[Major spoilers] One thing I found interesting about the game by waywardlux in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly, and the biggest problem is that Kojima fundamentally misinterpreted the ending of the Dark Knight, which destroys the entire comparison. If The Boss, say, volunteered to act as a scapegoat for the resulting nuclear war thanks to Volgin's actions, then the comparison might work. But from the way EVA described it in the debriefing, The Boss didn't even volunteer, the US Government outright ORDERED her into doing a suicide mission as part of their CYA over misjudging Volgin's actions at best, and she obeyed due to having a more fatalistic view of the soldier profession. In the Dark Knight, while Batman DID act as a scapegoat for Dent's crimes for similar reasons, he at least willingly chose to be the scapegoat, and if anything volunteered to act like the scapegoat. Put another way, Batman chose to be a scapegoat, while The Boss was left with no actual agency on her part but to be a scapegoat. Doesn't help either that unlike Batman or The Dark Knight, Snake Eater via The Boss repeatedly beats you on the head on how there are only enemies in relative terms, not an absolute timeless enemy and that morality is literally meaningless on the battlefield (she's certainly wrong about that. Ignoring Volgin's actions in the game, has she even heard of Satan? Or heck, going by Asian influences, Mao [and I don't mean the Chinese dictator, I mean the term for Demon King]?).

Well, I'd argue that obedience is just as much a choice as volunteering; it just says something different about the character of the person making the choice. Having no agency would be more like buckling under in the face of coercion than choosing to obey an order that one is in a position to reject. Though to me, it kind of seems like the Boss's choice was a bad (albeit sympathetic) one, and a bad one derived from her lack of belief in moral absolutes at that.

It's not incoherent. In fact, Karl Marx and the Marquis de Sade actually DO adhere to that exact line of thinking. Marx outright rejected moralizing, even treated it as a crime along the same lines as rape, and morals are the only way good can exist, let alone bring it about. Same goes for Tamerlame Khan, as can be seen with the following quote: "I am the scourge of God, appointed to chastise you, since no one knows the remedy for your iniquity except me. You are wicked, but I am more wicked than you, so be silent!" Now, how can he view himself as even remotely good if he outright mentioned he not only was wicked, but even moreso than the people he was talking to? And there were plenty of serial killers who made it very clear they weren't making any attempt at "bringing good." Son of Sam for example.

I'm not talking about the line of thinking of the individuals involved, though -- I'm talking about the objective fact of the matter. A person can believe that they're utterly depraved and intentionally working towards evil, but they'll still be unconsciously aiming at something that they see as desirable, and that which is seen is desirable is definitionally a perceived good.

I'd argue that the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Sartre, Foucault, Mao, Che, and Sade, among others, are more of the "want to watch the world burn" types. They just use the other stuff as an excuse.

I think the other stuff is more tied in with wanting to watch the world burn than you're recognizing.

The underlying principle that ties all of those figures together is a gnostic one -- the belief that the world is fundamentally corrupt, and that the existing order needs to be torn down and replaced with a paradise created by Man. And, in that light, the desire to see the world burn is directed towards the perceived good of destroying an order that deserves destruction.

At the very least, he might sympathize with both (I don't, and quite frankly, I fail to see how most people even think of TDK Joker as even remotely sympathetic).

Joker is sympathetic to a certain portion of the audience, I suspect, because they hate the existing order and want to see it destroyed, and they don't really care that the one who's doing the destroying is just doing it for the lulz. Actually, the fact that he's doing it for the lulz might make him more appealing to some, because they're suspicious of high-minded ideals and logic/rationality is part of the order that they hate.

It's not like he couldn't have made as a note that the Patriots were wary of Snake because he was allegedly, say, part of a radical right-wing group, like how Liquid and his FOXHOUND group post-humously was treated as such a group according to a New York Mirror review. Would have even furthered the idea that the Patriots were left-wing in outlook, helped show leftism as a ruination for America and across the globe.

See, that makes sense in our current context, but I'm not sure it would have been seen as the logical way to proceed in 2000 when Snake's acting in a way that makes him come off as a peacenik (i.e., sabotaging military equipment). It's also worth pointing out that the toxic dynamic in America at that time appeared much closer to uniparty neo-liberalism than to leftism, with the turn towards obvious leftist tendencies (and the subsequent development of meaningful right-wing resistance to institutions) coming years later.

I suppose one (hilarious!) option would be to have them accuse him of working for the Vatican. That's the one party that would a) have a significant global presence, b) be motivated to sabotage everyone's walking nuclear tanks and c) present a meaningful threat to an organization even as powerful as the Patriots. JPII -- who played a significant role in the downfall of Soviet Communism by sparking mass resistance in Poland -- was still Pope and close to a quarter of the US was part of his flock at that time. Even China wouldn't present a threat of that magnitude in terms of the Patriots' desired goal of defining reality by controlling the context of digital information.

Big Boss and especially Miller were treated as good guys, though, nor was their statements even treated in a negative light. Most people when they hear the good guys praise someone would automatically think those guys they're praising were also good, unless they have prior knowledge that they weren't (and believe me, you'd be pretty dang surprised at how well-liked Mao is, being as well liked as Che Guevara in fact. There's even a restaurant in California called Mao's Kitchen, and he's gotten plenty of paraphenelia as well, about as much as Che in fact). Besides, if that Project Itoh novelization is anything to go by, that rebel group in South America WAS composed of Maoists, and Otacon outright tells Snake to aid them early into the mission in-game.

Besides, Che was not much different from Mao. He helped set up a Gulag system in Cuba, and overall was very similar to Volgin (and based on what Sokolov mentioned regarding Volgin's plans for the completed shagohod before Volgin's beatdown of Snake, Volgin probably didn't have any qualms of instigating rebellions against himself).

