this is an archive of an abandoned draft about the final fantasy xiii trilogy, originally planned to be in a zine for dead genre chronicles' blog. it was archived on cohost but now it's on here because cohost is dead. long live the internet. :\
Crystals have long captivated the human mind with their charms. For as long as we’ve had jewelry, the eponymous jewels have adorned them, gems of varying size and value meant to show off the wealth or complement the aesthetic of the one wearing them. For perhaps just as long, or maybe longer, the beauty of gems, especially larger natural ones, indicated to some that they carried some mystical power; this lead to their use in rituals of divination, like that of scrying with a crystal ball, and healing, with such pseudoscientific acts continuing to this day with New Age practitioners.
It’s no surprise, then, that crystals are often a fixture of fantasy settings, where the mystical is definitive, as a conduit for the magical or elemental. In Lord of the Rings, the Palantir are crystal balls with which people can magically communicate across vast spaces, and in Dungeons and Dragons, gems were originally just another form of treasure, but crystals grew into a medium for Psions, who used them as vessels to channel their psychic powers. I can only speak to western conceptions of traditional fantasy, of course, but I certainly feel a similar attachment to crystals as mystical objects may exist in Japanese media, or was, at least, present in some form at the conception of Final Fantasy.
The first Final Fantasy is the tale of the Warriors of Light, who each hold a crystal imbued with the four primary classical elements, which have been tainted by the four corresponding elemental fiends; this corruption threatens the elemental balance of the world, and must be mended, or the world will be destroyed. Alongside the four primary classical elements, there is that of aether, void, or sky/heaven, depending on whether you’re working from Greek or Japanese philosophy, and how you wish to translate the latter. This resulted in Chaos, the final boss, whose existence maintains a closed time loop to sustain the four elemental fiends until the party defeats him.
Since FF1, several more entries in the series used crystals as anchors for the elemental balance of the world, while some only used them as an aesthetic choice, if at all utilizing them as a link to the series at large. In 2004, Kazushige Nojima, scenario writer for Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X, X-2, and several pieces of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, began work on a new mythos as a basis for several new Final Fantasy games; though the mythos would be roughly the same, the goal was to let individual directors for said games interpret the mythos freely, in a similar vein to how earlier Final Fantasy utilized the same general idea of the four elemental crystals despite being different settings. This mythos became known as Fabula Nova Crystallis, or “New Tale of the Crystal” in Latin.
One myth,
countless stories
FINAL FANTASY XIII
The New Tale of the Crystal
Like the light that shines through the Crystal,
the universe shines with multicolored content.
The flagship title for this new collection of Final Fantasy entries was Final Fantasy XIII, the first entry on seventh-generation hardware, announced at E3 2006, before Final Fantasy XII had even hit western shores. With the guiding concepts of “future world fantasy” and “people fighting against fate,” director Motomu Toriyama and producer Yoshinori Kitase began work on a game contemplative of another side of the concept of the Warrior of Light that sparked the series.
C’est l’Cie
Final Fantasy XIII begins with Lightning Farron, a soldier using the furor of the Purge, an attempt by the government of Cocoon to quarantine and execute those who have been in contact with a Pulse l’Cie, to stage an attack on the Pulse fal’Cie responsible for turning her sister into a l’Cie.
Let’s clarify all that jargon. In the world of Final Fantasy XIII, there exists two distinct societies: Cocoon, a structure similar to a Dyson sphere, and Gran Pulse, the planet above which Cocoon hovers. Cocoon is where a majority of the game is set, and the root of the plot and conflict. Pulse, to most Cocoon citizens, is a nonspecific threat, a cultural Other always set on encroaching upon their safety. “Hell without the brimstone,” as Lightning calls it, and as the Cocoon government has taught the people to think of it.
However, both Cocoon and Gran Pulse are under the domain of fal’Cie, beings that are most aptly categorized as either natural forces or minor deities; for Cocoon, they provide protection and resources for the citizens, which they see as pets, and on Gran Pulse, they simply do what they wish. One of the things fal’Cie are capable of is a mandate that a human act as their emissary; this is done by turning them into a l’Cie, an augmented human of sorts, who can then use magic and withstand a lot more punishment to help them fulfill their duty to their new master.
