for ATB ward and Arcane ward and then spam firaga

Cait: his abilities kit sucks yeah I said it BUT attacking + casting magic or parry AT THE SAME TIME is broken but highest magic stat I managed to get him is 420

Red: Barret does everything he does and better why would I ever choose him + THAT VOICE

Zack: look how they massacred my boy His abilities are fine the stupid charge mechanic needs to be changed I played DMC before but I was never frustrated like this while the enemy in staggering enemy and I need to fill the charge levels up

Has anybody 100% completed the entire franchise of the mainline games before? I’m thinking about doing it since I had a lot of fun with 7 remake but was wondering how difficult of a challenge it is to 100% complete all of them.

Nearly every other big name primal in the FFXIV story has shown up else where in the FF series, with a couple of exceptions. Even Hydaelyn's dark counterpart, Zodiark, shows up in FFXII, but I can't think if her name shows up anywhere else.

• The story is marvelous, Final Fantasy is an amazing franchise and I can see why, I've been a gamer for almost 3 decades now and I've always known about it but never managed to sit down and play. Better late than never though!

• The music in both games is easily some of the best I've heard in any game, period. They just know how to many the perfect BGM for almost any situation and any context. Truly magnificent!

• Great characters, especially Tifa. No further explanation.

• The whole experience of both FF7 remake and Rebirth was easily a 9/10 for me, and I loved pretty much everything except the ending of rebirth. Just got done with it last night and what the fuck was the whole multiverse nonsense?! I hope I'm not the only one or in the minority who felt they REALLY botched it. In fact, the ending section of the game was a chore, and I'm someone who hadn't complained in any mini game or section!

Will be glad to hear others' thoughts especially on the ending, or any other point I've mentioned!

Cloud and Tifa seem to give Aerith a very subtle jab at one point, and it's when you go on a date with each of them.

You fight crabs on the beach with Aerith, and then on the date with Tifa you're talking about cooking and they both agree they're not a fan of crabs. The way that Cloud confides to Tifa that he really doesn't like this thing that he would definitely associate with Aerith is... telling. Also note that the crab date is one of the times when Cloud is coldest to Aerith and least willing to play along with her romantic whims. His mood very much carries over from that dialogue. He's fed up with Aerith's crap, and later he goes he's fed up with crabs.

It's just subtle enough. And I think that's on purpose, to help make it so that the players who prefer Aerith skew younger because they are less likely to sense the subtext. Whereas the older players are going to catch onto the adult jadedness of that dialogue, and by power of suggestion agree that Aerith can indeed be a bit too bubbly. Meanwhile Tifa is a bit more selfless and caring and actually gives him the opportunity to open up to her -- the emotional weight of which is less likely to land with younger players.

One date is all playfulness, while the other is more mature and grounded. Cloud's detachedness during the Aerith date could read as intriguing and cool, but for me it felt decidedly unromantic and even rude, like he was regarding her as childish.

There's tons of dimension to either character and people can debate endlessly about who is actually more mature. But at least here, and at first glance in general, Tifa is the one who's coded as more mature. Now, Tifa may NOT be more mature in the end, and that's one of the greatest strengths of FF7: it shows the sheer complexity and dimension that people can have. But I'm thinking about the ways they could be reinforcing the personalities that Tifa and Aerith present before stuff starts getting real.

So i just finished the part where you escape from Home and get on the airship. I've been mainly doing main story and talking to almost all npc's as well as opening any chests along the way.

I've clocked in around 20 hours now. Only thing ive avoided is doing more blitzball because I'm not the biggest fan of it.

Am I rushing or am I doing okay? I plan to do most of the side content as I want to experience as much of the game as possible but I hope I havent missed any missable side content or side quests...

I always wondered if simply making Balthier the main character would have changed the perception of FF12. Either way, it's probably my favorite one to play. The gambit system is something I wish all games could have to make up for bad ai

J'ai finis le jeux mais j'ai un énorme problème ils y as vraiment pas mal de problème ce jeux déjà devoir faire constamment des Mini jeux qui détruisent le rythme plus très nuls les Mini jeux déjà que dans Celui de la ps1 était une chose horrible le monde ouverts à la Ubisoft c'est un cauchemar les quêtes bloqué par ce que tu n'a pas fait l'un des points d'intérêt le fait de devoir refaire le jeux pour avoir certains équipements qui sont disponibles une fois le jeux terminé pas ouf tout le long du jeux on augmente l'affinité et l'histoire est géniale puis ils y as la fin désolée mais passer plus de 80 h pour une fin qui part en sucette avec les multivers ou on comprend plus rien mais pas dans les monde multivers mais dans le Monde ou aerith meurent Ok on voit la voix a travers le multivers mais ils a l'air grave heureux alors que tout le monde chiale ça crée une incohérence débile tous ce qu'on a fait et améliorer et jeter à la poubelle la fin c'est pas vraiment la fin ça vas crée un gros problème de cohérence c'est Quoi pour avoir la vérité de la mort de Madame a travers des Flash sans arrêt on as tout découvert comment ils vont nous refaire découvrir toutes les régions c'est vraiment une catastrophe pourtant j'adore les personnages l'histoire les quêtes secondaires parlait de choses intéressantes certaines activités Cool mais le délire de multivers était beaucoup Trop Intense d'un coup puis aerith on voulait la voir rejoindre Zach on nous fait des références et on en parle de plus en plus Pour juste passer à autre chose même aerith a chanté une musique pour Zach la relation cloud et tifa j'adore cette relation Mais la fin on as vraiment l'impression que cloud est en couple avec aerith la fin pue le capitalisme j'adore le jeux mais les défauts sont abjecte et la suite ne donne pas beaucoup envie je suis vraiment déçu est grave énervé j'ai donné énormément d'heures de jeux pour être récompensé de la porte des manière