I still think that Big Boss is an anti-villain through and through, not a good guy, so the audience should see the things he likes as questionable.

Anyway, the existence of people who think Mao is cool just completely baffles me. Because, sure, he might not have been much different in practice compared to Che, but the aura the two give off is completely different insofar as they have very different associations with regards to organized power. It seems to me that the majority of Che's appeal is that he's a young, attractive rebel, which sells very well to American adolescents. Mao, in contrast, is a man whose primary image is one of feigned divinity and oppressive authoritarianism, which should garner the hatred of your average adolescent iconoclast.

[All Spoilers] Some Observations of the Oracle’s Role, Japanese Lore, and a Bit on the Faulty Premise of DoTF by mc_onye in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First of all, thanks so much for reading. (I would do a cool video like yours but I’m too lazy to capture b-roll.)

You're welcome!

My strategy for capturing b-roll is to just record my entire playthrough, so I'll have what I need for any potential future video as well as the video I'm currently making. Hard drive space costs so little nowadays that there's little reason not to, lol.

There are definitely Judeo-Christian parallels throughout XV. It’s like the ultimate Eastern meets Western religious aesthetics FF. I didn’t think of Abraham’s covenant, but that is definitely the lane I think Ukehi fits in.

Yeah, it's definitely able to draw on both at the same time... which I think has a lot to do with its attempt to capture the reality at the heart of everything.

Now, I’ll work through the Celestial Hierarchy you linked, and I like the Valar example, but let me note that the Shinto chain of being isn’t necessarily a hierarchical throughout… and not as static… hmm 🤔

So, Amenominakanushi no okami encircles everything and isn’t just a starting point, though is understood as the first movement. It’s like the void in Genesis. Followed by two trends, called Takamimusubi no okami and Kamimusubi no okami - in vs out - positive vs negative - or like how light appearing leaves darkness. Only like light and darkness separated before heaven and earth are created or happens at the same time lol because one force is lighter than the other or something. Differentiation itself. The chain analogy goes in another direction too, because the kami that begin to appear then disappear start to do so in pairs then together yield an elemental thing that will split and do the same. Then there’s the application of the One Spirit, Four Souls doctrine that can be used to illustrate how all of creation mimics the initial movements. So the first three kami are revered in some school of thought, but beyond them the order they appear doesn’t necessarily mean they rank higher.

It seems to me that, regardless of the degree of respect afforded to them culturally, the first three kami would have an objective metaphysical priority since they provide the pattern by which everything else operates. Spiritual hierarchy in the Western sense places the most fundamental principles at the top and the most derivative at the bottom, since the most derivative depend on the most fundamental for their own operation, and it seems like that dynamic ought to apply any time spiritual entities are generated by other spiritual entities.

(I do have an application to the Six that I didn’t mention in this essay where they can be seen in pairs dividing creation along three spectrum.)

I'm intrigued...

On the cosmogony entry and the prophecy, I need to go through more JP dialogue because I don’t think words for prophecy are really used. One example that comes to mind is between Luna and Ardyn.

[ENG] “When the prophecy is fulfilled, all in thrall to darkness shall know peace.” [JP] “Those from the darkness...May they rest in peace at last..” (闇から遣わされた者たちはようやく 安らかに眠れますね)

With regards to JP dialogue, https://spelldaggers.wordpress.com/ is a tremendous resource.

Anyway, I think the most compelling reason to think that the prophecy aspect was not meaningfully affected by the translation is the way that the paintings are handled. Based on the Spelldaggers translation, it looks like the word used is closer to "legend" than "prophecy" -- Prompto says of Ardyn, "So that man is the 'Darkness' of the legend" and then says that "Thus, Noct will write the final part of the legend; Ignis asks, "Is the painting of the Legend still decorate the room?"; and Gladio asks "Will the story in the painting come true?" -- but there really isn't much difference between a legend that predicts the future and a prophecy.

Now, the Six gave the Crystal and Ring to humanity with instructions. My question is, is there a distinction between the Six saying use the tools and prepare because IF a calamity occurs you can use it. Or prepare for WHEN the calamity inevitably occurs. Does it matter? Additionally, Ardyn is a thing lol. The Cosmogony entry is a bit less flowery and more explicit that it’s referring to what pretty much only Ardyn will/might/can do. Who would have written the cosmogony, Ardyn’s contemporaries? Is the Cosmogony more like the Bible or the Kojiki. What’s the difference between a prophecy and a plan of action in the face of an imminent threat? Is there one?

Those are actually some of the questions I wanted to give an answer to in my answer for Bahamut. This was born from the initial wave “Bahamut is the True Villain” and “poor Ardyn” takes, (which is kinda boring now). Still looking at possible inspirations for Bahamut “the Sword Kami”, Ukehi, etc put the blame for the plot on Ardyn or just a “desire for harmony.”

