Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1's Marche's Wish Theories

I seem to have been getting quite a few ideas lately from (what passes for) my social interactions.  I did that Fallout rant based on a Youtube comment, that thing on Shadow was born of a running gag during 1 of Icy Brian’s streams (and there's actually more to come on that front), and now I’m recycling a conversation I had with the eternally esteemed Ecclesiastes.  Clearly this means that I’m out of my own ideas for rants, should actually try interacting with other human beings more often, or both.  Either way, thanks for yet again dropping a great rant possibility into my lap, sir!



So, Ecclesiastes came to me the other day with a question that had been nagging him for a bit.  Requesting that I recall good old Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1, he reminded me that the story of the game is essentially that the Gran Grimoire, a powerful magical book, transforms the real town of St. Ivalice into a fantasy world, as a way of fulfilling Mewt’s desire to be reunited with his recently deceased mother and have his family be complete and happy once more.  In the process, the Gran Grimoire also grants those who were close to Mewt that afternoon their own desires--Mewt’s dad Cid regains his confidence and sense of purpose as he becomes a Judgemaster, and, of course, benefits from his wife now being alive again,* Mewt’s friend Ritz (who was bullied for her white hair) now has naturally pigmented hair, and Mewt’s new friend Doned (a sickly boy who cannot walk) is made healthy and given full autonomous mobility.  While the Gran Grimoire has rearranged reality most notably for Mewt, everyone who had been near him the day he found the book and chanted the words he found within it has been given a gift, and we can reasonably work under the assumption that this gift is the thing which each person desired most.

Except for our protagonist, Marche.  While Marche gets to take part in the fun of adventures in Ivalice as much as any of his peers, there is no obvious boon tailored to his needs that has been given to him, as has been to the others.  And this seemed peculiar to Ecclesiastes--to quote him, “What does Marche get?  Are those other changes partly what Marche wished for, if indirectly?  Did he not have an easy desire for an outsider to guess at?”

I gave the matter some thought, and soon had a working theory.  I then almost immediately discarded this perfectly functional theory for a crazier second one that came to me which I liked way more, because I am capricious.  But let’s start with the initial theory anyway

So, first theory is simple: Marche does have a wish granted by the Gran Grimoire, but because the desires in his life are much less keenly felt and extreme than those of the others, it’s a subtle enough boon that neither Marche nor we the audience really pick up on it.  

Basically, looking at Marche at the beginning of the game, I can only really figure 3 possible major avenues of desire from what we know about him altogether.  They are:

1. Wishing that his brother Doned’s situation was better.  This is a noble, selfless wish, which at least partly seems true to Marche’s character, and also has no competition from a stronger, selfish wish, so it’s reasonable to think that this is probably the strongest wish Marche possesses, at least given what information we have on his life.

2. Longing for the comfort, security, and belonging of home.  This selfish desire is the second most powerful desire we can reasonably attribute to Marche, and the one most relevant to us.  I’ll explain it below.

3. Wishing that the life situations of his new friends Ritz and Mewt were better.  This selfless want is ranked lowest, because he only just met Ritz and Mewt, but it’s reasonable to assume that it’s there and a relevant part of Marche’s heart, particularly if the Gran Grimoire decides to grant their wishes at the time of Mewt showing it to his friends (since, at that moment, Ritz and Mewt’s difficulties are fresh in Marche’s mind).

So, looking at those wishes, we can see that 1 and 3 are both granted by the Gran Grimoire anyway, and are seen and presumed to be the results of Ritz and Mewt’s own hearts more than Marche’s.  So let’s look at the only wish we can really infer Marche would have which is not already taken care of: 2.

Marche has just moved to a new town, and while it doesn’t seem to be a terribly traumatizing experience, it clearly does weigh on him, as it would for any kid.  The concept of “home” is an exceptionally important one to us as a species, a vital component of a healthy mental landscape, and all the more pronounced for a child, to whom the world is still very large and foreboding in many ways.  It’s safe to say that the only relevant selfish desire Marche would have is to be “home.”  BUT, that doesn’t HAVE to be an exact location, necessarily--think of the concept of “home” that we all need as a box on a form, upon which we stamp an image of a specific place and the people associated with it.  For all intents and purposes, that IS “home” because it’s on our form, but technically, it’s just the representation we’ve given to the concept, the stamp we’ve put there.  What’s important is what the box itself requires--security, comfort, belonging, etc.  The image stamped there can be swapped for another; most of us have more than 1 “home” in our lives.

