Final Fantasy 6's Enemies' Magic

Note: Blogger tells me that it's discontinuing the feature of updating followers through email whenever a blog is updated.  Which seems ludicrous to me, and I can't really see how it benefits Blogger to take away this feature--what are they gonna save, 4 millionths of a cent per email?--but it's neither the first time Blogger has made an incredibly stupid decision with its mechanics, nor is it likely to be the last.  The point is, if any of y'all depend on emails to let you know when a new rant's up, you can't depend on that any more, and I just wanted to let you know, so you don't miss any rants by accident because you were waiting for the email.

After all, certainly it would be a tragedy if you were to miss out on me nitpicking a tiny gameplay detail of a game that's approaching 30 years old, or reviewing DLC packages so ancient that they just automatically come with the game now, or enthusing about some AMVs.  Right?



As is often the case, this rant owes a great deal of its existence to that most amiable and erudite of chaps, Ecclesiastes.  Thanks for so frequently being such a good conversationalist about meaningless RPG drivel that any given discourse between us can become a tidy little rant, sir!



Magic. Specifically, who has it and who wants it.  More specifically than that, the fact that magic is a unique ability gifted to the Espers which humans have no way to naturally access.  This is the founding, most crucial plot point around which the entirety of Final Fantasy 6’s story is built.

The creation of life on FF6’s world?  It’s all about the fact that Espers were created to be beings of magic by a trio of goddesses.  The distant history of the world?  A war between Espers and humans based upon the fact that Espers had magic and humans didn’t, but wanted it at any cost.  The recent history of the world?  A power-hungry emperor finding and abducting Espers because he wants to possess magic as a weapon to take over the world.  The major events of the first couple thirds of the game?  A conflict between the magic-wielding empire and the rest of the world, wherein the heroes of the latter pursue every ethical means possible to attain magic with which to fight back.  The first and arguably more important protagonist of the game?  A woman whose significance to the plot and characterization for the majority of the game is defined by the fact that she’s half-human and half-esper, and thus both possesses magic and is a symbol that there can be peace between those who naturally have magic and those who naturally do not.  The second protagonist?  A woman whose character development is defined in significant part by her having been a member of the Empire, a result of which is having been gifted the ability to use magic.  The major villains?  The guy obsessed with acquiring magic with the intent of ruling the world, and another guy who went crazy as a result of the process of being artificially given the ability to use magic.

The game opens with a mission to acquire a frozen Esper for the purpose of using its magic--the same Esper, because of its magic, becomes a central plot device to both defend from the bad guys and to discover more about the primary protagonist.  Party members whose significance is largely defined by their being descendants of humans with magic, a town of such people in hiding, divine statues whose magic can grant godlike power...it’s absolutely, utterly inarguable to assert that the facts of who can and can’t use magic naturally is an inextricably vital part of the substantial (and better) majority of Final Fantasy 6’s plot.  In its every major part, this story of ambitions to power beyond what one was meant to possess is built upon the concrete lore of magic’s accessibility.

So I have to wonder why the hell so many enemies in the game’s first half are able to use magic.

Like, okay.  Imperial troops?  Sure, it makes sense for them to be able to use magic, because the Empire’s been injecting magical science (or scientific magic, in this case) into its troops for a while; that’s the Empire’s whole thing, after all.  The weird wheel mutants that chase you during the escape from the Magitek Lab?  Yeah, alright, if you’re gonna make a weird force of mutant roadsters to zoom around in your minecart tunnels as security (I guess?), may as well give’em offensive magic to get their job done.  The little guy using a parasol to fly somehow on the Imperial continent?  Uh...I guess he could be an Imperial military agent from a branch of Vector’s army that happens to have a very relaxed dress code, and no better orders for him than “run around in the fields all day and harass any rando you come across,” thus explaining his access to lightning magic.  Seems a little unlikely...but then again, the Empire sent its most valuable and unstable asset into the absolute furthest point of enemy territory with only 2 basic and largely uninformed goons to watch over her, maintains a strict policy that all its highest-ranking generals must possess ethics or ambitions completely incompatible with the tenets of their job, and keeps its most dangerous prisoners incarcerated in a basement closet under the watchful eye of a single narcoleptic soldier.  So really, “Rule 63 Mary Poppins with lightning powers and wanderlust” would be relatively low on the list of Gestahl’s questionable military practices.

But how the fuck do the random vagrants and ne’er-do-wells of Zozo have the ability to sling spells at you?  If the entirety of Final Fantasy 6’s story is based around the idea that humans cannot, under natural circumstances, use magic, then why, exactly, are there a couple random-ass basically-town-NPCs-turned-hostile running around in Zozo who use outright spells in battle?