Their duty, or Focus, is explained to them in a vague vision while they’re being changed, and if they complete their mission successfully, they are turned to crystal; if not, they become a Cie’th, which can mean either a semi-sentient stone bearing the regret of their failure, or a zombie-like monster that maintains the combat proficiency of their l’Cie form, without any inhibitions toward violence. Crystals in FFXIII may not bear the same cultural significance as they do in our world, but they ostensibly retain the same physical composition: rigidly structured and, thus, quite resistant to physical damage, even before being granted what magical protection they may receive as part of their reward of “eternal life.”
This is the result of thinking about “crystal warriors” from another direction; the warriors aren’t being led on their quest by crystals, but rather, are fated to become the crystals themselves. Even before they are literally turned to crystal, it could be said that the pressure of the situation hardens them and the path forced upon them, rigid as it is, is reminiscent of a crystal’s strict structure.
A common complaint about FFXIII was that it was “too linear,” consisting primarily of obviously limited paths through visibly more vast areas, but I find this approach very appropriate to the tone of the game. The attack Lightning stages on the Pulse fal’Cie, the chaos leading the rest of the party to join her, and the resulting transformation of all 5 of them into Pulse l’Cie whose Focus is to let Cocoon fall, were all the successful machinations of a fal’Cie pulling strings until it had a team that could accomplish this task. Once recruited, they lose any freedom they might have had before, limited as it was by desperate circumstance or their drive for vengeance, to the task at hand. Their paths lay before them, and straying from them is pointless, unless it benefits them materially in their mission. This is the most true when on Cocoon, which makes up most of the environments you traverse, as the party is an insurgent group being relentlessly pursued while in enemy territory, with a single goal in any given locale. Both their internal motivation and the external pressures excise any reason to tarry or explore more than is mandatory.
Just as the space through which they traveled in the first portion of the game was quite limited by circumstance, the party composition was also very limiting, giving both the party and the player time to experiment and learn the capabilities of the l’Cie. However, shortly before meeting the architect of their misfortune, the party finally joins up and they finally are able to exercise a higher degree of flexibility toward how they handle fights. After meeting Barthandelus, the overlord of the Cocoon fal’Cie, and the one responsible for the Purge and the aforementioned machinations, they’re sent to an underground ark, full of Pulse creatures, meant to train l’Cie to be strong enough to fulfill their Focus, one of the last steps in Barthandelus’ actions taken to strengthen the party enough to enact Ragnarok on Cocoon to his ends. All the close calls, all the military intervention they barely managed to overpower, and now this training ground all served to make them viable candidates for carrying out the mission.
Once they reach this ark, they unlock their secondary roles; prior to this, each character had three of the six roles available to them, and depending on who they were partied with, they were useful in various ways. After this point, however, all six roles are available to all six party members, and while it takes a significantly higher amount of effort to train them in these secondary roles, once they have learned that role, they’re just as viable as those with primary proficiency. This blossoming of their potential, as they realize the constraints of their circumstance and begin to plot the counteraction of their purpose as tools, is a wonderful extension of the party’s mindset into their mechanical status. This also works to give the player, now able to compose their own party, time to experiment with different paradigms, both mechanical and mental, against different enemies than the military forces they were limited to with a full party before. Capping it off is a fight with Cid Raines, a l’Cie of Barthandelus, who tries to fight his Focus of helping them out by attempting to kill them. Despite that, he fails and fulfills his duty, turning to crystal, only to later be used as a political sacrifice by the fal’Cie, foreshadowing the eventual fate of the party.
Even when it’s not an explicit corridor set by the game, when the literal space opens up on Gran Pulse, the paths the party (and player) might follow remain. While not the only source of them, threats on the Archylte Steppe, the largest open area in the game, make implicit corridors as the player skirts around them for fear of fights they cannot handle or do not wish to spend time on. Scattered around Gran Pulse are Cie’th Stones, the remnants of failed l’Cie, who give the party their missions in the hopes they might be fulfilled at last. It’s possible to progress without doing any of these missions, but they grant the player Crystarium Points (CP), the game’s equivalent of experience, very soon after the party has been brought together for good and their options have been opened up. The first several Cie’th Stone missions lead the party through areas that following the main story would ignore, and in the process acquaint them with areas where they can learn to fight a much larger variety of foes, giving them CP along the way.