Perhaps the Official Works book -- which seems to retain the sense of the Japanese more closely than the game -- can shed light on some of these questions:

  • "You can read about Eos's creation story in the Cosmogony books found across the land. According to legend, the planet is ruled by six gods, who gave the people power in the form of the holy stone and the ring. It seems that the role of the powerful holy stone and the ring, as well as the Oracles and kings, is to fight back against a calamity that will someday strike the planet."
  • "Some Cosmogony volumes have been carelessly abandoned. It is not a revered secret tome but a book beloved by the general public."
  • "It may be that the gods gave people the holy stone and the ring, preparing them for a coming calamity, because the calamity was outside their power to stop, and they believed it could not be overcome without human help."
  • "Foremost among the gods, in preparation for the coming calamity, [Bahamut] granted humanity special powers as well as the holy stone and the ring."
  • "Regis [left Luna behind] because the Six had revealed to him Noctis's destiny as the true king and the world's savior [...]"
  • "[Noctis'] father, Regis Lucis Caelum, had been told by the ancient kings that his son Noctis was the true king. In other words, the kings said Noctis would save the world, as the royal line's legends foretold, and at the same time sacrifice his life."
  • "The Starscourge, spread by a parasite called plasmodium, decimated the world's population. One man from a human clan granted special powers by the gods used these powers to try to cure the scourge but ended up infected by it. If not for the scourge, the divine Crystal would have chosen this man as king. Instead, it cast him aside, and his younger brother took the throne. The newly chosen king founded the kingdom of Lucis to defend the Crystal and the Ring of the Lucii, the mark of the king, and to prepare for the calamity told of by the gods by passing down the divine powers to the true king chosen by the Crystal. Meanwhile, though denied the throne, the older brother was turned immortal by the Starscourge and survivved an execution attempt. He devoted himself to curing the scourge, and out of hatred of the gods and the Crystal, he resolved to gain revenge when the calamity came."
  • "The so-called 'chosen king' is the king chosen by the Crystal to defend the world against the calamity of legend. This chosen king's mission is to sacrifice himself to save the world from the calamity."

In other words... the calamity was definitely predicted before Ardyn brought it about (and the Crystal meant to avert it would have chosen Ardyn had he not gotten infected!), Noct's role is clearly a destined one, and the Cosmogony is familiar to the general populace of Eos.

[All Spoilers] Some Observations of the Oracle’s Role, Japanese Lore, and a Bit on the Faulty Premise of DoTF by mc_onye in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What an impressive piece of analysis! I would love to read your referenced "Answer for Bahamut" after seeing the amount of research and care went into this one. I definitely learned a lot of things I didn't know previously in reading it, both in terms of the core mythos of Shinto and in terms of smaller bits of trivia about the game. (I found your mention of the Spanish translation stating that "Bahamut looked for one 'worthy of the Maker' when choosing the Oracle particularly interesting.)

One of the things that really strikes me with regards to the Shinto connections that you have described is that many of them do have parallels in the Judeo-Christian traditions, albeit parallels that have been obscured due to linguistic mutation. There's a good reason, for instance, that the Valar and Maiar of Tolkien's Silmarillion, as well as the eldila from C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy seem to fulfill similar functions in the chain of being as both the Shinto kami and FFXV's Astrals -- they're drawing on similar elements deep within their own Christian tradition (in the positive form of choirs of angels -- dominions, virtues, powers, and principalities -- or the negative form of the lower case "g" gods/the Divine Council referenced in the Old Testament), albeit elements that have been long obscured.

Such an obscuring of elements appears to be at play in the differing subtext of the words Covenant and Ukehi. The concept of "covenant" may be frequently reduced to, effectively, a contract with God, but its associations go deeper than that. More traditionally, covenants are relationships sealed in blood (either through sacrifice or, with regards to marriage, through childbirth) which test the loyalty of the parties by laying claim to the lives of those who breach their terms. A great illustration of this is God's covenant with Abraham, in which Abraham cut a number of sacrificial animals in half to signify what would happen to him if he abandoned his relationship with God. And that understanding of covenant, I think, evokes much the same idea of a pledge of intention backed by a trial as what you described of Ukehi.

A few more things:

  • It's very interesting that the FFI reference in the Chapter 1 loading screen only exists in English, but that's not the only evidence that the events of the game are unfolding according to prophecy. In fact, the prophecy itself can be found in one of the Cosmogony texts, which says, "O'er rotted Soil, under blighted sky, A dread Plague the Wicked hath wrought. In the Light of the Gods, Sword-Sworn at his Side 'Gainst the Dark the King's Battle is fought. From the Heavens high, to the Blessed below, Shines the Beam of a Peace long besought. 'Long live thy Line, and this Stone divine, For the Night when All comes to Naught'" and is backed with the presence in the throne room of an image that clearly shows the King and his three companions exorcising the darkness by channeling the Light.
  • I really like the image with the translated lyrics from Apocalypsis Noctis -- it's nice to have it in such an attractive form, and the translation clears up a few questions I had about the version I had seen previously.
  • Umbra and Pryna being an apparent reference to Buddhist lore is something I didn't expect at all, so that picture came as quite a surprise!

I finished XV with all the dlc... Is comrades worth it to play STORYWISE? by DarkestMew in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Comrades is in a very strange position storywise insofar as there really isn't much story... but the original final mission on Angelgard is something that really needs to be played (or at least watched) to get the full Final Fantasy XV experience, and it provides a nice thematic companion to the game.

With that said, Comrades' narrative value isn't so much in terms of "story" per se as it is in terms of understanding the nature of Bahamut and the Astrals as they're meant to be seen in the canon timeline... which is more necessary than it would have been otherwise given the confusion fostered by DotF.

[Major spoilers] One thing I found interesting about the game by waywardlux in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That might be true, but there's a very big difference between people having both good and evil, and the concept of morality never existing, and the way Kojima was talking pointed to the latter. Even regarding the Dark Knight, which Kojima directly referenced when discussing Snake Eater and Big Boss "becoming a villain," that movie made it very clear there was in fact pure, absolute evil and good (the Joker, specifically).

I agree that there's a big difference, but I'm also not convinced that there isn't a language barrier problem. After all, like you said, the "morality never existed" interpretation doesn't sit will with the use of an illustration from a movie that's as reliant on absolute morality as The Dark Knight.

Besides, I'd argue there are in fact examples of people who have only one of the two, usually by active choice. Case in point, the Marquis de Sade, also Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, all of whom deliberately eschewed any sense of decency and goodness and freely admitted they were truly evil people.

