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@@alanhegewisch4486 Neither. It's an axiom. If someone is doing evil and you could act but choose not to out of allegiance to some personal credo, you are only one shade better than the evildoer. There is no reason to pat yourself on the back for allegiance to an ethos that serves nothing but your own self satisfaction. I have sympathy for Dobe and Flo, but the game does a good job of illustrating the point I'm trying to make. Their loyalty to an ideal nearly condemned everyone they love to a senseless death. There is nothing noble about that.
@@Fauntleroy. I agree with you, but I would contrast pacifism with non-violence, which isn't just the absence of war but the active building of cultures and structures of peace-building and conflict resolution. It's best exemplified by moral leaders like Mandela and MLK.
This is excellent. One of my favourite aspects of FF8 is that, for a game accused at the time of being light on story, every small moment works to expand on or strengthen the overall themes. War, conflict, injustice, the sins and horrors of the past, all present and being actively explored in fishing towns or cities or train stations along your path.
Love how this seemingly low-key area gave us one of Uematsu's most beautiful songs. I honestly had forgotten about this plot line but gotta give props to the writers to include a different kind of "pacifist" in a world with nations at odds.
@@lionheart4424 This song's melody is lifted directly from a very famous Japanese song, to the point that Uematsu basically only did arrangement for it and to the point that I expect half of the Japanese people playing through FH would start singing the lyrics to the melody.
@@jessl1934 ah that's "Sukiyaki". Well then, I can't say I agree with you. They have different melodies, though I can agree that they could be considered similar... But just by a small part in FH. After that, they are effective different melodies and arrangements to me. I guess Japanese people can say they are reminded of that song with FH and I am no one to tell them they're wrong. Both are truly beautiful songs, and I find the fact that people can find a relation from one to the other as amazing.
I love how Squall tried to understand the pacifist… and how that understanding allowed him to grow wiser to what Seed’s purpose should be. It’s a wonderful followup to his Seed’s spread flowers “confession.” To spread peace in earnest slowly became a goal of his
Agree. Squall's monologue at the end of the scenario (and the end of this video) was great insight to his character. At this point in the game he's still stoic and quiet, yet he makes time to empathise with Mayor Dobe and explain his own world-view. It's one of the clearest displays of his capacity for leadership we see at this stage of the game.
It's a shame FF8 wasn't more ambitious about making more settlements like this that the players could've made their way through. Something that could've given travel a "Avatar The Last Airbender" feel with more side stories. The real lifeblood of FF8 was always how interesting the setting is, more than the plot itself.
To me the heart of FF8 is Squall and his character arc, and the setting feeds into that story. At least that’s the compromise they made. I actually think 8 is the most ambitious game in the ps1 ff lineup. It’s just certain elements were prioritized over others to make an experience that is uneven, but memorable and meaningful.
@@jairekambui7738well I like about Squall is him being realist(other just interpret it as a Emo well he is a bit pragmatic because of his childhood ) as most of his interaction will be him reacting about things that a person with normal mind would say but with a bleak and harsh truth in it
@@jairekambui7738 ambitious is quite a stretch as they literally rushed this along with FF9 to capitalized the popularity of FF7 but after a years FF7 is still their golden goose and never have a effort to improve or make a spin off for FF8 or even FF9 (well if the remake didn't came for FF9)
I would disagree, the plot is one of the few that actually wrap up properly. The problem is that the themes of war, the cultural forces that create it, the consequences, and the archtypes that arise go over the heads of most people. FF8 actually uses a lot of similar visual themes to FF7. And no FF8 was not rushed, it was the magnum opus of the series. It was THE most popular after release for a long time until FFX which mainly succeeded because it was the first voice acted though still one of the best. FF8 also requires the player to actually dig into the side quests and look around to get the full context of the conflict. You can actually just do the main quests and win, no need for much grind, but you will basically fall into the brainwashed soldier role. This is a lot like the original Deus Ex. Your experience is a reflection of your own character.
@@mhicorivera7802 Rushed yet still has the same main story length? 8 and especially 9 are two of the most beloved titles in the series, and it seems weird to suggest that they were only made as quickly to capitalize on the success of 7. 9 wasn’t even made by the same team because that team was working on 10 for the PS2. It was definitely an ambitious game, that much is clear from how much was cut from the final game.