When doing these missions, I began to see the Cie’th Stones and the paths to their targets as a series of corridors, overlapping in a lattice that, with some gaps filled in, made up the entirety of Gran Pulse’s playable surface. Even here, on Gran Pulse, where fal’Cie seem so laissez-faire, with the wide-open space that seemed to make such an impact that people have described the game both figuratively and literally opening up, traces of their influence lingered. Who else let these Cie’th persist, to beg for passing strangers to take up their failed causes? Who else carved the tunnels and valleys that the party now walks to fulfill these causes? These, the fal’Cie of Pulse, are indifferent to Barthandelus’ plan, but see the party as Pulse l’Cie, thanks to them being branded by Anima, the one that invoked the Focus of Ragnarok and the one whom Barthandelus used to enact his plan. They aren’t troubled by helping out the party, or even are amused by it, in the case of Titan, who provides a gauntlet of selectively-bred monsters to test them. Once more, the view that humans are simply pets ends up being to the benefit of the group, but now, instead of a leash, they’re subject to conditioning. They’re still not free, despite their aspirations.
Once they return to Cocoon, as part of the plot, it’s as an attempted retort to a gauntlet thrown at them by Barthandelus. Again, they are subject to paths both explicit and implicit as destruction and a clear objective drive them on, and creatures from Gran Pulse invade Eden. The military and monsters skirmish in the streets, and both of them impede progress, but empower the party even further in the process. They are a force that cannot be stopped, driven by vengeance and indignation, justified in their anger at the plan to destroy Cocoon and sacrifice most, if not all, of humanity to summon Lindzei, the creator of the Cocoon fal’Cie. As they approach the center of the city, they’re taunted once more by their foe, being told that the military will be attacking Orphan, the target of their Focus and the source of all of Cocoon’s power. However, when they approach Edenhall, the seat of Orphan’s power, their path is barred by military troops turned into Cie’th; when they enter Orphan’s Cradle, the final dungeon, they are similarly challenged with innocents turned into monsters as a physical and mental obstacle. They fear that if they let their emotions slip, their Focus will seize them, and they will end up the same as the monsters they now face.
They finally come face to face with Barthandelus, for the last time. He asks them to fulfill their Focus once more, but, as ever, they refuse, and strike him down. Unfortunately, this was, as ever, part of his plan. He rises up once more, joined with Orphan, and forces the party to fight and kill him, thus enacting his plan. Orphan explains the purpose of l’Cie: the fal’Cie are immensely powerful, but they have a sole purpose, and cannot extend past that purpose. Humans, however, have the ability to grow, to, through will and action, enact change, so the fal’Cie take humans for that trait and give it power and purpose. Through his plotting, Barthandelus has freed himself from his role, and stripped all purpose aside from the Focus away from the party in this moment.
Fang and Vanille, being previously in crystal sleep, aren’t affected, but the rest of the party rejects their Focus and become Cie’th, while Fang tries and fails to kill Orphan herself by becoming Ragnarok. A miracle of some description brings the party back, and, together, they finally put Orphan down, finally properly fulfilling their Focus. Despite Lightning’s bold claim that their Focus is “making the impossible possible,” after killing Orphan, the party turns to crystal, proof that they’ve succeeded. After this, cutscenes show Vanille and Fang’s crystal transformation, which includes utilizing their Eidolons to form a crystal pillar on which Cocoon now rests, held up not by the fal’Cie, but by human will. Following this, more miracles occur, later explained as divine intervention by the goddess Etro, releasing the rest of the party, and Sazh’s son and Lightning’s sister from crystal stasis, all for a happy ending.
The last action the player is in control for, however, is the killing of Orphan. Not once in the entire game is the player allowed to exist outside the control of Barthandelus’ schemes, whether directly thanks to Anima’s branding the characters as l’Cie, or even prior to that, as desperate circumstance dictated the party’s convergence. There is no optional content that does not serve the singular purpose of strengthening the group to face their duty, and this, I feel, is the beauty of Final Fantasy XIII. Just as crystal is a repeated set of atoms in a specific structure, so too is the start to the New Tale of the Crystal a beautiful display of cohesion in elements both narrative and mechanical.
