I was thinking, does FFIX have the most diverse cast, racially and age-wise, in the series? Strictly speaking there are only 2 normal human characters in the whole party of 8, Steiner and Amarant. There are two summoners, who are humans with horns. There is one black mage, who is some sort of magic golem. There is a rat-woman, a he/she Qu, and the main character is a boy with a tail. On top of that two of them are kids, there are two young adults, three adults, and one Quina (who the heck knows how old he/she is). I guess 6 might have a more diverse cast, strictly because it is larger, but I don't know that there is a cast that has less white teenagers. Couple that with the fact that the party is only 8 members and I think FFIX might have the most diverse cast in the series.

FF7 only has one teenager. She is optional and also not white.

As for diversity, yeah maybe. But I chalk up Vivi and the horns as just more references to the series as a whole. But FF9 has a lot of beastmen races. Half the population in any city in that game is some non-human thing.

Final Fantasy 7 had a black guy, an Asian girl, a cat, and a giant doll (controlled by someone who also might be Asian?). They were pretty varied age wise too. The only one with a diversity problem was 8 I think. Maybe 10. Also I'm never sure whether or not I can call characters designed by the Japanese "white" I've seen a lot of characters who seemed white to me who were supposed to be 100% Asian.

The thing about VIII is that most of them were military academy graduates/students. While it's not the most ethnically diverse cast, the characters' ages work in the context of the setting and story.

And then there's Final Fantasy VI, which has characters ranging from a nine-year-old girl to a wither old man, a half-human/half-esper, an Asian(?) knight, a ninja assassin, a feral child, royalty, military officers, treasure hunters, and a break dancing moogle. That game features a crazy diverse bunch.

Do white people even exist in a world without Europe or Asia or any other Earthly continents?

@donchipotle: Aren't Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, and Yuffie teenagers? Though I suppose only Aerith, Tifa, and Cloud are white. Though Vincent is kind of timeless and hard to place age-wise.

No. Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa are all in their early twenties. Yuffie is the only teenager that can join the party.

@video_game_king: Considering that the series has like 10 characters with other skin colors, yes I would say there are white people in FF games.

@hailinel: I mean isn't that splitting hairs, they are like 20-23 right?

It's not splitting hairs. If they're in their twenties, they're not teenagers.

Yeah it makes sense for them to be the same age. In fact if you count that twist that I like to pretend never happened, it's actually necessary to the story. I suppose "diversity problem" wasn't really the right word for it, because it wasn't really a problem.

@thatpinguino:

How? Those racial categories came about under conditions I doubt existed in Final Fantasy land. I'd say that'd be like saying there are white people in Fire Emblem games, but given that there are subdivisions within the laguz, there may be an argument.

FFIX should have gone even crazier with the playable characters. I want to party up with the fish headed man and the hippos!

Like you said it's a toss up between VI and IX. Although VI has a lot of human characters their backgrounds are all quite varied and diverse as well.

Biggest wasted party potential = XII. 5 humans and a sex bunny. Ivalice has so many crazy races they could have used!

Yes! A Bangaa party member would have made that game 50% better all on his own.

You mean 4 humans and a bunny pushed off to the side in favor of Ashe, right?

This.

I'm by no means any sort of Final Fantasy expert, but do any of them really have any concept of race?

Well, no, they definitely have a concept of race (Terra's biracial); it's just that they probably don't have Earthly conceptions of race.

@video_game_king: I think I'm just misunderstanding your post, but there were 6 main characters. (Even though 100% of them sucked)

@hunter5024: Exactly what I was thinking. A bangaa would have been a great party member. I think a Seeq party member would have been a really interesting addition as well, since they're apparently heavily discriminated against.

And even if they do, they have been generally progressive. Despite Barret being Mr. T with a gun arm, he's depicted as a very loving father figure to Marlene, who is obviously not of the same race.

@believer258: There are racial undertones in some of the games, like there is some racism (speciesism?) against the burmecians (rat people) in ffix.

@petiew:

Five side characters and Ashe. It's her story, really (even though that's Tidus' catch phrase).

@video_game_king: Ah right, I get it. Yeah Ashe is pretty much the central protagonist. Even though the others aren't involved as much as her I still refer to them as the main characters though, just to distinguish them from the NPCs and such.

It has the worst for sure. Up there at the very least.

@hailinel: I would say that the series is progressive within the context of the worlds they create, I mean Quina is genderless and that is pretty progressive, but on the whole the series does not have much human racial diversity. The series more often uses half-animals or some other non-human species as a stand in for racial difference. Either that or they invent a difference for their characters that make them racially different, like Al-Bhed have spiral pupils. It is just a little weird to me that in over 20 years of FF games there have been two black playable characters (correct me if i'm wrong) Barret and Sazh and really no hispanic playable characters (again I don't remember any, but my memory of 4 and before isn't great and I haven't played much of the XIII series). It isn't that the series does not treat the different races it imagines in a progressive manner, it is that it consistently imagines worlds where non-Asian or non-white characters either don't exist or are not playable. But then again the majority of the series was developed in Japan over 10 years ago, and there was a real slow down in the production of FF games in the PS3/Xbox360 generation. So as the industry has been trying to make more diverse casts during the current gen, the FF series has been locked in to the cast from XIII since they logistically can't move beyond it. On top of the difference of the state of the industry there are the cultural differences between the US, Europe and Japan. Japan tends to have less racial diversity in its media period, not just in games.