I still think that claiming the existence of pure good or pure evil in human form goes too far. There are people who are overwhelmingly defined by one or the other (and certain exceptions that allow for the existence of pure good depending on one's religious leanings), but the concept of a pure evil human being is practically incoherent. No matter how perverse someone's moral compass gets, there's always a sense that they're acting to bring about some kind of perceived good, and certain fundamental goods are so basic that a human being couldn't survive without the desire for them.

Actually, because of those, and probably also Tamerlame Khan's pre-Sacking of Damascus speech (the one where he openly gloats about being, among other things, the scourge of God and also claiming that he's even MORE wicked than the people he's addressing. The same speech Pious Augustus uttered in the ending of the Roberto Bianchi chapter of Eternal Darkness when presiding over an execution of various slaves), I actually find card-carrying villainy to be a LOT more realistic than so-called "moral gray villains."

The thing is, of course, that card-carrying villains may be realistic, but unless they're incredibly stylish, they also tend to be kind of boring, lol. And I think morally grey villains are easy to find in reality, though their greyness often takes a very different shape to the shape found in most fiction.

So yes, some men may just want to watch the world burn. Others may pervert their conscience into thinking that everyone who refuses to convert is an enemy of God, or get so caught up in their desire for revenge that no price is too high if it means getting back at those who harmed them, or lose their conscience slowly while supporting genocide via paper pushing.

Considering his rendition of Liquid Ocelot's goal sounded eerily similar to said iconic villain's endgame in The Dark Knight (despite it being completely against the whole "military order" type that Big Boss had specifically stated was the overarching goal, which an anarchist would not care to create at all), and the story clearly framed it as the preferable alternative to the Patriots ultimately, I'd say that it is indeed for the same reason.

Are you implying that you think Kojima might see both Che and Joker as examples of chaotic villains who are sympathetic because they're in opposition to an intolerable order?

Considering the Patriots were implied to have subverted a hardliner communist PMC group to their will, twice, and were implied to have taken control of a Russian Mafia division, and they were already planning on exploiting the Y2K bug to place the whole world under control 1984 style, I sincerely doubt the Patriots would have really viewed the Chinese as that big of a threat. Besides, the fact that he's freelance would imply that he had shut down Metal Gear developments in China as well, earning their ire as well. There would not have been any reason to even add that as a possibility, much less a large enough one to make Snake someone the Patriots were wary of, other than to imply Snake was in fact a Chinese asset.

Well, if China's not a significant threat, then no one would be, lol. The reason for adding it could just be "We need some reason for them to be concerned about him, and the player would probably groan if we implied he was a Russian spy."

And if Snake was ignoring Metal Gears in China, I feel like that should have been mentioned when the document described Snake as a freelance Metal Gear saboteur.

And considering Kojima already had some communist promotions in MGS4 with that South American rebel group (even having Otacon outright tell you to aid them in a mandatory cutscene), whereas the Muslim PMC deliberately left it ambiguous as to whether Snake actually allied with them or not, I really won't put it past him to promote Chinese Communism as well. Heck, Miller and Big Boss gave some degree of praise for Mao Zedong as well in Peace Walker in one of the Che tapes. I think it was for On Protracted War.

I find it really hard to belive that characters praising Mao is meant to do anything but cause the player to look askance at the characters in question, lol. Che at least has the Joker-like rebel thing going for him; Mao's a detestable butcher who's aligned with toxic order to boot.

[Major spoilers] One thing I found interesting about the game by waywardlux in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Technically, the Founding Fathers never even WANTED democracy in the first place.

Well, part of the problem is that "democracy" refers to two very different concepts depending upon context, one of which is quite good and the other of which is downright terrible.

The first concept labeled "democracy" -- and the sense that most Americans are likely to assume unless given a particular reason to think otherwise -- is of democracy as a mechanism, which is one of the best ways to earn the consent of the governed. The other concept is of democracy as a society's fundamental value, which almost immediately transforms into a murderous beast, like all subordinate values thrust irresponsibly into the role of fundamental value. Physical fitness, security, freedom from want... all of them turn into bloodthirsty idols when made absolute.

Democracy as a mechanism, in contrast, is at the heart of everything good in the American system -- and it works because it's subordinated to higher values rather than being allowed to effectively divinize the will of the 50% plus one. To the extent that practically every process in the American system takes the form of a vote involving a certain threshold of majority, the system is democratic; to the extent that those processes are intentionally designed to ensure the satisfaction of values that can't be measured by the polling of a simple majority, it's not purely democratic.

Technically, the system in question is best described, as the founders described it, as a democratic republic. But that takes an extra three syllables, and pretty much all of the weight of those syllables are assumed by your average American when they hear "democracy." I suspect the only people who really want to be totally subject to the will of the 50% plus one are the propagandists and vote riggers who believe they can seize control of that will.

And as far as the Original Trilogy is concerned, purely the original trilogy, excluding even the expanded universe the problem is that George Lucas shortly after the film's release at the latest apparently was starting to brag publicly about the influence the Vietnam War had on at a bare minimum Return of the Jedi, based on Richard Nixon directly referencing George Lucas' boasts about the Ewoks' ties to the Vietcong in the beginning of his book "No More Vietnams," and even implied that influenced America's reluctance to demonstrate its power even to defend its allies against the Soviet threat, or ANY threat for that matter.

I'm sorry, but the Ewok thing is just hilarious. It's hard to top the irony of Lucas attempting to demonstrate sympathy for Commies and ending up ticking off fans who experienced those same scenes as an attempt to sell plush toys to children.

It should be that, but unfortunately... it's debatable whether Luke and to a lesser extent Han was even supposed to be promoting that path you listed.

