blocks 1 markdown content ">These wall-stones are wondrous —\ncalamities crumpled them, these city-sites crashed, the work of giants\ncorrupted. The roofs have rushed to earth, towers in ruins.\nIce at the joints has unroofed the barred-gates, sheared\nthe scarred storm-walls have disappeared—\nthe years have gnawed them from beneath. A grave-grip holds\nthe master-crafters, decrepit and departed, in the ground’s harsh\ngrasp, until one hundred generations of human-nations have\ntrod past.[^1]" 2 markdown content "Okay, so Final Fantasy 8 probably isn't considered the black sheep of the series anymore given FF13 and FF15's receptions (a whole other longpost there) but it's still one of the least popular entries, I'd say. " 3 markdown content "I think part of that reception is somewhat deserved - the game does a lot to try and shake up the series following FF7 and not every change really hits it on the mark[^2]. It's definitely still an odd duck, even when just considering the Playstation 1 entries. But I kinda wanna talk about why the game captured my imagination as a kid and why it's my favorite game in the series to this date." 4 markdown content "And a large part of that comes down to the world FF8 takes place in. It has a lot of elements that I love in fantasy worldbuilding and it has a lot of elements I love in storytelling. I'm not going to go too much into the story, but like every good story, the world plays a big part in how the it unfolds so there will be some (likely minor) spoilers here. " 5 markdown content "Final Fantasy 8's unnamed world is sitting on a knife's edge. If you were to sum up the state of the world in one word, you could make a convincing case for that word being: fucked. There's two major events you can look at for why this is the case: the fall of Centra and the Sorceress War. We'll cover them both in turn. " 6 markdown content "#### Centra: JRPG Rome" 7 markdown content "Centra doesn't get a whole lot of direct play in the game's story - it's more the backdrop against what a lot of the action unfolds. It was a highly advanced civilization that dominated the entire planet for thousands of years but that exists only as ruins and memory by the time of the game's events. The people of Centra were advanced enough to build massive habitats - effectively moving cities - that they could use to peacefully travel and explore the world. The remnants of these cities are the Gardens (Balamb, Galbadia, Trabia) that much of the game's story takes place in. They founded many colonies and countries and it's three of these - Dollet, Galbadia, and Esthar - that form much of the driving force of the game's plot[^3]." 8 markdown content '<div width=100%>\n<img src="https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/6e59a859-0d10-4291-baec-bbb4b271e21f/image.png" alt="A futuristic looking building colored silver and blue with curved, bulbous walls and a halo of gold and glass around its top" style="margin: 0px auto;">\n<p style="text-align: center; margin: 0px auto; font-size:0.875em; font-style:italic;">Balamb Garden, where the game begins and home to the first SeeD Military Academy and most of the playable characters. (This image and all images are taken from the Final Fantasy Wiki)</p>\n</div>' 9 markdown content `But Centra was destroyed practically overnight. The game is somewhat contradictory on when - there's an NPC that says it was 80 years ago. An in-game lore entry and an out-of-game lore text both save "over 100 years ago". Either way, the civilization ended in brutal and destructive fashion and fairly recently to the events of the game. ` 10 markdown content "There's a unique element of the planetary system that makes up FF8's world and its moon. Monsters breed on the moon and when certain astronomical events line up, the moon's monsters get pulled down to the surface of the planet in huge hordes. This event is known as the Lunar Cry due to the fact that it looks like the moon is shedding a tear." 11 markdown content "It was a Lunar Cry that destroyed Centra. The Centra heartland was the planet's southern continent - it's one of the last places you go in-game and it's largely empty save for some ruins. The monsters overran the southern continent, completely destroying the Centra civilization and it happened practically overnight." 12 markdown content `<div width=100%>\n<img src="https://cohost.org/rc/attachment-redirect/a4e2ec83-8bea-471f-b706-fde4bc7713b2" alt="A picture of a moon, much like earth. A large blue circle sits in the middle of it, surrounded by a larger red circle making the moon look like an eyeball" style="margin: 0px auto;">\n<p style="text-align: center; margin: 0px auto; font-size:0.875em; font-style:italic;">The world's moon, moments before the beginning of the Lunar Cry event. The monsters gather in a central location and the planet's gravity pulls them to earth. The effect is said to resemble an eye crying.