5. Growing Economic Divide
Perhaps the least contemporary but conversely more universal theme on my list. Poverty and excessive wealth are no strangers to FF7's world. A giant plate above the mega-punk slums of Midgar, we're told, houses the city's wealthy. Chimney's billow smoke above ramshackle huts to be lead, we assume nowhere but back down, blackening the lungs of each nameless sector's helpless inhabitants. Advertisements and neon do little to distract from the cynicism forced into play. In one section a young woman spends all her time scouring the ground for anything dropped. Not far a poor mumbling fool, we'll later deduce is a veteran, will probably die in a dingy pipe. Just another nameless soldier in a world with no further need of him. The upper world is barely seen. It's the dregs we're privy too, our only access; prostitutes, pimps, low-lives. Bulky tough guy and Mr.T lookalike Barrett Wallace has his roots in the peaceful coal mining village of Corel. When the corporate honchos at "Shinra Electric Power" propose the building of a new energy reactor, they're met with open arm by most of the town's people. In spite of their hope for prosperity, their new reactor explodes. The company blames the people, burning their village to the ground. What's left: a ruinous tent city, a giant golden arcade hovering above their heads, their former home converted into a prison just below. While examples this extreme feel few and far between - in our world - by any meaningful comparison anyway. Anyone who's felt the crippling struggle of our economic times, and looked out at bankers with record bonuses, can certainly relate to the feeling.