Japan is also, by and large, not a racially diverse country to begin with. The number of non-Japanese citizens in Japan is a tiny fraction of the overall population. I can't blame their media for a lack of black characters, for example, when there are so few black people in the country to use as a reference or as an audience. Further, just as it goes with GTA and the female protagonist debate, those in charge of Final Fantasy should be allowed to create the characters that they wish to create and not feel forced into creating multi-racial casts.

@hailinel: But don't you find it odd that games like Final Fantasy can and have imagined compelling motivations and realistic racial tensions for bunny-people or rat-people, but by and large not for people of a different skin color? I wonder if all of the invented races, species, and ethnicities are simply a way of approaching the taboo subject of racial tension without threatening to offend people, rather than the product of racial ignorance.

"White people" isn't a race, so I don't see how this point is valid. White people and black people clearly exist in the FF universe because its clear that Garnett has white skin, while also clear that Barrett has black skin. The argument ya'll are looking to have is whether the main characters are supposed to look more Caucasian or more Asian.

Except it is. Hell, I even got to that page through white people!

No. Because the games are works of fiction with heavily fantastic elements. And the creation of the viera and such isn't a product of racial ignorance anymore than Jabba the Hutt is a product of ignorance toward human crimelords.

I don't know about variety, but it certainly has one of the worst casts. I still don't get why people revere XI so much. Played it, beat it (worst final boss ever?) and was completely underwhelmed. I think that VIII had one of the best casts, along with VI.

Yeah, I haven't played IX, but I do know about Necron, and he's just kind of, well, there.

@xyzygy: I think the upbeat main character, the throwback world, the largely strong cast and vivi are what people love. I mean vivi may be one of the best characters in the series. There are also a ton of shout outs to older ff games in ix.

@hailinel: I don't think Necron is any weirder than Yu Yevon, Bizzaro Sephiroth, final form ultimecia, or giant tree monster ex-death. More out of left field, yes, but the final forms of a lot of ff bosses come way out of left field. I think the weirdness of the final boss in ix is overstated.

The difference between Necron and those other bosses is that, as far as I'm aware, there is absolutely zero build up to that character. Necron just pops in at the end of the game as a surprise final boss.

@hailinel: Necron is supposed to basically be death, the main villian of ix, kuja, blows up a crystal which is the source of all life and Necron comes to wipe out all life. It is out of no where, but not that much more than Yu Yevon, a floating rock thing, in 10 coming out of sin or Ultimecia rising as a faceless monster in 8. It is a bad final boss but I think that the series only has a few great final boss fights, like the actual final fight with Sephiroth or the fight with Kefka.

This is generally part of a trend of major plot details being lost in translation, sort of like how Zeromus' motivations are more clearly explained in the Japanese version.

The thing about Yu Yevon was that he was the source of Sin and also ironically the god that the Yevonites of Spira worshiped, not realizing that the their god was also their destroyer. And Ultimecia being the final boss of VIII was explained as it was her that possessed Edea as part of her grand scheme to compress time. She doesn't just come out of thin air; though the whole concept of time compression is not easy to explain, once she is revealed as the source of all of the trouble, it's pretty easy to pin her as the final boss. What would have been stupid is if there was some sort of ultimate god that appeared right after Ultimecia's defeat and claimed to be pulling the strings the entire time without any narrative justification for his existence in the story prior to that very moment. And that is, according to friends of mine that have played IX, what Necron feels like. An out of nowhere final boss.

@hailinel: I would say he is out of nowhere, but he is the end of a series of fights that are more meaningful. I think necron was sort of a throwback to chaos from ff 1, since he emerges from the final crystal after kuja destroys it. Also Necron does not claim to have been pulling the strings the whole time, he talks more as an outside observer who saw kuja destroy the source of all life and took that as a cue to destroy all life. He was always there, but was not an agent. Also my ultemecia example is more that her final form comes out of nowhere, not that she comes out of nowhere.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Since FFVII, Final Fantasy final bosses have all been out of nowhere, never really mentioned until the 4th dics, ultra god meaningless boss fights. The series is pretty great, but making final boss fights is absolutely not their strong suit.

@davidwitten22: Seconded.

The Yu Yevon battle is meaningful in that it's the fight against the very source of what had plagued Spira for so long. The fights leading up to it were important for their own reasons, but without the defeat of Yu Yevon, Sin would just come back again.