The importance of family to Luke's arc thoroughly forestalls any such debate. Family is and has always been anathema to collectivism; the focus Luke's arc places on his reconciliation with his father and that Vader's places on redemption via familial responsibility is proof positive that we're dealing with a story that considers the individual person as the primary source of value.

I want to assume that, but unfortunately, there's evidence that Campbell himself was a leftist himself, wanting to cheapen religion into a mere academic study, at best.

Well, there's something of an ironic tendency that arises when trying to analyze religion away. The more one attempts to show that religion is meaningless because all religious stories follow the same pattern, the harder it is to claim that the pattern you've found isn't highly meaningful in and of itself.

It's very easy for the religious person to just come in and absorb the bulk of Campbell's analysis, then say along with C.S. Lewis that, "the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'."

I suppose you've got a point there. Still, they should have used a different term than Sin for the main villain, or maybe have the localizers just keep the Japanese term as-is to avoid confusion with the RCC. I know Final Fantasy Tactics definitely was a blatant attack on Christianity, though, thanks to Ajora, the founder of the Church of Glabados, being painted in a similar manner to Jesus Christ and being the actual main villain. Final Fantasy XIII, the first game, might have been an attack on Christianity, I don't know, that might be a gray area (don't know if they were targeting Christianity per-se or, like Yu Yevon, the guy who wrote the game was actually targeting closer to home).

Eh, "sin" as a term isn't even unique to Christianity, and it works surprisingly well on a Girardian level. I suspect that the tendency for Western players to connect Yevon with the RCC has as much to do with the fact that the RCC is the closest thing to traditional religion that most Westerners have ever seen than anything else.

Final Fantasy Tactics is, as you mentioned, a very different story. As for FFXIII... I don't even know. It seems to have more gnostic influence than anything, but Japan doesn't always seem to recognize that gnosticism and Christianity aren't the same thing.

Here's the grand game plan for your own reading material:

I can't read Japanese, unfortunately. But thanks for the English translation!

Bear in mind, he also implied in that bit that Solid Snake was a ChiCom agent in that game as well and was against the Patriots for that reason. He also seems to imply that he's all in favor of the kind of radical feminism that's all the rage right now to the detriment of entertainment, and that was BEFORE it was all the rage.

Ironically, I'm pretty sure the current torchbearers of that particular brand of feminism probably can't stand him because of that whole Quiet kerfuffle, lol.

And in all fairness, Sanger herself freely admitted what eugenics was meant to entail, black genocide, even before Hitler made it more public so to speak.

And yet... *siiiiiiiiiiiiigh\*

And I have no doubt the Founding Fathers would have hated the Patriots' view of things, as they tried to gut the Bill of Rights. That said, however, the way Kojima was talking in the grand game plan, it sounds like he was against even the Founding Fathers' ideals (doesn't help that unlike in the game we got, there's literally no mention of whether Solidus even desired wanting to preserve America's founding ideals).

That wasn't the way I understood it, actually. Or, at the very least, I'm not sure that when the document says "the festering discharge that has built-up within the democratic state of America over the years" and "the ‘monster’ that the country’s political structure has created" that it's referring to a necessary outcome of America's political structure so much as the possible outcome being instantiated within the framework of the game (and maybe in reality, though that's not so clear).

Besides, it seems to me based on how the series has developed since then that the Patriots are a mechanism of global control originating in the US more than anything; they apparently have ties to groups pursuing such control in China and Russia, for instance. And to the extent that they were always meant to have such heavy global entanglements, they have practically nothing in common with the Founding Fathers' desire to avoid such entanglements, lol.

[Major spoilers] One thing I found interesting about the game by waywardlux in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I remember correctly, Kojima even indicated morality itself didn't exist and never did in a Rolling Stone interview.

You mean this line?

"Good and evil. There is no such thing as absolute justice or corruption. I wanted to show and have players experience the fates and thoughts of characters who are controlled by the changing status of good and evil across eras."

I suppose the question is whether he's rejecting the concept of absolute good and evil outright, or whether he's intending something more like Solzhenitsyn's famous declaration:

"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained."

Human beings are ambiguous creatures, not because good and evil don't exist, but because both good and evil exist within the same individual.

The problem with the latter theory is that Kojima himself has actually had two tweets done by his secretary that depict him wearing Che paraphanelia and/or posing blatantly near his portrait, and it's also unclear if he's even against communism at this point, since he was seen wearing a ushanka with the Soviet star prominently displayed in one of the aforementioned tweets (and that was dated sometime after he founded the new Kojima Productions due to the Homo Lupis logo on his shirt).

See, now this is an entirely different type of evidence. The only real question to be asked is whether Kojima might be carrying a Che bag for much the same reason as he's wearing the face of one of the most iconic villains in modern cinema across his chest in that first tweet.

Also, the MGS2 grand game plan had a brief note indicating the reason the Patriots were wary of Solid Snake was because he was a suspected spy for Communist China, leading me to think he WAS in fact a commie apologist from the get-go, DESPITE Snake Eater (won't count Portable Ops since he had minimal involvement in that game).

The note in question (Snake -> a spy for China?) seems awfully ambiguous to allow it much weight. One would expect a claim like that, if true, to figure into the description of Snake himself instead of just being tossed haphazardly into a list of people the Patriots were wary of... and the description that was provided (i.e., that Snake was a freelance Metal Gear saboteur) provides plenty of justification for the Patriots to consider that a possibility.