</p>\n</div>` 13 markdown content "This left a sudden power vacuum and instability in the world. The people of Centra's colonies were left without the support of their technologically superior homeland. Knowledge of how to work the many marvels of Centra seemed to disappear, technology was forgotten or became rumor and legend. Installations where the great scientific sages of Centra explored the intricacies of the universe were abandoned and left to the mercy of the monsters. And into this power vacuum came war[^4]." 14 markdown content "#### The Sorceress War: Esthar vs Galbadia Fight in the Ruins" 15 markdown content "The Sorceress War is a much more recent even in the planet's history - recent enough that many of the cast either participated in it or were born during it and it had a direct impact on the events of the game. The Laguna flashbacks take place during this war. " 16 markdown content "The war was fought between two of the Centra successor states: Galbadia, a military dictatorship ruled by President Vinzer Deling; and Esthar, a technologically advanced civilization ruled by the tyrannical Sorceress Adel[^5]. It began as an attempt at world domination by Adel and ran up against the similar wishes of Deling. Galbadia's military might and population (through the subjugation of other cities) was an even match for an Esthar fueled by its advanced technology and sorceress magic and so the war was a brutal and devastating one that left many orphans behind. The majority of the playable characters in the game are orphans of the war. Even Rinoa, who was not, was affected by it as her father is a Galbadian general. " 17 markdown content "The war was only ended through a revolution in Esthar which saw the Sorceress Adel overthrown. She was not killed, however, in fear of her immense powers (powerful even by sorceress standards) passing on to a successor and starting a new bloody chapter in the fighting. Instead Esthar's used its technology to imprison her and launch her into space where she lives - trapped forever orbiting the planet she sought to rule. Esthar, under the rule of its inadvertent new President Loire would then build an enormous, impenetrable barrier to block itself off from the rest of the world." 18 markdown content `<div width=100%>\n<img src="https://cohost.org/rc/attachment-redirect/056900bf-6854-4de8-aed5-b5c295781bda" alt="A large construct that resembles angel's wings. Trapped in the center is a human figure." style="margin: 0px auto;">\n<p style="text-align: center; margin: 0px auto; font-size:0.875em; font-style:italic;">Concept art of Adel's Tomb. In game, this man-made space station floats in orbit of the planet close to the planet's moon. In the center, one can see a figure meant to represent the Sorceress Adel.</p>\n</div>` 19 markdown content "Galbadia saw its own political instability as well. Facing rebellion from the occupied cities of Timber and Dollet, its military withdrew to deal with internal disquiets. No formal peace treaty ended the war, no attempt at detente. Both warring parties retreated, focused themselves inward. Meanwhile the rest of the world waited, tensely, for the day to come that hostilities would resume. " 20 markdown content "Eighteen years would pass. They would not pass easy. " 21 markdown content `#### The World At the Start of the Game, or "400 Words In and We're Still at the Beginning"` 22 markdown content "You have a world that's been devastated by a global war between super powers. You have countless orphans. You have one military superpower licking its wounds and another that's completely cut off from the rest of the world. To put it in the context of our world, I liken it to the status of Europe after World War 2 and that's without the megalomaniacal sorceress in orbit who'd want nothing more than to return and finish what she started." 