Gobbledygooks, for starters, can use the spell Vanish on themselves.  And that’s a magic spell.  This isn’t 1 of those halfhearted copycat “spells” the game sometimes pulls, like Blaze and Megavolt, abilities that are functionally and visually close to identical to actual magic spells but technically don’t exist in the Magic combat ability category so they somehow don’t count.  No, Gobbledygook just outright uses the Vanish spell, the same one that’s learned from the Phantom magicite.  Yeah, Gobbledygook, an enemy type living in Zozo, the town famous for and filled to the brim with lying pieces of shit that no one else in the world wants anything to do with, least of all the Empire...can use Vanish.  To repeat, that’s a human foe, a mechanic wearing a bomber pilot cap with a hell of a hunchback, living in what I have to assume is the hometown of Pete Hines, a settlement far, far outside the Empire, who can use the magic spell Vanish.

Terra's pivotal role as the protagonist is laid out and defined in a battle during which her gameplay convention of using magic is utilized.  And then you get this little random enemy dude able to throw a spell of his own around.  Unless there was, in Final Fantasy 6’s early stages, a planned second story path about a homely little aircraft greasemonkey living in poverty with big dreams of seeing the world, whose dad was an Esper milkman with a route that happened to include Maduin and Madonna’s happy little cave back in the day, I think something’s wrong here.

But surely we could rationalize it away.  Okay, Vanish is a magic spell, but maybe it’s just FF6 doing the best it can to impart an idea of battle actions with its limited means.  Like, when another enemy in Zozo, the giant Hill Gigas, dies, he may use 8.0 on the good guys in his dying moments.  As my buddy Ecclesiastes pointed out to me, this is probably meant to symbolize the idea that this giant just collapsed so heavily onto the ground in his death that he created an earthquake, which the party has to suffer through since they’re at ground 0.  There’s a bit of difference in that 8.0 is strictly an enemy ability rather than what’s considered actual magic (not that there really is much of any functional difference, but whatever), while Vanish IS just a damn spell, but still--perhaps Gobbledygook using Vanish is meant just to symbolize that he’s gone into hiding, and is very stealthy about it, rather than that he’s actually using magic to turn invisible.  Not great, but surely acceptable, right?

Sure.  Cool.  No problem.  Now explain how the Dancer enemy in Zozo can use Fire 2, Ice 2, and Bolt 2.

Also, I object to the fact that several regular monster enemies can frequently use magic attacks--like, official magic, beyond just identical enemy skills.  I mean, once the whole World of Ruin part of the story starts, okay, sure, whatever, everything’s chaos and mutants and unsealed demons and whatnot anyway, so that’s par for the course.  But regular, everyday monsters in Final Fantasy 6’s world as it was before Kefka’s nonsense should not have been using magic.

Sure, the significance of magic to the plot of FF6 is really only centered around humans and Espers; nothing’s outright said that would indicate that monsters can’t have some limited magic access.  But I nonetheless contend that ANY standard enemy not associated with the Empire or directly with Espers and whatnot using magic is a mistake.  Because the fact is that even if FF6’s lore never outright takes a stance on the matter of monsters, it nonetheless creates an undeniable understanding that magic is the dominion of the goddess and the Espers, and that’s it.  It’s regarded as such a rare and wonderful thing, the kind of thing that to dare to possess it oneself is an act of hubris, that adding on the footnote “oh also theres a random eel that can use Aqua Rake* and some chicken-lizards that can cast Quake and this weird vulture man who’s packing that sweet White Wind* lol” kinda lessens the weight and awe.

Additionally, magic as a concept is outright mythical to most people of Final Fantasy 6’s world, to the point that they’ve never seen it nor have any expectation of seeing it.  Locke himself doesn’t even know what it is when he sees Terra using it in front of him, for Gorum’s sake!  And Locke’s been around the block a few times--the parts of his adventurer’s profile that actually are related to treasure-hunting like he says give every indication of a guy who’s traveled far and wide.  The fact that even a seasoned traveler like him has never witnessed a magical spell in action before makes the idea that there are random monsters across the globe who can sling spells just like an Esper a logical inconsistency to the world.

And I don’t even know where to begin with all the Rages Gau gets from copying enemies that inexplicably let him cast all manner of magic spells.

Is this a big deal?  Contrary to what my act of carrying on for a whole 3 pages about this matter would imply, it is not.  This is such a small problem that it barely warrants complaint; if there were something between an observation and a criticism, that’s where FF6’s enemies’ lore-inconsistent use of magic would be.  Still, the ability of several monsters in the World of Balance of FF6 to cast spells is definitely an oversight, and the same ability of certain non-Imperial human enemies to do so is an outright plot hole.  A small one, to be sure, in the sense that it’s not going to actually negatively affect your playthrough and very well may not even be noticed by most players...but a mistake all the same, for the ability to use magic, specifically Black, White, Gray, and Blue magic, is inseparably, indelibly tied to, entangled with, branded onto the core premise of the entire plot of Final Fantasy 6, and the existence of several enemy monsters, and especially of a couple human foes in Zozo, is a contradiction to that upon which the game stakes its full story.











* Yes, Blue Magic counts.  The whole thing about Strago and his village is that he has access to magical abilities because he’s descended from the humans who first stole magic from Espers.  A step removed from traditional White, Black, and Gray magic though it may be, Blue Magic is still far more firmly in the realm of Magic than Vague Supposedly Non-Magic Enemy Skill.