What I’m getting at is that the Gran Grimoire doesn’t have to just recreate Marche’s old house, school, and friend group to satisfy the desires Marche has as a kid who’s moved to a new place.  It just has to make him feel comfortable, happy, and like he belongs, to a reasonable degree.  Furthermore, given that Marche seems to be very big on the “face the reality of your problems instead of hiding from them” thing, a direct recreation of his old neighborhood probably wouldn’t have worked, anyway.  So how did the granting of this wish manifest itself?  Well, first of all, the catch-all clause of safety in most of Ivalice applies as much to Marche as anyone else, so the security thing is covered automatically.

More to the point, though...I think Montblanc is the Gran Grimoire’s manifestation of Marche’s desire.  Montblanc runs into Marche almost immediately in Ivalice, quickly and easily forms a friendship with him, and acts as the kid’s guide to this fantasy world, without asking anything in return.  Additionally, he invites Marche into his clan, and stands by his side no matter what.  Montblanc is a pillar of loyalty and friendly stability to Marche (even when Marche decides to stand against the very foundations of the world and unravel it completely) and a trustworthy guide to the new and unfamiliar, and his appearance and immediate friendliness to Marche are so convenient that it would be absolutely no stretch of the imagination to interpret them as divine providence.  And for a child wishing for the sensation of “home” he has recently lost, what could be better than a new friend, a guide to anything and everything unfamiliar, and a welcoming clan to make a new home with?

So that’s my first theory: A, that the only significant wish that Marche, as a new kid in town, could have for himself involves recapturing the comfort of being at home somewhere, B, that recreating his old home isn’t necessary so long as a new one could be made to adequately take its place (and, again, that Marche’s own personality would make such a recreation doomed to failure), and, thus, C, that Montblanc is the representation of that wish being granted, in being someone who provides friendship, guidance, and a place to belong to for Marche.  We and Marche himself simply don’t realize this from the outset because it’s a substantially less attention-getting method of granting a wish than dyed hair, an homage to Dr. Strangelove ditching the chair, or Death having to go backsies on reaping someone.**

Pretty decent, right?  Seems reasonable enough, fits the character, explains everything tidily.  Good theory, if I say so myself.  We all satisfied with it?  Great!

Now throw that shit out the window, because it’s boring and this next shit is where it’s at!

What if it’s not that Marche is the only one who doesn’t get a wish granted?  Instead...what if he’s the only one who does?

Okay, well, actually, that’s a fun tagline, but it’s misleading.  More accurately, my theory is that the book is granting all of their wishes, but Marche’s is the only one that is actually important, and supercedes all the others.

Alright, so, here’s the problem with my first theory: while it is absolutely reasonable to infer that the only great wish that Marche could have to be granted that isn’t already covered by the others’ wishes is related to his being a new kid, it is, nonetheless, something we mostly have to infer for ourselves.  It’s an assumption based on people as a general rule, rather than specifically on Marche himself.  While he displays enough mild hesitation and seeking behavior for it to be logical to believe he has issues with being the new kid, you could also easily and just as logically believe that he’s handling the situation pretty well.

But there are a couple of personal qualities that we do KNOW that Marche possesses, from observation of him throughout the course of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1.  The first is that he cares for the well-being of others, being a decent person.  And the second is his most defining trait: an uncompromising belief in facing reality when it is unpleasant.  This isn’t a contradiction of his empathy, but rather a function of it, because he recognizes that what happiness you can receive from escapism is not real, cannot and should not last, and is less whole than the happiness and life worth you achieve by facing your griefs, accepting them, and moving forward.