I’m reminded of the saying, “The only way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” It seems like Mayor Dobe was a pacifist by virtue of cowardice, and perhaps that only goes so far in FF8’s unjust world. I also remember a similar moment in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise where a guy tries to reason with one of the marauders from the wasteland. The quest concludes with him admitting that violence done in the name of peace can be justified, which I think FF8 was exploring as well.
love these videos, been playing ff8 my entire life and got it on all my ps systems now Im playing it on my steamdeck! Theres so much to learn even after playing it for 14 years
Funnily enough when I first did a retrospective on FF8 I made a point of how the Galbadian soldiers are humanised and presented as a struggling working class in this game... Biggs and Wedge, along with the guy on the Timber train who can't afford to propose to his girlfriend are all evidence of that. I might explore that again as I loved Biggs and Wedge in this game :) I've got a couple of discussions on Cid Kramer already, but Martine is an interesting one too - on the one hand he ate the fallout of trying to assassinate Edea, on the other hand his Garden graduates are funnelled directly into nation-state militaries like Galbadia, He's quite an interesting dubious sort of guy we don't see enough of.,
@AlleywayJack I wonder if there is message in him winning the Ifrit card from General Caraway. Perhaps a testament to his deep-down anger? Another hilarious one to keep for April Fools Day: The benevolent ideology of NORG 😂
omg, when i first played VIII at 17 years of age, i remember disliking the mayor and his wife Flo a lot. i remember agreeing with Rinoa when she complains about how they are being treated. seems like you were bitten by an evil little bug called FFVIII, and i´m all for it. love this game, as well as your commentary.
This is a theme I've also encountered in Fist of the North Star/Hokuto no Ken. Late in the first part of the story where it's just Kenshiro VS Raoh filler, Raoh encounters a town that is peaceful and pacifist and he brutalizes them for not fighting for/having conviction in what they believe in. A long time ago the scene was uploaded in Japanese as "The Fate of the Pacifist Nation Japan." Very introspective.
I appreciate the way that FH is handled in FF8 diegetically however the historical and contemporary context of Japanese militarism means that I find the meta-narrative of it very troubling (not to mention a certain critical historical reading of the Balamb-Galbadia conflict which occurs during the game.)
Why troubling? The whole game is a criticism of that militarism. The entire conflict happens because the main character, Squall, through a combination of trauma, lack of information, and his own mistakes is part of a cyclical set of events. The SEEDs are not an inherently good organization, they are literal child super soldiers with magic and for the Balamb garden specifically they give over themselves to demonic entities. In universe Galbadia Garden seems them as rather insane and choose to lean on technology more than magic.
@AlleywayJack More so Imperial Japan-China, but it's hard to separate out the way Imperial Japan treated Korea from how it treated China in this period. At any rate, the small plucky island nation develops a strong military and challenges the big, mainland empire which has a much larger military, territory, and is culturally dominant (Galbadia, of course.) And it comes out victorious. To me, that comes off as a very euphemistic way of viewing Imperial Japan. After WWII, obviously Japan is demilitarized however there has been a strong undercurrent of political sentiment in Japan for the necessity to remilitarize. (Obviously this is a very contentious issue domestically and I don't want to misrepresent Japan as being some monolith here.) This has been going on for decades. In one interpretation, the FH/Mayor Dobe episode of this game can be viewed as a direct response to and criticism of internal political discourse in Japan, over the demilitarization and a commentary on the necessity of remilitarizing in order to... whatever you what to frame it as - protecting your interests or maintaining security or fighting against evil. (That's more about perspective than it is anything else.) I'm very interested in Japanese culture and Chinese culture, and have been for a long time, so I can understand why people who aren't across the history of these two countries and the internal political discourse of each would see this as quite a reach but I'd encourage people to think about this in context with the original FF7 game and its discourse around Wutai. Sure, Wutai an intentional mashup but it's very much coded in the story as being a proxy for Japan - a once proud, remote island nation with a rich cultural history which faced down the global superpower, lost, and has since become an economic backwater and it has been reduced to a merely tourist town. (Note also that Wutai has no mako reactor and there's no mention of significant mako deposits nearby - Japan's lack of domestic oil reserves are a key part of their military defeat in WWII.) For Japanese players and people who know Japanese history, Wutai just screams post-WWII Japan (especially as FF7 is released 7 years into Japan's "lost decade" of sharp economic decline, which must have felt like Japan was destined to be relegated to being a glorified tourist resort country.) Godo, the leader of Wutai, sits idly by in his pagoda doing nothing while Wutai declines. While he's a metaphor for Japanese political leadership more broadly, he is very much a stand-in for the Japanese royal family who, from one perspective, has done the exact same thing. I think it's safe to say that this era of FF games were acutely aware of Japan's history and position in the world and they weren't shy about bringing their perspective on Japan into the games, even if they coded Balamb more subtly than they did Wutai. I think this with this as context, my interpretation of Balamb in FF8 isn't that much of a stretch. (This is without going into anything deep like the symbolism of the missile threat in FF8 or an analysis of the revanchist discourse around Balamb Garden [heir to the Centra's technological development] directly needing to reclaim its lost heritage and to become an active player in the world by literally moving from the place that it has been stuck in for decades by that point in the story and so on.) What happens when a person is a fan of PS1 era Final Fantasy games who also happens to be fascinated by history, politics, and media criticism? This comment. This is what happens 😅
Ironic how Mayor Dobe's home once you go to the second floor where his wife and him are at, if you go to the right side and search for a hidden draw point you will find the spell "Ultima" which will give you a one time draw it seems. The most destructive spell, for most pacifist person. Or a way to cement him as the "ultimate" pacifist? xD
Since it was mentioned, I have to say it. Perfect Cell: “You Gohan, *are a coward* !” Gohan: “No! I am just a pacifist!” Perfect Cell: “So a coward patting himself on the back? Congratulations pint size, you can stand *proud* next to the bodies!” I internalized that in final years of teenage adolescence as pacifism solves nothing if men’s hearts are cold..
