1. A War On Terror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD_GqlNtNjo Perhaps the most striking thing about Final Fantasy VII's narrative timing is how impossible it would have been to unleash on the world just four years later. Metal Gear Solid 2 (released November of 2001) was permanently altered after 9/11. It still featured a group of Terrorists (the leader a former president no less) attempting to overthrow the government. But at least one scene was excised of New York being leveled by a titular "Metal Gear" before crashing into Federal Hall in the game's big finale. Had Final Fantasy VII been released just after 9/11 it almost certainly would have been banned outright. The game's premise, at least initially, is that you are Cloud Strife, a former SOLDIER (acronym never stated, think Special Forces) mercenary, and hired gun for a terrorist cell Barrett Wallace leads, (AVALANCHE) blowing up mako reactors. That's right. The main heroes in Final Fantasy VII are a group of terrorist lead by a dark skinned, bearded, religious fanatic, with a penchant for blowing things up. Civilian casualties are glossed over until a spy in the group points them out after being chastised. Now I know things are more complicated than just that, but they don't look good. It seems unlikely that Barrett was modeled after any Islamic extremists, or specific terrorists. But he feels his land was exploited by a conglomeration raping it to line their pockets with gold, and answers this problem with high explosives. He sounds a bit familiar. Despite how it felt to many Americans terrorism of the kind seen on 9/11 wasn't exactly a new thing. The World Trade Center itself saw a targeted bombing in 1993. And Oil has always been a reason for military powers to target the Middle East. There are many ways in which the game could have been influenced by events in the outside world. What's astonishing though, is the ways in which it couldn't. Take Rufus Shinra the de facto world president, and successor to his old man. He says to our heroes: '"Father tried to control the world with money, and it worked for him. The people believed that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay if terrorists attack Shinra will help you. It looked perfect on the outside. But I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It's too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste good money on them." The only way it could be an eerier characterization of post 9/11 paranoia is if the speech was given by some in game equivalent of Dick Cheney. Cloud's stated motivation for the post speech battle is in part Rufus' quest for the Promised Land. If you're particularly paranoid and distrustful of Bush era America, but haven't played FF7, you might find yourself surprisingly well versed in one of it's most important plot points. Put on your tin foil hats because it's about to get crazy up in this bitch! Pre-Rufus President Shinra concocts a massive conspiracy in which he will effectively destroy an entire section of Mega-City Midgar using The Turks (the games' version of CIA) to drop the suspended plate full of rich people onto the poor below. Killing millions. A plot he then blames on the terrorists (simultaneously killing them in the process) then they'll raise the rates on mako while they go in search of the Promised Land. Confident that the people will trust them more for killing the terrorists, they split the extra income into bonuses... Later when the planet is threatened by Sephiroth, Godzilla like monsters rise from the Earth in an attempt to protect it; to eradicate the menace... People. Obviously no parallel there. Except Rufus' reaction to it is interesting. He chooses to execute AVALANCHE for it. On television. "People are ignorant." He says, "They'll feel better as long as someone is punished." So Barrett was a bad guy (in that he killed innocent people) but he wasn't THE bad guy and they still chose to execute him for it... Now he's starting to sound like another middle eastern Bush era target... Can any of this - any of my five points be intentional? Well it seems almost certain it can't all be unintentional. Even if the Western world is not the intended target of this cynicism. The cardinal rule of writing is "Have something to say." If anything it rings with much more clarity than the right wing theory that Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight - that Batman - is actually George W. Bush. It has the added bonus of being released by a foreign company before much of its subject matter could be censored or watered down. The motives behind it's subtext can't be questioned too closely, because it was released before the fact. But that doesn't make it any less informative about after. I believe in the power of allegory, and I believe in the power a good story holds to warn us from dangers by painting a vivid picture of how we get ourselves into trouble, and how we might get ourselves out of it. Unfortunately, this one's a fairy tale, with magic. And we seem to be pretty short on that.