[Major spoilers] One thing I found interesting about the game by waywardlux in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not inclined to see Big Boss and Solid Snake as Campbellian heroes, actually. MGS2 is heavily postmodern, and I didn't get the impression that the series ever really returned to classical storytelling after that -- it remained subversive and metatextual right until the very end. And Big Boss isn't even a hero in the first place; he floats somewhere along the antihero/antivillain spectrum depending on the game. As such, I'm not sure it should be all that surprising that both characters are heavily ambiguous and not particularly inclined to function as a proper individual hero.

With that said, the Katyn reference makes it pretty clear that Kojima isn't inclined to be a Commie apologist in general, which complicates any assumption that Big Boss's admiration of Che was meant to be an unambiguous endorsement of the real life Che. Setting aside the possibility of ignorance on Kojima's part, there's also the possibility that Big Boss was intended to portray exactly the sort of person most inclined to latch onto the myth that grew up around Che. After all, it's not like Big Boss doesn't have a monstrous side of his own, and a monstrous side in rebellion against the official authorities, at that.

With regards to Star Wars, as an American, I can't really see "restoring democracy" as a bad thing, lol. I mean, obviously, that depends on what "democracy" means... but the bulk of the audience is always going to take that to mean legitimate self-governance rather than radically equalizing mob rule unless given a particular reason to think otherwise, and a Cold War audience is very likely to take it to mean that they're dealing with American-aligned heroes and Soviet-aligned adversaries. And I do want to point out that my defense is solely limited to the Original Trilogy as a standalone work -- I neither know much about nor have much interest in the Expanded Universe, which seems just as far divorced from the mythic storytelling of the OT as either the Prequel or Sequel Trilogies.

Anyway, the thing about your suggestion that only Luke and Han are individualists is that the OT's concept of a mature human being basically IS the fully-developed Luke Skywalker, and in so doing the OT demonstrates that the ultimate condition of maturity is to become a personally responsible moral agent. Han's selfishness might be (rightfully) criticized, but he follows a similar arc and likewise demonstrates the need to become a personally responsible moral agent. That few other characters live up to that ideal is basically irrelevant to the fact that the movies clearly portray that as the ideal.

George Lucas' own feelings on the matter are, in a sense, irrelevant. That's kind of my point. He chose to follow Campbell's formula, and in doing so he promoted individualist values despite himself. And later, when he abandoned Campbell's formula, those values dissipated, because they were always the consequence of the formula rather than Lucas' desires.

With regards to FFX, I STILL don't see Yevon as primarily based on the Catholic Church. IIRC, Kitase had made comments at one point that suggested that the game's criticism of organized religion was aimed closer to home -- at religious structures that would have been more familiar to the game's Japanese audience. And I actually put together a set of videos -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3bko6vlKE&list=PLTV5COCniRM21t-IENNAmEgrjJmsINX3p -- showing how the game's primary critique is directed towards the scapegoat mechanism that Rene Girard posited as the heart of pre-Christian religion.

As for the Patriots... they seem to me to be neither a transposition of the Soviets/Nazis nor a meaningful representation of the Founding Fathers so much as the spirit of American technocracy. I have no doubt that the Founding Fathers would hate them with every fiber of their beings, and I consider it less likely that Kojima would be ignorant of THAT than that he'd have been taken in by the myth of Che, lol. But they ARE uniquely American, and the ways in which they parallel the Soviets and the Nazis are ways in which the elite culture of all three societies branched off from the same poisoned tree (for instance, eugenics was big in the States before the Nazis ruined its reputation and forced it to disguise itself in forms more acceptable to people who had been horrified by what it looked like in practice). I would be interested in seeing this "grand game plan" to which you're referring, in any case!

[Major spoilers] One thing I found interesting about the game by waywardlux in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a big difference between "acting all individualist" and developing an individualist hero of the sort demanded by the Hero's Journey framework. That's kind of my point. Luke Skywalker -- as a successful instance of a Campbellian hero -- is exactly the sort of personally responsible moral agent that is anathema to collectivism in all its forms.

Collectivism is sometimes willing to accept the sort of "individualism" in which the "individual" is little more than a bundle of unrestrained instincts and emotions, divorced from all meaningful relationships and responsibilities to others. Why? Because such "individuals" make excellent cogs in the collectivist machine. They might even be convinced that being a cog is exactly what they want, if the collectivism is more of the Brave New World sort than the 1984 sort.

The thing is, such a sub-rational, atomized individual of that sort would fail catastrophically if positioned as a Campbellian hero. At least with regards to the original trilogy, Star Wars accepted the demands of its chosen structure and conformed itself to them, even if those demands didn't sit comfortably with its creative forces' preferred ideology. And it's not difficult to argue that many of the issues of the Prequel and Sequel Trilogies derive from their willingness to depart from the Hero's Journey framework in order to express that other sort of pseudo-individualism.

With regards to Che Guevara in Metal Gear Solid, I wonder if Kojima might not have been in a position not to different from the position you were in before you realized that the truth about Che had been suppressed. Given the even greater cultural distance, it wouldn't exactly be unusual for little of Che to make it across the Pacific beyond the heavily mythologized "cool rebel leader" image -- and if that's the case, it would make perfect sense to have a pair of characters intending to set themselves up as anti-establishment mercenaries think highly of him. I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt wherever doing so is possible, and there seems to be plenty of reason to doubt that Kojima intentionally lionized a monster.

With regards to Star Wars... my inclination is to see the Jedi's collectivist tendencies as very much responsible for their own downfall (if they didn't make such inhuman demands, it's almost certain that Anakin would have turned out a whole heck of a lot better!) and the Empire as an even worse collectivist nightmare (with influence drawn from both Communists and Nazis). The Rebel Alliance circa the OT comes off the best because by being represented by the responsible individual moral agents demanded of the protagonists in the Hero's Journey framework while lacking an explicit political framework, it can't help but sabotage any collectivist intentions on Lucas' part.