Cowardly pacifists are oppressive? wow. Your content is certainly top tier my friend. I'm very lucky that you have such a catalogue of content for me to back-track through and enjoy.
We need a nerd to calculate what the earths gravitational force would have to be in order for events within the game to have taken place. The gardens, the flying motorcycles etc.
Great analysis as always, and interesting to contrast with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I'd say, though, that Bonhoeffer's position of standing up to evil was by no means new. Martin Luther wrote, "On behalf of others, [a Christian] may and should seek vengeance, justice, protection, and help, and do as much as he can to achieve it." (Luther's Works, American Edition 1999, vol 45, p.83). Before him, the Crusades were largely wars fought to defend Christian lands and Christian people (though I won't argue that they were always so noble in practice). And Jesus' pacifism was not for pacifism's sake, but was the greatest sacrifice in defense of others. "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14).
Also, the "violence-as-a-last-resort" speech from Squall is pretty rich, considering how he and the other party members murder hundreds or thousands of people and creatures just to draw magic and get combat practice. ;) :D
I’ll always have a soft spot for those who try to exhaust peace first, but Dobe takes it too far. As Squall argues, people aren’t always willing to listen and time runs short. Sometimes the appropriate response is to fight. And this is something we see from what’s explained of Jesus of Nazareth (who was no pacifist) and his “meekness”. In the Alexandrian Greek used in the 1st century, the word related to the breaking of wild horses (as they were the best for taking into battle). They understood the tensions of war and would rise up to meet them - could meet them, could tap into that wild nature. But they could also understand the time and place for settling down. They weren’t so easily provoked. Meekness is the total control of emotion, to respond wholly appropriately. Not a thing I can say I’ve mastered, but I’m certainly trying! Still, I can see where Dobe comes from. He’s a brilliant mind and that mind was used for pure horror. Parallels some of what we see in MGS. He’s so desperate to never make that mistake again that he doesn’t realize he doesn’t actually have an answer for it. You can only hide for so long. One of my favorite characters! Thanks for this video!
@@a.d.woodbury I'm glad to see this comment. There was another one on here which did seem to come from a solid theological understanding but they argued that Jesus was a pacifist, which I think is quite obviously a mischaracterization. But in matters of theology usually that means being devout and I figured there was nothing to be gained by disputing their claim because it would likely be interpreted as an attack on their beliefs and it would get dragged down into a classic internet slapfight, so perhaps on-brand for this very topic, I let it be.
Well I think the main reason he is adamant about the Peaceful way with no second option is because of the atrocities of sorceress Adel(sill look like a man to me)
Pretty much all of the problems arise in the game because Squall does the bidding of shadowy people and because of the time loop also helps perpetuate the sequence of events. He will never see it in his lifetime, but he helps perpetuate the prejudice and suffering that drives Ultimecia to enact the time compression. In other words he's not a hero, just like Laguna whose fake movie elevated persona Seifer tries to emulate, was not really a hero. They are just men caught up in the cycle of events and do nothing to break free of it. Interestingly if either Laguna or Squall were more idealistic like Seifer they might actually have changed the course of their world's history. Now unlike FF8 we don't have to worry about persecuted magic users influencing the past (I hope), but the cycles of suffering are the same and really the whole game is a commentary on that.
@@Peaches-i2i I'm not in agreement with this take. Setting aside Squall and the consequences of staying out of the Galbadian military ambitions for argument's sake, Nietzsche's writing was distorted in service for the Nazi party aims. Christianity has been thoroughly coopted for war and things like megachurch pastors to fund their private jets. Would it be right to blame Nietzsche for something he didn't have a thing to do with? Should Jesus, or Paul I guess, get blamed for Kenneth Copeland's actions? Should Thomas Paine or Rousseau get blamed for the genocide of Native Americans? Where does this line of thinking end and how much does it run cover for the people who perpetrate horrible things while laying the blame for those choices at the feet of others who had no say in how someone chose to use their own autonomy? If authors or actors are responsible for inspiring people to do certain things in a causative way then actors are likewise merely vessels for people like other authors and philosophers and directors and screenwriters who the actors or authors are merely responding to. The logical conclusion of your argument rapidly arrives at a point of infinite regress.