23 markdown content "That's all on top of the fact that the bottom of the world fell out only a few generations ago with the destruction of Centra. Every city lives in the shadows of the great civilization that is no longer, in the ruins of things greater than themselves. To contextualize it again, I liken it to the status of Western Europe in the aftermath of the fall of Rome. " 24 markdown content "Savage monsters roam the planet, making travel difficult if not impossible. They also make it difficult to construct any kind of communication network - one NPC talks about how cities can somewhat communicate with each other through underground HD cables, but monsters attack the cable installations or make it difficult to lay new cable or repair old cable and so the network is unreliable at best and rarely connects more than urban areas. In many areas, they have to rely on chocobo messengers in a kind of Final Fantasy take on the Pony Express. " 25 markdown content "Radio, as it was at the beginning of the 20th century in our world, could have been the great equalizer. It could have allowed international communication without interruption from monsters, but ever since the war there's been an increase in radio interference rendering all but the short range and quick communication utterly useless. Nobody knows the source with most believing the interference comes from the moon and the monsters on it. Most radio equipment has long since been shut off and abandoned as a result. The biggest radio transmitter, in the city of Dollet, forms the basis of the first chapter of the game. A TV screen dominates the city's skyline, running but usually showing nothing more than static. Occasionally, people report seeing messages in the garbage, however. " 26 markdown content "As the characters later discover, the source of the interference and the source of the haunting messages is the Tomb of the Sorceress Adel, floating in orbit near the moon. Its powerful wave jamming technology, intended to prevent Adel from communicating with any of her supporters on the planet, also interferes with and jams radio signals originating from the planet. Occasionally, her voice can be heard through the static, demanding to be freed…." 27 markdown content '<div width=100%>\n<img src="https://cohost.org/rc/attachment-redirect/c49c7a2d-207d-470b-a464-533ddbb3cc2e" alt="Stairs run past a large black and red television screen. The screen is filled with a seeming random assortment of letters but closer inspection can see messages: I AM ALIVE HERE\n BRING ME BACK THERE\n I WILL NEVER LET YOU FORGET ABOUT ME\n I WILL NEVER LET YOU BOUND ME BACK" style="margin: 0px auto;">\n<p style="text-align: center; margin: 0px auto; font-size:0.875em; font-style:italic;">The television screen in Timber, outside the Timber radio station. The contents of the screen seem like gibberish, random assortment of letters, but if one looks closely one can see messages in the mess: <br /> \n I AM ALIVE HERE <br />\n BRING ME BACK THERE<br />\n I WILL NEVER LET YOU FORGET ABOUT ME<br />\n I WILL NEVER LET YOU BOUND ME BACK</p>\n</div>' 28 markdown content "A few years after the war, a man named Cid founds Balamb Garden, the first SeeD Garden, in one of the ruins of Centra's moving cities. Gardens are military academies, giving the children of the war an education (one of the few places that they can obtain it in a war torn world) but also training them to fight. Cid reveals his reasons for this doing so as the game's narrative unfolds, but to secure the funding he needs to begin he turns to NORG, a wealthy member of the Shumi race. NORG sees the SeeD Gardens as a lucrative investment, an opportunity to churn out well-trained mercenaries to fight in the wars that everyone expects to erupt soon. This conflict between the two goals for the organization plays a part in the story's narrative." 29 markdown content "And this is how the world sits, eighteen years after the Sorceress War: frozen in time, with its great cities providing no succor or stability to the world at large. One city remains closed off from the world. One begins to re-mobilize, attacking its breakaway vassals of Timber and Dollet and attempting to fold them back into its empire. Communication between cities and nations is difficult if not impossible. Everyone lives in the ruins of a world of greatness that once was, that was destroyed in a cataclysmic event that few really understand. The SeeD Gardens spread across the world, churning out a new generation of soldiers to fight in the wars started by their parents. " 30 markdown content "And early in the game, the President of Galbadia broadcasts a message to the world (despite the radio interference) announcing that his country's new ambassador to the world: the Sorceress Edea, one of the long line of natural magic users that have been alternately worshiped and feared throughout the history of the world. Within living memory, however, Sorceresses were seen as responsible for the war that bears their name and all the hardship and destruction that followed in its wake." 31 markdown content "Everyone on the planet knows what this message means. Everyone