So given that these are 2 of the strongest and most demonstrable personal qualities that we can see in Marche as a person, I ask: what if, when looking at the Gran Grimoire, surrounded by Mewt, Ritz, and Doned, children who all are bearing such burdens of pain that Marche has recently witnessed (and in Doned’s case, has long known of), the greatest desire in Marche’s heart, at that moment, was that the people around him could be happier?

No specific wish.  No contract of “I, the undersigned, do knowingly beseech any and all deities or entities, objects, or other beings of divinity within range of observation to extend their godly, magical, or occult abilities and experience to the effect of perma-dyin’ yon shorty’s hair pink, yo.”  Just an undefined but strongly-felt keening that the people before him could be relieved of their suffering over the inescapable misfortunes of their lives.

What does the Gran Grimoire do if that’s Marche’s wish?  Oh, certainly, it’s already planning to whip up a Palet Special*** for Mewt, give Doned his walking papers in a good way, and do the ol’ palette-swap for Ritz, but none of that is going to grant Marche’s desire.  Because Marche’s desire wouldn’t be for a false, escapist happiness for the others, it would be for the more real, lasting, and healthy relief to their suffering that results from accepting and coming to terms with problems, and moving forward.  Again, not something that he could put into words, but whatever ability the Gran Grimoire has to read Marche’s heart would surely find desires for his friends’ happiness clearly distinguishable from the versions of happiness that his friends were themselves thinking of.

So what’s the Gran Grimoire do?  It creates Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1.  Not just Ivalice and its fun and games--I mean, it creates the events, the story, the adventure as a whole.  The book sets the stage, and acts on that stage as antagonist in the form of Remedi/Li Grim, for Marche to go on the journey that forces his friends to face reality and come to terms with life.  The story of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1 is, in fact, the unfolding story of Marche’s wish for Mewt, Ritz, and Doned to make peace with their lives and be happier.

There’s no conflict between Marche’s desire and the wishes of the others.  Mewt still gets his mom and functional family, Ritz gets her hair, the Scarecrow gets his brains, and Doned gets his health.  They just don’t necessarily get to keep them.  And in the process of losing those gifts, they gain an acceptance and potential for happiness that functions as a better replacement.

There’s also no conflict in the fact that this situation forces Marche to go out and accomplish his wish himself (as opposed to the rest of them being given by the Gran Grimoire outright).  Because, really, an immediate, magical fix that changes the others’ minds and hearts to be happier, if such a thing is even within the Gran Grimoire’s power, most likely wouldn’t be a way that Marche would approve of or accept.  Going out and facing the hard realities of the situation in order to get to a better place is definitely an on-brand style of wish fulfillment for him.

Heck, if we look at the game’s story as a stage set by the Gran Grimoire with the intention of helping the kids get to a better place with Marche’s help, certain other details start to slide into place, too.  Montblanc’s friendliness and initial guidance could be the Gran Grimoire’s gently putting Marche into place for the events to come--had he not been a part of Clan Nutsy and just been left to his own devices, Marche very well might not have met up with his friends at all (or at least not for a long time), and he wouldn’t have had the manpower of a clan backing him up on his quest to revert the world to what it should be.

There’s also the detail of Ritz’s situation.  While there are decent personality-related reasons for Ritz to have an all-Viera clan and be besties with Shara, it’s hard to completely ignore the fact that her closeness to Shara is a major part of what helps Ritz come to terms with having white hair in the real world.  1 of my favorite scenes in FFTA1 is of Ritz and Shara’s conversation toward the end of the game in which Shara tells her that the Viera (who Ritz clearly has grown to greatly respect from having worked with them) consider white hair in humans to be a blessing, and leads Ritz to realize that she considers the Viera’s white hair to be beautiful, which helps Ritz finally accept that white hair doesn’t have to be a curse, and in fact could be seen as something wonderful about her, since it’s something that connects her to a people she respects and loves.