Being a pacifist in "combat" is fine on a level for a medic (or in this case a white mage) or something, but once ya get into higher positions where it's a unfortunate rarity or must, you must be able to at least "force" your opposition in "combat" to be in a position where they have to be a pacifist too, for actual negotiations to happen. It's extremely careless to take your opposition in good faith, at face value or even a personal level once other peoples lives on are the line. But the problem again also comes to then, the pacifist always needing to act in good faith (and whoever is below them) as well. Now maybe in the future the need get people to this point won't be so uhh... fatal. But if a person truly believes in pacifism then they would need to make a really cheap, long ranged, and mass produced or incredibly large scale offense/defense deterrent that's harmless but incredibly effective. But in a FF world? Gravity/Demi should always by used, lol. No ones tough at 1 hp.
While there is some case to be made that Biblical Christianity teaches pacifism, that is not the interpretation of the majority of Christians. In fact, to say that Jesus was always a pacifist would require Christians to convert to the religion of Marcionism or to believe that God's incarnation changed the reality or humanity's situation to the point that we are now called to radical pacifism even though the Hebrews, prophets, judges, etc were not called to pacifism. I believed in the latter in my Christian pacifist phase. I ceased to be a pacifist when I came to the conclusion that the Golden Rule or love for enemies sometimes requires us to thwart people from doing particularly evil things. I still believe that Christians should be radically peaceful and loving to enemies and that it is impermissible to throw evil people under the bus or to dispose of evil people. We stop evil people for the sake of humanity and for their own sake. Violence has to conform to the Golden Rule to be permissible in my opinion. For example "If I was going to do this terrible evil[like murder, rape, etc] to a fellow person, I would hope that someone would stop me." The worth of an evil person should not be forgotten even in cases where we ought to resort to violence toward them. It is not acceptable for a single human or any other living being to be disposed of or abandoned forever. I don't believe it is right to measure and compare people's worth or to value the worth of would-be victims over victimizers. I think violence harmonizes with the Golden Rule and love for enemies when we recognize that those who do the sort of evil that warrants a violent response are out of their right minds and doing things that fundamentally go against their own nature, so we don't need to frame it as choosing to value one person above another. Sometimes it loves and honors a person to thwart them by using violence if necessary. Of course, the protection of others shouldn't be forgotten either. Being loving is about valuing everyone, not about virtue signaling about how radically peaceful we are. Pacifism sometimes takes on a twisted form that seems to focus so much on the worth of wrong-doers that victims are forgotten or treated as if the had less value than those who harm them. In my opinion, the teachings of Jesus are not pacifistic but are radical and are close to being pacifistic. I believe that He and the apostles and even certain Old Testament prophets teach that we should love and seek to bless our enemies, including those who persecute us. There is a lot of complexity to this and some ambiguity of where exactly lines should be drawn, but I think it can basically be summed up as us being called to think of our enemies as if they were beloved nondisposable brothers/sisters. There are times when Christians have been called to choose non-violence to the point of martyrdom and Christians celebrate stories of Christians who loved their enemies to the point of praying for their persecutors as they were being tortured to death. That is not to say that we believe it is good to have a death wish or to be masochistic. Many martyrs were people who had previously escaped capture or imprisonment and we are obliged to try to save our lives when it is possible to do so without violating some higher principle.
6:26 Jesus was in no way a pacifist. He took up arms against the money changers in the temple. He told the apostles to sell all that they had to buy a sword. and historical evidence points to Jesus possibly was drafted into military conflicts prior to his ministry.
Galbadia attacks because Balamb garden literally crashes these. They brought the war to a peaceful fishing village. The SEEDs are no different than the Galbadian soldier threatening Mayor Dobe when they were in Timber City. Violence also doesn't solve the problem either as the main characters are part of the forces perpetuating the sequence of events that will lead to Ultimecia's time compression. Seems like a lot of people have that go over their heads.
Didn't you see the conversation? Galbadia was there independently to search for Ellone. They made no mention about the floating Garden nor SeeD. Also, they said that Edea (secretly Ultimecia) told them to burn the place anyway whether they found her or not. I'd like to see you reason with THAT.
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What I found really funny is that the Mayor is extremely pacifist but in his house you can draw Ultimas
Along with the paraxox of tolarance, it's the old qoute of “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”
There is no virtue in standing by as atrocities are committed. To believe otherwise is the refuge of the smug coward.
But who is this for? Is it a personal mantra or a condemnation of others?
@@alanhegewisch4486 Neither. It's an axiom. If someone is doing evil and you could act but choose not to out of allegiance to some personal credo, you are only one shade better than the evildoer. There is no reason to pat yourself on the back for allegiance to an ethos that serves nothing but your own self satisfaction. I have sympathy for Dobe and Flo, but the game does a good job of illustrating the point I'm trying to make. Their loyalty to an ideal nearly condemned everyone they love to a senseless death. There is nothing noble about that.
@@Fauntleroy. I agree with you, but I would contrast pacifism with non-violence, which isn't just the absence of war but the active building of cultures and structures of peace-building and conflict resolution. It's best exemplified by moral leaders like Mandela and MLK.
