Sort-of serious Final Fantasy poll

[owlmoose]

For some reason, the subject of who the real villain is seems to come up a lot in Final Fantasy discussions. Some of the games are straightforward in that respect (would anyone try to claim that Ultimecia is not the true villain of FFVIII?), but more of them are not. So I say we settle it, "once and for all."

Warning: this poll contains spoilers for Final Fantasies 7, 9, 10, and 12, if you consider the names of characters that might be villainous to be a spoiler.


[Poll #950173]

I've left out the older games, because of those, I've only played FFV, and I remember few of the plot details. If you want to discuss them in comments, feel free.

Comments

[yaoiboi69.livejournal.com]

Depends on your definition of "real".

I think that's part of what you're asking; for each person to define that in their answer, but you can't get an answer without the terms in the question being defined.

Also, who is to say there isn't more than one "real" villain in each game? Yevon, Seymour and Sin were all real villains in the sense that they all were the party's antagonists and presented conflicts in the story. Same with VII.

[bottle-of-shine.livejournal.com]

Except I think that's getting a little more in-depth than intended. ;)

I mean, perhaps the word choice/emphasis wasn't the best, but overall I don't think that's quite what owlmoose was trying to ask, for people to make a complicated decision based on the definition of "real." Mainly because I don't believe when she used the word she was saying that the other villains weren't "real" in the way you're suggesting, just not the true source of antagonism to the characters. Here, real means which of the characters are the true source of the forces that cause the heroes and the villain to clash.

Given her explanation of the poll, I'm not sure assuming that she's asking a philosophical question based on the definition of the word "real" is the point, especially give them options. XD

[yaoiboi69.livejournal.com]

I swear I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to understand the question better. I blame my philosophy courses.

You're just saying what I already said though. I think. I don't know what you think I meant by "real" but basically what you said, the true antagonist was what I was talking about.

I was saying that there can be different sources of antagonism at different points. No one's going to argue that Ultimecia is not the major driving force behind the story of FFVIII, like she said. But, for example, in X, arguments can be made that different people are the cause of the antagonism. For example, some people could argue that Seymour is the real villain since he's who your party battles against the most in-game, but others could say that's impossible because Sin is what caused his actions so Sin is the true villain, and even further people could say that without Yu Yevon, Sin wouldn't exist, so he's the real villain.

And at different points of the game, the true antagonist can change for that specific point. Like in VII, at first the true antagonist is Shinra as a whole. There can be multiple antagonists, because it could be argued that Jenova and/or Sephiroth is the villain, but a lot of time in the game, Shinra is the party's main roadblock.

I think what I'm saying is that different people are going to define the real villain in each game differently without criteria for what we're talking about. That's all.

Yeah, I'm just gonna go back into my dark little corner now because it seems everyone else isn't having my problems with overthinking...

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

No, I think you raise a fair point. Actually, part of what I'm trying to get at with this poll *is* a definition for what criteria people use to determain who the main/primary/real villain is in a game. If I'd given a strict definition for what I meant by "real villain", I don't think there'd be much to discuss. ;)

I also agree that there definitely can be more than on villain, but even the more complex FF games are simplistic enough in the end that I think you can probably narrow it down to one.