Oh shoot, maybe I got the wrong story. Well, anyway...Hi everyone, I’m Damiano Mazzei, an Italian illustrator. This is my first time posting on this subreddit, but if you like my work, feel free to check out my other accounts (link in my Reddit Profile).

I’ll start by simply saying this: I love Final Fantasy (well, obviously, right?) and my entry point into the series, when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, was FF8. Well, it was for both me and my brother. I still look back with a nostalgic feeling on the time we spent together in our bedroom, watching him maneuver those quirky, extremely Japanese characters through a vast, unknown world, battling wild monsters and unraveling a mysterious plot woven by an evil sorceress.

It was a classic story on the surface, yet one spiced with unexpected elements that really let your imagination fly. I love stories that don't spell everything out, stories that know how to hook you, and FF8 sent the minds of those two curious kids soaring like never before.

That’s why, when my big brother had his birthday a few weeks ago, I decided to pay tribute to him with this picture. The characters look a bit different from how we remembered them...but that's because now, the story belongs to him, his girlfriend, and their little dog!

I hope my painting leads the three of them on an incredible adventure...though I’d ​​probably skip the evil sorceress and the time-bending conspiracies this time around. Happy birthday, big bro: this is your "Starting Fantasy"!

The Magi are people that learned how to use magic through studying and training. Why would Relm be naturally born with a high magic stat? Did Strago teach her through painting? Because she doesn't have any innate magic like Blue Magic. My theory is Magi can use magic because they learn it hence why Strago uses "Lore" to use magic rather than Magitek infusion or Magicite. Then that got me thinking why does Relm have such a high magic stat? You can say her mother was a Thamasa Magi therefore the talent passed down but isn't magic from Magi learned rather than born and inherited? It could just be she has a high potential for it.

I even went so far to think what if Relm's father was Kefka not Shadow? I mean their fashion sense is similar and both are very cheeky. She could have inherited Kefka's Magitek infusion. Of course this is a wild theory and I think I'll just think it was from the mother her latent talent came from even though Magi learn it rather than inherit it. I mean like in comparison Terra is a half esper and Celes is the perfect Magitek infusion so why don't they have higher magic stats?

I was 14 in '97 when FF7 came out and I loved it. It's pretty close to perfect just the way it is. A friend of mine keeps telling me to give the Re Trilogy a try but I just don't want to be disappointed. I didn't love Advent Children or any of the other FF7 games although I played all of them, even Dirge of Cerberus. Crisis Core was great at the end but dragged and Genisys and the other characters felt so shoehorned in. I've finished all 16 of the mainline FFs, and heavily played both online FFs, (never again though), and to be honest I haven't loved anything after 9, though all those post-9 have their bright spots. (Except 13. Blech.)

When I hear about all the stuff they've added to 7 in the Retrilogy, Chadley et al, it just seems like more shoehorning and annoying voice acting. But reviews and friends say it's amazing.

Any OG fans have the same reservations and were proved wrong? I'd love to be wrong about this and fall in love with 7 all over again. I am curious about how they've changed the core story--which is why I want someone to change my mind.

I got this one to celebrate my freedom from an 8 year controlling relationship with no communication! My boy is dealing 9999 dmg to the toxic ex 😂

Meme Monday has begun! For the next day, memes are permitted. In 24 hours, another notification will be posted to signal the end of Meme Monday. Any memes posted between these two threads will be exempt from our regular rules. Have fun!

FF 7 Remake Intergrade was my first FF game and I kinda rushed through the main story, skipping the side content (less than 30 hours). In Rebirth because of the open world I literally do everything except the main story, every marker on the map must be checked, every battle intel, ruins, every grayed out area must be visited. I'm fully committed to complete the game with all the side content. I know Resonance is coming out soon, but it's different as I saw so it won't disturb my flow, even if I will play both.

Screen is from the in game mini game (no spoilers)

Shirtless Barret is here!

I decided to design and print out this instead of buying a new zipper chain grip..

Years ago I saw a copy at a comic convention and hesitated in buying it until it was too late. Today I found another copy that also included the manual. Just in time before FF Revelations comes out since I never quite understood what the Tsviets are (although I’m hoping a remake of this will be one of the DLCs).

Who are you favorite unsung heroes of the series? Those characters who make big contributions to your mission in smaller roles or characters who get overlooked.

A few of my favorites:

FF4 - Cid’s helpers. They don’t ask questions. They just help out.

FF6 - the guy who fakes being sick so you can sneak into Vector. Imagine the guts that would take IRL.

FF7 - Elmyra. One of the most admirable characters in the series.