This is excellent. One of my favourite aspects of FF8 is that, for a game accused at the time of being light on story, every small moment works to expand on or strengthen the overall themes. War, conflict, injustice, the sins and horrors of the past, all present and being actively explored in fishing towns or cities or train stations along your path.
100% - I can't think of an aspect of FF8 that was filler or padding; everything was in service of story progression, characterisation or themes
Love this video, love your thoughtfulness and analysis. This is such an underrated channel, I'm really grateful I found it.
🙏
Love how this seemingly low-key area gave us one of Uematsu's most beautiful songs.
I honestly had forgotten about this plot line but gotta give props to the writers to include a different kind of "pacifist" in a world with nations at odds.
@@lionheart4424 This song's melody is lifted directly from a very famous Japanese song, to the point that Uematsu basically only did arrangement for it and to the point that I expect half of the Japanese people playing through FH would start singing the lyrics to the melody.
@jessl1934 would love to know the original song. Do you know the name of it?
@lionheart4424 Ue o muite aruko (or 上を向いて歩こう in Japanese)
Uematsu himself reminds of Mayer Dobe in his clothing choices that are often wacky and experimental laidback homesick. xD
@@jessl1934 ah that's "Sukiyaki". Well then, I can't say I agree with you. They have different melodies, though I can agree that they could be considered similar... But just by a small part in FH.
After that, they are effective different melodies and arrangements to me.
I guess Japanese people can say they are reminded of that song with FH and I am no one to tell them they're wrong.
Both are truly beautiful songs, and I find the fact that people can find a relation from one to the other as amazing.
I love how Squall tried to understand the pacifist… and how that understanding allowed him to grow wiser to what Seed’s purpose should be. It’s a wonderful followup to his Seed’s spread flowers “confession.” To spread peace in earnest slowly became a goal of his
Agree. Squall's monologue at the end of the scenario (and the end of this video) was great insight to his character. At this point in the game he's still stoic and quiet, yet he makes time to empathise with Mayor Dobe and explain his own world-view. It's one of the clearest displays of his capacity for leadership we see at this stage of the game.
It's a shame FF8 wasn't more ambitious about making more settlements like this that the players could've made their way through. Something that could've given travel a "Avatar The Last Airbender" feel with more side stories. The real lifeblood of FF8 was always how interesting the setting is, more than the plot itself.
To me the heart of FF8 is Squall and his character arc, and the setting feeds into that story. At least that’s the compromise they made. I actually think 8 is the most ambitious game in the ps1 ff lineup. It’s just certain elements were prioritized over others to make an experience that is uneven, but memorable and meaningful.
@@jairekambui7738well I like about Squall is him being realist(other just interpret it as a Emo well he is a bit pragmatic because of his childhood ) as most of his interaction will be him reacting about things that a person with normal mind would say but with a bleak and harsh truth in it
@@jairekambui7738 ambitious is quite a stretch as they literally rushed this along with FF9 to capitalized the popularity of FF7 but after a years FF7 is still their golden goose and never have a effort to improve or make a spin off for FF8 or even FF9 (well if the remake didn't came for FF9)
I would disagree, the plot is one of the few that actually wrap up properly. The problem is that the themes of war, the cultural forces that create it, the consequences, and the archtypes that arise go over the heads of most people. FF8 actually uses a lot of similar visual themes to FF7. And no FF8 was not rushed, it was the magnum opus of the series. It was THE most popular after release for a long time until FFX which mainly succeeded because it was the first voice acted though still one of the best. FF8 also requires the player to actually dig into the side quests and look around to get the full context of the conflict. You can actually just do the main quests and win, no need for much grind, but you will basically fall into the brainwashed soldier role. This is a lot like the original Deus Ex. Your experience is a reflection of your own character.
@@mhicorivera7802 Rushed yet still has the same main story length? 8 and especially 9 are two of the most beloved titles in the series, and it seems weird to suggest that they were only made as quickly to capitalize on the success of 7. 9 wasn’t even made by the same team because that team was working on 10 for the PS2. It was definitely an ambitious game, that much is clear from how much was cut from the final game.
makes me a special flavor of happy to see someone analyzing the themes of this game
The strong do what they will, the weak endure what they must.
I’m reminded of the saying, “The only way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” It seems like Mayor Dobe was a pacifist by virtue of cowardice, and perhaps that only goes so far in FF8’s unjust world.
I also remember a similar moment in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise where a guy tries to reason with one of the marauders from the wasteland. The quest concludes with him admitting that violence done in the name of peace can be justified, which I think FF8 was exploring as well.
love these videos, been playing ff8 my entire life and got it on all my ps systems now Im playing it on my steamdeck! Theres so much to learn even after playing it for 14 years
Alleyway Jack I got a followup video idea:
- Cid Kramer's Dedication
- Headmaster Martine's disillusion
- Biggs and Wedge bluecollar philosophy
Funnily enough when I first did a retrospective on FF8 I made a point of how the Galbadian soldiers are humanised and presented as a struggling working class in this game... Biggs and Wedge, along with the guy on the Timber train who can't afford to propose to his girlfriend are all evidence of that. I might explore that again as I loved Biggs and Wedge in this game :)
I've got a couple of discussions on Cid Kramer already, but Martine is an interesting one too - on the one hand he ate the fallout of trying to assassinate Edea, on the other hand his Garden graduates are funnelled directly into nation-state militaries like Galbadia, He's quite an interesting dubious sort of guy we don't see enough of.,
@AlleywayJack I wonder if there is message in him winning the Ifrit card from General Caraway. Perhaps a testament to his deep-down anger?