And Necron may not have been pulling strings, but he still jumps in for the dumbest of reasons. ("Hmm, that flamboyant crazy person just destroyed the source of all life. I guess that's my cue!") He just shows up at the end and you have to fight him, even thought the story would have been better without him. The party, for the entire duration of the game, isn't even concerned with Necron up until he decides to show up at the very end and steal the spotlight. Final Fantasy III arguably pulled off that twist better when Xande, the dumbass that he is, unleashed Cloud of Darkness.

As for Ultimecia, her having multiple forms isn't an unusual thing in video games. It is goofy, but not really unprecedented nor necessarily unexpected.

@hailinel: Can we agree that all of these final forms are anti-climactic and generally the worst part of the game's ending?

Final Fantasy VII: Safer Sephiroth: Not exactly out of nowhere.

Final Fantasy VIII: Ultimecia: She affects the plot since the early hours while possessing Edea.

Final Fantasy IX: Eh...Necron.

Final Fantasy X: I've already said my piece on Yu Yevon.

Final Fantasy XII: Vayne isn't what I would call an eleventh-hour reveal, either.

Final Fantasy XIII: The whole point of XIII is that Barthandelus is manipulating the party into doing what he wants (i.e.: Get them to Orphan's Cradle and slay Orphan.) When the party finally reaches their destination, they say fuck that, fight Barthandelus, Barthandelus falls in the cradle like a dumbass and merges with Orphan, then the party finds themselves fighting Orphan for their own sake rather than Barthandelus's whims.

Nope. I don't see it that way for all of them.

How is that different from FFX? You spend literally the entire game of FFX chasing after Sin. Sin is the destroyer. Sin is also your dad. Sin kills this town or raids that town. The entire game is you being a guardian for Yuna so she can learn the grand summon so you can kill Sin. Then when you kill Sin the game says "Nope, Sin was a nothing compared to YU YEVON". People over the course of the game praised Yevon and then end was sort of a "twist", but when you spend 40+ hours chasing after one goal and then, upon completing that goal, are told that that goal/ that enemy you were chasing all game is just a pawn?

Kind of a buzzkill.

One of the game's themes relates to religious devotion and spirituality. Wakka is so faithful that he comes off as a zealot. Yuna's pilgrimage is basically a death march instituted by Yevonite religious doctrine. But then you find out that the highest echelons of the religion are corrupt and even Wakka has a crisis of faith. Following along this line, the notion that Sin is ultimately a creation of Yu Yevon, and that Yu Yevon was never truly a god worth the devotion of Spira's people, makes sense. By the time that Yu Yevon appears in the endgame, Tidus's arc with his father is essentially over, but Yu Yevon as an entity still needs to face its own punishment.

Fighting Yu Yevon wasn't exactly out of nowhere. The religion in that game had been built up throughout the entire story, and as you gradually come to realize how evil it is, I think the destruction of that religion absolutely became a necessary part of the ending. Yu Yevon was mentioned throughout the story, Necron literally showed up out of nowhere to be the last boss. Sin certainly screws your day up a few times, but most of the narrative fuel for X was provided by Yuna's religious journey, and the party's conflicts with the Maesters along the way, so it makes complete sense that Yu Yevon would be the final boss.

It was a really lame boss fight though. Practically impossible to lose.

There's no argument to be had here, guys. Necron really is the fucking worst! The franchise has had its share of lame villains - I would count Ultimecia, Sephiroth, Barthandelus, and Orphan as middling to poor - but at least they are entities that the player is aware of before the encounter itself.

Ugh. Fuuuuuuuck Necron.

@thatpinguino said:

The question is how would you present a hispanic character in a world where the very idea of "hispanic" does not exist? The reason characters such as Sazh and Barret caught some degree of criticism is because in an attempt to present them as "black", developers leaned towards various stereotypes that characterizes black characters in modern media.

However, the question that does not get asked is how would they distinguish said characters as "black" when the racial and cultural nuances that has come to color (no pun intended) black history in real life does not exist within their respective games? If the only thing that distinguishes a character of color is simply their skin color, and lacks any of the culture history of their real world counter parts, can you actually say that character belongs to that race?

@turambar: I think that you can make a black character without resorting to racial stereotypes, I mean there are plenty of characters of the fairer skin types in the ff games that don't have any of the cultural nuances that make them "white." I am not saying that black characters would have to have every cultural touchpoint that exists in the real world, just that it would be nice if there could be an ff world where people of other skin colors could be members of the party without being stereotypes. The ff series does not have any trouble making characters that are physically white without acting stereotypical white, so I am sure they could make some tan or darker characters too. In fact I would say that the series goes out of its way to pull in real world stereotypes when writing black characters, instead of just writing characters that happen to be black. That said, I think that Barret does have some really good characterization throughout ffVII with his adopted daughter and veteran friend, I just wish he wasn't also MR.T.

What is "stereotypically white"?