recognizes it for the threat that it is. " 32 markdown content "#### Why Does This Appeal to Me" 33 markdown content `I really like stories about broken worlds, about dysfunctional worlds. And I don't mean entire worlds - a "world" is as large as the story needs it to be. It can be a broken family, it can be a broken town. There's a love of I have for post-apocalyptic stories that aren't, actually post-apocalyptic. We picture the Apocalypse as being one of fire and brimstone, the complete destruction of the world, the end of all life as we know it, but it doesn't really have to be that. If we take away the fire and brimstone, couldn't you argue that apocalypses have already happened - that so many generations of humanity have felt like they've lived through the "end of the world" as they know it? The Bronze Age Collapse fascinates me because over the course of one lifetime, multiple great civilizations broke down. But that wasn't the end of "the world", people lived. They moved on. ` 34 markdown content "I absolutely love stories like that, where people struggle in a world that they no longer recognize, where the mysteries of the world are tantalizing, where the characters feel like children walking in the shadows of a greatness that once was and is long gone. " 35 markdown content "The planet also feels on knife's edge, hesitant to breathe lest it trigger more destruction. The narrative of the game involves the characters - youths, young people, the next generation - being sent out into this world to continue the wars their parents fought and morphs into a fight to create a new world. It feels much more meaningful a narrative to explore than your stock JRPG storyline of plucky heroes fighting an evil big bad in a world that largely exists to be something for the player to interact with and the state of the world plays a huge part in this. Doubly so when you're young, but starting to come of age and beginning to make your way out into the world yourself. " 36 markdown content "The stagnation. The mystery. The frozen nature of it, the disconnect between people, the menacing threat of the sorceress in orbit. The memories, and sacrifice thereof. Money, capitalism, ambition, destruction, romantic dreams, magic, the legacy of hatred and fear. All of these mix to create a game that captured my imagination and refused to let go. " 37 markdown content "And all of these are set on a captivating, unnamed planet. " 38 markdown content '<div width=100%>\n<img src="https://thumbs.gfycat.com/JollyIdioticFluke-size_restricted.gif" alt="A CGI ocean shore. The water ebbs and flows." style="margin: 0px auto;">\n<p style="text-align: center; margin: 0px auto; font-size:0.875em; font-style:italic;">FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC</p>\n</div>' 39 markdown content "\n[^1]: The Ruin, an 8th century Anglo-Saxon poem written by an unknown author. Thought to describe the Roman-constructed city of Bath in England, the poet imagines the grandeur that must have once been but has now been left to ruin in the centuries since. https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-ruin/" 40 markdown content "[^2]: I think it's fair to say that the series as a whole does this and its one of the main strengths and why its stuck around so long. Every game tries to do something new and while all changes may not appeal to all players, I can't fault the series for trying to keep things from becoming stale. " 41 markdown content "[^3]: The game doesn't describe exactly the relationship between these three and their mother country but I liken them to the Phoenician city states or the Greek colonies in Magna Graecia and Ionia in our own world's history: people from the mainland move to found new city-states that are independent but linked via trade and mutual cultural ties with their homeland. " 42 markdown content "[^4]: Some of this is paragraph is supposition based on my own knowledge of our world's history when similar events occur." 43 markdown content `[^5]: The Sorceresses are DEEPLY important to the narrative of FF8 but I don't want to completely sideline this essay by explaining them. In the smallest of nutshells: the ability to cast magic is not innate to any humans except Sorceresses. When a Sorceress dies, she passes her power to another woman. They have been alternatively worshiped and reviled throughout the history of the world. Adel is a particularly tyrannical example of one, one that the world rightly fears. In the original Japanese text, they are called "Witches" which I feel is more of an appropriate term given the impact, legacy, and history that they have in the game's narrative.`