Another hilarious one to keep for April Fools Day:
The benevolent ideology of NORG 😂
Well done!! I love these analysis videos
Thank you :)
Very interesting, thanks for uploading!
🙏
Somewhere Cecil Harvey is facepalming about Mayor Dobe saying to himself "Well this isn't what I meant by Sheething my sword atall" - Jack
@EXP-Podcast 😅 Yep I think he's completely misinterpreted that one!
omg, when i first played VIII at 17 years of age, i remember disliking the mayor and his wife Flo a lot. i remember agreeing with Rinoa when she complains about how they are being treated.
seems like you were bitten by an evil little bug called FFVIII, and i´m all for it. love this game, as well as your commentary.
This is a theme I've also encountered in Fist of the North Star/Hokuto no Ken. Late in the first part of the story where it's just Kenshiro VS Raoh filler, Raoh encounters a town that is peaceful and pacifist and he brutalizes them for not fighting for/having conviction in what they believe in.
A long time ago the scene was uploaded in Japanese as "The Fate of the Pacifist Nation Japan." Very introspective.
I appreciate the way that FH is handled in FF8 diegetically however the historical and contemporary context of Japanese militarism means that I find the meta-narrative of it very troubling (not to mention a certain critical historical reading of the Balamb-Galbadia conflict which occurs during the game.)
Why troubling? The whole game is a criticism of that militarism. The entire conflict happens because the main character, Squall, through a combination of trauma, lack of information, and his own mistakes is part of a cyclical set of events. The SEEDs are not an inherently good organization, they are literal child super soldiers with magic and for the Balamb garden specifically they give over themselves to demonic entities. In universe Galbadia Garden seems them as rather insane and choose to lean on technology more than magic.
Do you mean that with respect to Japan-Korea relations or?
@AlleywayJack More so Imperial Japan-China, but it's hard to separate out the way Imperial Japan treated Korea from how it treated China in this period.
At any rate, the small plucky island nation develops a strong military and challenges the big, mainland empire which has a much larger military, territory, and is culturally dominant (Galbadia, of course.) And it comes out victorious. To me, that comes off as a very euphemistic way of viewing Imperial Japan.
After WWII, obviously Japan is demilitarized however there has been a strong undercurrent of political sentiment in Japan for the necessity to remilitarize. (Obviously this is a very contentious issue domestically and I don't want to misrepresent Japan as being some monolith here.) This has been going on for decades.
In one interpretation, the FH/Mayor Dobe episode of this game can be viewed as a direct response to and criticism of internal political discourse in Japan, over the demilitarization and a commentary on the necessity of remilitarizing in order to... whatever you what to frame it as - protecting your interests or maintaining security or fighting against evil. (That's more about perspective than it is anything else.)
I'm very interested in Japanese culture and Chinese culture, and have been for a long time, so I can understand why people who aren't across the history of these two countries and the internal political discourse of each would see this as quite a reach but I'd encourage people to think about this in context with the original FF7 game and its discourse around Wutai. Sure, Wutai an intentional mashup but it's very much coded in the story as being a proxy for Japan - a once proud, remote island nation with a rich cultural history which faced down the global superpower, lost, and has since become an economic backwater and it has been reduced to a merely tourist town. (Note also that Wutai has no mako reactor and there's no mention of significant mako deposits nearby - Japan's lack of domestic oil reserves are a key part of their military defeat in WWII.)
For Japanese players and people who know Japanese history, Wutai just screams post-WWII Japan (especially as FF7 is released 7 years into Japan's "lost decade" of sharp economic decline, which must have felt like Japan was destined to be relegated to being a glorified tourist resort country.) Godo, the leader of Wutai, sits idly by in his pagoda doing nothing while Wutai declines. While he's a metaphor for Japanese political leadership more broadly, he is very much a stand-in for the Japanese royal family who, from one perspective, has done the exact same thing.
I think it's safe to say that this era of FF games were acutely aware of Japan's history and position in the world and they weren't shy about bringing their perspective on Japan into the games, even if they coded Balamb more subtly than they did Wutai. I think this with this as context, my interpretation of Balamb in FF8 isn't that much of a stretch.
(This is without going into anything deep like the symbolism of the missile threat in FF8 or an analysis of the revanchist discourse around Balamb Garden [heir to the Centra's technological development] directly needing to reclaim its lost heritage and to become an active player in the world by literally moving from the place that it has been stuck in for decades by that point in the story and so on.)