The Chaos Betwixt
Why, then, is the linearity and single-mindedness of such an experience derided so frequently? Why did the developers cite this line of criticism as a guiding fear going forward in developing the sequels? The answer can be found in the mythos upon which FNC was founded, the same mythology that comes to the forefront of the series’ attention with Lightning Returns, the third game in the FFXIII trilogy.
The relevant history begins with Bhunivelze, the primary motivator and enabler for Lightning’s savior status in LR, killing his mother, Mwynn, in a bid for control over the entirety of the mortal realm; with her lost to the unseen realm, or the land of the dead, he was unable to destroy her as he thought necessary to lift a curse on the land of the living. With his new power, he created Pulse, the fal’Cie, to search for an entrance to the unseen realm, and attempted to make some help for Pulse, in the form of Etro.
Once he realizes he’s made Etro in the likeness of his mother, however, he discards her without granting her any power, and makes Lindzei to protect him while he sleeps in preparation for the day the unseen realm is found. In her powerlessness, Etro took her own life; with her blood, Lindzei created humanity, and Etro’s soul, now in the unseen realm, finds Mwynn being consumed by chaos. Mwynn’s final request to Etro is to maintain the balance of the universe, and Etro does so by putting a little bit of chaos into the soul of every human that passes through her domain; with this, humans were given their heart, free will, and, ultimately, their utility as tools for fal’Cie.
This shard of chaos granted humans the little bit of wiggle room necessary to slip the chains of predestiny, and Chaos, proper noun, is the primary vector by which the will and rule of the gods is subverted. Though it makes no formal appearance in Final Fantasy XIII, the miracles brought by Etro to save the party from crystal stasis, which prompt the remaining two games in the XIII trilogy, are wrought by Chaos, and leave it in their wake.
We, the audience, also bear some chaos in our hearts and our being. No two people are perfectly alike, and no two people will bring the same experience and expectations to a piece of media, nor will they act identically as participants in a video game. This variation is the basis of the argument of fair use for Let’s Plays, a type of video series online where a player typically commentates over a full playthrough of a given game.
Over the last decade since the format was codified and popularized, creators of LPs have faced a variety of difficulties thanks to copyright holders for the games they’re recording, and have typically fallen back on fair use doctrine, a part of US copyright law declaring that given qualifying circumstances, excerpts of copyrighted material may be quoted or presented verbatim without the copyright holder’s permission. The player’s influence over the particular outcomes of the game’s systems has often been cited by LPers as a qualifying circumstance for the doctrine to apply. Depending on how litigious the copyright holders are, this may deflect the potential consequences of having a copyright claim filed against a content creator, which include demonetization or outright removal from the service if too many violations are sustained.
In short, Western gamers have been, over time, conditioned by systems-heavy games with somewhat laissez-faire, or even encouraging, attitudes toward player freedom by the developers to think their participation in the game is a foundational pillar of what makes games interesting or unique. With the emergence of LPs, their viewpoint was lauded, with the general consensus being that the fair use doctrine was valid for just this reason. As this development was solidifying, appreciation for more finely authored experiences diminished with time, and games, particularly from Japan, that aimed to provide them became somewhat vilified for it.
This hit a relevant crystallization point with Final Fantasy XIII, a game which offers very little deviation from the path before you, and notably, the follow-up to Final Fantasy XII, a game which offered very little indulgence of player power fantasies despite its status as a sort of indulgence for fans of Ivalice, previously relegated to spin-offs Tactics and Tactics Advance. FFXII also offered more of what Western players saw as steps forward in terms of content; with numerous large zones available to the player nearly immediately, and many more diversions and sidequests to pique their interest, even if they found the plot dissatisfactory, there were ways they could wring a huge amount of time out of the game.
FFXIII, as it turned out, lacked all of these diversions. The most extant sidequests are Titan’s Trials, which are in turn part of the Cie’th Stones collection of sidequests, which serves to strengthen the party in line with the plot, and the act of collecting one of every equippable item for the related achievement. Said achievement is locked behind a veritable mountain of dead monsters and grinding for it will inevitably push your characters to their strongest possible state. There is no diverting your attention from the gods’ demands in FFXIII. No matter what you do, you serve their schemes, and, coming from a place of feeling vital to the meaning of a game, it’s no wonder that players were put off by the game treating them as nothing more than a mechanism by which the plot played out.