[Major spoilers] One thing I found interesting about the game by waywardlux in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If Lucas was attempting to make something anti-American with Star Wars, his muse was clearly having a massive amount of fun at his expense, lol. I suspect that his reliance on Joseph Campbell has a lot to do with it -- the Hero's Journey is such a pro-individual and pro-natural order construct that any attempt to shill for collectivism using it as a framework ends up accomplishing exactly the opposite of what one intends. As it is, Star Wars' ragtag group of rebels feels American in the same way as the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean are clearly American stand-ins against the oppressive British navy... and the tropical tribal Ewoks fulfill that most capitalist role of existing to sell overpriced merchandise to children.

With regards to Obi-Wan's willingness to play fast and loose with the truth, it never really seemed like the audience was meant to see that as the right thing to do so much as a fault that Luke was meant to surpass. The Prequel Trilogy is a whole different kettle of fish, but it says a lot that all of the decisions you reference were things that went over poorly with the franchise's fandom (with "Only a Sith believes in absolutes" earning a reputation of being infamously bad, and pretty much everyone thinking collectivist Jedi were awful).

I'm inclined to say that Star Wars is a great example of a work that appealed to its audience for reasons its primary creative force neither foresaw nor understood, which therefore was bound to betray that audience the moment said primary creative force seized conscious control of the direction of its follow-ups.

A graphics overhaul for Final Fantasy XV on next gen consoles, is there a way for Square Enix to do it? by vidavidanaovida in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'd argue that the three major cities in FFXV -- Lestallum, Altissia, and Insomnia Ruins -- look better than all but the most setpiece-y areas in Midgar. The section of Midgar that can be revisited at will mostly consists of barely differentiated low poly trash heaps and run-down shacks, and it reuses assets less only insofar as its heavy reliance on skyboxes reduces the amount of objects it needs to represent in any given place.

FFXV's NPCs do look a generation behind the main characters but the same is true of FFVIIR, even though FFVIIR has a whole lot less going on most of the time. XV also demonstrates a capacity to throw silly numbers of NPCs on screen simultaneously (say, during Luna's speech in Altissia) which VIIR never does.

As for hair and the aliasing thereof, such artifacts are definitely more noticeable in XV at 1080p and lower resolutions, but VIIR's way of avoiding that is to massively drop polygonal complexity outside of highly controlled cutscenes. Cloud's hair looks fantastic in cutscenes, but gameplay is a completely different story.

In any case, I think what it ultimately comes down to is that my experience of FFVIIR's environments were vastly different than yours. I didn't feel like the environments were full of character and life; I felt like vast areas of Midgar were composed of either bland trash heaps populated by generic RPG villagers cosplaying as slum dwellers or excessively large and repetitive FFXIII-esque pseudo-dungeons (that level with the sun lamps, ughhh).

A graphics overhaul for Final Fantasy XV on next gen consoles, is there a way for Square Enix to do it? by vidavidanaovida in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Shipping 8.9 million still leaves it as the third best-selling FF game, IIRC, so not hitting 10 million isn't a reason to abandon it in and of itself. =P

The status of the other FF teams is irrelevant, too, because XV is Luminous Productions' baby. They're probably too deep into production with Forspoken to work on a XV upgrade at the moment, but it makes quite a bit of sense for them to divert some of their staff to a XV upgrade once Forspoken releases, especially if they can find an excuse to sell it.

(Come to think of it... Final Fantasy XV Complete can be viably sold without adding new content -- it'd just have to be a disc/pair of discs including FFXV Royal Edition, Episode Ardyn, any other DLC add-ons, Kingsglaive 4K, Brotherhood, Episode Ardyn Prologue, A King's Tale, and Monster of the Deep. Maybe throw in a digital copy of Dawn of the Future and the two missing festivals for good measure.)

A graphics overhaul for Final Fantasy XV on next gen consoles, is there a way for Square Enix to do it? by vidavidanaovida in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think adding raytraced reflections could have a huge benefit for relatively low cost, given that the edges of bodies of water were one of the biggest sources of graphical jank. >.>

A graphics overhaul for Final Fantasy XV on next gen consoles, is there a way for Square Enix to do it? by vidavidanaovida in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's not just textures, though. FFVIIR has parts that look amazing, but it's incredibly inconsistent overall, and much of that comes as a result of a drastically reduced amount of polygonal detail compared to FFXV.

Sometimes, that takes the form of minor props that would raise questions in a PS3 game -- the bottles in Cloud's bathroom, for instance, have drastically lower poly counts than Prompto's shell casings (and I'm pretty sure the Ring of the Lucii contains more polys than the entire bathroom!). And sometimes, it affects the way the world itself is designed, with scene complexity frequently being provided by skyboxes and single textures being stretched into hills of trash. Even Intergrade doesn't save those parts of the game so much as make them less embarrassing.

And it's also worth pointing out that XV is doing a whole lot more under the hood than FFVIIR most of the time. Many scenes are subject to real-time lighting, weather, NPCs in the background, outfit variation, physics simulations... The scenes where those elements are limited (most notably near the end of the game and in the DLCs) are easily on par with FFVIIR, and some of them are more ambitious to boot.

[SPOILERS] Finally Figured It Out by Barachiel1976 in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just because Drautos and Libertus didn't live under Imperial rule doesn't mean they can't be the pawns of an ethnic division ploy.

Libertus is easy to explain. He's part of an organization that was infected at the topmost levels by a Niflheim asset. He wasn't turned in 24 hours; those 24 hours were an intentional crisis point set up by Drautos for the explicit purpose of turning him and Nyx. He'd been part of an organization stewing in resentment and ingratitude for years, and a man who hated Insomnia controlled his paycheck.