What happens when a person is a fan of PS1 era Final Fantasy games who also happens to be fascinated by history, politics, and media criticism?
This comment. This is what happens 😅
Ironic how Mayor Dobe's home once you go to the second floor where his wife and him are at, if you go to the right side and search for a hidden draw point you will find the spell "Ultima" which will give you a one time draw it seems. The most destructive spell, for most pacifist person. Or a way to cement him as the "ultimate" pacifist? xD
Another FF8 video, as always I thank you
🙏
“Just shut your mouth! I’m sure they have their reasons!” Lmao
God is dead and we have killed him - Friedrich Nietzsche
Since it was mentioned, I have to say it.
Perfect Cell: “You Gohan, *are a coward* !”
Gohan: “No! I am just a pacifist!”
Perfect Cell: “So a coward patting himself on the back? Congratulations pint size, you can stand *proud* next to the bodies!”
I internalized that in final years of teenage adolescence as pacifism solves nothing if men’s hearts are cold..
Cowardly pacifists are oppressive? wow. Your content is certainly top tier my friend.
I'm very lucky that you have such a catalogue of content for me to back-track through and enjoy.
🙏
We need a nerd to calculate what the earths gravitational force would have to be in order for events within the game to have taken place. The gardens, the flying motorcycles etc.
Not to mention the Lunar Cry. There's got to be a Physics PhD out there somewhere who loves this game.
Well i guess I'm first this time. Square Enix needs to be paying you for all this content. O.k. now time to watch the video.
Great analysis as always, and interesting to contrast with Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I'd say, though, that Bonhoeffer's position of standing up to evil was by no means new. Martin Luther wrote, "On behalf of others, [a Christian] may and should seek vengeance, justice, protection, and help, and do as much as he can to achieve it." (Luther's Works, American Edition 1999, vol 45, p.83). Before him, the Crusades were largely wars fought to defend Christian lands and Christian people (though I won't argue that they were always so noble in practice). And Jesus' pacifism was not for pacifism's sake, but was the greatest sacrifice in defense of others. "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14).
Yep agree, but in this instance referencing Luther complicates my WW2 analogies as the other guys liked him
Also, the "violence-as-a-last-resort" speech from Squall is pretty rich, considering how he and the other party members murder hundreds or thousands of people and creatures just to draw magic and get combat practice. ;) :D
Won't somebody think of the T-Rexaurs
He had no enemies
I’ll always have a soft spot for those who try to exhaust peace first, but Dobe takes it too far. As Squall argues, people aren’t always willing to listen and time runs short. Sometimes the appropriate response is to fight.
And this is something we see from what’s explained of Jesus of Nazareth (who was no pacifist) and his “meekness”. In the Alexandrian Greek used in the 1st century, the word related to the breaking of wild horses (as they were the best for taking into battle).
They understood the tensions of war and would rise up to meet them - could meet them, could tap into that wild nature. But they could also understand the time and place for settling down. They weren’t so easily provoked. Meekness is the total control of emotion, to respond wholly appropriately. Not a thing I can say I’ve mastered, but I’m certainly trying!
Still, I can see where Dobe comes from. He’s a brilliant mind and that mind was used for pure horror. Parallels some of what we see in MGS. He’s so desperate to never make that mistake again that he doesn’t realize he doesn’t actually have an answer for it. You can only hide for so long.
One of my favorite characters! Thanks for this video!
@@a.d.woodbury I'm glad to see this comment. There was another one on here which did seem to come from a solid theological understanding but they argued that Jesus was a pacifist, which I think is quite obviously a mischaracterization.
But in matters of theology usually that means being devout and I figured there was nothing to be gained by disputing their claim because it would likely be interpreted as an attack on their beliefs and it would get dragged down into a classic internet slapfight, so perhaps on-brand for this very topic, I let it be.
Great comment. 🤝
Well I think the main reason he is adamant about the Peaceful way with no second option is because of the atrocities of sorceress Adel(sill look like a man to me)
Pretty much all of the problems arise in the game because Squall does the bidding of shadowy people and because of the time loop also helps perpetuate the sequence of events. He will never see it in his lifetime, but he helps perpetuate the prejudice and suffering that drives Ultimecia to enact the time compression. In other words he's not a hero, just like Laguna whose fake movie elevated persona Seifer tries to emulate, was not really a hero. They are just men caught up in the cycle of events and do nothing to break free of it. Interestingly if either Laguna or Squall were more idealistic like Seifer they might actually have changed the course of their world's history. Now unlike FF8 we don't have to worry about persecuted magic users influencing the past (I hope), but the cycles of suffering are the same and really the whole game is a commentary on that.
@@Peaches-i2i I'm not in agreement with this take.
Setting aside Squall and the consequences of staying out of the Galbadian military ambitions for argument's sake, Nietzsche's writing was distorted in service for the Nazi party aims. Christianity has been thoroughly coopted for war and things like megachurch pastors to fund their private jets.