It certainly is a fortuitous circumstance that Ritz just happened to be adopted into a clan consisting entirely of members of a white-haired race, who can show her through example just how strong, beautiful, and admirable such a woman can be.  Lucky enough, in fact, that it really isn’t hard to see the hand of the Gran Grimoire in this, putting Ritz in the position of being surrounded by exactly the kind of people she’ll need to be able to come to terms with the trait that’s caused her such misery until now.  While not a direct argument for it, I think it’s reasonable to say that Ritz’s situation and the process of her finding acceptance and happiness in her lot is, altogether, a decent piece of supporting evidence for the idea that the Gran Grimoire has created FFTA1’s stage with the intention of granting Marche’s wish for his friends to find a lasting and real happiness with their lives.

Now, Ecclesiastes did conjure up a point of dissension with this theory.  As he says, “in the introductory battle, Mewt has a single point of magic power, so it's apparent that he's the one who set things in motion. It doesn't mean Marche couldn't have shaped the magic after it woke up, but that goes further into "you can't disprove it" territory than I'm comfortable with.”  Now, myself, I view a lot of the stuff within combat scenarios as highly negligible as far its influence upon or representation of a game’s story elements, so this doesn’t really bother me at all to completely and totally disregard.  I also don’t really see it as an obstacle anyway, because even in a scenario where Marche’s desires are just along for the Gran Grimoire’s ride that Mewt summoned, that really doesn’t mean that it’s not Marche’s wish that has the most significance and effect--the other kids’ desires, Mewt’s included, can be accomplished as a precursor to Marche’s.  The only scenario where this magic point really disproves my theory is one in which Mewt’s wish is the only one granted by the book, and it’s HIM being kind to Ritz, Doned, and Marche that gives them hair pigment, health, and (maybe) Montblanc.  Which is a scenario I’d say has a lot more weight from the viewpoint that it’s Mewt’s book and incantation than anything to do with a single combat stat, anyway.

But anyway, that’s pretty much it, 2 theories to explain why Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1’s Marche doesn’t have a noticeable gift granted by the Gran Grimoire when all the other kids did.  Take’em as you like; I’m personally quite fond of the second.















* This could just be a happy result of Mewt’s wish, though, and nothing drawn specifically from Cid’s heart.  He wasn’t 1 of those gathered around the book during that early scene, and Mewt’s desires would almost certainly be not only for his mother to still be alive, but for his family as a whole to be emotionally healthy and stable.  The fact that Cid does not initially remember, in the new Ivalice, his life in the real world, even though all the kids do, lends credence to the possibility that he’s just happily along for the ride of Mewt’s desires...although, Cid has, in the real world, taken up drink since his wife’s passing, from what I remember.  That kind of drinking problem is almost always connected to a desire to forget about one’s pain and troubles, so his memory loss in Fantasy Ivalice could still be a result of his own wishes being granted by the Gran Grimoire, an amnesia he would have actually desired.  It’s impossible to say whether the Gran Grimoire’s actions with Cid are a case of it fulfilling his own desires, or whether they’re simply an extension of Mewt’s wishes which just happen to be a pretty perfect representation of what Cid would have wanted anyway.

Totally irrelevant to the rant, or anything else, of course, and the result is the same regardless, but hey, wasting time talking about unimportant nonsense has never been something I’ve been afraid of.


** Another possible reason that this wish’s granting is so much more muted than the others could also just be the fact that it’s probably the least strongly-desired wish of the group.  Aside from the fact that the fact that wanting your mother not to be dead is generally going to be a stronger wish overall, Marche has had at least some of his fears at being a new kid assuaged by the point that the book could be scanning the kids’ hearts.  After all, a significant part of the fears involved in moving to a new place are social ones, anxiety over whether you’ll be able to make new friends and fit in.  Well, at that moment, Marche has made new friends, 2 of them.  Certainly he has just cause to still have social anxiety still (as his new friends are not going to help him fit in completely, and we’ve had a decent demonstration so far that bullies are going to be a problem in his future), but a decently significant part of Marche’s natural desire for belonging has been satisfied with Ritz and Mewt’s new friendship.  Thus, the potential strength of the wish within him that the Gran Grimoire would grant is likely less pronounced than it could be, and as a natural result, its fulfillment is subtler than that of the other kids’.


*** Figure out that reference, oh ye who claim to be RPG fans.