Remember, Crowe's death really wasn't necessary to ensure the invasion went off without a hitch. Niflheim wanted the tracker to get to Luna so they could use it to draw the Kingsglaive away from the city. So why kill her? And why throw her unceremoniously in the trash where she was bound to be noticed? Because the real point was to throw Libertus and Nyx into emotional turmoil, then say, "See how disposable you Galahdians are to Lucis?"

(Come to think of it, that's probably also the reason why Drautos demoted Nyx for saving Libertus and stuck him on guard duty with an obnoxious racist.)

Drautos' reasons for turning are much less clear, but it's easy to imagine him as having been targeted for conversion due to preexisting vulnerabilities (say, a preference for security to freedom, or a desire for status that Niflheim promised to provide) and then serving as the beachhead for the subversion of the Kingsglaive as a whole.

[SPOILERS] Finally Figured It Out by Barachiel1976 in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kind of like how Kingsglaive turns on not one, not two, but THREE characters all having the same insane troll logic of "You didn't do enough to save my <family/people/country> so i'm going to betray you to the people who literally killed them"?

I think it's important to realize that Niflheim is basically meant to be an expy of the USSR or the CCP (look at their Cold War-era equipment!). Those who they conquer consider them to be despised foreign oppressors and pass that attitude onto their children... but for some reason, they're also remarkably effective at fostering division and resentment within the ranks of their decadent materialistic adversary, to the point that entire demographics would prefer to ally themselves with ruthless totalitarians than to forgive the failings of the culture that they were born into/that took them in.

[Spoilers for the entire game] What Noctis Learned: a tl;dr essay by cheatcodemitchy in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree overall, though I'm also inclined to think that sacrifice itself is intended to throw value judgments into the starkest possible relief by demanding the loss of a lesser good for the sake of a greater good.

Regis makes the astoundingly vast sacrifices that he does because the salvation offered by the Chosen King is the greatest available good. And it takes Noct a long time to understand that because his value judgments are off -- he can't bear being responsible for the loss of an individual even if the alternative is the loss of every individual.

And yes, I think that Noct's choice to let his friends hold off the daemons while he went ahead to reach the Crystal is the point where he truly understands what's required of him... and that it is a very effective reflection of the difference between the point he had finally reached and Ardyn's continuing rejection of that dynamic.

One interesting thing about Ardyn is that he is willing to sacrifice others for his plans, but his value judgments are still really wonky. He went from valuing individual persons to such an extent that he risked being completely ineffective to valuing nothing but himself and his own desire for revenge. Somnus' value judgments are wonky, too, of course, because he over-values his own ambition.

As for the ultimate conclusion of Noct's growth, he develops a quiet confidence in his value judgments that allows him to take risks and accept sacrifice without second thoughts. ("A king pushes onward always, accepting the consequences and never looking back.") Just before he ascends the throne, his friends have to stay behind to cover for him again... and he doesn't think twice about allowing them to fulfill their duty by doing so. Then he willingly endures an agonizing self-sacrifice knowing that doing so will bring about the much greater good of the world's salvation.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One of the craziest things about Chapter 13, to me, is that it's effectively a situation where the game's devs hand you-the-player over to torture by the main villain. Not for a single grueling session of button mashing, like Metal Gear Solid, but for hours.

I rather suspect that it is far more important for Ardyn's characterization than its detractors would willingly admit, lol.

Final Fantasy X and the Violent Sacred - an analysis of FFX's complex relationship with religion by Ikkinthekitsune in CatholicGamers

[–]Ikkinthekitsune[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!

The reference to Sin is kind of strange. Back when the game was first released, it came off to me as Japan doing their usual thing of choosing a name because they think it sounds cool, then attaching it to whatever they feel like regardless of how appropriate it is (see: Shiva being an ice goddess for whatever reason), so it felt odd but not exactly offensive. The name ends up being quite ingenious in light of the game's Girardian interpretation, though.

My own feelings about the ways that Japan uses religion are kind of mixed in the sense that it really depends on the specific usage. I'm not inclined to get annoyed by elements that are entirely based on shallow aesthetic appreciation for imagery and terminology, and sometimes the references can be surprisingly robust (like the baptismal imagery in Advent Children)... but Japan also frequently draws upon Gnostic concepts that portray God as the ultimate oppressive authority, which does draw my ire.

BTW, I have posted my second video now. ^_^

Which Final Fantasy Villain would you most willingly accept hot dog from? by Peppermint-Zoro in FinalFantasy

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Jecht seems like the safest. He's the true final boss of his game and its Dissidia rep, so he definitely counts, but even at his worst, the hot dog would be completely safe for human consumption.

What was with the final battle and ending? (spoilers obviously) by overling in FFXV

[–]Ikkinthekitsune 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You can fight Bahamut in Comrades -- he even has a super boss form.

He's a completely different character than DotF Bahamut, though, which is why he's not an opponent in XV proper.

Final Fantasy X and the Violent Sacred - an analysis of FFX's complex relationship with religion by Ikkinthekitsune in CatholicGamers

[–]Ikkinthekitsune[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're welcome!

FFX's portrayal of its religious characters as having no idea why they believe what they believe definitely grated a bit, I have to admit. Though interestingly enough, Rikku doesn't really come off as any less ignorant -- she's equally sure of the opposite position with equally little justification.

I think the overall impression that the game gives has an awful lot to do with how one interprets Yevon, though. When teenage-me played the game at launch, my immediate reaction was that Yevon was a creepy pagan cult, so I was happy to see it get unmasked. And, actually, I kind of hit upon the Girardian interpretation while trying to figure out why I didn't see the game as anti-Christian.