Would it be right to blame Nietzsche for something he didn't have a thing to do with?
Should Jesus, or Paul I guess, get blamed for Kenneth Copeland's actions?
Should Thomas Paine or Rousseau get blamed for the genocide of Native Americans?
Where does this line of thinking end and how much does it run cover for the people who perpetrate horrible things while laying the blame for those choices at the feet of others who had no say in how someone chose to use their own autonomy?
If authors or actors are responsible for inspiring people to do certain things in a causative way then actors are likewise merely vessels for people like other authors and philosophers and directors and screenwriters who the actors or authors are merely responding to.
The logical conclusion of your argument rapidly arrives at a point of infinite regress.
Being a pacifist in "combat" is fine on a level for a medic (or in this case a white mage) or something, but once ya get into higher positions where it's a unfortunate rarity or must, you must be able to at least "force" your opposition in "combat" to be in a position where they have to be a pacifist too, for actual negotiations to happen. It's extremely careless to take your opposition in good faith, at face value or even a personal level once other peoples lives on are the line. But the problem again also comes to then, the pacifist always needing to act in good faith (and whoever is below them) as well.
Now maybe in the future the need get people to this point won't be so uhh... fatal. But if a person truly believes in pacifism then they would need to make a really cheap, long ranged, and mass produced or incredibly large scale offense/defense deterrent that's harmless but incredibly effective. But in a FF world? Gravity/Demi should always by used, lol. No ones tough at 1 hp.
While there is some case to be made that Biblical Christianity teaches pacifism, that is not the interpretation of the majority of Christians. In fact, to say that Jesus was always a pacifist would require Christians to convert to the religion of Marcionism or to believe that God's incarnation changed the reality or humanity's situation to the point that we are now called to radical pacifism even though the Hebrews, prophets, judges, etc were not called to pacifism. I believed in the latter in my Christian pacifist phase. I ceased to be a pacifist when I came to the conclusion that the Golden Rule or love for enemies sometimes requires us to thwart people from doing particularly evil things. I still believe that Christians should be radically peaceful and loving to enemies and that it is impermissible to throw evil people under the bus or to dispose of evil people. We stop evil people for the sake of humanity and for their own sake. Violence has to conform to the Golden Rule to be permissible in my opinion. For example "If I was going to do this terrible evil[like murder, rape, etc] to a fellow person, I would hope that someone would stop me." The worth of an evil person should not be forgotten even in cases where we ought to resort to violence toward them.
It is not acceptable for a single human or any other living being to be disposed of or abandoned forever. I don't believe it is right to measure and compare people's worth or to value the worth of would-be victims over victimizers. I think violence harmonizes with the Golden Rule and love for enemies when we recognize that those who do the sort of evil that warrants a violent response are out of their right minds and doing things that fundamentally go against their own nature, so we don't need to frame it as choosing to value one person above another. Sometimes it loves and honors a person to thwart them by using violence if necessary. Of course, the protection of others shouldn't be forgotten either. Being loving is about valuing everyone, not about virtue signaling about how radically peaceful we are. Pacifism sometimes takes on a twisted form that seems to focus so much on the worth of wrong-doers that victims are forgotten or treated as if the had less value than those who harm them.
In my opinion, the teachings of Jesus are not pacifistic but are radical and are close to being pacifistic. I believe that He and the apostles and even certain Old Testament prophets teach that we should love and seek to bless our enemies, including those who persecute us. There is a lot of complexity to this and some ambiguity of where exactly lines should be drawn, but I think it can basically be summed up as us being called to think of our enemies as if they were beloved nondisposable brothers/sisters. There are times when Christians have been called to choose non-violence to the point of martyrdom and Christians celebrate stories of Christians who loved their enemies to the point of praying for their persecutors as they were being tortured to death. That is not to say that we believe it is good to have a death wish or to be masochistic. Many martyrs were people who had previously escaped capture or imprisonment and we are obliged to try to save our lives when it is possible to do so without violating some higher principle.
The NAP is cringe.
6:26 Jesus was in no way a pacifist. He took up arms against the money changers in the temple. He told the apostles to sell all that they had to buy a sword. and historical evidence points to Jesus possibly was drafted into military conflicts prior to his ministry.
Galbadia attacks because Balamb garden literally crashes these. They brought the war to a peaceful fishing village. The SEEDs are no different than the Galbadian soldier threatening Mayor Dobe when they were in Timber City. Violence also doesn't solve the problem either as the main characters are part of the forces perpetuating the sequence of events that will lead to Ultimecia's time compression. Seems like a lot of people have that go over their heads.
Didn't you see the conversation? Galbadia was there independently to search for Ellone. They made no mention about the floating Garden nor SeeD. Also, they said that Edea (secretly Ultimecia) told them to burn the place anyway whether they found her or not. I'd like to see you reason with THAT.